She was on a couch somewhere and he stood behind it, near her, speaking to someone directly across from him.
What happened?
Searching her groggy mind, Ari couldn’t help her gasp or the way her body jerked as her hands sought her stomach. There was a hole in her shirt and the skin underneath was raised.
Lilif daggered me.
Her movement brought Red’s eyes down to hers. She saw his concern and instantly felt better, allowing the relief of having taken down Lilif to settle throughout her body. “It’s done,” she told him with a croaky voice.
He nodded, his expression grim as he darted a look over her head at someone.
Asmodeus.
Asmodeus killed Lilif. And Ari had promised she’d try to make sure it didn’t come to that. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been strong enough. Sitting up slowly, Ari was gratified to find she felt no pain; all the other aches and hurts from the fight had been healed too. Her eyes flickered around the room and she discovered the kings were still there, including her father, the White King. She flinched when she saw him but his expression gave nothing away.
She didn’t know what to think of him. White had caused all this but had attempted to right his wrong by feeding Red information about Lilif. When White’s expression didn’t change, Ari ignored the familiar stab of hurt she felt at his indifference. He was her father, after all, but you’d never know it. With an inward sigh, she put her feet on the floor and turned to Asmodeus who stood by the fireplace in Azazil’s parlor.
Azazil was close by, his hand on Asmodeus’s shoulder in a rare show of comfort.
Sensing her gaze on him, Asmodeus lifted his eyes to her and the fear she felt was immediate. His eyes weren’t blank; they were filled with calculation and spiteful intent. “I told you I would not let you die out there. That would be much too easy on you. I think your punishment should fit the crime, don’t you?”
She heard Red growl in warning but it did nothing to slow her racing heartbeat. More unnerving was the amused smirk on Azazil’s face.
That was not good.
“If we are done here, I’d like to leave and assess the damage done to my Guild.” The Gilder King stood, his demeanor completely casual, as though the past few days hadn’t happened.
“Yes, you all are free to leave.”
Azazil waved a weary hand at them.
Gilder and Lucky left first, quickly followed by Gleaming and Shadow. White stared at his father for a moment and Ari finally saw some truth in his expression. He was trying to mask his grief—not only of the loss of his mother but of his belief in her. Whether Azazil noticed wasn’t apparent to Ari.
Azazil chuckled at his son. “Are you and I at peace now, Son?”
In response the White King quirked his eyebrow and replied, “Did the world end?”
Azazil looked entertained as he watched White disappear into the Peripatos. “Well, I think I will finally rest. Asmodeus, why do you not visit that lovely harem of yours? They shall cheer you up.” Leading his lieutenant out of the room, Azazil gave Ari one last sinister smile before the doors slammed behind them.
Ari, Glass, and Red gathered together in the middle of the room. Red’s brow furrowed as he stared at the door. “I did not like Asmodeus’s threat.”
“Nor I,” Glass agreed.
“Uh, me, neither,” Ari added.
Turning conversationally to Glass, the Red King’s lips twitched in amusement. “Did you know Ari attempted to save my life?”
Seeming equally amused by this, Glass replied, “Did she now?”
“Mmm,” Red mused and flashed Ari a smile. “It would appear she quite likes me.”
Ari shook her head at him, rolling her eyes, but her chest seemed to expand with the warm feeling his teasing gave her. Ari did care about her Uncle Red and she’d been scared that after her mother, Sala, had died, Red would want nothing to do with her again.
Gazing up into his face, she saw affection and realized that after everything, after all the crap and all the loss, she’d still managed to scrape out of this with her own ramshackle family: Jai, Trey, the Roes, Red, and Glass.
An odd but loveable mix.
But it was family.
Something she’d spent her entire childhood looking for.
PART THREE
20
Free
It had all happened so fast. A whirlwind of shades of gray, of choosing sides, of principle versus faith, of careless power and abuse of power, of life and death. A lifetime had happened to Ari in less than a year. She’d fought monsters and friends, she’d saved both, and either directly or indirectly she’d killed both. For years unknowingly and knowingly, she’d been haunted by Lilif, the haunting escalating these last few short weeks.
Only a week had passed since
Asmodeus destroyed Lilif once and for all.
It may as well have been a year.
Christmas had come and gone and the New Year was dawning in twenty-four hours. It would dawn with fewer Roes in tow—unfortunately, Lilif had wiped out two entire families within the Roe Guild. Red said The White King, who had unwillingly played a part in those deaths, was spending his days avoiding a very unhappy Gilder.
As for the Roe Guild, the rest returned to Burlington to mourn and try to move on with their lives. Michael as always led the way, and in doing so he made sure the deaths of those in their fold were not laid at Ari’s feet. She was one of them and thus not to be blamed. That brought her, Jai, and Trey no small amount of relief as they settled back into their home a street away from the Roes and Fallon, who Ari was getting to know again.
For Ari, the most difficult part had been transporting Charlie, Mrs. Creagh, and Mikey back to Sandford. They were happy to be returning home, free and safe. But Ari once again found herself having to say goodbye to her best friend, and found it even harder this time since this Charlie resembled the old Charlie so much.
She’d hugged Mikey and Mrs. Creagh goodbye, who, although kind and polite, also looked a little relieved to see Ari go. Then she’d walked Charlie to the backyard where she had some privacy to take the Peripatos back to Burlington.
The moment had been filled with awkwardness, and when she’d turned to smile with sad amusement at her friend, she found him rubbing the back of his neck in discomfort.
“I want to thank you for helping me and my family,” he told her quietly.
“It was my fault you were caught up in this in the first place.”
“No, don’t do that.” Charlie stepped toward her, appearing solemn. “I know I don’t remember you, and in this moment, saying goodbye, I know somewhere deep down I should be heartbroken. I know if I remembered you, I would be. I know this because I only got to be around you for a few days. But I learned that you’re the kind of person who would die for someone she loves. We all think we’d be that person, but you never know until the situation is put before you. I know you damned the consequences to save me and the people I love. You changed a reality for me, Ari, and although I know I can’t be a part of that world, of your world, I want you to know that I won’t forget you. I don’t want you to feel sad that you lost your friend. I want you to feel proud that you helped a friend who’d lost himself. I didn’t know that Charlie, and thanks to you, I’ll never have to go through the pain of getting to know him.”
There wasn’t anything more perfect Charlie Creagh could’ve said to Ari in that moment, and smiling despite the tear tracks on her cheeks, she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight for a few seconds. When she stepped back, she knew Charlie had read the silent promise in her eyes to not disrupt his life again.
This was goodbye for good.
She held up her hand in a frozen wave and watched him mirror the action, and with one last smile, she stepped back into the Peripatos.
Once again, Jai stepped in to soothe the pain of losing Charlie Creagh all over again.
***
“I thought I’d seen the last of you people,” Charlie k
ept his voice teasing but his eyes were questioning. He’d turned his gaze from watching Mikey and his friends keep warm in the cold December air by playing basketball at Ben’s Park. Charlie sat on a bench, huddled in his thick jacket, sipping hot coffee out of a Styrofoam cup.
A week had passed since the insanity of discovering their world was filled with more mystery than the general public would ever know, and he found he’d been a lot more affected by it than he’d initially thought.
For starters, he’d grown increasingly overprotective of Mikey upon discovering what his life would be like without him. His mom had gotten pretty overbearing too, and Charlie almost felt bad for Mikey who hadn’t been able to breathe without one of them asking what he was doing, where he was going, when he’d be back, who he was with …
So Charlie spent his Sunday watching a basketball game and thanking whatever god was out there for getting them out of the Jinn world as quickly as possible. This meant he didn’t really know how to feel when the wooden picnic bench he was sitting on creaked and he turned to find Fallon Roe sitting beside him in an oversized hoodie, duffel coat, and scarf.
She smirked at him. “I think you kind of mean that.”
He shrugged. “Did something happen?” He tried to slow his heart at the thought.
“Nah.” She leaned back on her hands, her silver jewelry clinking against the wood. “I’ve been deliberating for days whether to drop by or not.”
Or not might have been the way to go. Charlie winced at the thought, wondering how he was going to break it to his non-ex-girlfriend that he didn’t want anything to do with her world.
She saved him the time.
“I meant what I said before about us being totally different people now. I know this is your world and I have mine, and those two can’t mix. I don’t want them to,” she hurried to assure him. In doing so, she chipped away at the inexplicable guilt he felt about not being the guy she wanted him to be. “I came here for closure. Not mine. Yours.”
He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“People were telling you a lot of things about this Charlie guy you didn’t know, and most of what they were telling you didn’t sound so great. If I were you, I’d be thinking, ‘man, I hope life doesn’t throw me too many knockdowns because apparently I can’t handle that shit.’”
Charlie snorted. Because it was true. He had been thinking that.
She touched his arm, guessing his thought. When their eyes met, hers were completely serious. “Charlie, the magic did a lot to mess you up. But even through that you were still this innately good person who loved his brother enough to try to find peace and justice out of it. Some people call it obsession, revenge. Maybe it was. But I never saw that as a bad thing. I saw it as passion and strength and focus. And even without that, when you were disappointing Ari for not being the person you used to be, you were making my life better. You made me laugh and you liked me for just being me. I also knew that you would never intentionally hurt me.” She heaved a sigh. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that when some people might’ve only seen the worst in that Charlie, I saw the best, and I saw the best because it was there. It existed. That Charlie was a good guy. You need to know that.”
He was quiet a moment, head bent, hands clasping the cup. Finally, he lifted his eyes to her and he gave her a tight nod. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”
She smiled and moved gracefully away from the table. “This time it’s really goodbye.”
“Fallon,” he murmured softly, making her faux smile wilt a little, “you should know something too.” Charlie swallowed, trying to get the words right, knowing how important they would be to her. “I’m not that Charlie, but part of me is, right? I’m still him—it’s just life experience has carved us in different ways. So if I’m him, then I can tell you how I would have felt if I was feeling that lost, and my best friend didn’t recognize me anymore and didn’t understand me, and I was feeling all alone, and then this girl comes along who sees me, who gets it … that would mean everything to me, and I’m guessing it meant everything to that Charlie too. You matter, Fallon. You mattered to him. I somehow know that without knowing it.”
She dipped her head, shuffling her feet. When her head rose again, she was biting her lip. She threw him a mock glare, her eyes shimmering. “Dude, I don’t do tears. I could kill you right now.”
Charlie chuckled and sipped at his coffee, hoping not to prolong her embarrassment as she brushed fingers against her trembling eyelashes. And then just like that, because it was her way, Fallon abruptly held up a hand in wave. “Thanks, Charlie Creagh. I’ll not be seeing ya.” Grinning, she shoved her hands in her pockets and strode away out of his life forever.
***
“Mmm, can we just stay here forever?” Ari mumbled, snuggling deeper into Jai’s side and resting her head on his chest. They cuddled together on the couch, the fire roaring in the fireplace, an action movie blazing across the screen. Trey was off somewhere with Glass, giving them a little peace and quiet before tomorrow’s party. Caroline Roe had decided that the best way to bring The Guild back together was to enjoy the festivities and have a New Year’s Eve party.
Jai and Ari were not exactly looking forward to the party. Neither felt like they’d caught up on the sleep missed while trying to bring the Jinn queen to her knees.
Jai’s arm tightened around Ari’s shoulder and he kissed her forehead, content in a way he didn’t think he’d ever been before. “I wish.” His eyes slid back to the television screen as James Bond kicked ass in his very nice suit.
Jai wondered if he could get away with hunting in a three-piece suit and then immediately rejected the idea based on estimated dry cleaning bills alone.
“Are you enjoying the movie?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you enjoying the movie?”
“Yeah, baby,” he answered a little distractedly as the fight sequence escalated. “Aren’t you?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Her finger trailed down the center of his stomach and Jai tensed, no longer interested in the on-screen action. He watched her hand as it descended and his breathing shallowed. “I just thought maybe since we’re alone—” She hadn’t even finished the sentence and Jai had her on her back, his mouth on hers, his hands on her body.
Jai was in the middle of unbuttoning her jeans when the doorbell rang. Jai reluctantly jerked his head up. You have got to be kidding me? “Who would be ringing the doorbell at this time?”
“Jinn,” Ari answered grimly, her cheeks flushed from his attentions. “I definitely feel a Jinn out there.”
“Well, that could be anybody,” he grumbled, irritated by the interruption. He got up, fixing his clothes as Ari swung her legs off the couch.
“Sorry I can’t be more specific,” she answered dryly.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he muttered, brushing his fingers along her jaw as he passed her.
“Wait for me.” She hurried to be at his back. Jai peered through the small eyeglass and immediately froze at who he saw on the other side.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he whispered, taking a step back.
“Jai,” Ari sounded worried now, “Jai, who is it?”
He turned his head to look at her and answered almost as if he was asking a question. “My father.”
Catching the surprise on her face, Jai gave her his worst reassuring smile ever before yanking the door open.
Luca Bitar stood before them, a big, healthy-looking guy, an older version of Jai. “Father,” Jai said, using the term out of habit. “What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?” he asked, his eyes moving from Jai to Ari, his request put to the both of them.
Jai’s gaze swung back to Ari.
Whatever you want.
He stepped aside. “Come in.”
Luca seemed to exhale with relief and stepped inside, his presence still intimidating even after everything. “I drove here,” he informed them as he followed Ari into the s
itting room, his eyes scanning the house.
“You drove all the way from California?”
His dad nodded, smiling. “Decided I could use the time to myself.”
Gesturing to a seat, Jai waited for Luca to sit. Ari remained standing, looking as awkward as Jai felt.
“Can I get you coffee or water or …?” she asked, shrugging.
Luca smiled up at her. “I’m okay, Ari, thank you.”
“Jai?”
“I’m fine, baby.” He held a hand out to her, needing her beside him. She immediately came to him, tucking his hand onto her lap as she sat close. He turned back to his dad. “So why are you here?”
Luca studied the two of them closely, and Jai had the weirdest feeling that he liked what he saw.
“Dad?”
Clearing his throat, the elder Ginnaye sat up in his chair and drew a deep breath. “This is … I’m not even sure how to start or what to say. In the end, I don’t think there’s anything I can say to erase the past or to erase my mindset, or Nicki’s.”
Understanding now why Luca was here and feeling that awful, familiar weight of unworthiness press down on his chest, Jai squeezed Ari’s hand, probably hurting her. She didn’t complain. If anything, she held on tighter.
“All I can say is, I’m sorry,” Luca continued, those words exploding in Jai’s head like shrapnel. “I’m sorry for what I did and didn’t do, and I’m sorry that sorry won’t ever be enough.”
Everyone sat silent, the room thick with tension.
And then Luca murmured, “I’m proud of you, Jai. Word of what you and Ari did is circulating the Jinn world and people are phoning to congratulate me. I keep telling them I didn’t do anything. Six months ago that wouldn’t have been the case. I would have accepted the congratulations as my due and really believed that I had a hand in making you the good man you are today. But that extraordinary young woman sitting next to you once told me that you are everything you are despite me, and that I can’t take credit for the man you’ve become.”
Jai turned to Ari, the weight slowly disappearing. “You said that?”
Darkness, Kindled Page 18
