“Okay. You have something I can use to latch on?”
Alex nodded and held out a bit of filthy cloth. “Piece of his t-shirt. Sorry about the smell.”
Tarian coughed as the stench of filth, vomit and decay reached her nose. “Damn, Alex. You don’t have anything else?” She held the fabric by the barest possible amount of forefinger and thumb, away from her nose.
“Nah, that’s all Darryl managed to grab in the struggle. Darryl tried to hold him, but this guy is a wiggly bastard.”
“Darryl just doesn’t have the right equipment for the job.” Tarian grinned and thrust out her chest.
“And just what job requires you to wear a towel, Tarian?”
Her mother’s voice behind her made her jump. Tarian closed her fist around the rancid piece of cloth and turned to face her mother, putting her hand behind her.
“Catch ya, chica.” Alex waved, bobbed his head to her mother, and left as fast as his boots would take him back down the hallway. Coward.
“Mother. Lovely meeting.” Tarian nodded at the men and women still milling about in the Receiving Hall. Serving staff scurried in and around them, offering beverages and fruit.
Marielle smiled, but it didn’t lighten her eyes. “Yes, it was.”
Tarian stood up straighter and pushed her shoulders back as she looked at her mother. They were the same height, but there the resemblance stopped. Marielle was a refined, blonde, put-together woman who dressed in beautiful dresses and suits. Tarian usually wore tank tops and jeans and would rather be barefoot. Her black hair would never stick up in a bun the way her mother’s did. Her blue eyes would never have the depth her mother’s brown ones held. Her face would never wear the mantle of leadership so well. How the woman still had no grey hairs, Tarian couldn’t fathom. Just dealing with the day to day problems would turn anyone’s hair gray.
But not Marielle’s. She was the very picture of what a leader should be.
Tarian was not. Simple as that. She knew it. Her mother knew it. The people in the meeting knew it. Shame she came to the title by birth and not by merit. Stupid rule, really, to require someone to carry Xannon blood in order to inherit the magic of the Dolphin Throne.
“Anything I should know?” Tarian cleared her throat, and pretended to not be wearing a towel and ignored the puddle forming around her feet.
“Yes. Many things.” Marielle closed her eyes and sighed. Her lips moved as though she counted to ten. Twice. When she opened them, the deep brown captivated Tarian, as it always did. Her mother exuded a presence that could not be denied, even when not using any of her magic. “The leaders are concerned you do not take your responsibilities seriously.”
Tarian shrugged, wishing it would ease the tension in her shoulders. “I take plenty of things seriously. They just don’t appreciate where I choose to focus my attention.”
“They hold power of their own, Tarian. And everyone, no matter where they fall in Society, deserves respect. Showing up late, or not at all, shows them how little you value their presence.”
“I got the time wrong. It wasn’t personal.”
“At some point, you’ll learn that everything you do and say is personal to someone else. They might not mean much to you right now, but you mean a great deal to them. And everything has consequences. Every action causes a reaction. Even something as simple as coming to a meeting late. Or not at all.”
“I need to get dressed.” Tarian turned, hoping her mother would let the subject drop. They’d never see eye to eye. Never.
“I know you want to make a difference in the world around you, Tarian. I know you want to use your skills in the manner you think most advantageous. But consider this.” Marielle put a soft hand on Tarian’s shoulder. She might as well have bolted her to the floor. “With your strength and power, not to mention your position, comes a duty to do what is right by everyone, not just yourself. You’re not a child, and I need…”
Tarian shook her shoulder free of her mother’s grasp and turned. “No, I’m not. Yet you insist on treating me like one. Just for one moment of one day I’d love to experience life as it’s meant to be lived. To do something meaningful. Not waste away in these meetings, meeting tedious people I’ll never understand and who don’t like me or want me around. I want a different path, mother. Why is that so difficult to understand?”
“I understand it, Tarian. More than you’re willing to admit. I followed this path before you, and I know what sacrifices are required. But I also know the rewards. Rewards you refuse to see, though they are right in front of your face. If you just looked at it from my perspective, you’d see what I see. Things worth fighting for. Things more worthy of attention than some drunk petty criminal.” Marielle took a breath and let it out slowly. “It’s a waste of your time, and dangerous, to chase after such people when we have guards whose job it is to see to those types of things.”
Tarian’s fist tightened on the cloth. “He wouldn’t have asked if it weren’t important, Mother. It’s easy for me. And it’s Philadelphia, not the gates of hell. Plus it gets me out of this house. What’s so wrong about that? I’ll be back in time for the next meeting.”
Marielle arched an eyebrow. “Don’t make a promise you don’t intend to keep.”
Tarian walked down the hallway. This time her mother didn’t stop her. She’d make her easy snatch and grab, haul the guy to the Cellar and dump him on Alex. Then she’d go to the damn meeting.
Unless something more interesting presented itself.
Chapter 3
Tarian stood in the shadows of a grime covered alley and took a long deep breath—and grinned. Philadelphia wore its own special brand of perfume created by garbage, sweat, grime, hot dogs, exhaust, coffee beans, fried food and unidentifiable bits of filth. It all combined and infiltrated her nostrils in a full-on frontal assault sure to take down the weak. It certainly wasn’t the floral infused sea breeze she was used to. She wrinkled her nose. Compared to that, the city was an ocean of stench. But she still loved it. Nothing wrong with a little grit. It made her feel alive in a way the ocean didn’t quite manage.
She waited next to her favorite coffee shop, staring out at a street lined with bars, cafes, suits and homeless. None of the people passing by had active magic talent, and they didn’t even glance in her direction. None of them was the one she hunted. She leaned against the brick wall and folded her arms.
It should be an easy day, no matter what her mother thought. The one she waited for would stand out among normal people, at least to her. Tarian closed her eyes and wrinkled her nose again as she pulled from the inner power that allowed her to sense someone’s magic as it drifted on the air like radio waves, or a special scent that only her nose could detect. The tiny hairs in her nose vibrated and tickled, but she resisted the urge to rub. Her tracking ability never erred, and right now it told her that her prey was only a couple of blocks away, although he was taking his sweet time. She took another deep breath to focus her power in case she needed it for defense as well as tracking.
A few minutes more, and her target would be here. All she had to do was be patient. Easy snatch and grab. She’d be home in time for the next meeting, as promised. She comforted herself with the idea of getting a PJs coffee to take to the meeting. If she was going to sit through one, she might as well be caffeinated.
“Hey, babe, lookin’ for a good time?”
The low voice behind her made her nearly growl in frustration. Distraction didn't help when she was trying to focus magic. She turned to see a preying-mantis of a man leering at her. He hadn’t been there a minute ago. No magical signature, so she hadn’t sensed his approach.
“Oh sure, it’s always been my dream to do it in an alley. Beat it, moron.”
“I got whatcha need right here.” His hand grasped his junk and wiggled.
“I like men who understand the concept of showering. Get lost.” Her gaze moved on to another man, one passing by on the sidewalk. Shit. Her target, Mark Chester. He saunt
ered past, bumped into a garbage can, fell into the street, picked himself up and lurched forward to the other sidewalk.
Adrenaline kicked into gear, rushed blood to her muscles and edged her forward. She shoved past the leering man, who let out a growl of frustration and called her a name that would have horrified her mother. The smelly bum grabbed her arm from behind and spun her around.
“You comin’ with me. You got business with my man.” He held a knife in one hand, and his eyes were filled with cold certainty that she’d do exactly as he said. But the way he held the knife marked him as an amateur. He’d never do real damage with it sideways like that, even if he managed to get close enough to try. He’d watched too many movies.
She took in a slow breath and with the exhale pushed a small shield wall of air solidified by magic at him. To him it’d feel as though a giant hand shoved him backward. To an onlooker, it would look like he tripped. She used just enough to scare him, but not enough for any real drain on her resources. She didn’t want to waste energy on this loser. He dropped the knife, his grip on her arm loosened, and his eyes widened in shock as he felt the invisible force push his arms away from her. She put her hands on his shoulders and added her body weight to force him back into the alley until she pinned him to a wall, then tied a neat cage around him with strands of air like a spider catching a fly in a web. He didn’t fight back, although his hands flapped in the air.
“Hey, they didn’t say you could do it too.” His protest came out in a squeak. So much for the tough-guy routine.
She tied off the stream, using the man’s own residual energy to power it. Everybody had magic energy, even in Philly, but most people couldn’t tap into it. Thankfully.
She was rewarded for the effort with a loud growl of protest from her stomach. It took more energy to tie off a stream like that, but it was worth it. A few extra calories at lunch would replace it, and in the meantime she’d be able to release her focus on this guy and go do something more important without worrying about him sneaking up behind her. The whole thing would dissolve on its own over a few hours. Long enough to keep him out of her way, but short enough so he wouldn’t starve to death.
She thought back to the few words he’d said. Someone had told him she’d be here and sent him to—what, exactly? Trap her? Take her hostage? Had they lost their minds?
“Who’s ‘they’?” She folded her arms across her chest. The man’s eyes glazed over, then his head dropped as if consciousness had been drained out of him by a siphon. He dangled against her web, a limp dishrag, hanging by invisible threads. Confused, she checked it for anything that might have choked him.
“He isss nothing.” The slurred voice behind her tied her stomach instantly into small knots. She spun around to confront the owner. He stood in a fighting stance with feet shoulder width apart, slightly taller than her, blonde and covered in greenish gray scales on his face, neck and hands. What the hell was he, and how the hell had he managed to sneak up on her? She should have sensed him coming. She gathered focus and pushed another shield out to hold him down. He flicked a wrist and the shield vanished. Shocked, she tried another. He deflected it again.
Her heart thumped hard against her chest. She tried a third shield, this time wrapping it around herself. It held, but she wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t just ignored it.
“And who are you? Or should I say what?” Keep him talking. She could figure out what to do if he kept talking long enough. She forced herself to take a deep breath.
The lizard man licked his lips, then flicked his hand. Behind her she heard a gasp, then silence. She didn’t bother to turn around.
“Who are you?” She kept her legs loose and her fingers flexed, ready to gather up the water molecules in the air and throw them at this…thing.
“You have something I need.” The voice was low and oddly seductive.
“What would that be?” Energy pooled between her breasts and pulsed. Her heart rate matched it, beat for beat, and the tiny hairs on her skin stood at attention. She didn’t like the dip in her power caused by the shields she’d just created, but she still had enough to put up one hell of a fight.
The man-lizard hissed. Liquid dripped down the scales on his face. His hands—claws—darted out and slashed her on the arm before she could dodge. The claw sliced through her shield, her leather jacket, and flesh as though she were made of thin paper, rather than flesh and blood. The gash left behind rained blood down her arm and onto the pavement. She gasped as the pain hit her, sharp and hot, like a needle. Or poison. No telling what he had in those claws.
His tongue snaked out over his lips, and then he brought the claw up to it, letting it drip her blood onto the slimy thing. Her stomach churned as she watched. The scales on his face hid expressions from her, but she saw triumph gleam in his eyes.
Chapter 4
Tarian gathered every spark of energy she could manage in order to pull molecules of water from the air. When they coalesced around her as tiny shimmering water-diamonds, she formed them into a basketball sized bundle of blue water and flung it with one push at the lizard-man. He held up both clawed hands in front of him, and pulsed a column of reddish brown energy. The two forces met, beat for beat, in a tangle of blue and red, dirt and water. In the back of her mind it registered that he commanded a blend of fire and earth, while she favored water and air. They were exact opposites.
The two of them squared off around the center of the alley, the power between them balanced. Dirt met water, created mud, and dropped with wet splats onto the filthy pavement. Bricks around them sparkled as the grime fed the lizard-man’s assault, while her own water based stream drenched his suit, hair, and glistened off his scales. Power cracked and sparked as though their own personal thunderstorm unleashed. The noise bounced off the old brick around them in an assault on the ears, which she hoped would blend with traffic noise outside the alley.
She wasn’t ready for a magic fight on the streets of a regular city, and she had no idea what sort of talent this lizard-man possessed beyond the obvious basics. Shields wouldn’t hold him, for starters. He was as strong in focus as she was, though he didn’t seem to possess ability over a third element like she did. Not that it did her any good, since her ability with fire was fairly weak, especially compared to his. He looked to be a physical match for her, if it came to that.
If it hadn’t been Philly, someone might have called the cops at the noise they made or the odd scene they created. But in a city like Philadelphia, people maintained their distance, and nobody gave them a second glance.
The loud crunch of metal grinding on metal shattered the air and their concentration. She sensed the lizard man’s hold on the moment weaken, and seized the opportunity to push all of her energy into a blended ball of air based lightning with water, a miniature thunderstorm, which she pulsed outward, aimed right for his head. The lizard-man flicked a look behind her, then dissolved into red mist and black dust just before the energy exploded. A shower of blue sparks rained down and blended with the red to create muddy, brackish puddles on cracked concrete.
Tarian sucked in a sharp breath, then held it while she stared at the spot. One good thing about a fight like that: his particular magical scent embedded itself in her psyche. He’d never sneak up on her again. She opened all her senses to test for his magic in the air. Nothing. She let the breath out in a long, heavy sigh, but she didn’t release her focus.
She waited for a few moments, trying to calm her racing heart with deep breaths that refused to do the job properly. He had her blood. Not good. He might just like the taste of it, but somehow she doubted that. He wanted it for something. She shuddered as a chill raced through her core. Her arm throbbed. A hard, cold knot moved up and down the wound as though looking for a way out, or a way to burrow deeper, like the seed of something evil seeking a place to get comfortable. She tried to track the source, but as it left her body it vanished as if it had never been, scattered on air that for once betrayed her.
&nb
sp; Tarian put a hand over the wound and applied pressure to stop the bleeding as she thought for a moment. If she couldn’t track that lizard-thing by his signature, she should be able to track her own blood. She sent feelers out but met a solid wall of nothing. She tried again. Pain slammed into her skull and fire burned in her nose, but she found no trace of her blood or the lizard-man. She’d never met someone she couldn’t track before.
She turned to check on the stinky bum. His body had vanished, along with her web. Her instincts screamed. The man was gone, the lizard was gone, her arm was on fire, her blood was on his claws and she couldn’t track him. He had looked like an old-style demon out of a horror novel, with scales and everything. She looked at the tear on her jacket, now soaked in blood. The cut pulsed.
Tarian took off her jacket and focused her magic on the wound in an attempt to heal it, but after a couple of minutes had to admit it: she sucked at healing. Even if she hadn’t just spent a lot of energy fighting the demon, she couldn’t have managed to heal this. When she tried to handle something as delicate as skin, she felt clumsy and awkward. The headache wasn’t helping, either. The best she was able to manage was a loose scab that she wasn’t entirely sure wouldn’t have formed on its own in a few more minutes. She surveyed the damage. It was angry and in-your-face, and it hurt like hell, but at least she’d managed to make it stop bleeding.
She put the jacket back on and winced as the stiff leather brushed against the wound. The torn section stuck out at odd angles. She tucked it in so the rip was less obvious, then searched the alley for any piece of debris the lizard man might have touched. If she couldn’t track her own blood, for whatever reason, maybe she could use something he’d touched to help solidify her focus. She found nothing, not even a button or a scale.
“Lose something?”
A man stood on the sidewalk, surveying the alley. A strong magical signature, cool as an ocean breeze, emanated from him, plus a whiff of some sort of spice. She tested the air, ready to throw every ounce of magic at him that she could muster, which wasn’t much at the moment. She relaxed as she realized he wasn’t attempting to focus power of any sort. Satisfied that he wasn’t an immediate threat, she took a good look at him.
Demons & Djinn: Nine Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Novels Featuring Demons, Djinn, and other Bad Boys of the Underworld Page 113
