He stared at me, mouth hanging open like a loose tent flap. “What was that?” Ian half-whispered.
I glanced back. “Poison. He tried to kill himself.”
Ian turned an alarming shade of pale and backed away—almost the same reaction as Tory’s with the other one. I got the impression that the djinn had a thing about suicide, at least the deliberate kind. But Ian didn’t seem to have a problem with one-against-a-hundred kamikaze attacks that basically amounted to suicide. Or asking—make that demanding—a friend to do it for him.
Kit shivered under me. “The fuck you do that for? You ain’t supposed to save me. You’re the enemy.”
“A dead hostage wouldn’t do me any good.” I got him up and turned around before he could see the bluff written on my face like a banner. “You don’t walk, I’ll drag your ass.”
He hesitated. When he started moving again, it was with a lot more reluctance.
We reached the door at the top without further complications. “Okay,” I said. “We’re going out there, and Ian and I are using your mirror. Then we’ll be out of your hair and you can run off, sound the alarm, marshal the troops and all that shit. I’m sure somebody around here can get the cuffs off you.”
Kit laughed. It was a low, desperate sound. “No, you ain’t.”
“What?”
“You ain’t gettin’ through that mirror. You think Father’s stupid? It’s spelled so only we can use it.” He jerked a little, but not enough to pull away. “There ain’t no leavin’ here, ’less you’re dead.”
“We’ll see about that.” Shit. There went phase two of the plan. I’d have to improvise. I kept the gun against him, reached around, and pushed the door open. “Showtime. Stage is yours, kid.”
Kit moved into the room. The other two must’ve come in, because the minute he stepped up, Billy said, “Damn, Kit, you’re just buckin’ for—what the fuck’s goin’ on?”
I pushed in behind him and made room for Ian. Billy already had a hand in his coat. “Uh-uh, Billy,” I said. “Hands up, unless you wanna take a shower in your buddy’s blood. You too Penny.”
They both complied, with identical expressions of shock. Billy kept his eyes on me. Penny, a pretty brunette of sixteen or seventeen with the mound of her belly clearly showing her condition, stared at Ian with quivering lips. “He’s gonna kill us,” she moaned. “He’s gonna eat us, Jesus, Billy, do something!”
“Quiet,” I said, noting with relief that the outside door was closed. We might have a few minutes. “Whatever they said about Ian, it probably isn’t true. Well, most of it. He’s not going to eat anybody.”
A soft thump behind me drew my attention. I glanced around. Ian leaned against the wall by the basement door, staring back at the girl. “Children,” he whispered. “They are all children.”
“Not all of them. There’s at least two generations here, maybe three.”
“Two. Penny’s havin’ the first number three.” Kit let loose another wild laugh. “So how you gettin’ out, genius?”
“I know how,” Billy said quietly.
“Billy, don’t!” Panic shrilled Penny’s voice to a high, breathless whisper. “You can’t help them. They’ll—”
“Hush up, Penny.” Billy hadn’t looked away from me. “I tell you, and you don’t hurt Penny. Neither of you. Deal?”
I nodded. “Deal.”
He flipped a hand back, indicating the table. “Trapdoor under there, goes to the crawl space under the building,” he said. “The snare don’t work there. I got a hollow spot dug out around the back. Lets me sneak a joint now and then.”
“Billy, you slime-dog,” Kit said. “You ain’t never told me that.”
“Well, you know now, don’tcha?” A sardonic smile stretched his lips. “Ain’t much to do ’round here except smoke, and train, and fuck. You prob’ly noticed we do that lots.”
Penny blushed at that and ducked her head.
I bit back a smile of my own. “How do I know you’re not sending us into a trap?”
Billy shrugged. “You don’t.”
I looked at Ian. He nodded once.
“All right. You keep your end, and we’ll keep ours. You first, Ian.”
“Wait.” Billy’s mouth thinned. “Before you go … mess me up like you done Kit. Maybe they think we tangled with you, they’ll let us off easier.”
A small sob escaped Penny, but she didn’t argue. The fact that she understood so quickly made things even worse.
“Okay.” The lump in my throat made it hard to talk. “Ian, can you—”
“I’d rather you done it,” Billy said. He tried to laugh, but fear colored his tone. “No offense to you, uh, Prince, but you might break somethin’ that can’t be fixed.”
Damn it. He did have a point. “Yeah, I’ll take care of it.” It was hard to say. It’d be harder to carry out. “You come here and take this, Ian.” I wiggled the gun, still pointed at Kit. As cooperative as they seemed to be, I wasn’t going to take any chances.
Kit blanched when Ian approached him. He didn’t say a word, but he seemed to almost shrink, like he was a turtle trying to pull into his shell. Ian showed no expression as he took the Sig from me. But I thought I saw something soften in his eyes, just a little.
I walked over to Billy. “Let’s do this.”
“Yeah.” He shivered once. “Don’t look, Penny.”
She closed her eyes. I wished I could afford the same luxury.
The longer I waited, the worse it’d be for both of us. I drove a fist in his gut, doubled him over so he wouldn’t see the other blow coming for his face. My knuckles met the bridge of his nose with a dry snap. I pulled the punch at the last second, but it still dropped him to his knees.
“Motherfucker,” he gasped, and clapped a hand under his nose. Blood leaked from between his fingers, ran out over his mouth. He shook loose and spat a few times. His shoulders heaved. “Goddamn. Think you cracked a rib too.” He raised his head. “Thanks. I guess. Now get the fuck out.”
I nodded, backed up, and held out a hand toward Ian. He pushed the gun into it. “Go on,” I said to him. “I’m right behind you.”
Ian went to the table. He didn’t look at anyone, didn’t smile or frown or speak. He crawled under, found the trapdoor and opened it, slid through in silence.
Once he was out of sight, Kit turned to face me. “Take me with you,” he whispered.
My eyes bugged and tried to pop loose. “What?”
“You could still use a hostage. Take me.” His mouth twitched. “I can’t stand it here. Tell ’em you killed me.”
“Stop it, Kit,” Billy said hoarsely. “You know what happened last time you tried runnin’.”
Kit shuddered and bowed his head. He didn’t ask again.
All the moisture in my mouth and throat evaporated. “I’ll come back,” I said. “Swear to God I will. I have a score to settle with your leaders, and I’m going to get rid of them. One way or another.”
Billy’s hollow laugh echoed Kit’s earlier sentiments. “You can’t. You just a low-gen scrub, same as us. These bastards are gods.”
“Maybe. But I’m a thief, and I’m gonna steal their fire.”
Three sets of eyes regarded me with doubt. “If you say so.” Billy grimaced. “Better shag ass, thief. Somebody’ll be comin’ along soon, and they won’t wanna chat.”
I didn’t bother repeating the promise. I went for the table and climbed down after Ian, pulling the trapdoor shut after me, expecting to immediately hear shouts and pounding feet above. No one up there moved.
“Ian?” I whispered. My vision adjusted quickly to the dark, but I didn’t see him anywhere.
“Over here.” His voice came from a dimmer gray patch near the back of the building—the hollow spot Billy had mentioned. “They were not lying about the snare spell, at least.”
“Good.” I went invisible and made my way over. “We crawl out, you fly us away.”
“With all your newfound abilities, you
cannot fly?”
“No. And I’m real broken up about it too.”
I wanted to imagine him grinning, but the picture wouldn’t form. His smiler was permanently out of order.
Small puffs of dust formed in the air as Ian squirmed his way out. I followed fast, forcing my throat closed so I wouldn’t cough. Outside, I stood and risked a quick glance around. The rows of buildings seemed quiet. No one occupied the immediate area. I didn’t feel any surges of angry power, didn’t hear any alarms or shouts. The kids inside were probably giving us a few minutes to get away.
Or it was a trap. I still couldn’t rule that out.
I found the slight depressions in the dirt that marked Ian’s position. Feeling for him was awkward, but once I made contact I could see him. I threw up a shield around us both. Ian gave me a strange, questioning look, but he didn’t say anything. He turned his back and I held on. Christ, this part always made me feel like an idiot.
Ian tensed and took off. In less than a minute, we cleared the compound fence and headed out over the endless forest. No one came out to stop us.
That sealed it for me. I’d come back and free them. Somehow.
Chapter 26
“Can you get to the monastery?” I shouted over the rushing air.
Ian took a long time replying. “That does not seem wise. We should evade them.”
“I don’t think they’re going to look there, and there’s something I have to check out.” Ian didn’t know about the fire. I had to hope they wouldn’t expect us to head somewhere so obvious. At least not right away. I suspected they’d try there eventually, though. All of them were smarter than the average Morai.
I caught myself thinking in generalizations and stopped. That was a bad idea. Besides the turning-into-snakes part, I couldn’t assume I knew anything about any of them—the full-bloods or the scions. They were individuals, just like people.
Aside from deciding where to land, neither of us tried to chat in-flight. I knew I’d have to talk to him soon, and the conversation wouldn’t be easy or pleasant. But that could wait until we weren’t rushing along five hundred feet from the ground—which was something I was trying really hard not to look at. I watched the sky for a while. It was gray and overcast, deepening to almost black in a few spots, the thick kind of cloud cover that made it impossible to tell where the sun hid. I’d lost track of time so completely that even if the sun was out, I wouldn’t know whether it was late morning, afternoon, or early evening. I was on survival time now. Every minute I didn’t die stretched to five or ten on the flip side.
I smelled the monastery before it came into view, an uneasy blend of charred wood, spent magic, and death. Ian stiffened beneath me, giving me momentary flashbacks of our unplanned skydive before I realized he’d caught the scent too. “They burned it down,” I said. I didn’t bother explaining who “they” were. It’d be hard enough convincing him that it hadn’t been Calvin beating the shit out of him for the last two days.
He relaxed a fraction. Soon enough, the remains of the place were visible. Calvin had been right about the fire not burning farther than the building. In fact, it didn’t even look like any of the ground outside what used to be walls had been scorched. The pile of blackened rubble remained a perfect square. The stone wall bordering the grounds, and the statue of St. Jude, were untouched. At least the bodies of the three scions I’d shot were gone.
I leaned closer to Ian. “Can you take us down at the back, where that phone booth is?”
He didn’t say anything, but we dropped lower and came in where I asked. I slid from him with a familiar swell of gratitude for solid ground under my feet.
Ian staggered a few steps and sat down abruptly, his back to me.
I stood there, torn between investigating my hunch and talking to him. Everything in his body language said fuck off—slumped shoulders, bowed head, arms tucked in defensively. But we wouldn’t be able to stay in one place for long until this whole mess was settled one way or another. And there were things he had to know, even if he refused to believe them.
I circled him and sat on the ground facing him. “Are you still hurt? Physically, I mean.”
“Tired.”
“Yeah, me too.” I sighed and fidgeted. Where should I start? “Look, Ian. I have to tell you—”
“The children let us go.”
He spoke with horrified discovery, like he’d just waded into the ocean for the first time and found it full of blood instead of water. Whatever I felt, it had to be infinitely worse for him. He’d spent a thousand years hating the Morai, killing them, and it wasn’t all because of the curse. He wanted them wiped out.
“They fear me.” His body curled in tighter. “Children. I would never …”
“It’s a cult,” I said. “They’re brainwashed, at least the older ones. But I don’t think it’s taking so well for these younger guys. Ian, they’ve grown up hearing stories about you. Lies. Or at least embellishments. They can’t help it.”
He shuddered. “They are too strong. I have failed … everyone.”
“We’re not done yet.”
Ian lifted his head. He didn’t speak, but his eyes said everything. He was done, even if I wasn’t. He had no fight left in him. If I couldn’t get him to care, I’d be on my own.
“Don’t you want to know how I learned all this weird shit?”
He blinked. “Yes.”
“Calvin taught me.”
“You …” For an instant life flashed into his features. He went slack again fast. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“Because it’s the truth.” Once I started, the words wouldn’t stop. “He has a twin sister. She looks exactly like him. Sounds just like him too. Her name is Vaelyn, and she’s batshit nuts. She’s the one who’s been working you over. See, she’s coming into her cycle, she knows you’re already fertile, and she wants a djinn baby. Calvin knows a spell that temporarily restores a djinn’s reproduction, for three days. That’s how they got these scions.”
Ian held up a hand. A cautious interest crept into his expression. “Slow down, thief.” He frowned. “This still does not make sense. A female could not have produced these descendants and become fertile again so soon.”
“They’re not hers,” I said. “The twins have a brother. He’s the one those kids keep calling Father, even though he’s not. Their father, I mean. He’s their grandfather, or something. He impregnated a bunch of human women, and had his spawn breed again when they got older. Now they’re working on generation three.”
“There are three djinn?”
“Yes, but Calvin isn’t on their side.” I hope. “He was with me, trying to teach me how to use my power, and they came for him. He helped me get away.”
Ian shook his head. “I am trying, thief. But I cannot believe a Morai would help anyone associated with me. And what could he possibly know of your abilities?”
“Earth magic.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s been studying this realm for two thousand years. He said the human sorcerers died out, but the magic is still here. I can use it.” I pressed a palm to the ground and felt the warmth bleed through me. “I think I have to be in contact with the earth somehow. But it doesn’t hurt to use, like djinn magic does.”
“Of course,” Ian whispered. “If there is magic native to your realm, you should be able to use it as we can our own in the djinn realm.”
“Right. Only problem is, I have no idea what I can do. It’s not exactly common for humans to wander around using magic. You guys all grew up with it.”
Ian sat up straighter. “How did you get to me?”
“I used the ground, the same way you use mirrors. Only it’s backward. There has to be blood on the other end to guide me, instead of me providing it on this end.” I glanced away. “Plenty of your blood on the floor back there.”
“Hmm.” A pained look crossed his face, and he fell silent and retreated into himself again.
“Ian,” I said
. “There’s something else you need to know.”
“I suspect I will not wish to hear it.”
“Yeah. You won’t.” I traced a finger idly through dirt. I hated to mention anything associated with Akila, but there was no getting around it. “Your fertility isn’t the only reason these assholes wanted you. The brother is working for Kemosiri.”
Ian jerked stiff and went deathly pale. His eyes flared wide. For a minute I thought he’d pass out. Finally, he let out a breath and slumped on the spot. “Perhaps I should save him the trouble and present myself to Kemosiri,” he said. “I have no reason to fight him any longer.”
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. To assure him that he had something to live for, a purpose in being here. But anything I said would’ve came out awkward and meaningless. I couldn’t even point out that nothing would have changed what happened, because I knew he’d find in hindsight a hundred things he failed to do, that he never could’ve guessed needed to be done. I’d torture myself the same way if anything happened to Jazz. And I’d never stop.
I leaned back and stared at the threatening sky. Above the clearing that held the remains of the monastery, a lone bird flew in looping circles, catching air currents and banking with graceful ease. It completed a circle and wobbled. Then dropped a few feet.
The bird steadied, made a tight loop, and dove straight for us.
My jaw fell in my lap. “Ian,” I said. “Did I mention that Tory escaped?”
He favored me with a bleak stare. “No.”
“Incoming.” I pointed.
The bird—definitely a hawk, a big one—was fifty feet away now, and shuddering like a plane with a blown engine. It gave a few feeble flaps of its wings, failed to straighten out, and hit the ground rolling. It glowed when it stopped, the shape of it swelling and forming arms, legs, torso, head.
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