At Harper’s squeal, I turned to find Amun on his knees before Isaac. The vampire held Celeste off the ground by her throat. Connor, carrying Romiel over his shoulder, fled across the field, leaving only Harper glaring at the vampire with murder in her eyes.
The bottom fell out of my world. Isaac must have seen what I’d done, not that it mattered. Celeste’s eyes were open and had taken on the dreamy glaze of someone whose mind had been split open and licked clean of knowledge. He’d discover everything he needed to kill the remaining Ironhill jinn from her mind. The stupid woman had murdered us all.
I rushed to him and begged with my eyes. “Stop, Isaac. Please. If any part of what you said is true, that you don’t want to kill me, then don’t do this.”
He spared me a momentary glance. It held a chill, betrayal, rage. He chanted in the same ancient language he’d used to put the blood trace on me. From his sporran, he withdrew something that appeared to be white powder, or possibly salt, and sprinkled it on her head.
Screaming, Celeste struggled and kicked in his grasp. I tried to move closer, but the mark on my neck surged pain down my back and sent me to my knees. “If you won’t end this, then I will,” he said around his fangs.
While I watched helplessly, Isaac placed a quarter-sized medallion on her forehead and spoke another incantation. His magic tasted older than anything I’d ever sensed from him, rippling across the wind like a firestorm.
Harper wailed from somewhere behind me, a sound of excruciating agony, as if she was more sensitive to the magic than the rest of us. Celeste shriveled like an apple left too long in the sun, her screams dwindling to mewling cries. Isaac punched his fist through her chest and came out holding her wizened heart. Was that how he’d killed all the water jinn? Did the medallion somehow ensure she didn’t turn to water and escape? Of all the horrors I should have concerned myself with, and that was what took my thoughts? I’ll be next!
Isaac tossed her body on the ground, but kept the heart. He released me from his metaphysical chains, and I stood. Amun spewed inhuman cries, echoing around the stone walls like a herald for the black chariot with death at the reins.
Uncertain what Isaac knew and what he didn’t, I stuck with the facts. “What happens now? Are you here to take me before the council?”
His black gaze, exuding malice, made a slow ascent to me. “I’ve been in the trees over there since she arrived.”
Dizziness took me again. “Oh.” Distantly, I wondered how he was awake before the sunset, but it disappeared under my horror.
Indecision clouded his stare, the rest of him rigid. As his eyes swept my face, they said, You betrayed me. I trusted you, helped you, and all for nothing. He made no move, only stood motionless, as if he didn’t know how to go forward.
I wanted to pray, but had no god. I wanted to confess, but found too many sins to blacken my soul. I wanted the world to forgive me for what I was, for Isaac to understand why I lied to him. But I was jinn, and for that alone, I would be condemned.
Out of the corner of my eye, a green glint caught my attention from a few yards away, snapping me out of my thoughts. My dagger spun in a vortex headed straight for the vampire. No matter how fast Amun was, he wouldn’t be faster than the hive lord, even though the vampire’s focus never strayed from me.
Time crawled in my perception, and something bloomed in my depths. Not instinct, really, more like a second consciousness woke from a deep slumber and stretched into the far corners of my mind. Female, ancient as the earth itself, it called out, He must not die. She spoke of Isaac, not Amun. I agreed with no understanding of why. Isaac must be protected, even if it meant he would kill me.
“Amun, no!” I leaped in front of Isaac as Amun plunged the blade forward. Burning agony ate up the left side of my chest, like tiny razor blades going ice skating through my veins. No wound had ever hurt as much as that one did. Hot. Ripping. Tasting of death.
Eyes wide in horror, Amun, who’d solidified to his flesh form, looked down at the dagger sticking out of me and back to my face. “Oh, Baylou. Not you. Not you!” He looked past me to Isaac. “You coward!”
At whatever he saw in Isaac’s face, Amun fisted his hands into his hair and moved back. The blood drained from his face to leave him pale. “He didn’t force you? But why would you protect him? He killed thousands of us, and now he knows we survived. I’m trying to save us!”
I nodded while looking for air with which to speak. By the sucking sounds in my center, he’d punctured a lung. “Live...Amun.” My legs wobbled, and I dropped. Arms wrapped around me from behind before I hit the ground.
“Why?” Isaac whispered against my ear as I faded.
Why, indeed. There were so many whys. Why had I survived when so many of my people had perished? Why didn’t my father want me to know anything about him? Why hadn’t Isaac killed me yet, ended my suffering, removed the rest of the jinn plague from the earth? Why had I never felt my jinn spirit before? Had she always been there, waiting for the right moment to make herself known? Why had she insisted I protect my executioner? And, more importantly, why did I care so much what happened to him?
I had an answer to the last question—why had darkness descended upon my eyes? My black chariot had arrived, and all I had to do was take Death’s hand and climb inside.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Someone stroked my hair gently, the pleasant sensation coaxing my eyes open to a dim room. I blinked up at Rachel’s angelic face.
“You’re safe, Lou,” she said, and I believed her. “You’re at the reservation, in the recovery room you like best. Dr. Courian healed your wound, and you’ve been sleeping for three days.” She knew I liked to have the standard questions answered up-front whenever I woke up.
“How did I get here?” A watery cough broke out of my chest due to the remnants of the liquid I’d been breathing in the healing tank.
Rachel grasped my hand and crouched beside my bed. “Lord Isaac brought you.” She crinkled her nose. “It was all we could do to pry you from his arms. He insisted on putting you in the tank himself, and I thought Grandfather and he would come to blows over it. I never knew he cared so deeply for you.”
I laughed, inducing another gut-wrenching cough. “I highly doubt Isaac held an ounce of concern for me. He was so angry he wasn’t thinking straight. In fact, he’s probably gone off to tell the council…”
Blast, my grogginess was making me stupid. I should have been more grateful to be alive, but knowing what he would do to me —what he’d done to Celeste—I thought drifting off after a stab wound might have been better. “If he was so concerned, he’d have healed me himself. He’s done it before.”
“He said something about the blade that wounded you. His healing can’t undo damage done with elven magic.”
Interesting. Could that have been true? Still, he’d never cared about anyone outside of his hive. It went against his nature by his own admission.
“It hurt so much when the blade went into me. Is that why? Because it’s infused with elven magic?”
“They’re meant for deadly force, so they inflict a great deal of pain.”
I’d be thinking long and hard before using it on anyone again.
Remembering the picture Isaac found in Albert’s house, a deeper sense of sadness fell over me. A dull ache remained in my chest as I sat up and patted the bed for her to sit beside me.
Once she did, I angled myself toward her and took her hand in mine. “Rachel, I’m so sorry about Albert.”
Her whole body tensed. “Thank you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were grieving?”
“My kind grieve in private out of necessity. And you have far too much to deal with already. I didn’t want to burden you.” A tear dripped off her narrow chin. “She was like you, wasn’t she? The one that took him from me.”
I stumbled over that one. “What do you mean?”
“The slide I was looking at when you came in that day—I took a sample of the
water around his body when I found him. The cells matched what I know yours to look like. I wouldn’t believe you’d done it, so I compared them to yours a few days ago, and they weren’t a match. But she’s of the same race.” Her wary gaze angled toward me before lowering again.
I coughed and pounded myself on the chest. “How do you know what mine look like?”
“Grandfather suspected what you were when he met you. The first time you were injured, he had me analyze several samples while you were out.”
“Oh. He did, did he?” I swallowed the cotton from my throat. “Rachel, this is —”
“I will always keep your secret, Lou. We all will, especially Grandfather. You are the heart of this place.” She pressed her webbed fingers against my cheek. “We keep your information locked in a vault that none know of, not even Blake.”
I pulled her in for a hug, guilty for ever having doubted her. “If you want to talk about Albert, I’m always here to listen.”
Whether it was my touch, or the quiet moment we shared, her emotions let loose upon my shoulder, and I understood why she grieved in private. As her joy and comfort carried through her voice, so did her anguish and grief. Her pain invaded me like serrated blade over the love she’d lost, and a future that would never come to pass. I cried with her until neither of us had any tears left to shed.
* * *
I knelt before Dom’s gravestone and placed flowers and bag of Doritos in front of it. Blake thought I’d lost my mind, but if Dom watched from wherever he’d gone after death—if he didn’t blink into nothingness—he’d find it funny.
Everyone from IPC stood behind me: Rudy, Blake, Harper, James—with bandages still wrapped around his battered head—and Rachel. Because I’d missed his funeral, Rachel thought it would be a good idea to have a small, private one just for us.
Even Gerry showed up. I thought about asking how Gerry knew about our planned gathering, but a glance at Rachel let me know that had been thanks to her as well. No Amun, even though Harper had confirmed he’d fully recovered. My heart wasn’t sure what to feel about his absence yet. Perhaps it was a blessing, so I wouldn’t have any hard decisions to make about the jinn caught between old traditions and our new reality.
On our way out of the cemetery, Gerry fell into step beside me. “Doing okay, Lou?”
“Fair enough.” I’m alive. Gods, I’m still alive. “Far better than Mrs. Kennedy.” Dom’s grandmother had been devastated when Gerry broke the news to her, all her grief and rage directed toward me, as it should have been.
His thick hand on my arm stopped me. “I know you must have your reasons for being so mysterious all the time. I’ve covered for you with the Commissioner more than once when he wanted to haul your butt in to answer for one thing or another.”
“You have?” It hadn’t occurred to me Gerry had been taking any flak over my efforts to keep him insulated from the worst of Ironhill’s violent underbelly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
He stared out over the sea of headstones, his white shirt straining over his belly. “You ever keep me out of something like this again and worry me sick like you did over these last few days, I won’t be sticking my neck out for you anymore, you hear? This is my city where preternatural crime’s concerned.”
It would have been easier to tell him about me, but then he’d be considered an aider and abettor of a condemned species if my worst fears came to pass. Now that Isaac knew my secret, it was only a matter of time. Which left mere days for me to figure out how to save Harper and the rest of the jinn from the same fate.
“I hear you, Gerry. I’m sorry about everything.”
His meaty hand patted my shoulder, and he met my stare with a piercing one. “I’m damn relieved this finished with you in one piece. Keep yourself out of trouble from now on, would you? I’d like to not have a heart attack before I’m sixty.”
“I’ll do my best, old friend.” I hugged him, something I’d never done before.
He stiffened before giving me a few awkward pats. “And I’ll be expecting you at the station tomorrow to tell me what the hell happened at Colony Park, and why it looked like a bomb went off there.”
I stepped away, manufacturing what I hoped to be a look of surprise. “What happened? And why do you think I’d know anything?”
His lip wrinkled, and he gave me his best cop glare, his brown eyes half hidden behind his lowered lids. “We traced the woman we found buried there—who was crushed beyond recognition, I might add—back to the aquarium where you just happened to show up the day before the coroner says she was killed, slinking around with a hat on, and where their head trainer just happened to go missing from.”
Dammit, I’d forgotten about the security cameras. Gerry never used to be so thorough where I was concerned. It appeared those days were over. “I don’t know what I can tell you, Gerry.”
As he walked away, he said, “Everything.”
* * *
After dropping Rachel back at the reservation, Harper and I went to the site of our battle with Celeste. We searched for my ebony stone that had gone missing during the fight, but turned up no trace of my old companion.
What must Gerry have thought, staring at the destruction? He couldn’t trace me to the park. Somehow, I’d have to come up with a story he’d believe.
“What happened after I passed out?” I asked, pushing away echoes of the sounds from that evening. Although quite a few days had gone by, Harper still sported cuts and bruises along the left side of her face, her hands, and the visible part of her legs beneath her denim miniskirt. Amun’s work during their struggle for her guns, if I had to guess.
“Connor disappeared with Romiel and drove him to the reservation. After that arsehole Persian stabbed you, Isaac zapped you away.” She kicked her wedge sandals at the grass. “I don’t understand Amun, Lou. I know, I know, all that crap about protective instincts, but I thought he really cared about you, you know?”
Judging by the wound waiting to bloom in my heart in a quiet moment, so had I. I should have listened to my initial instincts about the man. “He cares about the survival of our race, and the individuals involved mean little to him, it seems.” I was sad for Elias most of all. The boy needed a proper upbringing instead of being indoctrinated with antiquated customs.
“And Isaac, that prick. He just throws you in front of him when he sees the blade?” Her hands flew up and smacked down against her hips. “I mean, who does that?”
“He didn’t compel me, Harper.”
“What? Of course he did.” Eyes growing saucer-large, she said, “Tell me you didn’t protect him on purpose.”
I groaned and let my head roll to dispel the tightness along my shoulders. “I wasn’t protecting him as much as Amun.” The lie burned on my tongue.
She palmed her forehead. “You and I are going to have a long, long talk about these instincts of yours, Lou.”
I smiled and hooked my arm through hers as we returned to my rental car empty-handed. “Who’s been taking care of Benny?”
Her step faltered. “I went to Amun’s because, well, Connor asked me to come and get your stuff, but Benny wasn’t there, and neither was Amun. All your stuff was gone already, too.”
My little friend. What happened to you? Had Amun been so angry he’d done something terrible to Benny? My body shook with grief, but I shoved it down inside, locked it up tight. I didn’t want to hurt Harper if my power erupted with her so near.
I couldn’t believe he’d be so vindictive. “What did Amun do with Celeste’s body?”
“He blew away with it. Connor says there’s a special burial ground they take the dead to and perform funeral rights on. Took her little box of trinkets, too. Last I heard, Amun’s not even in the country and doesn’t plan to come back any time soon.”
“He didn’t even come round to see if I’d lived. He stabbed me, and he didn’t care enough to stop in for even a second, or to call.” I lifted my palm. “What does that mean?”
&nbs
p; She gave my shoulders a squeeze as we arrived at the car. “I think it means he’s a jackass, and you need to forget his arse. And it means the next time I see him, he’ll see my fist right before it connects with his face.”
Lonely and empty, I returned home after dropping Harper at her house. Head down, I waded through a sea of reporters sticking microphones in my face shouting, “Did you kill your coworker? Are you having an affair with Amun Bassili? Who murdered the Ironhill vampires, and why is the lord unwilling to give a statement? Are you romantically involved with Lord Isaac?”
Bloody barracudas. Once I made it to my door, I went through and slammed it in their faces. They continued to shout as I ascended the stairs. To my extreme relief, squeaking filtered down the steps from the far side of my door. I sprinted up, afraid to hope. Benny squealed at me as I opened the door. Given his fat belly, someone had been taking care of him for me. If not Harper or Rachel, I couldn’t begin to guess who it had been.
Given that Celeste had taken my answering machine, I had no messages to check. All the belongings I’d taken to Amun’s sat in my living room, so much junk thrown to the curb. Everything Isaac had taken lay arranged neatly on my kitchen table. Although I knew he wouldn’t answer, I dialed Amun’s cell to let him know I was all right and didn’t blame him for the accidental stabbing. No doubt I’d regret doing so when my head cleared.
Maybe Amun hated me for saving Isaac, but I knew in my heart he wouldn’t have succeeded and would only have made matters worse. I wanted—no, I needed to give him the best chance of survival, because even if he no longer wanted me, I still felt responsible for his protection.
Still numb from the ordeal, the heartbreak claimed me full force. For a while, I let it own me, let it drag me down into an empty place while bone-wracking sobs shook my body.
When the floor trembled, and I imagined breaking the earth open to find an escape from the pain, I reminded myself that we were alive. I couldn’t find the will to feel guilty about that, no matter how short a time I’d earned us. Isaac would come for me soon. Until then, I’d get on with life the only way I knew how and deal with the consequences of what I’d done when they arose.
Stone Chameleon (Ironhill Jinn #1) Page 31
