“Let’s pray he’s a Djynn of his word.”
Faith didn’t reveal how much she thought a Djynn’s word was worth. She could only hope as much as Leo was hoping. She held out another apple as they turned another corner. Was it her, or did this place seem bigger on the inside than it was on the outside?
It probably was. Like Grey’s little gingerbread house, there was some kind of spatial distortion that allowed them to pack a lot of rooms into a small space.
Leo grabbed hold of her arm, hurrying her along after him. She had to resist in order to make sure the horse was still engaged by her lure. But she needn’t have worried. It was following eagerly along. And, apparently, apples gave the poor thing terrible gas. Even if they weren’t making a racket clomping their way out of the house, the sheer stench of the horse’s farts would have led everyone right to them.
“Back door!” Leo called out triumphantly. He jerked the door open sending a stream of bright sunshine into the hall. A series of screams made them start as the light revealed a crowd of four Wraiths coming through the walls. But the moment the sunlight hit them their bodies solidified mid phase and they were left screaming in agonizing pain, heads and torsos writhing and smacking around in a desperate flail to be free of their agonizing prison.
“Sunlight makes them solid!” Leo realized, even as he watched Faith turn from black to pale white at the touch of the sun. “They can’t phase! That’s their weakness!” For good measure he shot through the glass of two windows on either side of the door, allowing them to coax the Pegasus out into daylight in relative assurance that no more Wraiths were going to endanger their mission and, most of all, none were going to endanger Faith. The horse nickered and shied, clearly unaccustomed to the light.
“Christ, is this thing able to go into sunlight?” he thought to ask a little too late.
“We don’t have any choice!” Faith pointed out. Faith moved forward between flailing hooves to grab its mane and shush and soothe the frightened beast and Leo felt his heart lurch with fear, thinking any second she was going to be trampled to death or kicked in the head.
But after some more sweet cajoling and two more apples the horse willingly followed them onto the stony path. And true to his word, the moment they were free of the house they were teleported away, horse and all.
“My god, she’s beautiful,” Grey said with truly obvious admiration after standing a moment in awe after they had materialized in front of him. He moved forward, reaching out with a tentative hand, as though he were afraid to touch it. But then Faith remembered that it took only a touch for a Djynn to claim a nik as his own, and Grey had clearly waited a very long time for this nik…and the nik quite obviously was a source of great power.
“Hello, my love,” Grey said softly as he approached, nodding in gratitude to Faith when she handed him an apple to offer the beast in friendship. Faith was amazed by the change that came over Grey, by the incredible softness in his demeanor. “You’re safe and now you’ll be able to run free and eat all the apples your heart desires.”
They had materialized in a dark stable, no sunlight streaming into it. They could see doors that would lead out into the promise of a large corral or pastureland. Now that they were once again in darkness, the Pegasus’s wings had reappeared and she was stretching them out as wide as possible in the roomy stall. Faith had to admit she was the most beautiful horse she’d ever laid eyes on. There was something…something about a winged horse that called to the child inside of her. It told her that amazing, fantastical things were truly possible, and that she had only just begun to see the beauty in the world. There was so much more for her to see and learn, so much more than her secluded and often sheltered life in her father’s house.
She reached out to touch the horse’s wing, the powerful bony joint of it more than strong enough to lift the weight of the beast into the air. But it could only fly at night or in sunless weather, she realized. In its way, it too was a Nightwalker.
“Maybe one day you will trust me enough to show me who you really are,” Grey said to the horse, once again speaking as gently as he could. “Trust is the issue here,” he said to Faith and Leo. “She is a Mystical. Like no one you’ve ever known in your lifetime or ever will again. But she won’t show me who she is. First, she has to know she can trust me.”
“A Mystical?! I thought you said she was a nikki!” Faith cried out.
“Wait. What? What’s a Mystical?” Leo wanted to know.
“A Mystical is a Nightwalker breed, not a nikki,” Faith said darkly.
“Mysticals are both niks and Nightwalkers,” Grey explained calmly, all the while gazing lovingly at the Pegasus. “They hold tremendous amounts of power—but because there are those like the Wraiths who would trap them and use them like car batteries, a source of power to be tapped into rather than a being that craves what we all crave—to be loved—they do not often show their true selves to anyone other than fellow Mysticals. But maybe,” Grey said to the calming beast. “Maybe you will show me who you are when you learn who I am.”
He finally touched the horse on its forelock and a brilliant light bled into Grey, lighting him up under his skin from the hand he used to touch it with and slowly all the way down to his feet. Faith could see the blood vessels in his body as the light moved through him and she could feel a thump of force against her, like a static charge had been released.
“You know, any minute now I’m going to wake up with a hell of a hangover and I’m going to think to myself, ‘Dude, we are never doing that much tequila ever again,’ ” Leo said.
Faith laughed at him and he smiled at her. She realized then that there was a life and energy and all-out joy in that smile that had been missing at the beginning of their adventure. He had come a very long way in a very short amount of time. He’d had to cope with things, to see things that he had never even conceived of being real in the life he had been leading before. It was no wonder he’d had trouble adapting to all of this. This was a lot to take in even for her, and she was used to moving in supernatural circles.
The Pegasus farted again.
“Oh god, what have they been feeding this thing?” Leo asked, waving his hand in revulsion.
“She’s a her, not a thing,” Grey snapped at him. “And they’ve probably been feeding her eggs. Eggs suppress her ability to change.”
“That explains why she didn’t just change form and walk out,” Leo said. “That house was pretty wide open. But she couldn’t open doors and couldn’t simply walk out as long as she was in this form. I’m amazed she survived in there. All it would take is one touch and they would have killed her.”
“I find that intriguing myself. So little is known about the Wraiths,” Grey said. “Perhaps they can control the use of their death touch. They can decide whether or not to kill. A conscious choice.”
“Which makes them all the more evil,” Faith said bitterly. She shivered in revulsion.
“Do you know her name?” Leo asked, reaching a tentative hand out to touch the horse. “How did you even know she was their captive?”
“Are we wishing to know the answers to those questions?” Grey asked archly.
“I think not,” Leo said, holding up both hands as if touching any of them might equate a wish.
The horse nickered and moved forward, shoving Grey aside in order to head-butt Leo affectionately.
In spite of himself, Leo chuckled and went back to petting her. “You’re welcome,” he said, reaching to scrub at her forelock.
“Let’s get a decent meal into her and then…then I have a wish to carry out for you,” Grey said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Grey, Leo, and Faith appeared in Jackson’s bedroom so suddenly that Docia, who was standing at the foot of the bed, released a shocked little cry. She had been watching Marissa as she lay curled up in the bed next to Jackson, her body wrapped around him, holding him tightly, as if by will alone she could keep him in this plane of existence with her.
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br /> Docia took one look at the trio and burst into tears. She knew very well what their arrival meant and all the strength she had been using to keep herself together suddenly abandoned her. As if they had a magic of their own, Docia’s emotions triggered Ram’s almost instantaneous appearance. He was hurrying to her side the next instant, pushing past Ahnvil and Stohn and Max and Angelina, who, for some reason, were all in the room. The reason became obvious when Ram, who had given Docia the expanse of his chest to weep against, looked up at Leo and Faith and Grey.
“I don’t know if you’re in time,” he said quietly, even though he clearly wished he could say anything else. “He’s grown pale and cold. He may be without one or both of his souls already, his body only lingering.”
Grey moved around the bed, and as he approached Jackson’s side of it Marissa came awake. She sat up in a wobble of confusion, forcing herself out of the depths of her exhausted sleep.
“Is he gone?” she demanded, her hands clutching at her lover’s shirt. “Did he leave me while I slept?”
The panic bordering on the edge of despair rang through her voice. She looked at the stranger approaching the bed and out of some innate instinct she threw her body over Jackson, protecting him from this unknown element.
“Who are you?” she demanded of him.
“My name is Grey and I am a high-level Marid Djynn. I come with the magic necessary to repair your loved one’s souls.”
“H-how do we know w-we can trust him?” she needed to know, looking helplessly at Ram. “What if he’s here to hurt him further?”
“There is nothing worse that can be done to him that time isn’t already doing,” Ram pointed out. “He’s dead if we don’t extend our trust and dead if we do and the Marid’s motives are untrue. But he will have to keep in mind what I will do to him if he does kill Jackson.” There was even more threat in his tone than there was in his words. If the Djynn was cowed by it in any way, he certainly didn’t show it. Probably because when it came right down to it, Grey’s power could be endless, and Ram’s, significant as it was, could probably do very little to countermand that power.
“Madame, if I may?” Grey asked with politesse before reaching out with a hand, leaving it to hover over Jackson. He waited until she moved past her hesitation and gave him a permissive nod before letting his graceful, long-fingered hand lower to touch Jackson on his broad bare chest. Somewhere along the line, Faith realized, Marissa or someone had stripped Jackson, bathed him clean of the mess Apep had made of him, and redressed him in a simple pair of fleece drawstring pajama pants. Jackson had grown paler in color, his lips almost porcelain beige, his eyes looking like twin bruises in the face of his sickly pallor.
“It’s not too late. I can still reattach his souls,” Grey said quietly. “But they will be injured and the attachment will be tender and raw at its best. I need an outsider, someone with a single soul who is close to him, to act as a surrogate. I will attach the surrogate aura to his weakened one and the healthy aura will keep him energized and strong while his souls continue the healing process. It will also fortify his aura against any further injury.” He let his eyes sweep the room, taking in the plethora of single-souled Gargoyles and humans. “Volunteers?”
Leo stepped forward a heartbeat before anyone else could react, putting himself directly in front of the Djynn’s sight. “I’ll do it,” he said quietly. “You need a soul to ground him? Someone close to him? That’s me. There’s no one closer to Jackson than I am.”
Grey seemed to absorb that for a moment, his head tilting to the side a little as he debated within himself.
“No. I’m sorry, but for these purposes the volunteer must stay close to his side for almost a month. Perhaps this human”—he indicated Max—“is the better choice, considering your desire to leave this place in the dust. I can’t attach him to someone who might walk out on him at the drop of a hat or when they find themselves so uncomfortable they think taking off is the only solution.”
“Are you calling me a coward or something?” Leo demanded, his entire aura bristling with his outrage. “Are you saying I would just walk out and leave my friend—my brother—to die? Because if you are I’m going to have to remind you pretty freakin’ fast that you don’t know a damn thing about who I am and what this man means to me!”
“If anyone would be there for Jackson,” Marissa said, grabbing Leo’s hand and drawing him even closer to the bed, “it would be Leo. They have been through so much together. Jackson has always saved Leo, and Leo has always saved Jackson. That’s just how it is.”
Grey smiled with a small measure of satisfaction lighting his eyes, and Leo drew in a tight breath as a tide of understanding washed over him. It didn’t matter what had happened to Jackson, his feelings toward him, his loyalty, would never change. And the reverse was also true. Perhaps that had been the crux of his fear. Perhaps he had been afraid that Jackson would no longer be there for him as his life and new world began to take up a place of importance. Where would Leo stand in all of that?
Right here. Beside his friend. Always.
“Very well. All you need to do is come closer to the bed. I will begin.”
Everyone seemed to hold their breath for a twofold reason. One, to make sure Jackson was still breathing. Two, to wait and see if the Djynn could pull off a miracle they were in desperate need of.
Grey drew a breath, closed his eyes, and leaned his weight forward on his hand, pressing Jackson down hard into the bed. It was as if he were trying to snap Jackson’s breastbone in two. Grey began to tremble from the exertion, as though a great battle was being fought where he and Jackson were connected. It went on for a minute…two…then three. Grey broke a sweat, his handsome face coloring red under his dark complexion. Then suddenly he dropped, his hand plunging into Jackson’s chest, through skin and bone and muscle, but not a drop of blood to be seen. Grey pushed harder, as though feeling around inside of the man, the very idea of it making Leo cringe inside from memory. But this, he tried to remind himself, was for healing. That had been for torment. All he could do was pray Grey wouldn’t need to put his hand inside of him as well, because frankly, while he wanted to be there for Jackson, he didn’t know if he had it in him.
Grey’s other hand came to join the first, it too struggling to breach Jackson’s outer surfaces.
Elbow deep inside of Jackson, he continued to search and fight. Faith could see the severe concentration in him, and she could see he was grabbing at the twin scrolls inside of Jackson. Normally the scroll of a person was a single bright cone of light that began at the feet and streamed upward in a cylindrical shape toward the heavens. Jackson had two scrolls, one for each soul, and they had been bouncing about in the confines of his body, trapped in his repaired aura. An aura she could see had thinned greatly. It was because of that thinning that the Djynn had been able to gain entrance. Now he held each soul by the tail, as it were, and was holding them in place as he poured healing magic into them. He was murmuring something, the words a tumble of exotic inflections, clearly his native tongue that was quite similar to those of Indian or Pakistani bent. Neither, and yet similar.
Faith could see the scrolls slowly settling in, reattaching and beaming widely in the proper direction. By the time Grey withdrew, everything was perfect. Exactly as it should be…except the hole in his aura left by Grey’s intrusion. Grey then rested a hand atop Jackson’s chest once more and beckoned to Leo.
“Take off your shirt,” he commanded.
Leo and Faith both froze, their breath locking in their chests. Faith watched as Leo hesitated, his eyes sweeping the crowded room with a current of sheer anxiety emanating from him. But then he looked down at Jackson, grabbed his shirt, and whipped it off his back.
If he was waiting for a reaction, he was sorely disappointed. But it took only a moment for her to realize that their lack of shock at the sight of his gouged chest was like telling him they did not pity him, did not think him too weak or too subpar for the task he�
��d volunteered for. He exhaled, dropped his shirt to the ground, and lifted a brow toward Grey.
“Your surrogate guinea pig awaits,” he invited.
Grey smiled and without hesitation or a tremor of concern that the contact might cause him pain, he used his free hand and pressed it against Leo’s chest.
“Jesus,” Leo said, his breath coming fast, reminding Faith of when she had been in the Wraith house, sounding loud and frightened to her own ears.
“Night Angel, if you will?” Grey nodded toward Jackson and she quickly moved forward to repair his aura while Grey attached Leo for the surrogacy.
“Don’t worry,” Grey said to Leo when he saw the man had broken a sweat. “I don’t need to go fishing for your soul. It’s already where I can find it. I won’t need to breach your body, merely connect you at your aura.” Grey took Leo’s hand and brought it into contact with Jackson’s, then returned his hand to Leo’s chest.
Faith suspected Grey could have done the aura repair on Jackson himself, but wisely, after such a tremendous expenditure of magical energy, he was delegating the task to her so he wouldn’t burn himself out completely.
The moment his aura became intact and reinforced, Jackson woke up, sucking in a startled breath, as though someone had been holding him under water all of this time. It was very likely that was what it had felt like. He had been slowly suffocating to death without access to the souls that gave him life.
Marissa and Docia both cried out, and flung themselves against him, heedlessly knocking Grey and Leo out of the way. Jackson automatically caught them up against him. He was confused and didn’t know what to make of all of the attention and tears. He looked up and met Ram’s eyes first but in the end it was Leo whom he turned to for clarity. Leo reached out and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“It’s very good to see you, brother,” Leo said.
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