[Elder Races 04] - Oracle's Moon

by Thea Harrison

  Now she meant to bargain for something he had already given freely? He almost laughed. He took note of her rapid heartbeat and dilated eyes, and he realized she was truly in a panic.

  A compassionate creature might have cared about that and not taken advantage of it, but the Djinn weren’t known for their compassionate natures.

  And he certainly was not responsible for her poor bargaining skills.

  Another, louder knock sounded. “Ms. Andreas, please answer the door,” del Torro said. His voice was as pleasant and nondescript as his appearance. “We know you are in there.”

  You and the babies have my protection from the Vampyres, Khalil said, his mental voice as smooth as a rope of silk slipping over her neck. At a time of my choosing, you will do anything I ask you to do, for the sum of one favor. Agreed?

  She gave him a jerky nod. Agreed.

  Khalil gave Grace a sulfurous smile. Intending to take on a full physical form with which to greet the Vampyres, he let the smoke-face dissipate and…

  Grace straightened her spine, assumed a calm if tight expression and turned to open the door.

  Khalil had to admit, that surprised him a little. After the human had evidenced such panic, he hadn’t thought she had it in her. She still smelled of fear, but her energy crackled with anger too. She clearly didn’t like how the Vampyres had frightened her. Since it was also clear she had the ability to sense his presence, he decided to hold off on materializing to see how she dealt with what waited on her doorstep.

  Grace felt Khalil looming behind her as she looked through the fine mesh of the screen door at the two Vampyres on her porch. Earlier that morning in the clearing, there had been so much concentrated Power from so many entities, she’d had trouble sensing which Power belonged to whom. She’d felt surrounded by a formless heat, as if she had been engulfed by a solar flare.

  Now she had no difficulty sensing the intense Power that the Vampyre males carried. She faced two disasters dead ahead with a calamity at her back, and that was more than enough to dry out her mouth and keep her heart racing.

  “What do you want?” she said to the Nightkind King.

  Wow, listen to me, she thought. I sound kinda rude, don’t I? Get me a Djinn like a gun in my holster, and I lose all my manners.

  Julian Regillus’s dark gaze met hers. She felt the draw from his eyes through the screen door. “I want to talk with the Oracle, of course.”

  The Nightkind King’s voice was deep and rough, like a shot of raw whiskey. He had opened the front of his cloak to the warm summer night, and he wore a plain black shirt and black trousers underneath. He was broad across the chest and shoulders, flat through the abdomen and heavily muscled. This close, she could see that when he had been mortal, he had not aged particularly well. He looked like he was in his late forties when he had been turned, so he had probably been in his midthirties. His rough features were weather-beaten, lined at the eyes and at the corners of a stern mouth. Though he kept his hair military short, somehow he gave the impression of a shaggy wolf that watched her every move.

  In contrast to his King, the killer that stood beside him appeared almost slender, del Torro’s long, lean body disguising what must be a terrible whipcord strength. Xavier del Torro looked like he had been turned in his early to midtwenties. He could still embody the illusion of youthfulness, with eyes that were somewhere between gray and green, a clear complected skin and refined features that somehow missed being either handsome or delicate.

  Del Torro’s turning had been a famous event in history. A younger son of Spanish nobility, he had been a priest until the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition tortured and destroyed a community of peaceful Vampyres near his home in Valencia. The Vampyre community had included del Torro’s older sister and her husband. After the massacre, del Torro walked away from the Catholic Church and approached Julian, who turned him into a Vampyre and set him to cut a swath through the officers of the Inquisition. The ten years that followed were some of the bloodiest in Spanish history.

  While in theory Grace didn’t have a problem with someone who had decided to go after the Inquisition, um, yikes.

  Grace turned her attention back to Julian. “What do you want to talk about?”

  Del Torro turned his attention from studying the front of her house and gave her a pleasant smile. He asked, “Is this how you offer sanctuary to strangers?”

  “You’re rich and Powerful,” she said. “You don’t need sanctuary. You need a luxury hotel suite downtown. And you lost any right to sanctuary this morning when your friend pulled a sword on my land.”

  Behind her, Khalil’s presence flared in surprise, and she realized he hadn’t known what had happened. His attention must have been focused on the house. He coiled tightly around her.

  Julian shifted, a sharp, abrupt movement, and del Torro lost his easy smile. “We did not know that she came armed or what she intended to do,” Julian said.

  “That seems somewhat careless of you,” Grace said. “Is it supposed to make me feel better about letting you into my house? Because it doesn’t.”

  “We had no argument when the Wyr killed her,” Julian said. “We agreed that was justice.”

  Was that sincerity or expediency? Something was in the Vampyre’s voice, but whatever the emotion was, it was more complex and nuanced than she knew how to name. He was thousands of years old, and she was twenty-three. She wasn’t even going to try to understand him, because she knew she couldn’t.

  “Still not feeling reassured,” Grace told him. “I’m not up to a second consultation in one day. Why don’t you just ask me whatever it is you want to ask me, so I can answer, and you can go away?”

  Julian said, “I want to know what you and Carling talked about.”

  Del Torro’s gaze lowered. He moved suddenly and muttered under his breath. “Madre de Dios.”

  She looked down.

  Black smoke wafted around her, covering her from the waist downward. She drifted fingers through the top of it. It curled and eddied just like real smoke. Khalil was making his presence known to the Vampyres in no uncertain terms. She stirred the smoke with a forefinger. It looked really neat, actually, like she was standing in the mouth of a volcano. Or maybe in the mouth of hell.

  “Meet my companion,” she said. “He’s not very friendly.”

  Khalil Somebody Important. Which probably meant he was the Bane of More Than One Person’s Existence. He might possibly be the Bane of Quite a Few Peoples’ Existences. For the first time since meeting him, Grace felt almost cheerful.

  Khalil’s presence expanded to fill the room behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. Black smoke lifted like gigantic wings over her head. Out of it wicked crystalline eyes watched the males.

  Well, ain’t that another kick in the head.

  “There are small children asleep in this house,” hissed Khalil. “And the Oracle has made herself quite clear. You are not welcome here.”

  She turned back to face Julian, who stood with blazing eyes and his jaw clenched. He stepped forward and moved his angry face closer to the screen. The black smoke that was Khalil came down over her in a transparent veil. Julian said icily, “We do not hurt children.”

  Grace rubbed her forehead and tried to think. She could live with not making friends with the Nightkind King, but making an enemy of him would be downright foolish.

  “Look, you might not know what happens when the Oracle speaks,” she said bluntly. “But we aren’t really in control of the experience. Sometimes we remember what is said, and sometimes we blank out. I don’t remember what happened with Carling. I went blank, and the next thing I knew, I was on my knees and the whole thing was over. You have truthsense. You must know I’m telling the truth. Supposedly those of you who are so much older than I can tell that sort of thing, so there’s no point in you returning. I’ve got nothing to tell you.”

  Julian gave her a long, hard look. She felt the weight of his personality and his age in that l
ook. Surrounded as she was in Khalil’s veil of protection, she still shivered. Then Julian inclined his head and walked away. Del Torro did not linger either but turned on his heel and followed.

  Grace watched as the two men traveled down her driveway to disappear beyond the bushes and trees that bordered the front of her property. The veil of black smoke pulled away from her. She could sense Khalil shooting after the two Vampyres, hopefully to make certain they actually left. The rigidity left her spine, and she shook so hard she staggered and might have fallen if she hadn’t clutched at the doorknob.

  She felt a sudden need to look in on Chloe and Max. She grabbed the cane that she left by the front door and turned to hurry down the hall as fast as she could.

  Their room was shadowed and quiet. She eased over to Chloe’s small bed first and bent down to check on her. Chloe was sound asleep, her thumb half out of her mouth. Grace swallowed hard, tucked Chloe’s light summer blanket around her and eased over to check on Max. He had crawled to the head of his crib and lay sideways, his feet propped up on the side bars. He was also sound asleep.

  Her eyes watered. She hated when that happened. She pushed the edge of her fist against the bridge of her nose as she touched the downy wisp of hair on Max’s head. His hair hadn’t really started to grow in yet; he looked like a bald, happy little Charlie Brown.

  Maybe the Nightkind King had spoken the truth. Maybe he hadn’t known or approved of what the other Vampyre had done. Maybe they didn’t hurt children, and Chloe and Max had been perfectly safe the whole time. Maybe she had overreacted.

  But she couldn’t afford to risk Chloe’s and Max’s lives on a string of maybes. And she couldn’t afford to risk her own life either, not when they depended on her so much.

  Khalil coalesced beside her and looked down at Max too. She turned and gripped his forearm. “Thank you.”

  A creature that was not known for having a compassionate nature also did not suffer from an overabundance of conscience. But as Khalil looked into Grace’s full gaze and sincere, grateful expression, he might have experienced a twinge or two.

  He turned his gaze to the sleeping baby. Thank you, she said, and that was not something a Djinn heard often. A bargain kept the scales balanced. There was no need for gratitude in such an exchange.

  He frowned, reluctantly searched for foreign words and found them.

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  Once Khalil disappeared, all the tension spilled out of Grace. Suddenly her body ached twice as much as it had before. She stopped in the half bath to brush her teeth. Then she turned off the lights as she made her way to the office/bedroom, and she stretched out on the futon. She didn’t bother to put down the futon or take off the brace, even though it felt hot and tight on her leg. She had learned the hard way that when her knee ached this badly, just rolling over in her sleep might make it flare with a burning, grinding pain.

  A gust of wind rustled through the trees, billowing the lace curtains in the nearby window and licking along her sweat-damp skin. The scent of green growing things drifted into the house, along with a hint of the nearby river. She stared at the shadowed ceiling, listening to the small familiar sounds of the old house settling into place. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she sensed that, while Khalil had left, he had somehow kept a tendril of connection with them. She could feel his presence in the distance, like a touch of brimstone.

  A ghost walked through the downstairs. She hardly paid attention, other than to note that it was one of the old women from the kitchen. For the first month after the accident, she had gone through her days braced for the terrible possibility that Petra or Niko might appear, but neither did, and after a while she had stopped looking for them.

  Her eyes were dry and felt full of grit. She closed them and willed herself to sleep. She was wretchedly tired. She was always wretchedly tired. According to the doctor, that too would pass, as she healed emotionally and physically.

  The children were recovering from their own loss. Petra’s friend Katherine had kept Chloe and Max while Grace had been recovering in the hospital. Too young to understand why Mommy and Daddy were never coming home again, they had been subdued and clingy when Grace had been well enough to bring them home. Now, months later, they had recovered enough to laugh and play, but they were each still prone to crying jags, and sometimes Chloe retreated into herself and refused to talk. It broke Grace’s heart to see her that way.

  Outside, something snapped. Grace bolted into a sitting position and yanked the curtains aside to stare into the night. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

  —pulled a sword—

  —Vampyres, walking up her driveway—

  The killing. The golden monster that Rune had become had split the Vampyre’s body with claws as long as scimitars. For one moment bright red liquid sprayed everything around them. Then the blonde Vampyre’s body, along with her blood, had disintegrated to dust, and Grace had been left staring at the empty space where the woman had stood.

  Just outside her window, a raccoon waddled out from the bushes underneath the nearby trees, followed by three half-grown kits. The breath shook out of her as she watched the animals wander across the lawn. She knew where the raccoons were headed. They were going to check out the trash bins beside the garage. Living on a five-acre property meant the wildlife was opinionated and abundant. Just as the rest of her family had done for years, Grace kept the trash bins latched, but the raccoons never gave up hope.

  She let go of the curtain and put a hand to her forehead. Then she clenched that hand into a fist.

  Get a fucking grip, already, she told herself.

  Okay, but how?

  Confront the problem head-on. Solve it.

  She pushed off the futon, limped over to the desk and turned on the computer. Then she composed a draft of an e-mail outlining her problem. Who should she send it to—Isalynn LeFevre? As the elected Head of the witches’ demesne and a U.S. senator, LeFevre was one of the most powerful legislators in the States. Or should Grace send the e-mail to the Elder tribunal, care of Councillor Archer Harrow? Most of the Elder tribunal had been here when sanctuary was violated; they already knew what had happened.

  Grace sat back in her chair, staring at the screen. The computer clock read 12:17 A.M. She had no business e-mailing anybody after midnight, let alone powerful and sophisticated lawmakers. Slowly she clicked to save the e-mail as a draft.

  She needed to think this through. She knew her own faults. She was young, inexperienced, and she was well aware that she was a hothead and prone to impulse. If she was Catholic, she should probably take up permanent residence inside a confessional booth. She did not need to splatter all of that onto a page and then make it public.

  In any case, what did she really want to gain? Those ancient, deadly creatures on the Elder tribunal lived lives that were far more violent than anything she had ever known. Their lives were written on large canvases, their dramas playing out on the world stage. Inter-demesne politics, treaties and alliances, old grudges and betrayals, keeping the peace and fighting wars. And, sometimes, murder.

  So there was a violation of sanctuary. It was a single incident in more than a hundred and fifty years of her family living on this property. As a crime statistic, one incident was less than compelling. She imagined one of the tribunal Councillors reading her e-mail and patting a yawn.

  Grace needed to be taken seriously when she spoke and not dismissed or marginalized—or at least not marginalized any more than the Oracle was already.

  Besides, changing the law wouldn’t do a damn thing.

  So if the law couldn’t offer any real solutions to her problem, she needed to find her own.

  What she really wanted was to keep the children safe and to have protection when they needed it. If she only had money, she could hire a bodyguard or a security service, someone who was Powerful enough that his or her presence alone would be a strong deterrent to any potential lawbreakers.

  She…could hire
somebody…

  She sighed, tilted her head back and closed her eyes.

  She could eat humble pie, is what she could do.

  “Hello, are you still there?” she asked.

  Even though she spoke softly, the sound of her own voice shattered the deep, late-night silence. She couldn’t sense Khalil’s presence in the house or even on the property, like she had earlier. But now that she had turned her attention toward him, she could feel a tenuous thread of connection that streaked through the air like a vapor trail left from an airplane.

  Still, she got no response when she called his name, not even a shift in the air. Terrific. He wasn’t paying attention.

  She felt the impulse to pace but stifled it. Pacing had become more trouble than it was worth. Instead, she spun the office chair in circles. Of all the foolishness she had been guilty of in her life, feeling peeved that Khalil didn’t respond when she called him—especially after she had been so insistent that he go away—ranked high on the list.

  Maybe he was on a date. Maybe he had a mate. Maybe he had several mates. Maybe he was watching TV. Hell, as far as she knew, maybe he didn’t even need a television set, he just sucked up the information on the airwaves.

  She pinched her lower lip and spun in more circles, watching the shadowed room go round and round.

  An affinity to things of the spirit meant sometimes going past the teachings from her childhood, to an understanding that resided deep in her gut. She patted along the edges of the connection, learning as she explored the thread. When she was confident she had a good sense of it, she wrapped her awareness around the thread and yanked.

  Far in the distance, an immense cyclone whipped around to give her its full, startled attention. She stopped spinning and sat back in her chair as it streamed toward her, spitting with fury.