by Kelly Meding
“I’ll live. Jaxon’s worse.”
She went off to fetch the medical kit. I stood dumbly in the foyer for a while, even after Mom went upstairs. My brain hadn’t really caught up to the shock of the fight. Adrenaline was cutting off, leaving my entire body with a used-up, watery feeling, like I’d burst if someone poked me too hard. My head throbbed (again), my arm stung, my knees were sore, and both palms were rubbed raw (another again).
I hated feeling so helpless to move, so overcome by my second near-death experience in as many days that I wanted to curl up and sob. Preferably in my mother’s arms. I was twenty-eight years old, and I wanted to be five again, so I could believe in my parent’s ability to make the boogeyman go away. Only I wasn’t five anymore, my best friend was critically injured, a supposed ally was my number one suspect for the big bad, and I couldn’t even call my other teammates for an update, because our godsdamned phones were likely tapped.
This is why I’m the second-in-command and not the leader. Give me an order and I have no trouble following it. Put me in a situation without a clear path and make me the order-giver and nothing. I fall apart.
I fail.
No.
I shook myself from head to toe, as if I could shrug off the doubt like a dog shakes off water. If I failed now, my friends could die. Dozens of vampires and werewolves could die. The already strained relationship between the human world and the vampires could snap with one man’s itchy trigger finger and a bad temper (or to be fair, one hungry vampire’s need to feed). If we didn’t do something about Myrtle’s Acres, Tennyson could lose everything.
My father, of course, chose that moment to poof into existence in the living room.
“By the elements, Shiloh, are you all right?” he asked, closing in on me with a grace possessed only of the full-blood djinn. His rugged face twisted into a mask of anger and concern, and a swirl of colors sparkled in his eyes as he reached for my arm. “Why are you standing here bleeding all over the rug?”
“Waiting my turn,” I said dumbly. Why is it my dad’s mere presence has the power to turn me into a cowering child? Oh, yeah, because he’s one of the oldest, most powerful djinn on the planet. Duh.
“You’re—” His eyes widened as he picked up on my emotional state. He knew I was teetering on a meltdown, and he knew a gentle push in the wrong direction could release my Quarrel. Not that it would immediately affect anyone except Mom and Jaxon, but so not the point. I had lost control of it only once in the last decade, and that had been a special circumstance not to be repeated.
He framed my face with his palms and got into my personal space—a favorite maneuver of his since I was a child. It forced me to look at him, forced me to listen and really hear him.
I pressed into his touch. How could someone so old have hands so smooth and steady? It didn’t seem fair.
“Focus, baby girl,” he said. Though quiet, his voice was commanding and not to be ignored.
I did focus—right on the kindness of his eyes and the warmth of his love. “We’ve got serious problems, Dad,” I blurted, then told him everything. From the moment he disappeared—excluding the binding words with Tennyson and his wishes, because I was still half-sane—through the trip to Bowie, our suspicions about Weller, right up to his reappearance here.
He listened without judgment, holding me still the entire time, and it wasn’t until I finished that I felt the coolness of my cheeks, the way my entire body was drained and energized all at once. He’d been misusing his magic to calm me down and keep me that way. Had he done it before when I wasn’t old enough to realize it?
Did it really matter at this point in time?
“Jaxon is hearty and strong,” Dad said. “He’ll pull through. But you must tend to yourself, as well as your team.” He disappeared and popped back a moment later with a dish towel.
I clenched my teeth and swallowed a lot of swear words when he tied the towel tight around my wounded arm. I wasn’t sure it was still bleeding, but it gave him a moment to be paternal. He hadn’t had a lot of those kinds of moments, being djinn and not often home. He ushered me into the living room. I perched on the corner of the sofa as he slunk into a leather chair across from me.
“What did the sidhe have to say?” I asked.
“She is willing to bargain for her information.” From the vehemence in my dad’s tone, he could have been telling me a convicted serial rapist was about to get clemency.
“Isn’t that what we wanted? What information?”
Dad hesitated. “She has sensed the black magic, even from her chosen lair in Mongolia—”
“Mongolia?” I boggled for a moment, then remembered the teleportation thing. Kind of made air miles pointless.
“She says she can give you the necromancer’s ritual chamber within one half mile of accuracy.”
I shot to my feet, suppressing a whoop of joy. “This is great news, Dad, you couldn’t have led with this? If we can get that close to this bastard, Tennyson’s memories of how his people died can help us sniff them out the rest of the way. We can finally end this.”
So why did Dad look like he’d just sucked on a lemon?
“The information is costly, Shiloh.”
Oh. Right. My joy deflated like a pricked balloon. I asked a question to which I really did not want to know the answer. “What sort of memory is she asking for?”
“I don’t know. She may ask for a month of no specified time period. She may ask for a specific event and all things related. She may ask for your memory of one person. She said it was for her and the bargainer to discuss.” He stood up, his expression sympathetic without crossing into pity. “You are not bound to accept her help, Shiloh. It’s a steep cost—”
“Set up the meeting.” I had to say it before I changed my mind. As it was, I was beating back fear with a mental stick, desperate again not to dissolve into tears. It was our best means to find the necromancer. We had to take it.
“Our memories make us who we are,” Dad said. “Once it is lost, it cannot be restored. It is gone. Do you understand?”
I understood. In order to see this through and solve this perplexing puzzle something had to be sacrificed. It wasn’t as though I was giving her my magic, or a limb or something. I could live without a memory or two if it meant stopping this necromancer and getting our answers. Getting justice for Julius and for Tennyson’s lost people, and making sure no one else practiced this forbidden necrotic magic.
“Set it up,” I said. My voice was more I just signed my own execution order and less See how confident I am? But Dad nodded.
He brushed my cheek with the back of his knuckles, a kind of pride gleaming in his eyes. “I’ll return shortly. Get that arm checked.” And with that he poofed away.
The stairs creaked. Tennyson stood at the bottom of them. Had he done that on purpose so he didn’t scare the crap out of me? His mouth was drawn tight, and I still felt ghosts of his anger.
It took a few tries to get my mouth working. “How’s Jaxon?”
“Resting. Your mother is quite skilled with a needle and thread. The wounds on his back were deep, but no major arteries were severed, and the bleeding is under control.”
“What about his head?” On any other day, I’d have added a sarcastic note to such a question and turned it into a joke. But I had no idea how a skin-walker was affected—physically, emotionally, or magically—by losing a part of their animal shape. His antler had been ripped off, for Iblis’s sake.
“He is in a great deal of pain from the wound, which continues oozing blood. Your mother says she senses an echo of magic around the wound, which could attribute to its inability to heal.”
Frozen claws of fear grasped my heart and squeezed. Jaxon had charged the vampire and saved my life, and now he was suffering for it. What right had I to be so scared of giving up a memory in exchange for locating the necromancer? None.
“Your loyalty continues to surprise me, Shiloh.”
“What?”
I found his words oddly touching, although not even a little comforting. “We don’t have a choice. This information could get us right up the necro’s ass, and we will not get a better shot at taking him down. Those six vamps we killed were a test.”
“The necromancer is growing stronger.”
“Yes. If he can choreograph six at once today, there’s no telling how many he can control tomorrow. And if he gets a Master under his thumb, all he has to do is control one. The Master will do all the work.”
“His gamble to reacquire Piotr failed. But he won’t stop. He will come at us again.”
“If Piotr’s the one he wants.”
Tennyson tilted his head in a silent question.
“Think about it,” I said. “This necro and the guy pulling his strings have been pretty careful so far with their plays. Even if I bought him being confident in Piotr’s ability to trick and therefore kill me, I don’t buy him risking his king in such an uncertain move. Another piece on the board, maybe, but not the king.”
Two things struck me at once. The first being an observation my shock-fritzed mind had carefully filed away under Think About Later: Tennyson had saved my life when he attacked and killed one of Azuriah’s vampires, something he said was considered an act of aggression toward the entire line. Bad. Very, very bad. And I hadn’t even thanked him for it.
The second thing was how perfectly so many jagged pieces had fallen into place and created a much clearer picture of Piotr’s part in the game. He wasn’t the king in play, he was just another piece on the board, a bishop perhaps, moving other pawns toward the ultimate goal—the apprehension of a more powerful Master, whose entire line was firmly ensconced in one place like a quartered Army regiment. And challenging Azuriah via those controlled vampires gave the necro an excuse for a vampire war.
“Shiloh? You paled. Perhaps you should sit.”
“It’s you.”
“Pardon me?”
I grabbed his shirt, curling my fingers into fabric stained black with drying vampire blood, more to stay upright than with any notion of shaking sense into him. His lips slanted in a frown, but he made no move to untangle me. Once I’d recovered from the latest shocking realization—let’s face it, I’d had some stunners recently—I explained my somewhat wobbly thought processes. He terrified me by not immediately providing an alternate theory, or laughing it off as absurd.
Crap.
His hand covered mine in a cool grip. “Your theory is sound,” he said softly. “Attempting to capture me directly is foolish, and this big bad, as you call him, is no fool. Torturing my people and allowing me to feel their deaths was a brilliant maneuver on his part. It ensures my desire for personal vengeance and will deliver me directly to his doorstep in order to acquire it.”
Something in his use of the present tense jarred my internal alarms. “Only if this is his plan. And now that we know we can, you know, not do that.”
“I see no alternative to the path on which we have been placed. All of the pieces have been put into position for a checkmate.”
“Then opened your blessed eyes and look harder.” My grip on his shirt tightened, and I very nearly did shake him. He squeezed my hand harder. I let go and stormed across the room, stopped near the dining room, and glared at K.I.M. sitting quietly on her table.
“The necromancer must be stopped at any cost,” Tennyson said, still on the other side of the living room. “You said so yourself, Shiloh. I have absolutely no desire to succumb to the whims of a madman, and I will do everything in my power to prevent such a thing from happening, including ending my own existence. However, my people deserve justice. Piotr’s people, Azuriah’s people, Craddock, Raoul, all of us deserve vengeance for our losses. Confrontation is our only option.”
He’d commit suicide before allowing the necromancer to perform the spell. I admired that. In his position, would I be strong enough to do the same? To take my own life, rather than risk others suffering greatly for my weakness and failures? I didn’t know. It seemed an impossible question to answer.
“What if he does capture you?” I asked, whirling to face him. Furious. “What if you can’t pull off a noble suicide and the necro takes control of you and your line? He’ll use you and your people to murder every human in Myrtle’s Acres, and then Iblis knows what else, up to and including open war with Azuriah’s line. Can you risk that?”
He was in front of me, so fast it felt like someone had cut the frames of film showing his progress across the living room. There and then here. The iridescent tether binding us magically pulsed. What was he—?
“It is no risk,” he said. “Because you will be bound to kill me should such a loss of control occur.”
I took a step back, heart hammering. “Don’t.”
“It is a simple wish, Shiloh, less powerful than your taking the burden of my emotions.”
“Not yet.” If he didn’t make the wish now, I had a chance to talk him out of it later. “Wait on it until I speak with the sidhe. Her information might be bogus”—though I seriously doubted it—“which makes our confronting the necro and his puppeteer a moot point.”
“We will confront them both sooner or later.”
“Yeah, and right now we’re bound by the Rules of Wishing. You can make your wish in Indonesia and I’ll be summoned to grant it.”
“I may not have the words. Why are you resisting this?” He seemed genuinely puzzled, which made me want to slap him.
“Because you’re not a rabid dog to be put down, Tennyson, and I make it a personal rule not to execute people who’ve saved my life twice in as many days.”
“It would not be an execution.”
“Bullshit.”
“It would be a mercy.”
His eyes shifted to a brilliant emerald glow, and I hazarded a look. The intensity of his stare sent frozen fingers skating down my spine and turned my resistance to jelly.
“I prefer existence, as does any creature,” he continued, a cold edge to his voice that screeched his mind was made up, no matter what arguments I made. “However, I am old and I have lived many lifetimes over. I no longer fear permanent death. If it prevents a greater tragedy, it is a small sacrifice to make.”
“But your line—”
“Drayden is a powerful Master in his own right. He will be a successful Master of the line.” He paused. Not a muscle twitched, while I was having trouble standing upright. “Why do you resist this course of action?”
“Because it isn’t something that can be undone, Tennyson. What if there’s a chance of rescue or of winning, but because of the way the wish is worded, it’s too late and you’ve already been sacrificed?”
“So be it.”
“Yeah, well, you aren’t the one who’ll be living with the guilt, pal.”
He blinked. “Guilt?”
“Yes, guilt. A sense of responsibility for having done something wrong. You’ve heard of it, yes?”
He seemed truly perplexed by me, and I had to say the feeling was mutual. He shifted his footing, as if a change of posture would help him understand better. “You would be fulfilling the bonds of a wish, nothing more.”
“Nothing more?” I must have been out of my mind with pain and worry, because I grabbed the nearest object—which happened to be the handset for one our cordless landlines—and hit him in the chest with it. Hard. He let me hit him three times before he grabbed my wrist and hit a pressure point. The phone fell from nerveless fingers.
Still furious, I tried to deck him with my left hand, which only rose to waist height before a slash of agony rolled up my forearm
and into my shoulder. Tennyson tugged and spun me around, and I fell back against his chest. Both of his arms went around my waist in a loose, restraining hold.
When under heaven had I started crying again? Every part of me that was djinn rebelled at his touch, at showing such open weakness to a despised vampire. Loathed the very idea of receiving aid and comfort from him. The rest of me was exhausted—mentally and physically—and in dire need of a vacation from the vortex of crazy that my life had become. I wanted a month away from everything except a bright sun, a sandy beach, fruity drinks with umbrellas in them, and Vincent.
Hot, sexy Vincent who looked like a Sugar Daddy pop when he took his shirt off—oh sweet Iblis. I had to rescue Vincent. I had to release Julius. I had to find out what happened to twenty-eight missing werewolves. I had to bargain with a sidhe for a part of myself.
I also had to break down into a puddle and sob until my head exploded like a blister, but that wasn’t happening until I cleared the rest of my To Do List.
“I do not understand your anger, Shiloh.” His voice was in my ear, so soft I thought he’d spoken via telepathy.
“I’m a half-breed,” I said, using the forced words to refocus and calm my hysteria.
“Yes.”
I cleared my throat to remove the rough edge. “Earth djinn are totems of solidarity and strength, and my human half makes me weak when I should be strong. I experience the emotions associated with wishing differently, in that I experience emotion at all. Djinn grant the promised wishes and go about their business. They don’t obsess about the ice patch a man in a yellow Camaro hit, which spun him into a guardrail and life in a wheelchair, because a hateful man wished it so. They don’t fall to pieces when a wisher circumvents a rule with clever language, and the result is a broken, battered woman who didn’t deserve her fate. They don’t feel sick at the idea of causing the death of a man, even if he is a vampire, because it feels like friggin’ assisted suicide.
“They don’t, Tennyson, but I do.”
He didn’t say he was sorry or offer other platitudes. He must have understood, because he said nothing at all. A comfortable silence filled the downstairs, interrupted by the occasional fan burst from K.I.M.’s mainframe. I stood there, letting his sinuous arms bear the bulk of my weight, and concentrated on calming down.
