He stopped. Rubbed at the back of his neck. Returned his gaze to his feet.
Skin prickling, pulse pounding, she drew a slow breath. “James?”
“Hmm?” He didn’t look at her. Didn’t move away but didn’t look at her.
“Can I ask a question?”
A wry laugh filled the space between them. “Only one?”
“Only one.”
His jaw bunched, and then, with a shaky sigh, he twisted on the lounge to face her. “Shoot.”
“Does you being a djinn have anything to do with why you left me, after I told you I was in love with you?”
He studied her, eyes unreadable, body still. “No. No, it doesn’t.”
It was a lie.
For the first time since meeting him, since knowing him, James had told her a lie. She could see it on his face. Feel it in her soul.
But why?
“James. What aren’t you telling—”
“Oi, Hastin?” a male voice shouted from the front of the house. “You’d better not be dead in there.”
Chapter 5
Extraction spells were always messy.
Wiping his hands on the hem of Mrs. Taylor’s dress, Philips smiled up at the woman. “Now, that wasn’t too bad, was it?”
She didn’t answer.
Tapping her big toe with a finger, he let out a low chuckle, watching as she began to sway.
On the floor, curled loosely on his side, Detective Taylor remained as silent as his wife.
Philips regarded the blood trickling out of the man’s empty eye sockets. Admired the way it pooled on the plastic sheet underneath him.
Messy, yes, but worth it.
He returned his smile to Mrs. Taylor. “I’m going to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?”
She didn’t answer. Just hung there, drooling, suspended in midair on nothing. Tears leaked from her bulging eyes. Urine dripped from her dangling feet to dribble on her shoes, now discarded on the floor directly below her.
“No tea then?”
Stepping over her husband’s inert frame, Philips left his work room, ascended the stairs to the main part of the sprawling house he used as his residence whenever in LA, and headed for his kitchen.
Deep in his mind, a cloud brewed. It would grow bigger, tumultuous. Soon, it would render him catatonic for a few seconds. Vulnerable and mewling. But when the cloud dissipated, everything that had once been in the detective’s brain would be in his.
Everything.
Of course, extracting it meant Detective Taylor’s brain was now mush, but really, what did the man want with it? His life had been so… so… mundane. Boring.
Ineffective.
Waving his hand toward the kettle on the stove, he crossed to the cupboard, removed a teabag from a cannister, and dropped it into his favorite glass cup. The room filled with the shrill scree of the kettle boiling a second later, and he silenced it with another wave of his hand.
A cloud of memories, thoughts and knowledge broiled and swelled in his head. His vision blurred for a second, overwhelmed by a maelstrom of images swarming over each other.
There, and then subsiding, leaving a dull ache that gnawed at his mind.
He smiled, filled his cup with freshly boiled water, dunked the teabag a few times, and—breathing in the distinct bergamot aroma—walked back to his work room.
“Still here, Mrs. Taylor?”
He laughed, wandering over to the woman suspended in the air.
Sliding his finger up the back of her leg, he gave her a slight push, smiling. There was something satisfying in the way she gently swung, as if a coming storm played with her hanging body. A synergy with the building cloud in his head.
His vision blurred again. Images pummeled him. Smothered him. Piled on top of each other, warred with each other.
Taylor having fun with his wife, Taylor chasing down someone running away, Taylor laughing with a group of uniformed cops, Taylor being pushed on a swing, Taylor having his diaper changed, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor…
Hissing, Philips doubled over, holding his teacup tight, gripping his knee with his other hand.
“Whoa Nelly!” He chuckled a few seconds later when the images vanished. “That was a mean one.”
Straightening, he took a sip of tea and tapped Mrs. Taylor’s toe again. “Did I see a memory of you slapping poor old hubby here in some place that looked like a supermarket?”
Mrs. Taylor swung.
He cast the detective a curious look. “What did you do? Never mind, I’ll know soon e—”
The cloud erupted.
He collapsed, every memory and thought Taylor had ever had rushing at him, into him.
He screamed, spine buckling, bowing, limbs doing the same.
He screamed louder and flopped on the floor—and then the room vanished as his brain shut down and soaked up everything.
Everything.
Every…
Philips opened his eyes.
They burned, but the sensation would disappear soon enough. As with the memories and thoughts now in his head, his senses were in the process of advising every nerve and cell in his body that he, too, had experienced everything Detective Taylor had.
Pushing himself upright, he let out a low groan. Curved shards of glass lay scattered next to him, the handle of his tea cup attached to one. The unmistakable scent of tea filled his shaky breath, even though not a drop of the brew was visible.
How long had he been riding the onslaught? How long had he been lost in the cloud?
Long enough for his spilt tea to dry.
Pressing his fingers to his face, he massaged his eyebrows. The contents of Detective Taylor’s mind needed a few moments to settle into his own before he could go rummaging through them.
“That was fun,” he murmured up at Mrs. Taylor.
Her dangling feet quivered.
He frowned. “Mrs. Taylor?”
Pushing to his feet, he lowered the silent woman with a slow downward stroke of his hand until the tips of her toes kissed the crusty scum of her dried piss on the floor.
Mrs. Taylor’s eyes dribbled from their sockets, the gelatinous liquid trickling down her cheeks to join the line of snot along her top lip.
“Fuck.”
She’d died. When? During the time his brain was completely absorbing Taylor’s? How long was he out for? The binding spell he’d cast to suspend her silently in the air shouldn’t have killed her. Unless he’d lost control of it during the onslaught?
“Fuck.”
Had she told anyone where she was going? The address?
He had no way of knowing. Her brain was dead, which meant he had no access to it now.
“Fuck!” he screamed, smashing his fist into her throat.
Her lifeless body flew across his work room, hit the wall with a wet slap, and dropped to the floor.
Fuck. If she’d told—
“Wait.” He shook his head. “Let’s see what dear old Detective Taylor knows.”
Closing his eyes, he cast the man’s mind back two hours. To a few seconds after his wife had taken a call from one very helpful Dr. Quincy.
“Well, that’s a relief,” he muttered.
According to the detective’s memory, Mrs. Taylor hadn’t contacted anyone after taking “Doctor Quincy’s” call. She’d torn the sheet of paper on which she’d written the address out of the notebook, bundled poor old hubby in a warm jacket despite it being a balmy evening, hurried him out to their Buick Enclave, and driven straight here. No calls were made on the trip, the directions delivered by an impassive Siri from her iPhone.
Good. Once he’d found said phone—no doubt in her purse—and destroyed it, there’d be no evidence to connect the husband and wife to him at all.
“Now…” Settling down onto the floor next to Taylor’s body, he swirled his index finger through the sticky blood pooling beneath the detective’s head, flicked it at the dead man’s eyeless face, and closed his eyes.
And thou
ght of a police station. Specifically, Detective Taylor’s desk in the West LA station. Thought of Tahlee Hope, UK journalist. Thought of a tall man in a dark suit…
… very tall. Taller than me. Huh. It’s been a while since I met someone taller than me. Son of a bitch’s eyes are really green. Hell, his hand’s cold! But yeah, firm shake. Getting a good vibe from him. Get why he’s got a good rep. Yeah, the Brit chick is going to be in safe hands with him and his team. Wonder if the captain has used Guarded Souls’ services before or if he called them in on recommendation from higher up. Shit, I’ve forgotten what his name is. How could I forget…
Philips opened his eyes, smiling as he withdrew from Taylor’s memory. “Guarded Souls.”
The tall guy in the suit had come from something called Guarded Souls.
Straightening to his feet, he wiped his hand on his chest, smearing what remained of Taylor’s drying blood on his skin, and headed for his home office.
“Guarded Souls,” he repeated. The name slid over his tongue, like a drop of silver. Something about it sent icy fingers over his scalp.
Arriving in the spacious room he used when he conducted official work from his LA residence, he opened his laptop.
“Guarded,” he typed into the search engine, “Souls.”
The screen filled with results. Giving the page a quick scan, he clicked on the first link.
And let out a low groan.
“Fuck.” A security agency.
So a security agency had taken Tahlee Hope, and no doubt now had her holed up in a safe house somewhere.
But that didn’t explain why he’d failed to locate her via magic.
Unless someone at Guarded Souls…
Chest tight, he clicked on the link titled Team.
The first headshot was of a man, age indeterminate, with a steely gaze that made Philips’s anus clench. There was something menacing about him. Was he the man who’d taken the bitch journalist from the police station? Possibly. He wore a suit. Wore it exceeding well, from what Philips could see from the photo.
“Who are you?” Philips murmured, sliding his attention to the line of text beside the image.
Kade. Founder.
Philips frowned. Just that.
Kade. Was that his first name? Last name?
“Pretentious bastard,” he sneered, scrolling down the page to study each headshot of the Guarded Souls team.
Nathanial Knight. Christen North, Daku. Huh, another single-name twat. Idiot. Nimeu Brynn—a chick. What kind of female could work at a protection agency? Especially a small slip of a thing like the woman in the photo? She looked like she should be the poster child for alternative-lifestyle pixies.
He snorted. “Does anyone ugly work at this place?”
Good-looking they all may be, but none triggered anything suspicious. Kade, maybe. But the rest?
He continued to scroll down, getting close to the bottom.
Kitt Newton. James Has—
“—summoned you to save my village, not take my daughter from me!” he screamed, rage and grief shredding his throat. The thatched huts of his village surrounded him, as did the stench of spoiled food, rotting meat, and human refuse.
“You killed Rose, sorcerer.” The abomination surrounded by swirling purple smoke narrowed its green eyes. The smoke grew thicker, denser. Angrier. “I tried to save her.”
Hate swelled through him and he snarled, even as his heart ripped open. The spell he’d cast to end the creature’s existence was devouring him from the inside out. Eating him, killing him. Just as it had Rose.
Rose, oh Rose, my beloved daughter…
“She wasn’t yours!” he wailed, pain tearing through him as he stared at the traitorous djinn. “She was not part of our covenant—”
Philips slapped his hands to his face, the sudden light of his office stabbing at his eyes, the smell of death and decay no longer in his breath.
“What the fuck?”
He rubbed his stinging eyes, hunched over, breathless. What the fuck had just happened?
A vision?
No, it felt heavier than that. A… a memory?
He squinted at the harsh light from his desk lamp, his blood thundering in his ears, and then returned his attention to his laptop screen.
To the image of the smiling man called James Hastin.
Nothing. No reaction.
Breath labored, as if he were trying to fill his lung through a pinhole, he studied the image.
There was nothing familiar about Hastin, and yet at the same time, the relaxed smile, the green eyes, the artfully messy hair… It all stirred something deep inside him.
Hate?
Fear?
He narrowed his eyes, glaring at Hastin’s image. How could that be? He had no clue who Hastin was. And he feared no one.
No one.
“You killed her, sorcerer…”
The accusation from the vision (memory?) sliced through his head, and he winced, nostrils filling with the scent of rotting flesh and smoke and death again.
And then it was gone. As though never there.
Of course it was never there. You’re in your office, not some ancient, medieval village somewhere.
And yet, he had been.
Hadn’t he?
Heart smashing faster in his chest, he stared at the image of James Hastin, branded Hastin’s countenance into his brain, and then read the text beside it.
Wishing to be safe? I’m your man.
That was it. Unlike some of the other Guarded Souls’ team members, James Hastin clearly thought he was a comedian.
Returning his glare to Hastin’s image, he curled his fists.
“Who are you, Hastin?” he whispered.
You know, his own voice whispered back in his head. It’s…
Philips clenched his jaw. Whoever the fuck the man in the vision was, his name eluded him. And just who the fuck was Rose?
He didn’t know. But one thing burned in his soul, one undeniable truth he couldn’t explain but believed completely. Whoever this James Hastin was, he had Tahlee Hope.
Which meant he was a walking corpse.
Wishing to be safe? Ha. “No amount of wishing will save you from me, Hastin. Or whoever you—”
Wishing.
Wish.
Green eyes glowering through thick smoke…
Green…
He returned his attention to his laptop, to the image of James Hastin on its screen.
Green eyes. Like the eyes in the smoke in his vision… or his memory.
“Summoned you…” The words from the memory snarled through his mind.
“… part of our Covenant.”
Green eyes.
Wishing.
Summoned. Covenant.
Could Hastin be a… a djinn?
A cold finger slid up Philips’s spine. A colder smile stretched his lips.
A djinn.
James Hastin was a fucking djinn! Here. In the twenty-first century.
A djinn.
Perfect.
“I’m coming to find you, fucker,” he growled, tapping Hastin’s smiling face on his laptop screen. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”
* * * *
Daku strode into the safe house, black eyes scanning the room, missing nothing.
“Daku, Tahlee Hope.” James waved a hand at Tahlee, and then back to the tall man with the dark hair, dark skin and a dark glower. “Tahlee Hope, Daku.”
“Dak.” Daku smiled at Tahlee, the action turning his face into something found on the cover of expensive magazines for insanely rich, beautiful people.
“You can smile?” James smacked his forehead and reeled back a step. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
Daku turned a level gaze on him, and James grinned. Dak was one of the scariest beings James had ever encountered, mainly because the dreamwalker could enter anyone’s dreams and get up to who-knows-what in there. Anyone’s. Human, shifter, vamp, djinn… If an individual slept at any point in
time, Daku could slip into their dreams.
What he did in there…
James suppressed a shudder.
Daku was not one to piss off.
Which he currently was.
James was going to kick Kitt’s ass when he got out of here. What the hell had the wolf shifter been thinking, sending Daku here?
“Hello, Dak.” Tahlee rose to her feet and extended her hand. “Can I assume you’re with Guarded Souls?”
Daku bestowed another smile on her. “I am. Coming up to check on Hastin here. Apparently he got cut off during communication with another member of our team, and that team member was worried.” He fixed James with a pointed stare. “But clearly, he’s fine.”
James grinned. “Totally fine. Couldn’t be finer.”
Apart from the fact barely five minutes ago, he’d told Tahlee what he was.
“In that case, I’ll have a beer.” Daku’s eyes glinted. “Before I head off again.”
“You know it’s five-thirty in the morning, right?”
Daku didn’t blink. “Not back home, it isn’t.”
Back home. No one at Guarded Souls really knew where “back home” was for Daku, but seeing as he had a slight Australian accent, and could often be heard muttering about the Aboriginal Dreamtime when he was particularly angry, the guess was somewhere from the isolated country in the southern hemisphere.
Ask Daku where he came from, and all you got was “Feeling tired, mate?”
James suspected even Kade didn’t know. But Daku did things for Guarded Souls no one else could. And, according to Kitt, didn’t ask for a cent.
“Okay, beer it is.” He arched an eyebrow. “Any particular brand?”
Daku’s teeth flashed at him in a quick smile. “Carlton. Dry.”
“The expensive stuff.” James clicked his fingers, and an icy-cold bottle of the distinct Australian beer filled his hand.
Tahlee gasped.
Daku narrowed his eyes.
James shrugged. “She knows. I told her everything.”
Almost everything. Still can’t tell her—
Daku regarded him, expression enigmatic, and then accepted the beer. “Here’s to knowing everything, then.”
He twisted off the lid, raised the beer to Tahlee in a relaxed toast, and drained the bottle in one long go.
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