Solomon's Seal

by Skyla Dawn Cameron

  “We are so authorized—”

  “But not to tell her that, just—”

  “But that is the thing that might get her to stay—”

  Jesus, they were like an old married couple. “Tell me what, boys?”

  “Oh, oh, oh, wait a second,” Dawson called from the other room. “Hold on. You’re with that agency, PTI, right?”

  Thomas and Pulaski exchanged looks.

  “I’ll take that silence as a yes,” Dawson said.

  I rearranged the letters a few times in case I missed something but nope, still clueless. “You’re what now? PTI?”

  When they didn’t answer, I spun and headed back. Pru had him on cam and apparently the audio picked up my conversation. “What the fuck?”

  “Pulse Threat...Investigation?” he said. “Or Intelligence? One of those.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the two men who’d followed; neither confirmed nor denied, and Pulaski had developed a tic in his jaw. “And they...investigate Pulse threats, I take it?”

  “They’re like the CIA,” Dawson responded. “With a dose of the FBI. But yeah, for Pulse-related stuff.”

  Which meant anything supernatural, I guessed. “American?”

  “World. Small numbers, though.”

  Interesting. Once more I studied the two PTI members in my living room. “West works for them? He’s undercover investigating this...djinn, Ashford?”

  No answer.

  “He’s probably like a NOC,” Dawson said. “Right? It makes so much sense—West has gotta be an intelligence operative undercover. Oh my god, is he your handler? And you’re assets he recruited?”

  Dawson was getting far too geeked out over this and losing the focus, so I attempted to steer the conversation around again. “Is your organization sending a team in to get my daughter or is your boss merely winging it?”

  “Ashford,” Pulaski relented at last, “hopefully doesn’t know who he is.”

  “Except he changed the plan,” Thomas pointed out.

  Pulaski waved him off. “Yeah, but that could mean anything—didn’t mean he didn’t trust West. His cover might not be blown.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “You two, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” I waited but they both went silent, so once again I worked on filling in the blanks. “Mr. Rolph,” I said as realization dawned. “West recommended him—he was PTI too...” Which would explain why Dawson couldn’t find any info on him. “So he’s also part of this intelligence agency. He was supposed to get the ring for your organization. Did Ashford hire me for extra help or because he didn’t trust West’s recommendation?”

  Pulaski blew out a heavy breath. “We haven’t figured it out. Maybe. Maybe not. But West won’t blow his cover yet—he spent three years getting this deep.”

  “Ashford and West are playing a game of chicken with my daughter’s life.”

  The guys looked at one another in a way that was not easing my blood pressure. So I was definitely on my own, then.

  “Ashford owns...” Pru frowned at her computer. “Like an eighth of the property in all of New Bristol. There’s a lot to sift through. What was the address on the contract you signed?”

  Shit, like I could remember. I stalked over to the filing cabinet by the computer desk and rifled past disorganized bills and tax returns until I found Ashford’s contract. The address on the letterhead was from an office downtown, definitely not his home. “No go.”

  “At least that’s one to cross off?” Dawson offered.

  Not making me feel any better. We didn’t have time to check out all these things. I glanced at the landline, expecting it to ring any time with another threat and demand regarding the Seal. I’d give it to him now, in a heartbeat. I should’ve to begin with.

  “This Seal...” I cast my gaze at the fuzz. “When I gave Ashford the fake one, he put it on. I’m assuming it’s not to become Dr. Doolittle.”

  “It controls djinn,” Thomas said. “It controls everything, pretty much, even Pulse-born. Everything except humans.”

  Pulaski clutched his head in his hands. “Oh my god, stop talking.”

  Thomas elbowed him. “Shut up. Might as well.”

  “West’s gonna kill us.”

  Jesus, I was gonna kill them soon. “So he puts on the ring, he controls—”

  “A lot,” Thomas said. “So none of us can get near him. Humans can too easily be killed and anything Pulse-born—with non-human DNA—can be controlled as soon as he puts that ring on.”

  And Mr. Rolph had been rather concerned when I asked about using the ring. “So can’t I just put it on and force him to—”

  “Not unless you want to be fried from the inside out,” Pulaski said with a sigh, apparently deciding there was no keeping mum on this. He was probably right—only truth would potentially dissuade me.

  “I was wearing it, though—Tucker wore it.”

  “You have to want to use it,” he said. “It hears your want and if you pay the price, its power is yours. But if you actually try to use the Seal, it’ll kill you. It takes magic juice to power without injury, or someone from Sulaiman ibn Da’ud’s line.”

  Magic juice... “Djinn power, then?”

  “Yep. Purebred at that.”

  “And Ashford’s not just any djinn,” Thomas said. “This is Musa ibn Sakhr.”

  I resisted the urge to bang my head on the coffee table. “Look, I don’t speak djinn names.”

  “Son of Sakhr,” Dawson spoke up from the laptop. “He’s like a royal djinn, Liv.”

  I was glad someone was googling during my crisis. “Okay. This is sounding worse and worse.” Ashford was going to use the one thing that could control him to control everyone else, and although my daughter was still my focus, I didn’t like that way the more horrors kept piling up here. “And precisely how dangerous is he going to be once he gets this ring? End of the world bad?”

  “Not directly, no,” Thomas said. “No plagues or rivers of blood. But afreet are nasty fuckers. Djinn in general aren’t much different from people—good, bad, and in between. Afreet are of the bad.”

  “He won’t end the world,” Pulaski took over. “But Ashford’s stuck here. They don’t stick them in bottles, but the Seal could confine them to places. He’s been here awhile.”

  Three thousand years of confinement is akin to death. Yeah, that was awhile. “If he gets the ring, he can leave,” I said.

  “And he’ll be able to do whatever the hell he wants without a damn thing to stop him,” Thomas said. “He will kill you, your daughter, your friends, just for defying him. No laws. No punishments. PTI can’t stop him. Conventional weapons can’t hurt him.”

  Information that would’ve been helpful to me yesterday. At least I was seeing the big picture here, though I didn’t like it at all. I was starting to suspect my brother might be more involved with this than I realized, but doubted they’d tell me much more outside of what I already knew about Ashford and West.

  “You say conventional,” I pressed. “Non-conventional, then? What does that entail?” Please say a rocket launcher—maybe I can get one of those.

  “Magic,” Thomas said simply.

  I blinked. “Magic? Any kind, or—”

  “Susceptible to djinn control,” he started.

  “If,” Pulaski broke in with a meaningful look, “used by a djinn equal to or greater than him in power.”

  And since I wasn’t currently up to date on where to locate a Local Djinn Directory, I was shit out of luck. So I had no plan. Nothing workable, at least; it wasn’t like this was a problem I could solve by jumping in its mouth and driving a sword through its brain.

  Unless I find Ashford, give him the Seal, and hope for mercy.

  “I appreciate you telling me these things,” I said to the two agents. “It’s given me a lot to think over. I just hope West can touch base soon.”

  Both men seemed to relax, which was my intent: shoulders dropped, expressions sof
tened, like this whole time they’d been expecting me to punch them.

  “Please, go ahead and make yourselves at home.” I gestured to the laundry room which was little more than a closet. “Dry your things, help yourself to food, pull up a chair.” When I felt they accepted this, I turned to head back to my chair to sit and stew.

  Denny’s hand wrapped around my wrist and halted me as he leaned over to speak next to my ear. “What about your dad? For narrowing the location down?”

  Of course Denny knew me and knew I wouldn’t lay down arms that easily. My father was worth a shot, I supposed. I nodded, scooped my cell phone from the coffee table, and left the living room with a nod to the PTI guys. “Going to take a shower,” I said and they didn’t object, instead focused on their damp clothes and the dryer.

  In the bathroom, I shut the door behind me and perched on the edge of the tub, staring at the phone as the minutes ticked by. I didn’t actually have my father’s number—he’d changed it at least once, if not more, since he’d disowned me so many years ago. It was Martin I texted, informing it was an emergency and I needed Dad’s number now.

  Ten minutes later he sent it, questioning what was going on.

  I ignored him.

  My stomach in knots, I dialed my father. Martin could’ve sent me straight to his assistant or his lawyer or any other number of people, but it was Dad’s voice that answered four rings in.

  “Yes?”

  I swallowed a thick lump in my throat, feeling transported back to when I was a freaked out newly turned eighteen-year-old, in the bathroom with a pregnancy test, thinking about telling my father. But that wasn’t me anymore—the worst had happened, he was capable of the worst, and I had to keep my head on for Em. “Don’t hang up.”

  Silence. At least he didn’t hang up on me, though, which was why I opened with that instead of a regular greeting.

  “Something’s happened. There’s a local man named Moses Ashford—he took her. Took Emaleth.”

  More silence. Not promising.

  “I don’t know where she is. I know he owns property all over but I don’t have time to narrow it down. You know damn near everyone important around here—I just need to know where his house is so I can find her.” When he didn’t respond, I chanced, “Dad?”

  “And this concerns me, why?”

  Shit, shit, shit... My voice fell to a whisper. “I need help.”

  “You have willfully gotten yourself into trouble your whole goddamn life, Olivia, and I stopped bailing you out years ago.”

  I clenched the phone, my stomach bottoming out. “This isn’t about me, it’s about your six-year-old granddaughter.”

  “Wherever you go, chaos follows. It always has.”

  “Please—”

  “Did you not think of this from the start? Instead of picking the safe route you always had to be so brazen, so right, so willing to cut your own path. You put your child in danger. You let this happen. It is your mess to fix.”

  “Daddy...” My lips trembled around the word. “Please. I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever you want, I’m sorry, I just... Please, I’ll never bother you again, I’ll never—”

  “There’s no such thing as that with you, Olivia, and I’m done with it.”

  My father ended the call.

  33

  Dick Assist

  I slipped from the edge of the tub and sat in a heap on the cold bathroom linoleum, unsuccessfully fighting tears.

  At the end of the day, I felt like a child. A stupid little girl who just wanted Daddy’s approval, who expected him to sweep in and save the day. Over and over, no matter how angry I got, I expected him to eventually forgive me—to ask for my forgiveness. In the back of my mind was a picture of my father swinging Emaleth up in his arms, out on picnics, sitting around a Christmas tree. And as stupid as those thoughts had always been, they withered further now until they were unrecognizable.

  Maybe I hadn’t been clear enough. Maybe he didn’t know how dangerous Ashford was, maybe he thought it was a front for some kidnapping scheme and I was going to ask for money. But what he thought or knew didn’t matter.

  He was going to let her die.

  I bowed my head, my chest shaking with sobs, tried to keep my lips sealed shut—if I kept the noise in, if I pretended I wasn’t crying, maybe I’d stop. Maybe I’d believe myself.

  There was still a chance, of course. A chance that West would get her back—that everything would be okay. He might have a plan he hadn’t let us in on yet. But West’s orders were clearly to remain undercover and get whatever dirt he was searching for on Ashford. Keep the ring from him at all costs. Not a rescue mission. How could he get Em without exposing himself? Surely Ashford would notice a child missing after his enforcer showed up.

  If either of them were still alive.

  I rubbed at my eyes—no, I wasn’t going to think like that. I had to pick myself up and keep going forward. If I tried and failed, I’d live with myself more than if I didn’t bother at all and instead trusted a stranger to solve this for me.

  There had to be someone. I could try Martin again, maybe. Perhaps he could narrow things down. Perhaps Pulaski and Thomas could get authorization from their superiors to tell me something. Perhaps I could call and offer a deal with Ashford, assuming his cell phone hadn’t been destroyed in the fire. There had to be someone, too, that Pru or I knew who had contacts. Someone well-connected like my father, someone local, someone...

  I blinked until my vision cleared and lifted my phone again, cycling through the numbers until I found the one I wanted, glad I hadn’t deleted it. I dialed and waited, hoping—

  “Olivia,” he answered right away.

  I winced. “Dick.”

  A pause. “Richard.”

  Right. “Richard, I’m so sorry for not touching base with you sooner; I was out of the country.”

  “Your friend mentioned that. She said you were sick with malaria.”

  “Turns out I got better—I think it was just food poisoning. I wish this was a social call, too, but I just got back and I could use some help.”

  “Did they arrest you again?”

  So he knew about that too. I tried not to cringe—it was, after all, basically the reason why I was calling him. “Thankfully, no. I’m trying to find someone. The guy who hired me—he’s reneged on paying me and I’d like to drop by for a visit but I don’t have his address.”

  “Oh, sure thing. What’s his name?”

  “Moses Ashford.”

  “Moses...Ashford...” Keys clicked in the background. “He owns a lot of property.”

  “So I’ve heard. I’m looking for a house, though. A rather large one.”

  “It might take some time.”

  Not like I had any other leads. “The sooner the better, but I understand.” Before he could try talking to me about dinner or flowers or whatever else he wanted to pester me about, I continued. “I really appreciate it, Richard. I’ll be home all evening—long trip, so I’m off to take a nap, but text me when you have something.”

  “Sure, Olivia—”

  I hung up before that could go any further and sat with the phone in my hands, staring at the LCD screen.

  Someone rapped softly on the door and I swiped at my eyes. “I’ll be there in a few.”

  “Liv?”

  Denny.

  Before I could object further, he cracked open the door. I saw his face peek around before he saw me, his eyes moving across the small bathroom and then shifting downward to where I was crumpled on the floor. He slipped inside and eased the door shut.

  I dragged my fingers under my eyes and blinked furiously. “Yeah, so that didn’t go well.”

  He eased onto the floor, folding his long legs to fit in the narrow space between the bathroom cabinet and tub with me. “Did he hang up?”

  “Worse.” I set the phone aside and hugged my knees, avoiding his eyes.

  “Want me to try?”

  I smiled vaguely. “He always liked yo
u.” Hell, Daddy loved Chase. He used to brag to his friends, Such a nice boy. But Denny calling him for this would probably just remind him even more of why he was pissed at me. Remind him I hadn’t been a good girl and married my high school boyfriend—remind him that I didn’t even know who Emaleth’s father was, the night of her conception like so many others where I was ridiculously drunk and partying hard.

  Denny would deny up and down that he was anything but Em’s biological father, but my dad knew better.

  I sniffled and shook my head. “He’s a dead end with this one. But I called another guy—he’ll hopefully get back to me with an address tonight.”

  “And then?” He leaned back, unwound some squares of toilet paper from the roll, and handed them to me; my eyes were leaking again, damn it, and I accepted the offer and tried to dry them.

  “Then I have to find a way out of the house. And get my keys back from Pulaski. And leave without two”—not fully human—“bodyguards knowing.”

  Keys jangled as Denny reached into the pocket of his still-damp jeans and retrieved them, and he offered the ring to me. “We take my SUV.”

  We.

  He still thought we were in this together.

  I glanced up at him then, his brown eyes warm and forgiving. Always so forgiving. I accepted the keys.

  His fingers lingered against mine for a moment before releasing the ring. “We’ll need a distraction.”

  I whirled the keys around while I pondered it. “Pru. She can fake some kind of attack, send everyone scrambling for help.”

  “Out in the kitchen, out of view.”

  I nodded. “And we can slip out the back.”

  “As soon as you get the address.”

  It was something, at least. An okay plan.

  I looked again at sweet, loyal Denny. He loved Em so much—he was exactly the father to her that I wished I had myself. And I wished I was a different person—wished he was what I wanted, what I needed. Wished I could lose myself in him. That I loved him.

  But I wasn’t a different person and I couldn’t fake what was there. Still, I’d forever be grateful for the place he had in our lives.

  I hoped he’d forgive me when I left him behind.