Apocalypse Happens by Lori Handeland Read Free Book Online Page B

I said. “You’re sworn. Get up.”
    “Not until I’ve kissed yer hand.”
    “Sheesh, let him kiss you and be done,” Jimmy ordered, so I did.
    Thane’s lips were warm but his breath so cold my skin ached as if I’d been walking in the snow without gloves for hours.
    “What are you?” I asked.
    He lifted his head and smiled, revealing slightly pointy teeth. I snatched my hand away as he got to his feet, towering over me by at least ten inches. Considering I was five-ten in my casual flip-flops, giant wasn’t out of the question.
    “Nuckelavee,” he said, and tossed Jimmy the keys to the Lincoln.
    Then, with a wink, he jumped into a Jeep parked right behind the Navigator. The young woman at the wheel held her crucifix in my direction as she drove past. The sun sparked off of it and gave me a helluvaheadache. I fingered my collar. When I wore this, I could touch a blessed cross. When I didn’t, the icon gave me second-degree burns.
    Once I’d worn Ruthie’s crucifix—a connection to her as dear to me as her voice in my head and her presence in my dreams. But I’d chosen to embrace the darkness, to become it and to let it become a part of me. So, for now, perhaps forever, wearing Ruthie’s necklace was no longer possible.
    Jimmy was stowing his duffel in the cargo area, so I joined him, tossing mine in too. He reached up to shut the door, and I stayed his hand. There was more to this car than what met the eye. I could smell it.
    “Federation vehicle?”
    Instead of answering, Jimmy yanked up the false bottom. Beneath the carpeted base rested weapons of every imaginable metal. Guns with silver bullets. Golden knives. Bronze swords. Crossbows. Gallons of accelerant—gasoline, kerosene. Probably dynamite.
    “A rolling bomb,” I murmured. “Fabulous.”
    We got in, and Jimmy headed south toward Brownport.
    “What’s a nuckelavee?” I asked.
    “Thane is part Scottish Fuath fairy.”
    “Keep going.”
    “The Fuath are evil Gaelic water spirits.”
    “He’s evil?” I remembered the icy touch of his breath.
    “No. He’s a breed like me. His father was a Fuath, his mother human.”
    “His powers?”
    “Vampire breath that causes people, plants and animals to wither and die.”
    No wonder my skin had ached, but it took more than vampire breath to kill me.
    “He can also shape-shift,” Jimmy continued. “Half man, half horse.”
    “So a nuckelavee is a vampire, a shifter and a fairy?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “How do we kill one?”
    Jimmy blinked. “Why would we want to kill him? He’s on our side.”
    “So were you once, and then—shazaam—you weren’t.”
    Jimmy scowled and didn’t answer.
    To be fair, his disloyalty hadn’t been voluntary or permanent. He’d been captured, tortured and turned into a vampire against his will. But Jimmy had found his way back. He was as loyal now as I was.
    I hoped.
    “I need to know how to kill supernatural beings,” I continued. “What if I encounter a nuckelavee who chose the other side?”
    Jimmy sighed. “Freshwater repels them.”
    “Water repels a water spirit?”
    “ Half water spirit. If you cross a stream, they can’t follow.”
    “I’ll remember that if one’s ever chasing me and I’m lucky enough to discover a stream nearby. But wait!” I put up one finger to signal a brilliant idea. “What if I just kill it? If only I knew how .”
    “Steel.”
    “Fairy. Right. Shit!” I smacked my fist against the dashboard.
    “What?” Jimmy looked around, one hand tightening on the steering wheel, the other going for the silver switchblade he took everywhere he went.
    “If I’d known he was a fairy,” I said, “I could have asked him where to find a dagda.”
    Jimmy relaxed. “Oops.”
    “Any other way to kill a nuckelavee?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    “How about a Fuath fairy?”
    “Sunlight.”
    “Really? Yet their offspring walks in the daytime.”
    “So do we,” Jimmy said.
    “Your father was a day walker.”
    Certain