Jinn and Juice

by Nicole Peeler

  Procrastination assassinates opportunity.

  —Elektos Codex, 4.1.1

  New Orleans, 2068

  Augustine trailed his fingers over the silky shoulder of one of his mocha-skinned bedmates. He dare not wake her, or her sister sleeping on the other side of him, or he feared he’d never get home in time for lunch with his dear Olivia. He felt a twinge of guilt that he’d spent his first night back in New Orleans in the company of “strange” women, as Olivia would call them, but only a twinge. A man had needs, after all.

  The woman sighed contentedly at his touch, causing him to do the same. Last night had been just the right amount of fun to welcome him home. He eased onto his back and folded his arms behind his head, a satisfied smile firmly in place. The Santiago sisters from Mobile, Alabama, had earned their sleep.

  Outside the Hotel Monteleone, the city was just waking up. Delivery trucks rumbled through the Quarter’s narrow streets, shopkeepers washed their sidewalks clean of last night’s revelries and the bitter scent of chicory coffee filled the air with a seductive, smoky darkness. Day or night, there was no mistaking the magic of New Orleans. And damn, he’d missed it.

  His smile widened. He wasn’t much for traveling and that’s all he’d done these past few months. Things had gotten hot after he’d given his estranged brother’s human friend entrance to the fae plane. Ditching town was the only way to keep the Elektos off his back. The damn fae high council had never liked him much. Violating such a sacred rule as allowing a mortal access to the fae plane had shot him to the top of their blacklist.

  Smile fading, he sighed. If two and a half months away wasn’t enough, then he’d have to figure something else out. He didn’t like being away from Livie for so long. He could imagine the size of her smile when he strolled in this afternoon. She’d been more of a mother to him than his own had, not a feat that required much effort, but Olivia had saved him from the streets. From himself.

  There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for her.

  With that thought, he extricated himself from the bedcovers and his sleeping partners and began the hunt for his clothing. When he’d dressed, he stood before the vanity mirror and finger-combed his hair around his recently grown-out horns. They followed the curve of his skull, starting near his forehead, then arching around to end with sharp points near his cheekbones. He preferred them ground down, but growing them out had helped him blend with the rest of the fae population. Most fae also added ornate silver bands and capped the tips in filigree, but he wasn’t into that.

  His jeans, black T-shirt and motorcycle boots weren’t much to look at, but the horns were all it took for most mortal women to go positively weak. Standard fae-wear typically included a lot of magically enhanced leather, which was perfect for a city like NOLA, where being a little theatrical was almost expected, but you had to have plastic for spendy gear like that.

  Satisfied, he walked back to the women who’d been his unsuspecting welcome-home party and stood quietly at the side of the bed.

  Pressing his fingertips together, he worked the magic that ran in his veins, power born of the melding of his smokesinger and shadeux fae bloodlines, power that had blossomed when he’d finally opened himself up to it. Power he’d learned to use through trial and error and the help of a good friend.

  He smiled. It would be great to see Dulcinea again, too.

  Slowly, he drew his fingers apart and threads of smoke spun out between them. The strands twisted and curled between his fingers until the nebulous creation took the shape of a rose.

  Gentle heat built in the bones of his hands and arms, a pleasurable sensation that gave him great satisfaction.

  The form solidified further, then Augustine flicked one wrist to break the connection. With that free hand, he grasped the stem. The moment he touched it, the stem went green and royal purple filled the flower’s petals. He lifted it to his nose, inhaling its heady perfume. Fae magic never ceased to amaze him. He tucked the flower behind his ear and quickly spun another, then laid the blooms on the sisters’ pillows.

  Pleased with his work, he picked up his bag, pulled a black compact from the pocket of his jeans and flipped it open to reveal a mirror. The mirror was nothing special, just a piece of silver-backed glass, but that was all any fae needed to travel from one place to another.

  “Thanks for a wonderful evening, ladies,” he whispered. Focusing on his reflection, he imagined himself back at Livie’s. The familiar swirl of vertigo tugged at him as the magic drew him through.

  A second later, when he glanced away from his reflection, he was home.

  Harlow Goodwin held paper documents so rarely that if the stark white, unrecycled stock in her hands were anything else than the death knell to her freedom, she’d be caressing it with her bare fingers, willing to risk any residual emotions left from the person who’d last touched it—it wasn’t like she could read objects the way she could people or computers, but every once in a while, if the thing had been touched by someone else recently, something leaked through. In this case, she kept her gloves on. This wasn’t any old paper; this was the judgment that was about to bring an abrupt and miserable end to life as she knew it.

  They couldn’t even have the decency to wait to deliver it until after she’d had her morning coffee. For once, she wished it had been another of her mother’s missives pleading with her to come for a visit.

  She read the sum again. Eight hundred fifty thousand dollars. Eight five zero zero zero zero. She’d heard it in court when the judge had pronounced her sentence, but seeing it in black-and-white, in letters that couldn’t be backspaced over and deleted, made the hollowness inside her gape that much wider.

  How in the hell was she going to pay off eight hundred and fifty freaking thousand dollars? Might as well have been a million. Or a hundred million. She couldn’t pay it, even if she wanted to. That queasy feeling came over her again, like she might hurl the ramen noodles she’d choked down for dinner. Moments like this, not having a father cut through her more sharply than ever. She knew that if her mother had allowed him into her life, he’d be here, taking care of her. He’d know what to do, how to handle it. That’s what fathers did, wasn’t it?

  At least that’s what Harlow’s father did in her fantasies. And fantasies were all she had, because Olivia Goodwin hadn’t only kept that secret from the paparazzi; she’d also kept it from her daughter.

  Oh, Harlow had tried to find him. She’d searched every possibility she could think of, traced her mother’s path during the month of her conception, but her mother had been on tour for a movie premiere. Thirty-eight cities in twelve different countries. The number of men she could have come in contact with was staggering.

  Harlow’s father, whoever he was, remained a mystery.

  Heart aching with the kind of loss she’d come to think of as normal, she tossed the papers onto her desk, collapsed onto her unmade bed and dropped her head into her hands. The five-monitor computer station on her desk hummed softly, a sound she generally considered soothing, but today it only served to remind her of how royally she’d been duped. Damn it.

  The client who’d hired her to test his new security system and retrieve a set of files had actually given her false information. She’d ended up hacking into what she’d belatedly guessed was his rival’s company and accessing their top-secret formula for a new drug protocol. Shady SOB.

  She shuddered, thinking what her punishment might have been if she’d actually delivered that drug formula into her client’s hands, but a sixth sense had told her to get out right after she’d accessed the file. Something in her head had tripped her internal alarms, something she’d be forever grateful for if only it had gone off sooner. She’d ditched the info and hurriedly erased her presence. Almost. Obviously not enough to prevent herself from being caught.

  Times like this she cursed the “gift” she’d been born with. Well, the first one, the ability to feel people’s emotions through touch, that one she always cursed. And really
it was more than emotion. She saw images, heard sounds, even picked up scents from people. Which all added up to an intense overload—sometimes pleasurable but too often painful—that she preferred not to deal with. The second gift was the way she seemed to be able to read computers. She didn’t know how else to describe it, but they responded to her like she could speak binary code without even trying. Finding her way into a motherboard took no more effort than opening a door. That gift had given her a career. A slightly questionable one at times. But a job was a job. Except when it brought her clients like this last one.

  A client who was now in the wind, the twenty large she’d charged him not even a down payment on her fine. She should have known something was up when he’d paid in cash, his courier a shifty-eyed sort who was probably as much fae as he was something else. She shuddered. That cash, tucked away in a backpack under the bed, was the only thing the court hadn’t been able to seize. Everything else was frozen solid until she paid the fine or did her time.

  She flopped back on the bed and folded her arms over her eyes. She was about as screwed as a person could get.

  Her eyes closed but it didn’t stop her brain from filling her head with the one name she was doing her best not to think about.

  The one person capable of helping her. The one person who’d been the greatest source of conflict in her life.

  Olivia Goodwin.

  Her mother.

  Harlow hadn’t really spoken to her mother in years. Not since their last big fight and Olivia’s umpteenth refusal to share any information about her biological father. For Harlow, it was difficult to say what hurt worse—not knowing who her father was or her mother not understanding the gaping hole inside Harlow where her father was missing and yet her mother somehow thinking she could still make things okay between them.

  The cycle usually started with Olivia barraging Harlow with pleas to move to New Orleans. Harlow ignored them until she finally believed things might be different this time and countered with a request of her own. Her father’s name. Because that’s all she needed. A name. With her computer skills, there was no question she’d be able to find him after that. But without a name… every clue she’d followed had led to a dead end. But that small request was all it took to shut Olivia down and destroy Harlow’s hope. The next few months would pass without them talking at all.

  Then Olivia would contact her again.

  Harlow had made one attempt at reconciliation, but that had dissolved just like the rest of them. After that, their communication became very one-sided. Emails and calls and letters from her mother went unanswered except for an occasional response to let Olivia know she was still alive and still not interested in living in New Orleans.

  She loved her mother. But the hurt Olivia had caused her was deep.

  If her mother was going to help now, the money would come with strings attached. Namely Harlow agreeing to drop the topic of her father.

  The thought widened the hole in her heart a little more. If she agreed to never ask about him again, she’d have to live with the same unbearable sense of not knowing she’d carried all her life. And if she didn’t agree, her mother probably wouldn’t give her the money, which meant Harlow was going to jail. A life lesson, her mother would call it.

  A deep sigh fluttered the hair trapped between her cheeks and her forearms. Was she really going to do this? The drive from Boston to New Orleans would take a minimum of twenty-four hours, but flying meant being trapped in a closed space with strangers. It also meant putting herself on the CCU’s radar, and until her fine was paid, she wasn’t supposed to leave the state. At least she had a car. Her little hybrid might be a beater, but it would get her to Louisiana and there’d be no one in the car but her.

  Another sigh and she pulled her arms away from her face to stare at the ceiling. If her mother refused her the money, which was a very real possibility, Harlow would be in jail in a month’s time. Her security gone, her freedom gone, forced to live in a cell with another person.

  She sat up abruptly. Would they let her keep her gloves in prison? What if her cell mate… touched her? That kind of looming threat made her want to do something rebellious. The kind of thing she’d only done once before at a Comic Con where her costume had given her a sense of anonymity and some protection from skin-to-skin contact.

  She wanted one night of basic, bone-deep pleasure of her choosing. One night of the kind of fun that didn’t include sitting in front of her monitors, leveling up one of her Realm of Zauron characters to major proportions. Not that that kind of fun wasn’t epic. It was basically her life. But she needed something more, the kind of memory that would carry her through her incarceration.

  One night of careful physical contact with another living, breathing male being.

  The thought alone was enough to raise goose bumps on her skin. She’d do it the same way she had at Comic Con. A couple of good, stiff drinks and the alcohol would dull her senses and make being around so many people bearable. With a good buzz, she could stand being touched. Maybe even find it enjoyable, if things went well. Which was the point.

  She was going to New Orleans. The city was practically built on senseless fun and cheap booze, right? If there was ever a place to have one last night of debauchery before heading to the big house, New Orleans seemed custom made for it.

  On her Life Management Device, the one she could no longer afford and that would soon be turned off, she checked the weather. Unseasonably warm in New Orleans. Leaving behind the snowpocalypse of Boston wouldn’t be such a hardship, but she wasn’t about to ditch her long sleeves just for a little sunshine. On the rare occasions she had to leave her apartment, she liked as much skin covered as possible.

  She jumped off the bed, grabbed her rolling bag and packed. Just the necessities—travel laptop with holoscreen and gaming headset, some clothes, toiletries and the cash. Not like she’d be gone long. She changed into her favorite Star Alliance T-shirt, set her security cameras, locked down her main computer and servers and grabbed her purse. She took a deep breath and one last look at her apartment. It was only for a few days. She could do this.

  A few minutes later she was in the car, a jumbo energy drink in the cup holder and the nav on her LMD directing her toward Louisiana.

  Augustine tucked away his traveling mirror and inhaled the comforting scent of home. The weeks of rarely staying in one spot for longer than a few nights had worn thin. He’d tried a stint in Austin, Texas, another fae Haven city, but a week there and he’d begun to feel eyes on him. Being back in New Orleans was pure happiness. This was the only ground he’d ever considered home, and this house, the estate of retired movie star Olivia Goodwin, was the only place that had ever felt like home.

  Protecting Olivia and this place was why he’d run to begin with, but she knew he hadn’t been the cause of the trouble. Not really. That landed squarely on the shoulders of his estranged half brother, Mortalis. They shared a father but that was about it. They’d never seen eye to eye on anything. Mortalis disapproved of Augustine’s life in more ways than he could count and took every opportunity, rare as they were, to make that known.

  Despite that, Augustine had helped one of Mortalis’s very pretty, very persuasive female friends gain access to the fae plane, specifically the Claustrum, the max-security prison where the fae kept the worst of their kind. Livie had agreed it had been the right thing to do, but she hadn’t really understood the consequences.

  The sounds of female voices reached his ears. Olivia and Lally, her companion and housekeeper, were out on the back porch enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. He set his bag down and moved softly from the hall and into the kitchen. Their voices were louder now, filtering in through the screen door along with the afternoon breeze. Ice clinked in glasses and the scent of mint and bourbon followed.

  He smiled. Livie loved herself a julep on the porch. He leaned in close to the screen, but left the door closed. “Miss me so much you have to drink away your sorrows, huh?” />
  Both women jumped in their rockers, clutching at their hearts and slopping bourbon and soda over the rims of their glasses.

  Olivia shook her cane at him, her shock widening into an unstoppable grin. “Augustine Robelais, how dare you sneak up on two old women like that.” She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, Augie, you’re home. Praise our lady Elizabeth Taylor. Get out here and let me hug your neck.”

  He pushed through the screen door and scooped Livie into his arms. She squeezed him hard, her form somehow frailer than he remembered. He whispered into her silver-white bob, “I missed you more than I have words for.”

  “And I, you, cher.” Her hand cupped the back of his head as she kissed his cheek. “I am so glad you’re home.” She released him, her amber eyes glittering with tears.

  He turned to Lally and caught her in a hug as she stood. “I’m sure you didn’t miss cleaning up after me, huh?”

  Lally clung to him, her voice catching when she finally spoke. “Silly child.” She patted his back as she let him go and sat down. “I had so much free time, I read half Miss Olivia’s library.” She laughed. “I’m still not used to seeing you with your horns grown out, but I’m happy to have you back, no matter what you look like.”

  He leaned against the porch railing. The warmth of their love was almost palpable, soothing the ache in his heart from being away. “I appreciate that. I’ll be grinding the horns off soon enough.”

  A wash of concern took away Livie’s smile. “Everything all right then? Didn’t have any trouble, did you? No run-ins with any Elektos?”

  “Not a bit.” He couldn’t stop smiling. Even the air smelled better. “How about you?”

  She snorted softly. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

  Which meant they’d been here. That knocked the smile off his face. Anger fueled a fire in his belly, but for her sake he just nodded. Obviously she didn’t want to talk about it right now. Or maybe just not around Lally, but there wasn’t much Olivia kept from her.