by Kelly Gay
I didn’t have to tell him to pull the right side of his shirt off his shoulder. He did it with a glare, offering his skin for my mark.
I placed the dripping edge of the branch against a spot above his right nipple and met his gaze. A moment passed. And then I pressed until the skin broke. I cut the same shape into his flesh and muttered the same words he had, but used my name where he had used his. His dark, thunderous expression never changed; his eyes never looked away from me.
Once I was done, I dropped the branch. I had no idea what kind of mark I’d just given him. My attention returned to the stick embedded in his chest.
He gave me a sharp nod.
I drew in a deep breath, feeling the stark twinges of guilt and remorse for what had transpired. Hindsight was a bitch, and I was pretty certain Hank was thinking the same thing. My hand tightened around the stick.
One. Two. Three!
I jerked hard.
It came out with a slight sucking sound, releasing a fresh blossom of blood. Hank flinched and then lifted himself off my pelvis to sit on the floor beside me. Sweat beaded on his brow. He swiped it off with his forearm before placing his hands flat on the floor, hanging his head low and breathing in deeply.
The mark on my shoulder blade burned, the inky poison sealing the symbol. His was doing the same—but even worse for him, the ink was running through his wound, seeping into his bloodstream with a larger dose than that of a simple mark.
As the last bit of anger retreated, the cold crept in, leaving me trembling and realizing the enormity of our situation. I leaned over on my knees and touched Hank’s hand. The skin was hot. Sweat dripped from the tip of his nose and his chin. His head remained bowed. “Tell me what to do, Hank.” He didn’t answer. “Hank!”
“Cold,” he forced out. “Need to … cool … down.”
I scrambled to my feet and hooked my arm under his, pulling until he made it to his feet. By the time he had, I was sweating, too. I led him into his bedroom and the master bath, the only place I knew to get him cold.
The extravagant bathroom had a shower big enough for a party of five and an assortment of showerheads. It took me several seconds to figure out the nozzle/shower combination. I set it to rain cool water down from the round showerhead on the ceiling and then turned to him to see him fumbling with the small buttons on his shirt.
I took over, fingers flying through the buttons and then removing it carefully, briefly touching hot skin and making me feel guilty again. Once his shirt was off, he straightened, trembling all over, blood seeping out of the small wound and over his flawless skin. Next I fumbled with the zipper and pulled his jeans down.
He held on to my shoulder as he stepped out of them. I glanced up to see he wore black boxer briefs. I straightened, avoiding his gaze, and pulled back the glass shower door.
“I’m fine now,” he muttered, but I helped him step into the shower, leaving the briefs right where they were. He gasped at the cool spray, the water thinning the blood on his chest as his arms went protectively up, his muscles tensing.
I swallowed. Seeing him weakened like this—my eyes stung—I’d almost killed him. And for what? Because I had to win? Couldn’t admit the truth that he so easily saw? “I didn’t know about the ink,” I said quietly.
He bowed his head and stepped fully under the rain shower, the water flattening his hair and running over his wide shoulders. “I know, Charlie.” He spit water from his lips and then stepped back, using both hands to rub his face and swipe the hair back off his forehead.
The mark on his chest was angry and red, but the cold water washed away the blood as soon as it surfaced. The other wound was worse, but he’d heal. Both wounds, however, would leave a scar. That was another one of the Throne Tree’s unique properties. Hank would heal on the inside—most likely in a few hours—but he’d carry the scars for the rest of his life. I tried not to think about my own mark, and the warm, sticky blood that soaked my back and shirt.
“Here, turn around,” Hank’s solemn voice jerked my gaze from his chest to his face. He held out a washcloth. Mutely I turned as he slowly lifted my shirt and pressed the cold, wet cloth against my mark. I hissed, but the initial sting was lessened by the cold.
He wrung out the cloth a few times, pressing it against the mark until finally it stopped bleeding. “You should take off the shirt,” he said. “You can borrow one of mine.”
I turned, stepping out of his reach and pulling the hem of my shirt back down. “It’s okay.” My gaze snagged on the tile under my feet for a long moment before I lifted my chin. “I’m sorry.” I frowned and shook my head. “I didn’t mean to fight, I just … I’m not … I don’t think I’m ready …”
“Don’t worry about it.” His attempt at a halfhearted smile came out as a pain-laced grimace. “That’s the last time I drink Yrrebé around you.” He shook his head, quiet for a moment, before saying, “I wasn’t thinking straight … about the mark.”
Two small dots of heat stung my cheeks. “What, um, kind of mark is it exactly?”
A slow exhale whispered through his wet lips as he turned regretful eyes on me. “It’s a truth mark.” My stomach dropped, my mouth opened, but he continued quickly, “We’ll make a pact not to ask each other anything that involves things of a personal nature. And if we mess up and ask, then don’t answer. The ink won’t respond unless you outright lie.”
My eyelids fluttered closed, and I shook my head in total disbelief at what we’d done. “I can’t believe this …”
“Yeah,” Hank echoed, one corner of his mouth dipping into a frown. “Me neither … So, pact?”
“Yeah. Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Got it.”
“Same here.”
We skirted around the other issue—the intimate one—and that was fine by me. “I should go talk to the Storyteller.”
“Wait for me, Charlie.”
“We just wasted an hour with all this … mess. You’re in no shape to go anywhere. Stay and heal. I’ll call you after I’m done.” I left the bathroom to the sound of Hank’s soft curse, grabbed my jacket and harness off the stool, and hurried out of the apartment.
Only after my feet landed on the sidewalk of Helios Alley did I stop and allow myself to breathe. Holy hell.
Way to go, Charlie. Pop over to meet up with your partner and leave with a freakin’ mark. Just great.
I groaned, tucking the jacket between my knees as I slipped my arms into my weapons harness, glad for small miracles—the strap just missed the mark on my shoulder. I left my jacket off, not wanting to stain the inside with the wet blood on my shirt. I kicked a piece of glass off the sidewalk and into the dip of the curb, glancing up at the blown-out window and realizing how disheveled I must look—clothes twisted, hair a mess, soil all over me. Quickly I rearranged myself, redid my hair, and brushed the dirt from my clothes, then began the trek down Helios Alley toward the plaza.
Throne Tree ink could kill an Elysian. That was a little fact I hadn’t known, and I’d bet that most people didn’t. And I’d bet the only reason I learned of it was because I’d almost killed my partner. I’d seen a few of those trees before, but only in upscale residences and shops—apparently they were high-dollar due to the difficulties in cultivation and the cost of importing them.
I sensed the rain before I reached the plaza. And for once, I was too spent to react much to the raw power that misted over the plaza’s brick floor. It still tingled, still spoke to me, but not so intensely as usual. Probably because I’d just spent much of my power and energy fighting with my partner.
Or maybe sex was the key?
I laughed out loud, garnering weird looks from the two darkling fae standing near the soda machine as I headed toward Solomon Street. Yeah. Just give yourself over to the O and all your problems will be solved.
I weaved my way through the chaos of Solomon Street on autopilot, lost in thought, my mind replaying events, thinking of all the things I should have done and should have said.
&nb
sp; My steps slowed as I advanced on the Lion’s Den, Grigori Tennin’s base of operations. It occupied the long row of buildings at the dead-end street—a bar, strip club, and gaming house on two levels. I stopped in front of the door, squared my shoulders, and then opened the heavy wooden door while my other hand came to rest on my weapon.
A wave of humid, earth-scented air and jazz music hit me full on. My boots echoed over the planked floor; the old wood coupled with the heavy timber beams overhead gave the place a dark feel. Typical bar on Solomon Street, though. Steady business. Regulars, mostly jinn. Stripper on stage—this one jinn, undulating against a pole.
The jinn in the room only gave me a passing glance rather than the intent, almost violent regard they’d given me the last time I was here and reeking of a jinn sex-spell. The jinn warrior at the bar, however, fixed a harsh stare on me as he drew beer on tap for the two human males seated at the counter.
I made my way to the bar to the beat of sultry old jazz, which kept the place on a mellow keel, and gave the strippers something to writhe to. Two Pig-Pens—a male nymph and female siren—sat in the back corner. Black crafters. They’d given up their innate Elysian power for the dark power of Charbydon—a very complex ritual with very serious consequences. The thin, dark aura that surrounded them gave them their illustrious nickname.
“Detective,” the bartender said, laying both beefy hands flat on the old bar top, his shoulders hunching over and making him look like a water buffalo on steroids. All the jinn were massive, all with smooth skin that ranged from medium gray to dark pewter. Their violet irises ranged in hue, and the males were completely hairless, bald like this one. His arms were tattooed. He wore several rings on his fat fingers, and his earlobes were pierced several times. A typical jinn warrior.
“Your boss in?” I asked.
Jinn males were extremely chauvinistic to any females but their own, so I wasn’t surprised when he said, “He’s busy.”
“He’ll want to see me.” I turned my back to the jinn, the ultimate in disrespect, and leaned back against the counter, eyeing the jinn stripper on stage wearing nothing but a leopard G-string and deerskin boots. If I had sleek muscles like that, I could do some serious damage. She had to be at least six feet tall, with gunmetal skin and angular bone structure. When I glanced back over my shoulder and saw the bartender had yet to move, I added, “Or I can start asking everyone here for their papers. It’s up to you.”
The bartender muttered under his breath in Charbydon, but he went to the phone and made the call, returning a few moments later. “You can go down.”
Casually I swung around and smiled—the twisted smile I reserved for sarcasm and assholes—and then strode to the door that would lead me into what I liked to call the First Level of Hell.
Damp. Hot. The distinct scent of jinn—tar, and lots of it—assaulted my nose along with the heavy mix of wet dirt and wood smoke as I went down a long flight of wooden steps that led into the jinn’s subterranean village beneath Underground. The walls and chambers had been carved straight out of the bedrock beneath the city, supported by massive beams and arches. Long, vaulted corridors curved out of view, the main one leading into the vast central chamber where Tennin held court and the jinn gathered. Ventilation shafts pulled smoke from the rooms. Running water was fed in through pipes. Food was prepared on spits and in pots over open fires. To be in the tribe meant keeping to the old ways as much as possible. Only the jinn who were wanderers or rogues took more to mainstream society, but there weren’t many of those around.
A male guard met me at the base of the steps and then led me to the main corridor. Two months ago, Hank and I had made this same journey, passing open rooms where the jinn lived their daily lives, where I’d once seen them picking the petals off Bleeding Souls and tossing the bioluminescent centers into boiling pots—one of the steps to making ash. No honeysuckle-like smells this time, though.
As I stepped into the main chamber, I expected to find Tennin sitting at his dining table, dwarfing the female guards behind him. A few jinn warriors sat gathered around the large fire pit in the center of the room, but otherwise the chamber was empty.
One of Grigori’s personal female guards appeared from a small archway across the chamber. Not that he needed a guard. I’d learned firsthand that the tribal boss of a jinn tribe held absolute rule, and had the power to eliminate any tribe member with a simple thought. The guards were merely for show.
“This way,” she said, taking over, and then leading me back the way she’d come.
I followed her down another corridor, past several curtained rooms and wall torches that suggested this was a more personal area of the tribe’s abode. Beneath an archway, down another similar hall, and finally the guard stopped and pulled back a heavy multicolored curtain, ducking inside. The chamber was small, and thick with heat and humidity. A fire burned in a pit dug into the far wall.
Grigori Tennin lay facedown on a stone slab, his well-formed, intensely muscled backside completely bare, completely smooth and hairless just like his massive bald head. A human, mid-twenties if I had to guess, very petite and very pretty with chin-length red hair and pale skin that looked even paler next to his glistening, dark skin, massaged his enormous calf.
Tennin turned his head, resting the side of his face on his hands, the three gold hoops in his earlobe winking in the firelight. His violet eyes held a wealth of cunning. “Make an appointment next time, eh?” He sounded highly amused, though I couldn’t tell if he found his words funny, or the fact that I was here in his massage parlor funny. “Harder, Missy!” he barked as she moved to the back of a rock-hard thigh. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of her red face. “Good. Good. So, Charlie … Miss Detective … what you want this time? Shall we bargain again?”
I let loose a bitter laugh. “That second debt, the one where you beat the shit out of my ex-husband, we didn’t bargain on that,” I said tightly.
He rose onto one elbow. “Ah, but I did. When we bargained, I simply said I hadn’t decided yet on what the second debt would be. You agreed. Then, I made my decision. End of story, as they say. But he lives, eh? So all is good for you.” He put his head back down and closed his eyes.
“Yeah, if you call being stuck inside a body you can’t control living.”
One eye popped open, surprised, and then narrowed in a calculating way. “You don’t say?”
“Cut the bullshit, Tennin. We both know you’re not surprised. You want to tell me about the warehouses?”
“Which ones? I own many, you see.”
I sighed, wondering why I was even bothering. “You sent Ebelwyn into the warehouse. You knew what he’d find.”
“So what if I did? I own them, nothing more. You figure it out. You’re the detective, no?”
I wanted to hit him. Really, just whale on him until that smug look was off his face completely. “I’d like to speak to your Storyteller,” I said.
Grigori’s thick head cocked slightly, and one hand came up to scratch his skull, the red gemstone in his ring flashing. “No,” he said simply, and that was that.
“No?” I repeated, growing more irate by the second.
“You hard of hearing, Detective? I said no. Now you go away.”
“No.” Heat of a different kind surged through my limbs, gathering in my chest. “After all the bullshit you’ve pulled. Supplying ash. Getting people hooked to the point where they can’t function without it? Working with Mynogan to bring darkness to the city—”
A small grin played on his face. “Now why you think I had anything to do with that?”
“Because I got your fucking flowers. I know you had something to do with it, you sonofabit—”
The guard’s blade was at my throat before I could finish the word. Missy the masseuse stilled, her eyes widening. And Grigori Tennin? He just watched me, eyed me so closely that I felt like he could see the angry blood racing through my veins and the chaotic power coiling and screaming for release. I wanted to s
wallow, but didn’t dare.
Another jinn entered, took stock of the situation, shrugged, and then walked to Tennin and whispered in his ear. The hint of victory in his eyes wasn’t missed. After the jinn left, he turned his attention back to me and motioned to the guard to remove her blade.
“I change my mind. You can see the Storyteller.”
“Just like that?”
He shrugged. “Yes, Charlie Madigan. Just like that.” He laid his head back down, dismissing me.
When I didn’t move, the guard shoved me toward the curtain, knocking me out of my frozen fury. I nearly tripped, but made it out of the chamber without falling on my face or losing control of my powers—as much as I’d wanted to. My anger was slowly tempered by confusion as I was led through a maze of tunnels and chambers. Why had he changed his mind so suddenly?
We came to another curtained chamber. The guard pulled the frayed material back and I ducked inside, finding myself in a small, low-ceilinged chamber that smelled like smoke, onions, and chili. A small fire burned in a pit in the center of the room, releasing sparks that floated to the ceiling and eventually got sucked into the ventilation shaft. A pallet lay against one stone wall, and a small writing table against another. Shadows licked and danced on the earthen walls.
An aged jinn female stooped over the fire pit, her back to us. With jerky movements, she shoved at the fire with a stick, creating several loud pops and sending an eruption of sparks into the air. The guard dropped the curtain and stayed outside of the chamber, leaving me alone in the room with the old Storyteller.
“Come, come. Come closer,” she said, not turning around.
Her long, gray braids were flecked with dirt and pencil shavings, the ends tied off with strips of beaded leather. She wore a brand-new, puffy white ski jacket and a long, stained skirt that had seen better days.
I came around her left side and took up space across the fire pit. There was a pot hanging in the center, the source of the chili smell. “You want a story, eh?” She lifted her eyes, one violet, the other glazed over in blindness. She sighed, her face sinking back into the deep frown lines that curved around her mouth and eyes. “They all wants a story from Vendelan Grist. None comes to see me otherwise.” Her head shook in disappointment. “Very well. Sit, sit.” She motioned with the glowing end of her stick to the low stones set around the pit, her one good eye gleaming with intelligence. “Once I was this great warrior, ya know? But that is more story, for later times. So what is it? What you want? I haven’t got all day, ya know.”
