by Kelly Gay
His hand trembled slightly as he turned the key and opened the heavy door. I executed a quick duck into the open space, seeing nothing but a very clean living space, and then leaned back against the inside wall, trying to sense the same kind of malevolence that had pervaded the warehouse. Nothing.
After Hank was inside and had scanned the place, he shook his head. He hadn’t sensed anything, either. “Ready?”
Since I had chosen the nitro Hank withdrew his Hefty. He nodded.
I crept along the wall. The far wall was nothing but floor-to-ceiling windows. The floors were polished dark hardwoods; the furniture looked brand-new and very sleek. High ceilings. The entire space was vast, the living area opening to the dining space and a gorgeous kitchen full of stainless steel, granite, and dark cabinets with frosted glass.
We checked the main living area and then proceeded carefully, going down the hallway to the bedrooms. The first two were empty and pristine. Everything about the place felt … wrong. Staged. I shook my head, whispering as I backed out of the room. “It looks like it’s never been lived in.”
“Or he has one hell of a cleaning lady.”
“We do have an excellent maid service,” the clerk’s voice came from the foyer.
My eyes widened in disbelief. “I thought I told you to stay put,” I whispered fiercely, marching up to him and escorting him back through the front door with a stern warning. “Stay. Or you’ll be spending the night in a holding cell.”
I rejoined Hank at the last bedroom door at the end of the hall.
Last room in the penthouse. I reached out and grabbed the handle. It clicked open. I pushed, expecting to find the room just like all the others, and entered gun first, Hank fanning out to my left.
A gasp made me swing the barrel to the bed.
I’d suddenly fallen down the rabbit hole.
Five seconds went by, and I was pretty sure the stunned face staring back at me had the same exact expression as mine.
“Sian?”
“Charlie? What are you doing here?”
I frowned. “Me? What are you doing here?”
Grigori Tennin’s only child cast her indigo eyes to the rumpled bed on which she sat, hugging her knees to her chest. Her long, snow-white hair was down, parted in the middle and framing her flawless light gray skin. She was a hybrid, a rare offspring of a jinn father and a human mother. A prized commodity in the jinn world, but rejected by other Charbydons and Elysians, and a fair share of humans, for her bi-racial blood. Looking at her more closely revealed tearstains on her cheeks and damp eyelashes, and she was clutching a small oval picture frame in her hand.
I lowered the gun, holstering it and trying to make sense of her presence here. “Please tell me you’re not involved in this.”
“Charlie.” Hank’s quiet voice made me glance over, and I was met with an expectant look as he gestured toward the picture.
“What?”
His response was an eye roll and a sigh. Obviously I was missing something. Hank holstered the Hefty, walked to the bed, and held out his hand. Sian handed him the picture frame. Hank gave it to me before he went to the small writing desk and pulled out the chair. He sat down, leaning forward to drape his forearms over his knees. “So how long have you been seeing Daya?”
My brow shot up.
Oh.
I flipped the frame over to see a photograph of what had to be Daya Machanna. My gaze went from Hank to Sian. Yeah. Totally didn’t see that one coming.
“About four months. If anyone ever found out … I mean, I’m a jinn, and worse, a hybrid. And she’s Elysian. A nymph. No one would understand.” Fresh tears fell, and she sniffed, swiping them from her cheeks.
I went to the dresser and leaned against it, setting the frame down and then crossing my arms over my chest, still stunned. “No one knew?”
Sian shook her head. “No. We made sure to be careful. And if anyone did see us together, we just acted like friends.”
“This is why you called in sick, then?” Hank asked gently. “You found out she’s gone.”
Her body stilled, and then her shoulders hunched and she cried harder. Hank and I exchanged a quick look. We allowed her time to compose herself, not pushing. After Sian finally lifted her head, casting a grief-stricken gaze to the ceiling, she released a ragged breath. “It was all over Underground yesterday.”
Not surprising. Ebelwyn was a darkling fae. His office was on Solomon Street, which meant he answered to Grigori Tennin. Which meant, after he called me, he went and reported to Grigori and probably anyone else who’d listen.
“I knew it was her,” Sian said quietly. “She was supposed to meet me here after going to the gym that morning. We were going to have breakfast before she went to work.”
“So who is S. Yavesh?” I asked.
“He’s the guy who owns the place. Daya was doing freelance work for him, restoring some old artifacts. He told her she could stay here whenever she wanted, so we’ve sort of been using it to meet up. I don’t think he ever comes here.”
“What’s he look like?”
“I’ve never met him, but Daya said he was an Adonai.”
My brow raised at that, and I immediately suspected S. Yavesh was an alias for Llyran.
“She tell you what she was working on?” Hank asked. “Did you see any of it?”
“No. She was working on restoring the items in her lab at the Fernbank Museum.” Sian stared at the wall, completely lost. “I just can’t believe she’s gone.”
“Come on …” I pushed away from the dresser and approached the bed to help her up. “Let’s get you home.”
“No. I don’t want to go. This is all I have left of her. I can’t go.”
“You can’t stay here, Sian. If your father finds out you’re here and what you’ve been doing here, he’ll go completely ballistic.”
She sniffed and wiped her nose, looking up at me with round eyes. “No,” she said simply. “He’d just kill me and that’d be the end of it. He despises me already for not getting him the things he wants from work.”
I took her by the arm and gently urged her off the bed. “I doubt he holds you responsible for that one.”
After all, if Grigori was pissed at anyone, it’d be me. I was the one who’d agreed to get his daughter a job at the ITF as payment for a blood debt I owed him. He’d wanted a mole. And what he got was a lot of useless information. Sian had a job at the ITF, but her psycho dad never said she had to have clearance or access codes to case files and ITF documents. Fuck him—not my problem that he hadn’t made the terms clear.
Okay, so it was my problem. Or, I should say, Grigori Tennin was my problem. And he wasn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, my guess was the bastard was sitting back and waiting to see what chaos the darkness wrought, and secretly fanning the flames.
One problem at a time, though.
“Come on, Sian. You need to go home.” She gave in without a fight, and walked on her own down the hallway. As we passed the wall of windows, a dark, fluttering blur outside caught my eye. I steered Sian to the open door and the clerk waiting in the hallway. “Escort Miss Tennin to the lobby, please.” I told the clerk.
The hairs on my arms stood as they retreated toward the elevator. My hand moved to my Hefty. I flicked the snap to the leather strap that held my weapon. As soon as the elevator doors slid open and they entered, I pulled my weapon.
“Outside. Terrace,” Hank said, his own weapon drawn and already with his back against the wall and ready to cover me as I entered.
Carefully we reentered the penthouse, approaching the floor-to-ceiling windows, moving quietly around the furniture to the sliding glass doors. Beyond the glass, a figure sat with his back to us, cross-legged on the ledge of the terrace, knees overhanging forty-six stories below. His black linen shirt flapped in the breeze. Shoulder-length red hair stirred.
Llyran.
I pushed the glass doors apart just enough to squeeze through. Once we were out onto t
he stone terrace, I nodded to Hank to let him know I’d take the right, but a voice stopped me midstride.
“Hello again, Charlie.”
My fingers flexed around the Hefty as Llyran stood on the narrow ledge and turned around to face us. The fact that he was standing forty-six stories up on a ledge as wide as his feet were long didn’t seem to distress him in the least. “And Mister Williams,” he said. “Brother. Malakim. Fellow Elysian …”
Malakim?
I fired.
The Hefty’s tag thunked into his chest, pinning the linen to his skin. A sound wave–induced shudder went through him as his arms stretched wide. A smug smile grew on his perfect face as though the universe was his to own and operate.
And then he let himself fall backward into thin air.
I ran to the ledge to see his black-clad form freefall at a terrifying speed.
Hank’s shoulder bumped mine as he leaned over the ledge. “Holy shit.”
Somewhere around ten stories down, a tunnel of darkness snaked down, slicing through the air to curl around his body like a python in a death squeeze, pulling him back up and into its lofty, murky clouds.
Hank and I just stood there, dumbfounded. One second Llyran was falling, and the next …
I turned to my partner, mouth open, trying to wrap my mind around what I’d just witnessed, trying to think of an appropriate response, but nothing came.
Hank took a few steps back, dragged his fingers through his hair, and then turned, hands on hips and eyeing me with a stupefied look that instantly shifted to horror. He leapt toward me.
I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Llyran flying toward me.
No time to react; Llyran grabbed me from behind and jerked me out over the terrace into midair.
11
Through the wind and the frantic pulse surging through my eardrums, I heard Hank scream my name.
There was nothing between me and the ground, except forty-six stories of air. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God …
My mouth hung open in a scream I couldn’t voice. I didn’t struggle, too afraid he’d drop me. I wanted to turn in his arms and scramble onto his shoulders, to hold on, to have some kind of control, but his embrace was bruising and unmovable.
Llyran’s face was against the side of my head, pressed against my hair. His laughter rang in my ears as we shot upward. Higher and higher. And finally into the darkness itself. Into that churning, forty-mile wide mass of primeval Charbydon gray.
Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as the earth below me grew smaller and smaller, until it was completely swallowed up.
“Beautiful, isn’t it, Charlie?!” His lips moved against my hair.
We slowed, and I was stunned by the thick, dark, undulating mass and the occasional bursts of green zigzagging a thick, random path far out in the distance. Small particles swirled, glowing as though energized, as though somehow giving life to everything around us. The fine hairs on my body stood, and the hair on my head drifted out in all directions as though underwater.
Awareness snaked under my skin. Power. So much power. It hummed through me. My eyelids fluttered. My vision went blurry. My head relaxed against Llyran’s shoulder as I was caught between horror and excitement, a heightened response to the arcane darkness and energy surrounding me. It was there, for me. For the taking. It wanted me to throw open my arms and invite it in. It’d be so good, so easy …
“There is unimaginable power here, and the one who wields it can be a god!” Llyran shouted.
I shut my eyes tightly, forcing away the fuzz, lifting my head and shaking it hard. After a false start, I found my voice. “Take me back,” I barely managed. “Llyran, take me back.”
“Not yet, Charlie! I’ve saved the best for last!”
We shot up once more, the force pulling my insides down. Wind broke hard against my face and those small glowing particles hit my skin like fine grains of sand. My fingernails dug deeply into his forearms.
And then we burst out of the darkness.
Into the light.
Tears erupted behind my eyelids. Too bright, but so warm … so warm. After so long, I had the sun in my face.
A shaft of darkness held us aloft, above the churning mass. The wind whipped at our hair, tangling it together. “Isn’t it a sight for sore eyes, Charlie? Blue skies as far as the eye can see. Tell me you haven’t missed this!”
His arms were still around my middle. The angle at which the darkness held us aloft forced me to lean back against him, my head tucked against the crook of his neck as my face warmed under the glow of the sun. Panic had a hold on my throat, but I forced the words out. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because all this can be yours. Look at it, Charlie.” He gave me a brutal squeeze. “Look at it.”
I did. I did because I was afraid, because I was desperate for the sun, for blue skies. My eyes burned at first, leaving large white dots floating in my vision. But slowly they adjusted to the brightness, and I gazed out over the horizon at the azure sky. Tears slipped down my cheeks, and I couldn’t tell if it was the sting of brightness or just me weeping for something I was afraid I’d never see again.
“I can take it all away. Together, we can bring back the light.” His hair whipped around the edges of my vision, his voice manic and firm in his beliefs. “I’d do it for you, Charlie. We’d be unstoppable. You can bring about a new era, a new age in which Elysia is ruled by its rightful heirs.”
“And who would that be, you?”
“No, not me. The Charbydon nobles. Elysia was once theirs before they were cast out into the dark shithole that is Charbydon, just as Elysia cast me out.”
“Yeah, because you’re a psychopath.”
His arms released me.
I fell, finally letting out a terrifying scream.
He caught me by the ankle, my body whipping around like a rag doll. My entire being trembled as he righted me and held me once again. I had to stay conscious, had to fight against the fear.
Talk. Reason with him. Do something!
His mouth was low against my ear. “Careful with the insults, Detective.”
“I’m sorry,” I croaked, playing his game, and willing myself to breathe even and deep. “You’re doing all this to get back at your home world?”
He thought about it for a second and then shrugged. “Once the nobles are faced with the truth, that Elysia was theirs, they will strike and take it back. And with the star’s power, I’ll help them wipe out every Adonai in existence, save for me, of course.”
“That’s genocide. You can’t mean to wipe out your own kind.”
“I can. They cast me out, turned their backs on me, all because I discovered the proof to the truth they have been hiding for ages …” He squeezed me tighter. I glanced over to see his profile as he rested his chin on my shoulder, a wistful smile on his perfect Adonai face. “Now that I have seen inside of you, I have big plans for you. The truth is more than you could ever imagine, Charlie. You have a great purpose in life, a great value, and I will protect you.”
“Is that why you’re murdering people, to protect me?”
“No. I am murdering people because it’s necessary. Hold on, princess.”
We dropped back. I gasped at the sickening, horrifying sensation of freefalling once more, eyes wide open, my face toward the sun as we fell, suddenly wanting those last few seconds of light before it slowly became swallowed up by darkness.
All too soon, I found myself back in the swirl of primordial chaos and raw power. I couldn’t take it anymore. My heart was losing its battle trying to keep up with the shock and fear. Air was not reaching my lungs like it should. And somewhere in the back of my mind was the thought that all this willing power was mine to use and yet I was too fucking scared to even try.
“Please,” I burst out on a shaky breath. “Take me back. I’ll do whatever you want. Just take me back.”
And then I’d kill the sonofabitch.
“Good girl.” Lly
ran rubbed his cheek against my hair. “You and me, we shall be a force of nature like the world has never seen. We shall raise the star and feed off the power. Only you can do that for me. You will, won’t you, princess? You want to see the light again, don’t you? The sun, the blue sky … I can give that to you, to your beloved city. Consider it a gift.”
I nodded, swallowing hard and not caring what I had to say to get my feet back on solid ground. “Yes, I will. I’ll do anything.”
“I knew you would see it my way.”
I braced for the descent, turning my face against the sting of those glowing particles, my hair flying across my face and acting as a shield. Through the strands, I saw the entire city below me, lit with millions of lights. And then, as we drew closer, Helios Tower, and its enormous rooftop arboretum. And closer, I could pick out the individual terraces, and finally, there was Hank standing on the terrace, hands curled around the railing and looking up, his blond hair waving in the wind. And though I couldn’t actually see his expression, I sensed it—rage, horror, desperation.
I blinked and he was gone, gone from the terrace as we descended rapidly. My muscles bunched and tensed. Finally after several seconds, the darkness slowed us.
I had to think, figure out my next move. As soon as my feet hit the stone, I’d have to do something because there was no way in hell I was going to be Llyran’s princess, partner, or raiser of dead stars. Not in this lifetime.
Only problem was, the roller coaster ride through the darkness had left me a numb, trembling mass. And if we landed on that terrace, Hank was a goner and I was in deep shit.
We glided toward the terrace at a sedate pace. Hank was nowhere in sight, thank God. Llyran was much stronger than the both of us—all he had to do was use the darkness to grab Hank and jerk him off the terrace, and I was doubtful my partner could survive that kind of fall despite his healing abilities.
I pointed my toe, reaching for the railing. Almost there. A breath of relief slid out of my open mouth, and my body relaxed a fraction.
