Doomsday Can Wait (16 page)

"Then when did she tell you—"

"Years ago."

"Years ago she knew that I'd come here?"

"Ruthie knew many things."

She had me there. Of course, Ruthie could be self-fulfilling her own prophecies. She'd been the one to send me to Detroit in the first place.

"Including," Carla continued, "that you would need a benandanti at some point in the future. Come along,
bella
, and your little dog, too."

Didn't
bella
mean "pretty" in Italian? Or maybe it was "beautiful." I had a sudden flash of the Wicked Witch of the West.
I'll
get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too.

The wicked-witch thoughts made me even more nervous. I was supposed to be visiting a good witch, but one never knew anymore who was good and who was bad and who might turn evil if an evil wind blew.

As if in answer to my thoughts, a sudden breeze came up and nearly slammed the door in my face. I grabbed it just in time, glancing over my shoulder, scowling at the evidence of another swirling thunderstorm on the horizon.

What was up with all the storms lately? They seemed to be following me wherever I went. Since I had no control over the weather—yet—I returned my attention to Carla, who waited for me to decide. Was I coming in or was I running away?

I hated all this uncertainty. I had powers, so did Sawyer; together we should be able to keep a benandanti from killing us.

I stepped inside and locked the door behind me. A flash of movement at the far end of the hall had me heading in that direction. Sawyer had seen it, too, and his nails clicked against the scratched wooden floorboards as he led the way.

He slunk into the living room, gaze darting everywhere as he searched for the dog that still growled intermittently. The room was empty but for—

Wow, talk about the wicked witch. Except for the lack of a green complexion, Carla Benandanti could be Elphaba's twin: long, drawn, pasty face; hooked nose; a wart or two combined with bony fingers; and long, skinny feet covered in slippers the shade of rubies.

I glanced up and met the woman's laughing eyes. Bright blue, they seemed to sparkle—with life, with joy, with . . . magic. Every power this woman had was reflected there. I couldn't believe an evil witch could have eyes like that, but I also couldn't believe a good witch would choose the appearance of a hag.

"I can see what you're thinking," she said. "What's a witch like me"—Carla swept her age-spotted hand down a skeletal body clothed in a black sacklike robe—"doing in a place like this?"

She might as well set a pointy hat on her silver-threaded, long black hair and be done with it.

"I am who I am," she continued when I didn't comment. "I have no need for glamour."

"Do you have the talent?"

"I choose not to use it. Beauty is fleeting, only the soul lasts forever." Her smile was like her laugh and made some of the heaviness in my chest lighten. "I prefer not to draw attention to myself. It's safer."

"Safer how?"

"A beautiful woman is seen by everyone and remembered. An ugly one is easily forgotten."

Sawyer trotted past, breaking my concentration. He sniffed every corner, peered under the furniture and behind the curtains, but found nothing.

"Where's your dog?" I asked, and the benandanti's smile widened. "You have an invisible dog?"

"I have no dog at all."

"But—"

She waved a hand and vicious snarling filled the room. Sawyer, who'd had his head beneath a chair, jumped, thumped his head, and backpedaled, growling as he swung around to face his attacker. The expression on his muzzle when he encountered only us was priceless.

"I conjure the sound whenever the doorbell rings," Carla explained. "It scares most people away."

"And if it doesn't?"

She shrugged. "Then I conjure a dog."

"Why continue to live here if it's so dangerous?"

"Some places are magic, and this is one of them."

I'd felt such energy swirling through the air atop Sawyer's mountains as surely as I'd felt the chill brush of evil the first time I'd seen the Strega's lair of glass and chrome pushing into the overcrowded skyline of Manhattan. Even though Jimmy and I had burned the place to a cinder, I doubted anything built there would ever put to rest the ghosts that remained.

This house had an aura, an essence, a waiting presence, but not of evil. Of anticipation, a sense that good might happen if you only knew where to look, who to ask, what to do. The longer I stood here, the more my skin tingled, and the louder the air seemed to hum.

"I came here as a child with my parents," Carla explained. "My father worked in the automobile factories. It was a good life. Much better than the one we left behind. We were happy. So much so that it seemed like magic. Later, I learned that it was."

"What were your parents?"

Every witch I'd encountered thus far had been something else, as well. Sawyer was also a shape-shifter, his mother an evil spirit, and the strega a vampire. That didn't mean there couldn't be a witch who was just a witch, but I wasn't betting money on it. Magic came from somewhere; magic was born in the blood.

"My father was human; my mother a walker."

"Ruthie said
benandanti
means 'good walker,' which, according to her, is a good witch with the power to end bewitchments."

"All true. I took my mother's place. I am both witch and walker."

I glanced at Sawyer, who was still sniffing everything. "Like him?"

"Not a skinwalker. No." I didn't ask how she knew what Sawyer was. I'm sure they had some kind of witch radar. "Benandanti can only shift by bathing in a moon-drenched lake. When I fight our fight, I will descend to the underworld through the water."

My confusion must have shown because she elaborated. "A benandanti is a werewolf who leaves behind its human form when she descends to the underworld to battle the wicked."

Sawyer trotted over and sat in front of Carla, staring into her face as if she were a long-lost friend. Considering what she'd just revealed, perhaps she was.

"I thought the wicked were on earth," I said. "The Nephilim."

"The Nephilim are the offspring of the greatest evil ever known, the Grigori. In the Bible, they're often referred to as the wicked. There have been times over the centuries when the Grigori have tried to break free."

"But a benandanti has always stopped them?"

"Thus far."

"What would happen if the Grigori succeeded?"

"It is written,
Within the kingdom of the beast will once again be a mingling of men and demons."

I got a shiver. There was so much I didn't know. I should probably take a course. At least buy a copy of
Doomsday for Dummies.

"Where was this written?"

"The Book of Daniel."

A copy of
The Bible for Dummies
probably wouldn't be wasted, either.

"Kingdom of the beast means the Antichrist," I mur-mured. Whoever that was this week.

"During the great tribulation, that period of chaos and immense suffering, the gates of Tartarus, the pit of hell, will be opened, and the Grigori unleashed once again upon the world."

"How
will they be opened?"

"If we knew that, we might know how to stop them."

"And that would never do," I muttered. "Heaven forbid that we're one step ahead of the bad guys instead of one step behind for a change."

"Everything will work out. Have faith." Her lips curved and she glanced at Sawyer. "I plan to."

Carla was right. Faith was a big part of our arsenal. If we didn't believe in the promise that we would eventually win this war, it was likely the federation wouldn't survive.

"What will the Grigori do when they're released?" I asked.

"A clear sign of the end times will be when the fallen angels once again mate with man and produce a legion of Nephilim."

Legion.
Another word for
army.
Swell. We were already outnumbered. What in hell was I going to do when there was an army marching against me? I guess I'd just have to make sure that didn't happen.

"So you only become a werewolf when you descend to the underworld to fight the Grigori?" I asked, and Carla nodded. "That happen a lot?"

"In my lifetime, not at all." Her smiled faded. "But I can feel it coming."

"You can feel it?"

"Can't you? There's a storm waiting just over the horizon."

I glanced at the window, remembering the roiling clouds in the west and Ruthie's words. "Literally or figuratively?"

"Both. When the end of days approaches, the weather reflects the chaos that threatens the earth. In the past few years, the weather has been very unruly."

"Global warming," I murmured.

"Can't explain all of the strange occurrences. Cer-tainly the thousands upon thousands of broken temperature records, the melting of the polar ice cap, the extensive flooding, can be rationalized that way. But what about the tornado in New York City, the cyclone in Iran, the snow in South Africa? And, of course, Ka-trina."

"Katrina? You're blaming that on the approach of Doomsday?"

"What else should I blame it on?"

"Don't you think building a city below sea level is kind of asking for it?"

"Except they've never gotten 'it' before. How many hurricanes have shifted at the last minute and missed them.' How many times has New Orleans been threatened with extinction and gotten nothing but a gentle rain? It's always been theorized in my circles"—which I interpreted to mean witch circles—"that the magic there is what kept the city safe."

"Magic," I repeated. "Voodoo?"

Carla nodded. "Voodoo is all about balance, and ob-viously the world's become extremely unbalanced. I don't think they were able to keep things stable."

"You're blaming Katrina on a lack of stability brought about by the failure of voodoo magic?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

I could quote statistics, if I knew them, but it wouldn't do any good. Carla believed the weird weather was a portant of Doomsday, and who was I to argue?

Doomsday would be back. All I could do was try and stay alive long enough for the federation to replenish their ranks so they'd be able to fight. That I'd be dead when all this happened didn't seem so bad anymore.

"Were you born with magic or is it something you . . ."—I spread my hands—"learned later?"

Carta's smile returned. "What you're really asking is if I took my magic?"

There was another way to become a witch—the way Sawyer's mother had become one—by killing someone you loved. When I'd called her an evil spirit bitch, I'd actually been practicing restraint.

"Did you?" I asked.

"Black magic is taken. White is given."

"Still not answering my question."

"My mother gave me her magic, through her love, by giving me life. Because life is magic, isn't it, Elizabeth?"

I laughed. I couldn't help it. That was just too much Susie sunshine for me, especially when the cheery point of view was coming from someone who looked like the latest advertisement for the Broadway production of
Wicked.

Sawyer, who'd continued to sit at attention staring at Carta, growled without taking his eyes off her.

"Well, honestly," I said to him, "life's magic? That's not an answer."

"It's all the answer you'll get," Carta murmured. "I am a good witch and I am a werewolf."

"Like him," I said.

"No." Carla smoothed her ancient hand over his head in a gesture both tender and slightly erotic, though how it could be, I wasn't quite sure. "He is a skinwalker—more than a werewolf, and much, much more than a witch."

"Really?" I turned my gaze in Sawyer's direction, while Carta played with his ears. I couldn't believe he was allowing that.

“You'd like me to remove his curse?" Carla asked.

I jerked my eyes back to hers. "What?"

"He's cursed. I can see it in his aura." She waved a hand over his head in a circular motion. Sawyer watched the movement, his snout making tiny circles, too.

"You can remove curses?"

"What do you think a bewitchment is, Elisabetta?"

I'd been thinking in terms of jewelry—the amulet, my turquoise—not in terms of people. I started to get excited. Having Sawyer at full power—as a man and as all of his beasts—on the loose in the world, no longer confined to Navajo land, just might turn things around with the woman of smoke.

At the least, it would really piss her off.

CHAPTER 16

Ruthie had to have known that Carla could de-curse Sawyer, which was probably why she'd insisted I bring him along, but why hadn't she just told me the truth?

Because the rules on what she could tell me and what she couldn't were kind of wanked.

"What did you come here for, if not for him?" Carla asked.

"This." I removed the amulet from my pocket.

Her gaze sharpened, and she snatched it from my hand. "An amuletum. To protect from trouble. The inscription is Latin and reads, 'Hidden is the face of evil.'"

It certainly had been.

"Where did you get it?"

Quickly I told her about the
Naye'i,
who she was, what she'd done.

"Only a strega could have created this," she murmured.

The strega had bewitched the amulet. Hadn't seen that coming. But if he'd had the power to keep me from seeing what he was and what he was up to, then why hadn't he?

Because he'd wanted me to come to him; he'd meant to make me his concubine queen.

Once again, so glad he was dead.

"Why are you certain a strega created it?" I asked.

"For such a bewitchment, a very powerful witch is needed. To bind the magic requires bathing the amuletum in the blood of one who craves blood."

"A vampire."

"Certain spells, certain amulets and the like, are native to certain types of witches. Witch, plus vampire, plus Latin." She spread her hands. "Strega. Where is the witch now?"

My eyes met hers. "In hell, I assume."