Apocalypse Happens Read Online Free PDF

in was from a rental property I’d bought when I left the force—a combination storefront, occupied by a knickknack shop, and a second-floor apartment, where I’d lived until everyone and their demon sister found out about it.
    Not too long ago a seer had been murdered right on my doorstep. That she’d been torn in two had caused no small amount of consternation to the tiny police force in Friedenberg—population around three thousand. They’d called in the FBI. As far as I knew, the case was still open. Probably always would be.
    I could rent out the apartment to increase my income—if I could find anyone willing to get past the whole murdered-woman-on-the-doorstep issue—but the idea of having no home, like Jimmy, was more than I could stomach. Brought back too many memories of the years before Ruthie. I might be a rough, tough demon-killing psychic, but being homeless scared me.
    Finishing the beer, I glanced at the clock. Three A.M. and the connecting door was still closed. Silence pulsed from Jimmy’s room. Nothing to do but sleep. But I wasn’t sure I could.
    I guess I did because the next thing I knew the clock read four thirty and the dark wasn’t so dark anymore. I went still, listening. Jimmy was moving around on the other side of the wall.
    Since Sanducci had been known to sneak off andleave me behind, I got up, threw on some clothes and headed toward the connecting door.
    One quick flick of my wrist and the lock snapped. The superior strength I’d absorbed empathically when I’d become a dhampir definitely didn’t suck. Unfortunately, when the door was grabbed from the other side and yanked open I was too surprised to use my superior speed to duck and just stood there as cool sparkling mist dampened my cheeks and stuck to my eyelids.
    Fairy dust. I hated that stuff.
    “Why do you do that?” I scrubbed my palms over my face. “You know it doesn’t work on me.”
    Summer Bartholomew scowled, hands clenching into fists before she spun on the heels of her cowboy boots and stalked away, the fringe on her white leather halter top swaying. “I didn’t know it was you.”
    “Who else would it be?” I followed her into the room.
    “Since when do you two sleep alone?”
    I wasn’t going to discuss Sanducci’s sleeping arrangements with the woman—make that fairy—who loved him.
    My gaze went to the bed, as I wondered why Jimmy wasn’t waking up and telling us to clam up, but it was empty. Hell, not only empty, but also never been slept in. He’d pulled a Houdini again.
    “What did you do to him?” Summer asked.
    My mind flashed to last night in the desert. Jimmy staked to the ground, naked skin on naked skin. The scent of the blood, the feel of his body in mine when it hadn’t really been mine.
    Mmm , the demon whispered. Wanna do it again.
    “Shut up,” I muttered.
    Summer shot me a glare, and her hand lifted, as if she’d shoot her sparkling “make me” dust one moretime. It wouldn’t function any better than the last time. Because fairy magic doesn’t work on those on errands of mercy, and that would be my new life in a nutshell. That she couldn’t make me do whatever she wished drove Summer batty.
    “You don’t need to be so bitchy,” she said. “I didn’t break him. You did.”
    “He isn’t a toy.”
    Toy , my demon whispered. Yessss.
    I smacked myself in the forehead. All that got me was the beginnings of another headache.
    “What is wrong with you?” Summer asked.
    I wasn’t going to inform her that I’d started to hear the vampire in my head even when it wasn’t loose. No telling what she’d do to me then. Maybe lock me in the golden-barred room of her Irish cottage back in New Mexico.
    I couldn’t let that happen. I had too much to do.
    “Los Angeles is kind of a hike for a booty call,” I observed. “Not that Sanducci isn’t worth it, but have some pride.”
    Her blue eyes narrowed in her perfect little face. Long blond hair, body that fit into size zero