Free Doomsday Can Wait by Lori Handeland Page B

said. "I'll head to Chicago."
    "Keys are in the car." Her voice was matter-of-fact. She'd known my decision before I had. "Put a scratch on it and we will have words."
    I had no doubt we'd have more than words, but that was a concern for another day.
    With Summer's gift of flight, she'd be able to beat Jimmy to New Mexico. Even though he had the superior speed of a dhampir, a commercial airplane was still faster with the added incentive of not having to use his feet. Summer could meet Jimmy at the airport, or on the road, or wherever the hell she wanted to, as long as she caught up to him before he reached Sawyer.
    "Do whatever you have to do," I said.
    Her gaze flicked to mine. "Anything?"
    "Anything," I repeated. "Just keep him alive."

CHAPTER 9
     
     
    Time in that cave had moved a lot faster than I'd thought. By the time I retrieved my cell phone and the other items I'd left by the pool, then made my way outside, dawn had broken. The air smelled of rain; the pavement was soaked, strewn with torn leaves, and a lot of tree limbs were down. I guessed the thunder and the lightning hadn't just been for show.
    "How long was I in there?" I demanded.
    Summer shrugged, her expression sheepish. "I fell asleep. Figured you'd wake me when you got back."
    Huh. I guess fairies did need to sleep.
    "Lucky I wasn't depending on you to save my ass."
    "Lucky," she agreed, her voice perfectly level so I just knew she was being sarcastic.
    I left by car, she left by air; and ten hours later, I-94 spilled me into Chicago. I'd managed to discover, through judicious use of my cell phone, that Chicago's fireworks were held on the third of July and shot off at Navy Pier. Which was both good news and bad news.
    Good news in that I should have time to stop the luc-eres from running free if I could find the appropriate suburb in—
    I glanced at my watch. "Three hours."
    Bad news—I still wasn't sure where they were and my knowledge of the Chicago area was mighty slim despite having lived less than a hundred miles north of the city for most of my life.
    While a lot of Milwaukeeans made the trip to Chicago regularly to shop, to eat, to go to concerts and plays, I'd been content with my own city on the lake. I'd never traveled much until lately. In the past month I'd visited more states than I'd visited before in my life.
    Now that I was here, and I knew I wasn't too late, some of the panicky edge faded. I'd arrived too late in Hardeyville, and I still relived what had happened there in the darkest part of the night.
    I found it hard to accept that some things were meant to happen, some people were meant to die, and there was nothing I, or anyone else in the federation, could do about it.
    That I'd been able to stop the werewolves in Hardeyville from moving on to the next town on their hit parade of horrors was small consolation to the dead who still danced through my dreams.
    I'd run through every phone number on Jimmy's list. No one answered. I hadn't expected them to. The seers were in hiding, which meant they weren't going to pick up at any of their numbers or hang around their known locations. If they did, they were just asking for it.
    So I'd also stopped at a wireless-ready Starbucks and sent a blanket e-mail informing the remaining seers of all the latest Doomsday developments and ordering them to check in via the Internet until further notice.
    I wasn't sure how many of them were going to be able to access their accounts "underground," but I had to try. In truth, Jimmy's list was probably as useless to me right now as Jimmy was.
    I assumed that each seer was still in touch somehow with all their DKs, continuing to give them assignments and thwarting the Nephilim's plans as best they could with their decimated forces. Just because we'd put chaos on hold didn't mean the demons weren't still out there doing their demon dance.
    My phone rang as I stopped to get a map. I snatched it up, hoping that one of the seers had decided to take a chance