Azar wasn't sure why the idea that they could float seemed so outrageous to her. She could sprout wings and encase herself in fire. The Jann could actually become incorporeal, turning into smoke and air. The Sila could blast you with a lightning bolt from a mile away, and the Shaitan could crush your will to live with a hard look and a soft word. The Marid could draw all the water from your body, and the Ghul could draw out all the blood. They were a species of physical impossibilities. It was juvenile to believe that we were the only ones blessed with such talents.
The Marid Councilor finally spoke. "Tell us what you need to find these weapons before they get into the hands of our enemies. We will not concede to the Fae. Enslaving even a small portion of our population will only lead to enslavement of us all. It may not be for a century, or a millennium, but it will happen eventually. I will not stand by and let us go down in our histories as the Council that allowed us to be enslaved again."
Jack inclined his head, a small smile of satisfaction and relief brightening his face. "I need Azar."
Killian's eyebrows dipped low as he frowned at Jack. "What do you need her for?" He sounded like an overprotective father.
"Indeed, what use would you have for a half-blood Ifrit? She isn't overly powerful, and has no special skills that I can see," Christos appraised her body slowly, like a man studies a woman, not like a ruler assessing an asset. "There are Adel members who are more powerful, better equipped to help you on your wild treasure hunt. There are even Adel more beautiful than this half-breed, if that is where your need lies." He made it sound sleazy and insulting simultaneously. Azar flipped him the bird. He laughed mirthlessly. "You know I could have you imprisoned for your lifetime for such an insult to a Council member?"
Saraf cleared his throat. "Not if it was completely justified, Christos. You can be an insufferable asshole at times. But please answer the question Jack, why do you need my daughter?" Great, apparently her father was going to try the overprotective father act as well.
Jack paused, weighing his answer thoughtfully. "I believe Azar is important in the coming war. She will need to be with me while we search for the Great Weapons. Call it a gut feeling. I am open to any other Djinn you would like to add to the search party, but Azar is non-negotiable." He shrugged, like that should have been enough explanation in itself. Azar didn't think that explained a damn thing, but she wanted to go with Jack to search, so she wasn't going to argue. Exercising restraint twice in one afternoon. It must have been a new record.
Saraf and Killian both looked as if they were going to argue, but the Sila Councilor cut them off. "So be it. We will relinquish her servitude over to you for the time it takes to recover all of the Great Weapons. Don't argue, Saraf. This is what must be done to protect our people, and your needs are not greater than the safety of our society."
Saraf nodded his head in acquiescence, but he didn't look happy about it.
Killian had other plans. "Fine, but Bast goes too. We need someone who has authority on this mission and he is fourth in charge at this compound. We cannot spare Mira or Joia if there is a battle coming."
Azar could have kissed him and strangled him. Not being alone on the road with Jack, faced with constant temptation, was a good thing. Having Bast there, creating this awkward lust-triangle, was not such a good thing.
But Azar need not have worried. Once they'd added Bast, the negotiations began between the Councilors about who would go with them. Saraf argued for Cy, Azar's half-brother, because he was the most highly decorated field soldier available in the vicinity at the moment, and his combat skills would be needed in case of attack. The other Councilors argued that having two of his children, and the boyfriend of one, on the mission sounded too much like a conspiracy. Perhaps Saraf wanted all the weapons for himself? Saraf argued that it was safest for the Ifrit because Drakhul, the Great Weapon that targeted the Ifrit, was locked up nice and tight in the vaults below the compound. Getting cut by any of the other Great Weapons would not hurt the Ifrit. Back and forth they went for an hour, trying to get the balance between the benevolent and malevolent Djinn, between the different races, the different skills that would be necessary, etc.
On and on they went but eventually they settled on Azar, Bast, Cy and a Sila warrior named Vivian. The Sila Councilor argued that seeing how Ibsali was right down there in the vaults with Drakhul, then they should have a representative. The Sila were not naturally warriors, being more famed for their diplomacy, but apparently this Vivian could hold her own against Cy, and that was a glowing endorsement.
That seemed to appease the Council and ensured that the balance of benevolent and malevolent Djinn was maintained. Bast was given temporary control of Azar's servitude, meaning he could boss her about and she would be compelled to follow it. Apparently this was more palatable than handing it over to Jack himself. Bast gave her an impish grin, but she trusted him not to abuse the privilege.
The team being settled, they returned to planning for war and the team was dismissed to prepare for their mission, to be commenced ASAP. Bast and Jack went to the stores to get weapons and supplies that they thought they might need, and Killian and Azar went to the gym to collect Vivian. On the way down to the gym on the floor below, Killian called Cy. From what Azar could tell from one side of the conversation, Cy didn't understand why Azar was included in the team either. But he was a good soldier, and he accepted the mission without argument, ETA fifteen minutes.
When they pushed through the doors of the gym, Azar knew immediately which of the training Djinn was Vivian. She was taller than Azar by a couple of inches, and every inch of her body was hard muscle as she punched the workout bag with punishing force. The muscles flexed under her skin, and Azar would have been surprised if she had even 1% body fat. She was quick and strong, and Azar could easily see why they thought she would be an asset on the trip.
Killian introduced them, and she reached out to shake Azar's hand. She had a confident handshake, and it endeared her to Azar immediately. She accepted the mission without complaint, asked intelligent questions about the Fae, the weapons, possible destinations and unlike Cy, didn't even question Azar's presence in the team. She just left to pack and Azar watched her go with a brand new girl crush going on.
"Wow," she whispered as Vivian strode from the gym with a self-possessed swagger.
"Indeed," Killian chuckled. "Come on, we better go get you kitted out properly so you don't die." And with that cheery thought they headed to the stores.
Chapter 18
The mosquitoes were the size of quarters, and she had blisters the size of pennies on her feet. The humidity was cloying, and there was a permanent layer of moisture on her skin. Jack's super-wonderful-internal-magic-sensor had led them deep into the Amazon in Brazil, near the border of Bolivia. She was sitting on her pack, lost in her own thoughts. The complete isolation of the jungle tended to make a person introspective.
They'd flown into Porto Velho almost four days ago, and driven a beat-up old Land Rover to Lábrea. From there, they'd ridden in a fairly unseaworthy boat down the river, and trekked through some inhospitable terrain, always trusting that Jack knew where they were going, and that Cy knew how to get them back. Apparently, it wasn't Cy's first adventure into uncharted wilderness, and Azar had sent up a small thank you that her father had pushed for his inclusion in the expedition.
Azar had actually enjoyed getting to know Cy better. Without his brother Caspar there to do all the talking for him, he'd actually opened up about himself and the family. Well, her family too. He told her funny anecdotes about his brothers, and family dinners where there were stand up fights across the table. He told her about his life in the Adel, and that he'd chosen to stay in the Adel after his compulsory servitude because both Darius and Killian were highly decorated members. She learned that Darius was his oldest full brother, and that there was only fifty years between Darius and twins, Keely and Killian. Azar had known that both Killian and Cy's mothers lived together and co-pare
nted the children, but she didn't realize how much closer it had made those two branches of the family. Cy talked about them as if he loved them all.
Cy had given her so much information about her new found family that she probably could have written the family history by now. He told her all about the siblings she had never met. Ashtoreth, who lived in their father’s seat of power in Mardin, Turkey and was some kind of Council official. Yasmin and Roxx were full brother and sister and lived somewhere in Eastern Europe. Yasmin was an internationally renowned jeweler, though obviously no one knew she was Ifrit, and Roxx was the black sheep of the family. He was one of the best thieves in the world, and before that a pirate. He had stolen everything from diamonds the size of a fist to well-known abstract artworks that magically appear in railway station lockers. Cy shook his head and smiled as he talked of Roxx, his tone somewhere between exasperation and amusement.
Then there was Talia; the third youngest. She was a teacher and ran a boarding school with her mother, where Djinn families from all over Europe sent their offspring to be taught.
Cy told her about the time that their father had arrived to the New York townhouse with a human woman and a baby Malee. The mother had died of complications weeks later, and Cy's mother Fiona and Killian's mother Siobhan, had raised Malee together, almost two hundred years after Caspar had grown up and left home to do his servitude. He'd laughed when he told her that both Siobhan and Fiona had torn strips off Saraf for impregnating a human woman, knowing she would probably not survive the birth, even though Saraf had been the Councilor for the Ifrit at that stage. They'd argued for weeks, until Saraf had broken down and said that he'd had to do it for the survival of their race, how the numbers of infants born every year had dropped to double digits. He'd had to see if procreating with a human woman would result in Djinn offspring. Apparently all the Councilors and high up officials had agreed that it was the only course of action. It was almost two decades before they let Saraf back across the threshold of his own house, and he was only allowed to see Malee if the girl requested it.
Cy had shaken his head during that story. "They were furious when they found out he'd done it again with your mother. But when your mother ran, and he couldn't find you for decades, it almost broke him. He knew that your mother wouldn’t live long after your birth, because all of the experiments the Council had conducted showed that the mothers only lived for an average of two years after the birth of the child. A couple of years after your birth, I saw him huddled in the library of the townhouse, crying into my mom's arms. He was convinced that you were probably alone and scared somewhere or dead on the street. Mom didn't lecture him so much after that. She knew he cared about the consequences of his actions."
Azar had fallen into her own thoughts for hours after that little tale, until they'd made camp for the night. Then she huddled close to Bast's body and tried to push down the memories of her childhood. Memories of begging for food, of the evil men who would come into the orphanage and look her over with eager eyes. So many bad memories that she wished she could forget, but that time had only dimmed.
Back in the present, she shook herself out of her reverie in time to see Vivian swipe at Cy with a knife. They were sparring, although how they found the energy to do such a thing after a ten mile trek through the jungle was beyond her. Vivian was good, and Azar could see why everyone had been content that she be included in the group. She handled a weapon with ease, and countered Cy's offensive moves with prowess. Azar didn't think Cy was really exerting himself, he was just sparring to focus his mind and keep his skills from rusting. He was maintaining his body the way a person would maintain a gun. They flowed around each other as if they were doing a well-choreographed dance, bodies crouched low, crab walking in circles.
Bast came to sit next to her, his back up against a tree after he'd hung the hammock. They'd decided on hammock camping to avoid the possible poisonous fauna that littered the ground of the Amazon. There were plenty of trees to utilize as well. Bast wrapped his arm around her shoulders and settled in to watch the sparring.
Cy and Vivian continued to circle, taking warning swipes at their opponent periodically. Suddenly, Vivian attacked, getting her arm within Cy's block. Cy had to drop his own knife, but he grabbed Vivian’s hand and pressed a pressure point, forcing her to drop her knife too. Vivian’s leg kicked out and swept around the back of Cy's, and the larger man went down with a thud onto his back. His own foot whipped out at Vivian’s before she could dance away, and they both ended up on the ground. Cy wrapped his body around Vivian's leg, pushing gently against her knee with his body, until Azar thought it would pop. But Vivian tapped out and conceded, and Cy let go with a grin on his face.
“Can you feel the sexual tension in the air?” Bast whispered in her ear.
Azar wasn’t sure that it was that way at all. Cy was completely appropriate and professional. He treated Vivian as he would any other soldier, with no deference to her gender. Although Cy wasn’t going hard during the sparring, it had nothing to do with Vivian’s gender, and everything to do with conserving his energy. He wanted to keep his mind and reflexes strong, not exhaust himself. Vivian in turn didn't seem to notice how handsome Cy was. She treated him like a higher ranking officer, followed orders, and didn't ask for any special treatment. If there was sexual tension there, Azar was missing it completely.
Maybe it was because she was too busy trying to dodge her own sexual tension. She had studiously avoided being alone with Jack. Not because she thought she’d jump his bones if she spent two minutes alone with him, but because the tension was there and Bast was too perceptive. It wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have.
The man in question emerged from the forest to sit next to them. He’d been ‘communing with the Earth’ and he made it sound as if he and the planet actually conversed. She wondered if they participated in small talk. She'd imagined how that conversation would go in her head.
Jack would ask how the Earth was feeling, and she’d reply that she was feeling a little warm and was putting on some water weight, and she thought she threw her axis out last millennium and it still hasn’t straightened.
Jack would complain about carbon levels and extinction rates. They’d joke about starting an ice age and beginning again, before getting down to business. For some reason, the idea amused her to no end. Apparently, Jungle Fever was a real thing and she was succumbing quickly.
“The Earth says that it is due west, where the trees form a circle and the earth dances with energy.”
Azar screwed up her nose. Apparently with age came the ability to answer questions without actually answering a question. It was something Jack himself was good at. The ‘Earth’ had been giving them vague directions for days, and they were running out of time.
The Fae had given them a week to roll over or declare full scale war, with no prisoners, only slaves. She didn’t think they’d abide by the humans Geneva Convention either.
Jack put his hand atop hers. “Azar, could I please speak to you in private?” She pushed down the surge of giddiness, and murmured her agreement as she stood. She paused to place a reassuring kiss on Bast’s cheek.
Bast gave Jack a hard look that would have made anyone who wasn’t a demi-god quake.
“Come, I’d like to have this conversation in the circle I have already made,” the demi-god in question said as he led her out of the clearing that was their camp, and through the forest.
She heard more than saw the monkeys and birds scattering away from them in the trees overhead. She’d learned very quickly that the jungle was never quiet. It was a symphony of sound so pleasant, that it almost made up for the bird-eating spiders. The jungle had a primitive beauty that cannot be explained to people who had never been there. Sure, you could rattle off the animals and the fauna you saw, try to describe the musical calls of the different birds, or the earthy smell that permeated the undergrowth, but you wouldn’t be doing it justice. The magic of the jungle was in its rawness, the
fact that so many things can’t be explained. Perhaps no one had ever walked the trails they had walked. Most of the time she could guarantee they hadn’t, as Cy had spent a lot of time cutting a path through the dense undergrowth when they’d strayed off the tracks. The idea that you were the first person to ever see this patch of forest was a heady experience.
They came up to another small clearing. Calling it a clearing was probably being generous; it was more a six foot space between two giant trees. Lavender Irises bloomed in a large circle between the trees, and Azar knew that they didn’t bloom that way naturally. Jack stepped delicately over the plants, careful not to bruise so much as a petal as he knelt in the middle of the circle. He motioned for her to join him. She too stepped over as if the flowers were made of spun glass. She didn’t know much about the Fae, but she’d read enough Faery tales to know you didn't go stomping on a Faery circle if you valued your skin.
A sense of peace washed over her body in a wave as she crossed the invisible line. Jack waved her to kneel in front of him, closer than Azar would have liked, but if she was to avoid smashing into the flowers with her boots, she’d have to be mere inches away from his body.
He held out his hands, palms up, and she hesitantly laid her hands in his. He made a humming noise, his head cocked to the side as he was prone to do, like an owl studying something out of the ordinary near its nest.
“I did not believe it when The Earth suggested it. I believed it could not be true. It explained so much, but still I did not believe it true. But this is evidence I cannot ignore.” His tone was nearing zealous.
The Azar Omnibus: The Complete Azar Trilogy (The Azar Trilogy Book 0) Page 40