“Fat chance.”
“You gotta sleep.”
I snorted. One good thing about being a fairy—I only slept if I wanted to. Considering what I saw when I closed my eyes … I didn’t often want to.
“What are we after at Mount Taylor?” I asked.
“Sorcerer.”
I frowned. He’d graduated from vampires to sorcerers? That was kind of a big leap. This entire situation made me uneasy.
“What kind of sorcerer?”
“Does it matter?”
“The only way to kill something is to know exactly what it is that needs killing.”
“Ruthie said you’d know.”
“Great,” I muttered. I was starting to wonder if Ruthie wanted me dead. “She said this guy—?”
I glanced at Jimmy for confirmation—technically, a woman should be called a sorceress, but it was best to be sure—and he nodded.
“This guy was a sorcerer.” I emphasized the word. “Not a witch or a warlock, a wizard or a magician?”
“No. She said ‘sorcerer.’ What’s the difference?”
“There are two kinds of magic. White is given; black is taken.”
“Given by who? Taken from what?”
The entrance ramp for I-35 loomed ahead, and I waited to answer him until I’d merged into traffic. It was early yet; the road sparkled with the remains of the salt used to prevent vehicles from winding up in a ditch during every snowstorm.
“White magic is learned,” I began. “Given by another devotee. Sometimes inherited through families. In theory, a human can practice white magic. In practice, for magic to be powerful enough to be of any use, it can’t be contained by them for very long. They burn out.”
And wind up gibbering in the corner of their nice, cozy asylum.
“You’re saying anyone practicing magic is a Nephilim?”
“Or the offspring of a Nephilim and a human.” Evil spirits liked to propagate all over the place. It was kind of their thing.
“A breed,” Jimmy spat.
I lifted a brow. Considering he was one, that was an interesting reaction.
“Also fairies,” I pointed out. “I use white magic.”
“So the white and the black have nothing to do with the good or the evil of the magic itself but with the way the magic was received?”
“Anything good can become evil if it’s used in an evil manner.”
“By an evil being.”
“Right. And evil can be used for good.”
“No way.”
I thought of my dreams, the whispers, a promise.