by Gene Gant
It was just a flicker in Inky’s eyes when his gaze shifted from my face to the brown-skinned kid standing beside me, an instant of heightened interest. This produced a momentary lapse in Inky’s usually unshakeable self-confidence. His smile froze and then faltered. I could sense his defenses going up like an invisible wall. Definitely not good. The only thing more dangerous than a sexy predator is a nervous one.
Then, one second later, Inky abruptly shifted his attention back to me, and his luminous smile returned in full force. “You’re looking good, buddy,” he said as he clapped me lightly on the shoulder with a big, manicured hand. “Been a while since I saw you. Who’s your friend?”
We both turned to Draven, who hadn’t recovered enough to accomplish anything even as simple as a polite smile. “Inky, meet Draven Northbrook,” I introduced. “Draven, this is Grayson Bentley, better known as Inky.”
Inky’s smile broadened, and he put out a hand. “Nice to meet ya, Draven.”
Draven raised his hand for a slow, loose shake. He cleared his throat. “Nice to meet you too, Inky.” His voice was shaky.
“Please, call me Grayson. Or Gray. Ahmad is the only person who insists on using that stupid nickname he dropped on me.”
“Sure thing, Gray.”
The handshake went on way longer than it should have. Draven didn’t seem the least inclined to let go. Inky had to gently pull his hand free. He turned away, and I quickly reached up to tuck my hand under Draven’s chin and push his mouth closed. “Come on,” Inky said as he headed out of the room. “I was just taking a chill in the den.”
Draven and I followed. The den was actually a comfortable, inviting space. Smaller than the living room by half, its walls were lined with built-in wooden shelves full of thick, handcrafted, leather-bound books, some of them hundreds of years old and priceless. The windows were open here as well. The gusts off the lake were crisp and clean, still bearing a hint of the brutally cold winter just past. There was a thick black leather sofa and matching love seat arranged around a home theater system that featured a seventy-inch high-definition flat-panel TV. Judging from the frozen graphic of a giant, machinegun-armed mercenary in ragged black fatigues blasting at shark-toothed aliens on the screen, the system was in game mode. Inky had put the game on pause when his guests arrived.
Inky didn’t offer Draven and me the opportunity to play. He wasn’t being rude; he knew time was of the essence just as I did. He quickly got down to business. “So, Draven, Ahmad tells me you need to track someone down.”
I could see Draven’s focus return as his eyes narrowed. “It’s my dad I’m trying to find. He kidnapped my mom.”
Inky nodded. He gestured for us to seat ourselves. I settled on the love seat. Draven sat down on the sofa, and Inky sat next to him. “I can tell you’re Grendelkin, so your dad must be too,” Inky said. “Why’d he take your mother?”
Draven told him.
“Sounds like some nasty business,” Inky replied. “But it usually is when Grendelkin are involved. I can track people through their emotions. I assume there was lots of anger between you and your dad the last time you spoke.”
“Yeah. Definitely.”
“How long ago was that?”
“About a month.”
“That’s way too long,” Inky snapped. He shot an angry look my way that said I should have known better than to bring him such crap. That was another sign of how unsettled he was around Draven. He’s not usually cranky. Crankiness is not alluring, and Inky is all about the allure.
“What do you mean it’s too long ago?” Draven asked.
Inky turned back to him, his demeanor suddenly one of patience. “When people get mad at each other, make out, watch a tense ball game together—anything that gets their passions up—they leave an emotional residue on each other. I’m very sensitive to emotions, and I can track that residue from one person to the other. But the residue fades with time. I can’t track your dad after a month has passed. The trail would be too degraded by now.”
“But Draven just had a very emotional encounter with a sprite named Jellicoe a couple of hours ago,” I said, smugly interjecting myself into the conversation. “Jellicoe can tell us where Draven’s dad is. So it’s Jellicoe we need you to track.”
Inky grinned at me. “If the contact was just a couple of hours ago, I can do that.” He turned back to Draven. “Okay. I want you to focus on your last run-in with Jellicoe. It’s not really necessary, but it’ll help.”
Inky slowly closed his eyes, reached out, and placed his hand gently over Draven’s heart. A legally blind person without glasses couldn’t have missed the tremendous shudder that went through Draven then. I’d seen Inky pick up emotional trails from as far away as fifty feet. Hell, I’d seen him do it over a telephone connection, so the tactile contact seemed a bit much. I’d also seen Inky pick up those trails in a matter of seconds. A minute passed, then two, with Inky’s hand pressed firmly to Draven’s chest. Then it hit me: this was the kind of thing Inky did when he staked out prey.
I was starting to feel nervous.
Finally, Inky opened his eyes and pulled his hand away. Draven shivered again as he slumped back against the sofa. He exhaled heavily, as if he’d been holding his breath all that time.
Inky’s smile was slow and rapacious as he looked at Draven. “Got him,” he growled ambiguously in my direction.
Yeah. I was really nervous now.
Four
“I’M COMING with you,” Inky announced.
Big surprise there.
“If you just point the way,” I replied in the most casual manner I could muster, “we can take it from here and let you get back to your game.”
“No, I’m coming.” Inky got up and jammed his feet into the pair of sneakers he’d obviously kicked off earlier. He grabbed his wallet off the coffee table and stuffed it into his back pocket. “Okay. I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Draven looked from Inky to me. I think he could tell I didn’t want to take Inky along. It was in Draven’s best interest that we leave the guy behind. But I could read the look in Draven’s eyes as easily as I could words on paper. That look said: I’ll punch you in the face if you don’t let him come.
Some days I wish I’d never gotten out of bed. This was now one of those days.
I forced a smile and stood up. Draven sprang anxiously to his feet. He looked as if he wanted to hug someone in the room enthusiastically. I’m pretty sure that someone wasn’t me. Inky seemed pretty eager himself as he and the kid exchanged a lingering look.
I cleared my throat in a fake way. I actually said, “Ahem,” pronouncing each syllable distinctly. Inky looked at me. “I think the forecast is for high winds and heavy rain this afternoon,” I said. “Don’t you want to close these windows? And turn off all this electronic stuff?”
Inky waved off the suggestion brusquely. “The maid’s around here somewhere. She’ll take care of all that.”
“Ah. The maid. Of course.” I wanted to stick a finger down my throat and barf right on his sneakers. “Okay. Where are we going?”
“Kankakee County,” Inky replied. “An apple orchard on a farm off Route 17, near the east branch of Horse Creek. The Piperson farm.”
That was specific enough. And Inky, ever mindful of the rules governing djinn magic, was careful not to request magical help in getting there. “Okay. I can arrange the transportation.”
Draven moved closer to Inky, looking up at him in a needy way. “I don’t have the hang of that warping through space-time thing,” he said. “I need someone to hold on to me so I won’t go smacking into a tree or something. You mind, Gray… putting your arm around me?”
That hungry smile came out on Inky’s face again. “Not at all, dude.”
Moving quickly, I looped an arm around Draven’s waist and pulled him to me. “It’s better if I do the holding on,” I said. And then, before either of them could protest, I karate chopped the air and the three of us were on our way.
/> SPRITES, LIKE many species of magical beings, are elementals. They are members of the faerie, their existence tied to one of the four traditional elements—earth, air, fire, water. Jellicoe, as it turned out, was an earth sprite, a fact I should have realized given that he did not have the wings of an air sprite, the burning glow of a fire sprite, or the translucence of a water sprite. In the time it took me to spring Draven from jail, take him to my home, partially unravel his past, and draw Inky into the whole mess, Jellicoe managed to put a fair amount of distance between himself and my pleasant, adopted hometown of Wisteria.
A ripple of black lightning deposited Draven, Inky, and me in a flat, damp field on the edge of an apple tree grove. Inky, of course, managed a graceful landing. I let Draven go, keeping myself between him and Inky. Spring was barely a week old, so the trees were skeletons, buds of greenery and blossoms just beginning to peek through the rough bark of their branches. We were quite a way south of Chicago now, but it was just as windy here, the gusts cool and fragrant with the bouquet of animal dung. The dung was most likely the main ingredient in some type of organic fertilizer being used to ready the farm’s fields for the growing season. I intended to watch my every step.
Behind us, far away on the opposite side of the field, were a farmhouse, two barns, and a number of smaller buildings, all painted the same shade of cornflower blue. I took those details in at a glance. Draven’s attention was focused on Inky, who had his nose in the air like a bloodhound. Inky kept shifting his head to his right by small increments, until finally he seemed to find what he was seeking.
“This way,” Inky said, and he took off at a brisk pace into the trees.
I followed him, with Draven marching along after me. Being a gay male—as I am—it’s hard to trail a guy like Inky with any measure of perspective or dignity. For example, when walking into an unfamiliar apple orchard that covers many an acre in search of a mischievous and dangerous faerie creature, it’s a good idea to take notice of your surroundings as you go. This is necessary so you don’t get hopelessly lost or, worse, jumped by said mischievous and dangerous faerie creature. You can’t take notice of your surroundings when all you focus on is the fine masculine butt flexing in front of you. Inky looked as good going as he did coming, and his walk was probably what inspired that “poetry in motion” phrase. I’d known him for almost three years, and when I watched him walk away, I still got mesmerized to the point of drooling. There’s nothing cool about drooling when you do it in your sleep, but you at least have the excuse of not being in control of yourself. Doing it when you’re awake is just pitiful. See what I mean about losing your perspective and dignity?
But I was no fool. I would no more fall for Inky than I would stick my arm in a meat grinder. In fact, if forced to choose between the two options, I’d put my arm in the meat grinder. I’m a fairly powerful djinn and dangerous in my own right, a fact Inky respected. Falling for Inky would be far worse than the curse that enslaved me to others, and in many ways that made him more deadly than I could ever be. Now I’d dropped an innocent kid practically into his lap, like a gift, a kid who’d already been smitten by his seductive looks. And Inky had responded like a lion spotting an antelope with a gimpy leg.
My demonic nature notwithstanding, I do have principles, as well as a conscience. Having put Draven in harm’s way, I owed him a duty of protection. So I couldn’t let myself get distracted. I closed my eyes, raised my head, and when I opened my eyes again, I was staring into the empty air directly over Inky’s head. Ah. Much better. At least now I could be guided by my brain cells instead of my hormones.
“Stay sharp,” Inky warned abruptly, his voice low and urgent. “He’s close.”
I didn’t realize how close the sprite was until something snagged my right foot and yanked it backward. One second later, I sprawled flat on my face in the dirt. After spitting an assortment of wet twigs and moldy brown leaves from my lips, I rolled over and saw that something very sharp had cut neatly through the top of the sneaker on my right foot. If I’d been human, it probably would have cut completely through my ankle as well, bone and all.
There was an explosion of mad giggling, followed by a flash of motion as something shot up the trunk of the tree to my left. Ahead of me, Inky spun around with an angry gasp. The loudest sound by far, however, was the roar Draven let loose. It was so loud, in fact, that every bird within a half-mile radius took flight, rising from the treetops in a shifting, panicky, squawking cloud of fluttering wings.
A murderous scowl on his face, Draven crouched and leapt a good twenty feet straight up. He caught one of the thick branches overhead with his hand. Clinging to that branch, close to the tree’s trunk, was Jellicoe. He looked virtually indistinguishable from the gnarled brown branches of the tree itself. If not for the white, knotted beard, I would have had a hard time spotting him. He laughed, a wild smile on his face, his eyes lunatic bright. In his right hand, he held a sprite-sized sword, which means the blade was all of eight inches long. That was a deadly eight inches. Jellicoe swung the blade and it cut cleanly and silently through the branch, halfway between where he sat and Draven hung by his hands.
Draven had already kicked his legs back in a swing. As the branch began to drop, he flipped himself upward and landed in a tight crouch on the branch above Jellicoe’s head. The sprite looked up, and his smile actually widened as he did so, but I could also see the tremor of fear that rippled through his skinny little body.
He had plenty of reason to be afraid. Draven was angry beyond reason. The kid drew back a hand, and I could tell he was not going to just reach down and grab Jellicoe or swat him to the ground. Draven was going to smash Jellicoe like a bug. Yes, he needed Jellicoe alive to get the information he wanted. But at the moment, he was too enraged to think that clearly.
Fortunately, I was free to use magic. I threw out my right hand, drawing on the power that flowed through me, and sent my will shooting up like a ray of light. It dislodged Jellicoe from his perch and sent him tumbling down. In the next instant, Draven struck the stub of branch where the sprite had been huddled and ripped it right off the tree, gouging out a huge piece of the trunk in the process.
Inky moved with supernatural speed and agility, nimbly leaping over me in time to snatch the falling sprite out of the air. He held Jellicoe right up to his face. That seemed like an exceptionally stupid move. Jellicoe still held his sword and was close enough to dole out an impromptu nose job. Grinning, the sprite raised his weapon, obviously intent on performing some cosmetic surgery.
Inky flashed that beautiful smile. “Jellicoe. You’re looking mighty mellow.”
Instantly, Jellicoe went limp in Inky’s grip, his smile now goofy. He was so mellow it looked as if he would drip to the ground like syrup.
Draven wasn’t of similar spirits. He came roaring down from the treetop with mayhem in his eyes. From his trajectory and outstretched hands, it was clear he was going to rip Jellicoe from Inky’s grip. Again I gestured to gather from the power within me and flung my will in Draven’s direction. It stopped Draven in midair over Inky’s head and held him there. Arms straining, Draven grabbed at Jellicoe, growling in frustration that the sprite was beyond his reach.
Inky smiled at him. “Chill it, Draven.”
Just like that, the kid was as goofy mellow as the sprite. He grinned at Inky, wriggling like a puppy getting its belly scratched. Inky had hypnotic powers on a par with vampires, which is to say they were a lot stronger than mine. My persuasive pushes faded within several minutes, and the subjects knew they had somehow been manipulated. Inky’s remained in place until he withdrew them, and the subjects thought everything they did under his influence was their own choices. Draven was no threat now, so I released the power holding him. He dropped to the ground, landing neatly on his feet. Naturally, he stood there and made goo-goo eyes at Inky.
I stood up, brushing damp leaves off my clothes. “Okay, then. Now that everybody’s happy, let’s find a place to talk.”
Five
“JELLICOE HAS to have a place nearby,” Inky said. He turned to the sprite, still holding him aloft. “What say you invite us all in?”
“My pleasure,” Jellicoe replied with a smile. His voice was soft but thick and slightly garbled. It sounded as if he were speaking with mud in his throat. Maybe there was mud in his throat. He was an earth sprite, after all. “Entrance is right over there.” He pointed.
I looked using my MagicVision, which is what I call the mystical ability all djinn possess to see what is hidden from human sight. The entrance to Jellicoe’s place was a small, square wooden door concealed beneath a carpet of wet leaves. He’d attached leaves to the outside of the door in a clever bit of camouflage. From the door, a tunnel slanted approximately six feet down to a chamber that was about a hundred inches long, forty inches wide, and forty inches high. Not bad for a single sprite, but a very tight fit for three full-sized guys. And while Jellicoe could walk upright through the door and down the tunnel, Draven, Inky, and I would have to slither on our bellies like snakes. Moreover, the dimensions of the chamber were disturbingly close to those of a coffin. I’m more or less immortal. My life will end only if someone with enough power destroys me, in which case there’ll be nothing to bury. So eternally resting in a coffin is not in my future. Still, I wasn’t all that hot on the idea of chatting with Jellicoe six feet under.
“To hell with that,” I said flatly, my tone leaving no room for argument. “We can talk right here. It shouldn’t take long to get Jellicoe to cough up the info about Draven’s dad.”
Inky flicked me an annoyed look. “Okay. Fine.” He started to set Jellicoe down.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I warned.
The annoyance in Inky’s eyes flared brighter. “Why?”
“An earth elemental draws power from the earth,” I replied patiently, without the “Duh” I wanted to toss in. “You put Jellicoe on the ground, he’ll get a boost of energy and break free of your hypnotic spell. Since he’s still armed, my guess is that he’ll try to cut you down at the knees, and the chase will be on again. Just hold on to him while I ask him a few questions.”
