by Shéa MacLeod
“After dinner at your mother’s.”
“Yeah. After that.” Oh, the joy. It wasn’t that I didn’t love my mother, but she did like to get rather over involved in my life. Exibit A: That godsawful accountant she’d sent me on a blind date with. Ugh.
A deer darted in front of my car, nearly sending my heart thumping out of my chest.
Calm down, love. My reflexes are faster than that. Inigo’s mind caressed mine. His energy was so soothing I wanted to melt. Sometimes there were benefits to having a boyfriend who was half dragon.
“Either stop that or pull this car over.” I was practically squirming in my seat as he continued sending tendrils of warmth through my body.
“Why’s that?” His voice was oh, so innocent, but his blue eyes sparkled with wickedness behind the lenses of his glasses. Gods, I loved him in those nerdy classes. Talk about sexy.
“Pull over. Now.”
“If I pull over we’ll be late to your mother’s for dinner,” he said, his tone oh so logical. But his mind never stopped playing with mine. In a really good way.
“I don’t fucking care.”
A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He pulled over.
***
“You’re late. Dinner is practically ice cubes.” My mother was the picture of genteel outrage.
“And hello to you, mother.” I kissed her on the cheek, breathing in the scent of her. She always smelled like cookies for some reason.
“Is everything okay, sweetie?” I heard the worry in her tone and felt a stab of guilt. She worried too much.
“Everything is fine, mom. Just, you know, snow on the mountain passes. Inigo was being careful.”
“Such a good boy.” She wrapped him in a hug. “I always know my Morgan is safe with you.”
I had no idea what he’d done to charm her, but my mother had adored Inigo from the get go. Not something I can say about most of my past boyfriends. I can’t even imagine what she’d have had to say about Jack. The very thought gave me brain freeze.
While Inigo continued his charm offensive, I snuck off to the bathroom to ring Eddie. He picked up on the third ring.
“Majicks and Potions, Eddie speaking.” His voice was filled with warmth and good humor.
“Hey, Eddie.”
“Morgan,” his voice took on an edge of concern. “How are you? We haven’t been able to speak since that ghastly incident at the club. Cordelia told me all about it. Shocking.”
“I’m fine, Eddie. I just need to have a chat with you about this new case I’m on. Will you be around later tonight?”
“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. Usually I would, but I was invited to attend a Steampunk convention after-party.”
“A what?”
He chortled. “Steampunk. Surely you’re not that out of the loop, Morgan. You practically dress the part, after all.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. He might as well have been speaking Chinese. Or sports. “I know what Steampunk is.” Of course I did. Victorian era sci-fi, more or less. Someone once described it as Hot Topic meets a BBC Costume drama. I just didn’t know what the heck a Steampunk party was. “Eddie, this is important. Please.”
“Very well. Why don’t you come by the party later? It’ll go into the small hours. I’m sure we can find a place to chat. I’ll leave your name with the bouncer.”
Eddie was going to a party that needed a bouncer? “Sounds great.”
He quickly gave me the address. Before he hung up he said, “Oh, and Morgan. Wear your hunting boots. And a corset.”
I stared at the phone with my mouth hanging open.
***
The party turned out to be in one of the huge multi-million dollar houses in the West Hills. The kind that was supposed to look like it came straight out of a fairytale, with diamond paned windows and fake turrets. Usually they just looked tacky, but someone had made sure they got the specs on this one right. I’d have been hard put to distinguish it from a real Tudor back in England.
There was an honest-to-gods bouncer on the door. Just like it was a freaking nightclub or something. Except the bouncer’s muscular frame had been crammed into black leather trousers and a sleeveless leather vest that were both way too tight. Over it he wore what looked like an antique military jacket of some kind. I had to admit it was kind of sexy.
“Invitations.” His voice was low and growly and just as sexy as his outfit. It was also not entirely human.
“We’re here to meet Eddie Mulligan.”
“Name.”
Not a talkative kind of guy then. “Morgan Bailey. This is … ” I started to give him Inigo’s name, but the bouncer cut me off.
“Go on in.” He stepped back and let us through the door.
Inside a girl waited to take our coats. She was pretty and petite and wearing a crimson hoopskirt and matching bustier. I decided to just go with it.
Inigo gave me a wolf whistle as I shrugged my coat off. I’d taken Eddie’s advice and donned a corset with my jeans and steampunk-style hunting boots. I don’t wear a corset often, but I have to admit I love them. They sort of nipped a girl in and pushed her out in all the right places. And frankly, they made my boobs look awesome. Something Inigo had clearly noticed.
“Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself.”
And he wasn’t. Oh, boy, he wasn’t. I’d half a mind to drag his ass out the door and back home. Screw the case.
He was wearing an ordinary pair of jeans and a white shirt, but over the top he’d thrown a gorgeous black embroidered waistcoat that would have made Beau Brummel drool. He’d topped that off with a long, black duster a la Wyatt Earp. The whole outfit on his well-toned physique was seriously scrumptious.
His eyes twinkled golden. His dragon half was close to the surface and it liked that it was turning me on. I stepped closer, my lips inches away from his, and trailed my fingers along his right hip. The hip that bore such a uniquely beautiful birthmark. A birthmark he’d been surprisingly self-conscious about until I’d shown him just how beautiful I thought it was.
“Come on, sexy beast,” I whispered. “Let’s do what we came to do and get the hell out of Dodge.”
Blue flashed back through his eyes. “You got it, baby.” He nodded toward the room down the hall where the party was obviously taking place. I could hear what sounded like a twangy version of Evanescence. “Let’s go see what Eddie’s up to.”
What Eddie was up to was flirting with a group of women wearing brass goggles and not much else. I’d no idea he was such a lady-killer. Go Eddie.
“Morgan! Inigo! Come! Ladies, I would like you to meet my lovely friends, Morgan Bailey and Inigo Jones.”
He rattled off the women’s names, but I hardly noticed. I was too busy watching what was going on around me. It was like the Mad Hatter’s tea party got thrown in a blender with a BBC costume drama and the cast of Blade. Holy crap, some guy in a bowler hat was riding a velocipede around the living room.
The women around Eddie were giving Inigo the eyeball. Couldn’t say I blamed them. He was pretty tasty. Fortunately for them, I wasn’t really the jealous type. I knew damned well he was going home with me. They could flirt to their hearts’ content for all the good it would do them.
I made to follow Eddie out of the room, but just before I did, I turned around and winked at the group of women. I couldn’t help myself. I’m pretty sure the devil made me do it. In any case, they all looked just a little bit nervous. Points to me.
Eddie wended his way through a group of people dressed like they were ready to board a pirate ship. One of them saluted us rather drunkenly with his sword and babbled about an airship raid later, and did we want to join? I politely declined.
We ended up in the pantry off the kitchen. Fortunately it was a big pantry. How on earth in a house the size of Texas was the pantry the only quiet place?
“What do you think of the party? Isn’t it wonderful?”
“It’s … quite a party.” I still wasn’t sure
whether the party-goers were insane, or genius. In any case, their outfits were to die for. “Listen, Eddie. I really need your help. Something weird is going on.”
His eyebrows raised at that, disappearing under the brim of his top hat. He looked rather fetching in his turn-of-the-century penguin suit. “As opposed to the usual non-weird stuff that goes on?”
I laughed. “Fair point.”
“Tell me.”
So, I told him about the amulet glowing and channelling wind. I described the creature I’d seen kill Agent Vega.
“Wait, stop there. How did the creature actually kill Vega?”
I shrugged. “I’m not really sure, but it looked like it sucked his soul right out of his body. That’s crazy, right?”
Eddie yanked off his glasses, polished them, and popped them back on. He looked worried. I didn’t like that my usually cheerful go-to-guy looked worried. It so wasn’t a good sign.
“I’m afraid it’s not crazy at all, my dear Morgan. I’m afraid what you’re dealing with is a djinni.”
Chapter Eight
“What, do you mean, djinni? Like a genie? Like Aladdin or something?” I couldn’t help the incredulity. The image of a giant blue Robin Williams sucking the life out of somebody was just way over the edge.
Eddie’s usually cherubic face was grim. “Oh, no. Nothing so Disney as all that. Yes, that’s where the story came from, but the djinn are nothing so fluffy.”
“Okay, so what are they?”
He leaned back against the wall and pondered for a moment. “Well, first off it’s unusual, to say the least, to find one in the Oregon high desert. They tend to stick to their home turf.”
“Which is?”
“The Middle East. Parts of Africa. That’s not to say they don’t exist elsewhere, it’s just not common. Though the Oregon high desert could be dry enough for them, and they like remote places.”
“Okay, so what are they, if not genies?”
Eddie shook his head slightly. “That’s the thing, no one really knows. They’re shrouded in so much mystery. What we do know is that the djinn can temporarily take the form of a human or animal. But they live on another plane of existence most of the time, which is why normal humans can’t see them.”
And I, as everyone knew, was no longer anywhere near a “normal” human. Dammit. Could things get any worse?
“Sorceresses, magicians and the like have been known to trap a djinni and use it to perform some truly amazing feats of magic,” Eddie continued, “but they — the magician or whatnot — have to be extremely powerful.”
Something clicked over in my head. “Would a sidhe be powerful enough to trap a djinni and use it?”
Eddie frowned and tugged at his lower lip. I couldn’t help myself, I reached out and straightened his top hat which had gone wonky. He gave me a distracted smile.
“I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “I wouldn’t have thought so. The sidhe are powerful, but they are earth and water to the djinn fire and air. Well, technically the efreet class of djinn are the fire creatures, but that’s not the point. The point is that the sidhe and the djinn would no doubt cancel each other out.”
“What about the Fairy Queen?” There. I said it. No going back.
“Oh, she could trap a low-level djinni, no doubt, but that would start a war with the Marid.”
“The Marid?” Gods, it was like trying to speak Chinese or something. I felt like I was swimming in circles with no idea what was going on.
“The most powerful of all the djinn. They would not take kindly to such a thing. And a war between the Marid and the Fairy Queen would not be pretty.”
That I could believe. Still, my amulet had glowed when I saw the djinni kill Daniel Vega. That meant sidhe magic. “So, who else could control a djinni, if not the sidhe?”
“I honestly don’t know, Morgan. As far as I know, there aren’t any magi or sorcerers in the area strong enough to entrap a djinni.”
“What about clever enough?” More often than not, sheer craftiness works where brute strength fails. I should know.
Eddie shook his head. “They could trap a djinni, but without the power, they couldn’t hold it for long. Certainly not long enough to kill someone with it.”
Shit. Well, there went that theory.
“And a djinni wouldn’t kill Vega on its own?”
“I wouldn’t think so, no,” Eddie said. “Not unless Vega had offended the creature in some way. But then the djinni wouldn’t have sucked Vega’s soul like that. He would have tortured the man and then killed him. The soul feeding was very specific.”
“So, we’re looking for someone with enough cleverness to trap a djinni, and enough power to hold it and use it to kill Vega. Someone who is not a sidhe.”
Eddie sighed. “That would be my best guess, yes. Though, of course, I could be wrong. There is much that isn’t known about the sidhe.”
Fabulous. “Okay, one more thing.” I told him about the weird wind channelling back at the funeral home. About the new thing I’d felt inside me where the Darkness and the Fire lived.
“My dear, I don’t want to alarm you.” Eddie reached out and took my hand, giving it a little squeeze.
“Too late.”
He smiled. “It sounds like you’re channelling Air now.”
“As in the element of?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “The ancients often referred to Air as Smoke.”
“So, I’m Kissing Smoke now, too.” Panic coursed through me. That’s all I needed. Another freaky superpower to add to the growing list. “Eddie, why is this happening to me?”
His eyes were kind, and a little sad. “I don’t know my dear. But I promise, if there is any way humanly possible to find out, I will do it.”
I believed him. Eddie hadn’t let me down yet.
“Now I should get back to the party before people start wondering what we’re doing in here.” His eyes glimmered with laughter.
I winked at him. “Just tell them I had my wicked way with you.”
He laughed all the way back.
***
Inigo had wanted to stay the night at my place, but I needed time alone. Time to think. There was just too much going on in my head, and I was too used to handling this shit on my own.
I was nearly ready for bed, makeup washed off, silk pajamas on, when I heard something. A slight “thunk” in the backyard. I froze, every molecule of my being focused on that noise.
I couldn’t hear anything, but something told me all was not right in my world. Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes and reached down for the Darkness. It raised its head, slowly, almost reluctantly. I beckoned it forward.
It tried to surge then, but I held on relentlessly, only allowing a small tendril to snake out of me and ooze its way along the floor and up and through the window. Though a long dark tunnel I could see my backyard, the grass dry and dead now that winter was in full swing. A tree moved slightly in the night breeze, bare branches making a rustling sound. Nope, that wasn’t it.
The Darkness oozed through the yard, taking my vision with it. It crept around the corner to the side gate. There it was. A human-shaped shadow.
The Darkness tested the shadow, eager for prey. The back of my skull suddenly felt like it was being squeezed in a vice grip. I knew instantly what the shadow was: Vampire.
What the hell was a vampire doing in my backyard? Granted this wasn’t the first time, but Inigo and I had sent a pretty good message to the local clans when we wasted a good dozen of the bloodsuckers a few months ago.
The Darkness wanted out. It wanted to torture and kill. But if there was one thing I’d learned, letting the Darkness kill was a good way to let it take me over. And that, I would not allow to happen. I reeled it back in, fighting it all the way.
Once it was safely tucked away inside me, I focused on prep. I was in my freaking pajamas, for crying out loud, but I didn’t have time to change. I needed to get to that vamp and find out why it was there so I could
dust the thing.
I yanked on the steampunky boots I’d been wearing at the party and then grabbed the nearest coat-like object I could find. It just happened to be my slinky silk robe. Dammit all to hell and back.
I didn’t have time to find anything else. I snatched up the nearest weapon and hit the door running. Fortunately the nearest weapon just happened to be a really awesome dao I’d bought from Tesselah for my “happy birthday to me” present.
My cell hummed against the bedside table. I wondered vaguely who the hell was calling so late at night, but I ignored it and headed for the backyard. I was on the hunt.
I let a tiny trickle of the Darkness back out to play, just enough so that my vision turned the dark backyard bright as day. My booted feet crunched slightly against the dead, icy grass. Damn, it was cold.
The vamp had made it around the corner and was headed for my backdoor. He froze when he saw me, then whirled and ran.
So, we were going to play, were we? Excellent. A smirk crossed my lips and I wasn’t entirely sure if it was me or the Darkness. At that moment, I didn’t much care.
I gave up all pretence at silence and let my boots pound out a staccato on the pavement as we hit the sidewalk. The vamp was running hell-bent for leather, but I was right on his ass. I could have caught him, but honestly, I needed to work out some frustration.
Fortunately it was gone one in the morning and the neighbors were sound asleep. I couldn’t imagine what they’d think if they saw me running down the street wearing nothing but boots and silk pajamas and carrying a Chinese saber. Hoo, boy. I’d never explain that one to the cops.
The vamp turned a corner and dashed down a street which dead-ended at a parking lot. He was headed into the park. He apparently thought he’d lose me among the trees.
In a single bound, he cleared the gate blocking off the park entrance. Granted, that sounded impressive, but the gate was only waist high. I followed him with ease, though being shorter I had to brace myself with my left hand to clear the fence.
In a flash, he’d disappeared in the deep shadows of the heavy trees. Fortunately my special Hunter Spidey-senses were working fine. I could still feel that vice at the base of my skull and I could still “smell” him with that weird psychic thing I seemed to have when it came to vamps.
