“I am sorry,” Jace said. “I didn’t know that.”
She shrugged, but Julia could tell from her expression that Lilias was not quite as indifferent as she pretended to be. “Ah, well, we all have those in our families who cannot understand this path we have chosen. I suppose I should be glad that at least Baltasar had not thrown in his lot with Khalim and his followers. That was one of my greatest fears, after I saw what they did to my Aidan. For surely I must hate my brother then, if it turned out that he had been involved in the attack.”
No one spoke. Jace looked troubled, and Julia guessed he was thinking of his own half-brother, who had pretended to be one of the One Thousand who had selected mortal partners to save. But Aldair had only done so to get close to Jace and take his revenge on the woman Jace loved.
When you got down to it, the djinn did seem to be more than usually vengeful and bloodthirsty. Maybe those traits stemmed from the same pride that had caused them to defy God when he commanded them to bow down before man, his latest creation.
But then, were we really that much better? Julia thought. We were certainly pretty damn good at manufacturing excuses to kill each other, or lie and cheat and steal. If the djinn hadn’t destroyed us, we might have done the job ourselves in a few more generations.
She didn’t really want to believe that. Enough good people had crossed her path even before the Dying that she knew the world wasn’t quite so black and white. With some sadness, she remembered Barry Geller, one of the partners at the law firm where she was a paralegal. He’d known her abusive fiancé, had gently tried to persuade her that she deserved better, had quietly left a card for a battered women’s shelter tucked into her desk drawer when she’d come to work sporting a bruise that the best pancake makeup couldn’t hide. That had been only a week before the Heat struck. During that week, she’d taken the card out of her desk drawer and turned it over and over in her hands, wishing she had the courage to make that phone call.
But she hadn’t made the call. She’d endured Ian’s verbal abuse, thankful at the time that at least he hadn’t hit her again, and then the Dying took away Ian and Barry and everyone else she’d ever known. And she ended up never having to make the decision to leave that relationship. No, the Heat had made that decision for her.
“At any rate,” Lilias continued, apparently as uncomfortable with the continuing silence as everyone else, “I know of Lyanna and her relations. Her brother Qadim is her only sibling, but I know that they are connected on their mother’s side with Murrah al-Tayyar. His mother was their mother’s younger sister.”
“What?” Julia said, not bothering to keep the shock out of her tone. Murrah? Big, calm Murrah, who gave the impression he might not be the sharpest tack in the box? She had a hard time believing he would do anything to betray their community, or even possessed the necessary wit to maintain such a pretense.
“This surprises you,” Dani said. “I can understand that, but we must keep our minds open. And remember, he has had a hard time of it with his Chosen, who was taken by Khalim and his followers. Perhaps Murrah blames Zahrias for not doing a better job of protecting her.”
“He had nothing to do with that,” Jace retorted.
“Yes, we all know that, but we have not had to face Murrah’s trial of having a partner brutalized and damaged.” Dani’s hand tightened on Lauren’s, as if to remind himself that she was safe and would never have to suffer that kind of harm. “I am not saying he is right for blaming my brother, only that it is something we must consider.”
“And Murrah’s first loyalty would be to his family, not to us here,” Lilias added. “I know that may be difficult to understand, given that we all chose to be here, often to the disapproval of our relatives. But if, say, Qadim had reached out to Murrah and asked for his assistance in bringing his sister’s former lover back to her, Murrah might not have seen anything wrong in such a request. Indeed, there are those who know the tale who still believe that Zahrias wronged Lyanna.”
“Wronged her?” Julia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “He’s the one who got kidnapped, remember.”
Lilias didn’t blink. “I am not defending her actions. And as someone who had her own brother damaged by this woman, I certainly don’t think she was blameless when it came to her relationship with Zahrias. He was wise to break it off while he could. The problem is that not everyone will see it that way.”
The djinn woman’s calm, unruffled tone did help to calm Julia down somewhat. She told herself that, no matter what her personal feelings in all this, she needed to keep it together. At least she could be fairly certain that Lyanna didn’t mean to physically harm Zahrias. No, she’d want him intact.
Which wasn’t exactly reassuring, because the thought of someone else being physically intimate with the man she loved made Julia want to be sick to her stomach. But throwing up wouldn’t solve anything. It definitely wouldn’t make her feel better.
“So…what now?” she asked. “Do we go to Murrah and confront him?”
“It’s not as simple as that,” Dani replied. He gently lifted his hand from Lauren’s, then stood and went over to one of the windows, as if expecting to find someone eavesdropping outside. Of course, no one was there, but Julia still felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle.
Jace put in, “It’s difficult to contain a djinn. Not impossible, because that’s how Zahrias was taken. But it took a dozen elementals with powers completely opposite his to take him away. Do we really want to approach Murrah with that kind of force when all we are doing is acting on a suspicion?”
Her first instinct was to reply, “Hell, yes,” but Julia realized that Jace had a point. All they had right now were theories. Murrah could be completely innocent. “So what do you suggest?” she asked, fighting to keep from sounding as desperate as she felt right then.
They all exchanged troubled glances. Then Jace seemed to nod to himself. “Julia, you have one of Miles’s devices, right?”
She nodded. “It’s still on the front seat of the pickup truck I drove to your place.”
“Well, then. I’m used to those things.” He flashed everyone a quick grin and added, “Not that I enjoy suffering their effects, but I can manage.”
“So you’ll turn it on to keep Murrah from getting away,” Dani said. “It could work. He and Martine live in a house somewhat separated from the others, so as long as you keep the area of effect somewhat controlled, it shouldn’t affect any other djinn.”
“I can do that,” Julia said. Really, she should have thought of using the device. Maybe her brains had gotten a little scrambled, being there on the djinn plane. “Miles trained me how to use it, so getting it dialed in shouldn’t be a problem.”
Lilias didn’t seem to share their enthusiasm. Expression troubled, she asked, “Do you really think that is the best plan of action? I fear that using the device on Murrah will only make him less likely to cooperate. And if he is innocent, he will be wounded that you thought such a thing of him, let alone inflicted that device upon him.”
Hers was a valid concern, but Julia didn’t think they had much choice. Besides, she was fairly skilled at operating the devices, and knew she should be able to get the one in their possession calibrated to a point where Murrah couldn’t use any of his djinn powers but wouldn’t be completely debilitated. She thought of Zahrias, being held by a woman who had no true claim on him, and her resolve only strengthened. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“We’ll go as easy as we can,” Jace put in, his tone reassuring. “Believe me, Richard Margolis tortured me with one of those things for weeks. I don’t enjoy having to do this. But right now it sounds as if Murrah is our best chance at tracking down Zahrias.”
Lilias didn’t reply immediately. She glanced from Jace to Dani, still standing tense and silent by the window. Her lips pursed, and Julia wondered if the djinn woman was thinking of how she would feel if it was her brother held captive by Lyanna. It could have been, but somehow
Baltasar had been luckier than Zahrias, or at least hadn’t made Lyanna quite as obsessed.
“Very well,” she said at last. “Our community needs its leader. And even if it did not, what Lyanna has done is wrong. I won’t stand in the way of something that might lead to Zahrias being freed.”
Thank God. Not that Lilias really had the power to stop them from what they planned to do, but Julia knew they needed as many of the Santa Fe djinn on their side as possible. She sent Lilias a relieved smile, then said, “All right. Time to find out how much Murrah actually knows.”
Chapter Sixteen
A thousand candles flickered in the room, sending dancing lights over the walls and floors of polished marble, reflecting in their veins of gold and silver and copper. Zahrias wondered where Lyanna had gotten all those candles, but then realized procuring them would have been easy enough. She might have claimed she wanted nothing from that world, but that was only another of her lies. While she apparently had no desire to live on the mortal plane, she still took anything from there that would make her life more comfortable. There were warehouses full of candles and all manner of other goods back in the mortal world, waiting for trucks to come and fetch them and take them to stores that would never open again.
The thought depressed him. Not so much that the rampant consumer culture which once thrived in a land known as America was now gone, but that his people had been the ones to destroy those who might have once purchased these candles for holiday gatherings and celebrations, or even intimate dinners together.
Like the one he had shared with Julia. How he wished it was she who sat opposite him now, and not Lyanna.
Luckily, his current dinner companion did not seem to notice his abstraction. He thought he had done a fairly good job over the past day of pretending that he was softening toward her — slowly, of course, because a quick about-face would surely raise her suspicions — but still smiling a bit more, asking questions about the house, about the priceless artwork she had collected there.
For she had not been idle, once humanity was gone. How she’d managed to amass so much, when the great collections of the world had become more or less up for grabs after the Heat swept through the population, Zahrias wasn’t sure. Despite her contempt for humanity, she did seem to have a great respect for its art. Pieces that had once decorated the walls of the Louvre, of the Museo del Prado, of the National Gallery and museums he couldn’t even name, now hung in the corridors and rooms of the grand palace she’d built for herself.
“I thought for sure someone else would want her,” Lyanna said, lifting a languid hand in the direction of a small portrait of a faintly smiling woman. “But she was still there when I went to check, so I brought her here to live with me.”
“That is surprising,” Zahrias replied. He had barely touched his wine, although he was fairly sure it hadn’t been doctored. Why would Lyanna bother to breach that trust again, when she thought he was succumbing to her once more? “But truly, she is not all that attractive.”
Lyanna laughed, a piercing giggle that hurt his ears. “By our standards, I would suppose not. The mortals seemed to worship her, though, which is why I wanted to have her here.”
In that moment, Zahrias wondered if his companion rather regretted all those dead humans. Perhaps in her mind she had thought it would be a fine thing to leave just enough alive that they could worship her as a goddess. Once upon a time, their ancestors had done that very thing.
“She does do very well on that particular wall,” he agreed. “Truly, you have created a very harmonious array.”
At least that much was the truth, more or less. Lyanna had mainly gathered together what mortals had referred to as “the old masters,” and didn’t seem to have anything modern hanging on the walls of her palace. The only jarring thing about her collection was how vast it seemed to be.
She preened at his praise, smiling and leaning toward him. He made himself hold still and not back away. Some time earlier, he had made an agreement with himself that he would allow her to kiss him, if by doing so her guard would be relaxed that much more. Nothing else, of course. But surely she would see even that small intimacy as a sign that she had won.
Perhaps she was toying with him, but she stopped herself when she was a hand’s breadth or more away. That close, he could still smell the wine on her breath, the musk that clung to her clothing.
He lifted his golden goblet of wine. “To all of your collecting efforts.”
She raised her goblet as well, then clinked it against his before taking a sip. “Ah, but you know, Zahrias, you are by far the most magnificent piece I have collected.”
“And somewhat livelier than the ones you have hanging on the wall.”
“To be sure.” Her amber eyes glinted almost gold in the reflected candlelight, and her lips were parted.
He knew that look. Although he had done his best to forget their time together, oblivion did not come easily to his people. So many details of their long lives remained etched in their memories, rather than being smoothed away with the passage of time. And the look Lyanna currently wore told him that she expected more, that the smiles and pleasantries must inevitably move on to something a bit more significant.
In that moment, he wished he had drunk more of his wine. Djinn could not get truly intoxicated, but they could achieve a slightly elevated state if they consumed enough alcohol…and right then he knew he would have been better able to steel himself to do this if the edges had been blurred slightly.
But since he also knew that he must do what he could to buy himself more time, he took in a breath, then leaned forward and placed his lips on hers.
* * *
Going back to the house to fetch the device had cost them some time, because of course Jessica and Miles and Lindsay wanted to know what Julia and Jace had learned. Jessica also seemed shocked that Murrah could be complicit in helping Qadim and his scheming sister, while Miles only narrowed his eyes.
“I knew there was something about that one I didn’t like.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t like anybody.”
Miles shot Lindsay an irritated glance following that remark, while Julia tried not to grin. It was true; he might care about Lindsay, but Julia had a feeling he only tolerated most other people.
“Anyway, we should be able to catch him off guard using this,” she said, hefting the device in her hand. It still shocked her that something so powerful could fit into her palm.
“That’s something,” Jessica said. Her gaze wasn’t on the device, however, but on the djinn she loved. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Of course not,” Jace replied. He’d been standing next to her, and he bent down and kissed her on the cheek while Jessica tried to look annoyed with him and failed miserably. “I’m making this up as I go along. But it’s the simple truth that it’s very difficult to restrain a djinn unless he’s grossly outnumbered. And Murrah is big.”
That was for sure. Qadim was probably the tallest djinn Julia had ever seen, but Murrah was only an inch or so shorter at the most, and proportionately broad. Jace had some serious muscles from working the farm or whatever else it was he did to keep himself in shape — did djinn even need to exercise? — but Murrah still looked like he could bend the younger man into a pretzel.
Jessica wore a resigned expression. “Well, I know you’re going to do what you’re going to do, but just be careful. I’ve kind of gotten used to having you around.”
This time the kiss Jace gave her was right on the lips, completely ignoring the fact that they had an audience. Lindsay just grinned, while Miles looked exasperated. And Julia — again, the best she could do was fight back another of those sharp spikes of jealousy.
After all, that could have been Zahrias kissing her, if she hadn’t been such a stubborn pain in the ass.
“We should go,” she said. “I mean, we don’t know for sure that Murrah is home, but Lilias did a quick pop in and out of the downtown area, and she d
idn’t see him lurking around any of his usual haunts, so it’s probably safe to assume that he’s at his house.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jace replied. His dark eyes were twinkling, but then the faint smile he’d been wearing faded. “Let’s do this.”
He approached so he could wrap his arms around her. That still felt strange, especially with Jessica watching, but it was the only way he could transport someone in the djinns’ particular mode of travel.
The next part was the trickiest, simply because Julia had to trigger the device literally the second they appeared at their destination. Any earlier, and Jace’s powers would be cut off. She didn’t know what would happen if a djinn was yanked back into the real world mid-blink, as it were. But she really didn’t want to find out.
Her finger had been resting on the switch, difficult enough because of the way she had to keep her arms wrapped around Jace’s midsection. What made it even harder was the mild bump she experienced as her feet touched the tile floor of the house Murrah shared with Martine. Julia’s fingertip skated right past the switch, and she frantically grabbed for it again, because standing right there in front of them was Murrah himself.
His mouth opened — whether to ask what the hell they were doing there, or maybe to simply let out a shocked sound, Julia didn’t know — because in the next second she did push the switch.
The djinn’s reaction wasn’t quite as extreme as Qadim’s when she’d used the device on him, probably because the power level wasn’t jacked up as high. But Murrah still stumbled a bit before steadying himself and fixing them with a shocked glare.
“Why are you using that thing on me?” he gasped.
Julia felt a pang of remorse, followed by worry that Lilias had been right and Murrah had nothing to do with Zahrias’ kidnapping. Really, in that moment, the big djinn looked so startled that she had to believe he must be innocent.
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