by Anne Marsh
Good idea.
The water in the bowl sloshed as she tripped over one of the many damn stones that littered the lower slope of the Valley. The image floating above the bowl flickered again and finally resolved itself into the familiar hard-featured glare of Ebo.
“Look, we’re a little busy here,” he bit out. She caught the flicker of color beyond him. The camp’s perimeter warnings. Only something large—and sporting powerful mazhyk—would have set off those flares.
“Company?” she asked. Damn.
Jafar caught her before she could trip over another invisible root. He didn’t say anything. Merely picked her up and cradled her against his chest. “Safer,” he said.
“Did you get it?” Ebo asked.
She nodded and then realized he couldn’t see her.
Because he wasn’t watching her.
What was happening at her campsite that was so bad Ebo wouldn’t make eye contact with her?
“I did,” she said instead. “But I’m not going to hang on to it, Ebo, if you don’t haul your ass up here and get me out.”
Damn, but she hated admitting that part. That she wasn’t going to be able to do it all by herself.
Jafar’s arms tightened around her. “Not alone,” he whispered into her hair.
“You got that, Ebo?” she added, when he didn’t say anything.
Ebo seemed to have frozen, staring to his left as if the apocalypse had just crashed his backyard barbecue and scared off all his guests.
“Yeah,” he said, “but it’s still going to have to wait.” She heard the soft snick of steel as he drew his blade. There was a bellow and the sound of crashing in the underbrush. “This isn’t good, Miu.”
“This isn’t good,” she hissed. “I’ve got Guardians chasing me, Ebo. They’re going to catch me. And I’ve. Got. Their. Damn. Necklace.”
“Right,” he muttered, clearly not listening to her anymore. “Good. Good job. Congratulations.”
“Ebo,” she demanded, swallowing a shriek of frustration. “Who’s in charge here?”
“You are.” He still didn’t look as if he cared. Somewhere behind him, a man screamed. Oh, Heqet.
Jafar picked up his pace. “How far down the hill is he?” he asked. She didn’t know. Heqet, she just didn’t know.
“Do you know what they do to thieves here?” she asked Ebo. Maybe a little pressure would help?
Concern flickered in his eyes. “Yeah, but we’ve got bigger problems here, Miu. Real big problems.”
Ebo opened his mouth to say something and then he dropped his bowl. As the water rose upward, the last thing she saw was a dark crimson tide and then the thirsty ground swallowed the liquid, severing the link.
Behind her, Jafar cursed and put her back on her feet. “Very helpful,” he said. “Now run.”
She didn’t need a second invitation.
***
“That must be your meeting place, just up ahead.” Jafar jerked his head toward a narrow slit of darkness that split the stony cliff face to their left. Clearly, he’d recognized the possibilities of the site and figured she or her men had as well.
“Recognize it?”
She did. She trudged up to the narrow opening in the cliff side, peered inside, and realized the day was not about to get any better.
Not only were there no horses waiting at the rendezvous point; there were no guides. From the gory bits left splattered about the cave, Miu correctly deduced that someone had eaten her hired help.
At her side, she heard Jafar swear. She could almost sense the protective urges rolling off him as he fought the need to shove her behind him. Unfortunately for him, neither of them knew where the danger really lay. Move, and they could be stepping straight into it.
“You’re not leaving me behind,” she said, just so there could be no misunderstanding. Taking her hand, Jafar stepped into the cave, pausing to scent the air. Still, he didn’t turn toward her and she was grateful. She wasn’t sure she’d gotten her face under control yet. Her foot nudged something warm and soft and she stifled a shriek. A booted foot. Without its owner.
“Reconsidering?” he asked without turning around.
“No. Give it up, kitty.”
He grunted and reached out a hand, pulling her up against his side. Although she wouldn’t have admitted it, she was grateful for the warmth. The cave felt unbearably cold, as if the rocks were bearing silent witness to whatever terrible fight had taken place here.
“Frightened?” “No.” He looked down at her, cocking an eyebrow.
“Right,” he said. “And your skin is clammy because you’re enjoying yourself here?”
These were—had been—her men. If things had gone according to plan, she would have been here with them and she couldn’t tell if she was horrified or, worse, grateful that she hadn’t been. She was still alive. They, on the other hand, were dead.
Extremely, thoroughly dead.
“Predator?” She was thankful her voice didn’t shake. She’d seen violence before, but nothing like this. Little unidentifiable bits of flesh were stuck to the rough stone cave walls.
“No.” He sounded more contemplative than regretful as he examined the evidence. Rolling over a body, he crouched down and examined the wounds. At least, she thought it was a body. From where she was standing, it looked like a gnawed-on hunk of raw meat. What had once been a man with two arms, two legs, and a head was now just a dismembered, bleeding torso.
“Not the work of other thieves,” she said quietly.
“No,” he agreed.
“You’re sure it’s not a predator?” she pushed. “Some really large, ravenous animal?” If it wasn’t an animal— well, she didn’t want to know what kind of living, breathing being could do this to a man.
“Not a predator,” he repeated. “I’ve seen this kind of damage before,” he admitted reluctantly. “Only never outside the Valley.”
“How would you know?” she argued. “How often have you been out of that damn Valley anyhow?”
“Often enough.” He stood up, brushing dirt from his hands. “I’ve traveled. Not recently, mind you, but quite enough to know what I’ve seen. And not seen. Those aren’t the marks of any teeth you’ll find in a four-legged creature.”
“Not even one of your Cat friends?”
“No. Although,” he added as an afterthought, “you’re quite welcome to check, particularly if you’re worried that the Guardians got here before us and took care of a little business, seeing as how your companions were clearly not the most upstanding of citizens.” He bared his teeth in a parody of a grimace, his canines shimmering and elongating for a second.
“No games.” Heqet knew, she was too shocked now to play with him. He actually looked concerned when she failed to take his bait.
“We kill cleanly, femi. Go for the throat. One good bite and a man’s as dead as he needs to be. This”—his hands indicated the gore on the walls—“this was done for show. To leave you a message. What I’m wondering is whether you understand what’s being said.”
She could guess. Her hand went to her throat, wrapping around the chill surface of the moonstone. No matter how long the damn stone sat against her skin, it never warmed up. She supposed that should have been her first clue that the necklace was trouble. That and Lierr’s painful insistence on obtaining it. She’d just thought he wasn’t ready to dispense with her company yet, picking a task that was nigh on impossible for her to complete.
“You’ve seen marks like this before?” She wasn’t sure whether she wanted him to agree or deny it. Just the thought of him facing some being that could wreak that sort of havoc made her throat choke up. And that made her mad. She wasn’t going all soft on her Guardian, was she?
Because that would be stupid. Even she knew there would have to be a little parting of the ways, despite all this mating business, once she’d led Jafar to Lierr. She wasn’t about to trade the chains of obligation to one male for the mating bond of another.
“
It’s not too late to go back,” she told him. It had to be said, because some previously unknown part of her kept imagining Jafar lying there torn to pieces. “I’ll keep going, you head back to your temple, and we’ll call it an amicable parting of ways.”
He glowered at her, but his tone was firm. “You wish. You’re my mate, femi. You promise obedience and docility and I provide protection.”
“Docility wasn’t part of the bargain,” she muttered. Male wanted his pound of flesh.
He eyed her ruthlessly. “Obedience was,” he pressed. “You agreed to mate with me in exchange for some very important concessions. Starting with permission to continue your chaotic, rule-breaking, anarchic little existence.”
“Mighty benevolent of you,” she snapped. “Next time, check the terms of the agreement before you sign on. I don’t recall promising docility. Or,” she considered, “even obedience.”
He loomed over her, six-plus feet of domineering male. “You promised to be my mate,” he said in a tight voice. “In every way.”
“And that gives you the right to order me around? Think again, kitty. I don’t blindly obey anyone.”
“Except Lierr,” he bit out.
“Not even him,” she disagreed. “Not blindly, anyhow. I only follow his orders because he’s got my sister.”
“You’re my mate,” he said firmly. “That means I protect you. If there are Ifrits running around loose—and I think that’s what we’re looking at here—I damn well have a lot to say about where you go and what you do. An Ifrit will as soon tear you limb from limb as look at you.”
Limb from limb certainly covered the carnage inside the cave. She remembered what Jafar had told her about the Doorway he guarded. “I thought the opening from Qaf was down in the temple.”
He shot her a look and grunted. “Ifrits shouldn’t be this far from a Doorway. Prefer their world to ours, they do, and generally stick to it other than popping over here for a bit of shopping.”
“Shopping?” Somehow, she didn’t think the Ifrits were in the market for a cloak.
“Shopping,” he repeated. “And items one and two on their list are attractive females and mazhykal artifacts.”
And wasn’t that a bad bit of news? She supposed she should be flattered by the roundabout compliment, but it was hard to overlook the price of the Ifrits’ so-called shopping.
“Problem is,” he said thoughtfully, rubbing his hand over his chin, “neither of those two items were here, now were they? Just a couple of hirelings and their horses. I suppose they might have had some mazhyk on them, but whatever they had couldn’t have been terribly powerful or there wouldn’t be such a mess in here. You tell me what kind of fighters you hired, but I’m betting you put your money on men who fight with conventional weapons. Swords. Knives. A little hand-to-hand.” He continued when she nodded, “Right. And I’m betting they weren’t fresh from the farm either. So whoever took them out was either extremely fast or just came in here wielding so much power that your mercks never stood a chance. Ifrits could do that, but the real question is why?”
“Why?” She felt like a stupid echo, but she was starting to see—and there was nothing like firsthand knowledge—that these Ifrits had to be stopped. She couldn’t imagine letting this horror run unchecked.
“Yeah. There shouldn’t have been anything to attract them here. And, if an Ifrit actually made it out of the Valley—which is where the nearest Doorway is—I should have known about it. Might still have got away from me”—he sounded doubtful on that point, though—“but I’d have known they were out here. I’d have been tracking them.”
“Are there other—Doorways?”
He smiled approvingly. “Right you are. Of course there are, but the Valley’s is the closest. And none of the known Doorways are unguarded. Possible that a new Doorway has opened up somewhere, but there’s usually a good bit of disturbance when that happens, not to mention a sudden surge in the number of murders and rapes. News like that tends to get around, and we hear of it fast enough.”
“Perhaps they learned a bit of discretion?” She didn’t know how bright these Ifrits of Jafar’s were, but it was clear that they were brutal and quick. Having wits thrown into the mix just seemed cruelly unfair.
“It’s possible.” He eyed the carnage around them and sighed. “But unlikely. They’re the stab-and-grab sort. Not colonizers by any stretch of the imagination.”
“Right.”
“So now what?” He folded his arms across his chest and looked at her.
“Excuse me?”
“I got you out of the temple. Down the hill.” He checked the items off on his fingers. “And to your meeting place, which, I might mention, is not particularly hidden if that was what you were going for.”
No. Clearly not, given what had happened to her mercks.
He looked around the clearing, but then there was a faint whistling sound. As if someone had tried to moan, but had so little throat left that the cry was the merest whisper of sound.
“Over here,” Jafar snapped. Striding to the farthest side of the cave, he crouched down beside a pile of mutilated flesh. One hand reached for his blade, slicing strips of cloth from his robe. “Got a live one here.” More dubiously, he added, “Sort of.”
Dear gods. Had one of her males managed to survive the carnage?
She wasn’t sure how she made it from one side of the cave to the other, only that when she crouched down next to Jafar, she understood the reason for his hesitation when he’d described the state of the male lying on the ground. Sure, the merck still clung to life, but the coppery scent of blood was almost overpowering. Something—or someone—had pulled Ebo apart at the seams. She swallowed hard, fighting back nausea as she stared at his armless, legless torso.
His eyes blinked.
Dear Heqet above, the man was indeed still alive. His mouth opened and sound wheezed out.
Squatting, she knelt by his side. She was no healer, but even she could tell that the Moirae were about to cut this man’s lifeline. She half expected to see the three sisters circling above the body. Gray streams leaked from his aura, the spirit bleeding away as he forced himself to remain chained to this world. Waiting for her?
Ebo had been more than seven feet tall, a prime merck not only because of his height, but also because of his strength. Some masters would have admired his looks as well; there were lords who believed in hiring the best-looking help available, no matter what the job description entailed and even if it would never involve bedwork. Her merck’s ebony-colored skin had given him his name and she’d never dared ask him if he resented being named for his parts rather than his whole; given the cold rage that burned in the male, she figured she knew the answer to that question.
“Yours?”
How did she answer that? Sure, she’d bought the male lying there in front of them, but not with the intent of keeping him. It was one more rule to break, right? Since Lierr expected her to keep a coterie of fighters for those unfortunate thefts that required more brute force than mental acuity, she had—but on her own terms. All her mercks were freed men, even if none of them bandied that fact around. All of them got that the joke was on Lierr. Her Ebo had been silent, sure, but appreciative of his liberation from the slave pens, even if what she’d offered had been a harum-scarum life as bodyguard for a thief. He’d known the risks they’d taken—and he’d wanted the rewards, same as the rest of them. Being a slave, he hadn’t had a family.
A loner.
Just like her.
“Necklace,” he wheezed.
She nodded, smoothed a hand over his forehead. “Who?”
“Don’t know. Tall. Came out of nowhere. Like—” His eyes flickered closed and he forced them open. She couldn’t imagine the strength of will it had taken to survive this long. “Like living flames,” he said finally. “Column of smoke and fire. Upper torso looked human, bottom half”—his mangled body shuddered— “nothing but smoke and wind. Moved fast.”
Hi
s eyes drifted shut again.
“Not Cats?” she asked quietly. Beside her, Jafar tensed, but she had to know. Trusting him was naive, and she had every intention of making it back to Shympolsk alive and in one piece, unlike her poor Ebo.
“No,” he breathed. “Wanted the necklace. Knew we’d come for it and were looking for you.”
Were Ebo’s attackers still here?
“Gone,” he groaned. “Told them nothing. Sun rose and they left.” He’d been lying here like this for hours? His remaining hand shot up and wrapped around her throat. “Don’t,” he said, “take the necklace off. Whatever you do. Means something. Find out before you hand it over to Lierr. Don’t trust that bastard.”
“No,” she agreed.
“Tried to fight back,” he whispered. “Tried.”
“Lierr’s got a lot to answer for.” And she planned on making him sing like a caged bird.
“Hush,” she said, and stroked a hand over Ebo’s forehead. He grunted and closed his eyes, clearly feeling that he’d completed his job and was entitled to a little shut-eye. She couldn’t argue; she was more surprised that the tattered bits of his spirit still hovered over his body. Watching them slip away from his body was almost easier than realizing what the Ifrits had done to him. He was at peace now. Moving on to the next adventure, the next stage of his journey.
Unfortunately, that meant she was now guardless in a world where there were daemons and Ifrits and monsters that could rip a seven-foot-tall man to shreds and escape without a scratch. Heqet help her. She’d stolen plenty of mazhykal artifacts—but they’d belonged to this world and her competition had been other thieves. Humans.
She stroked a hand over Ebo’s forehead as she considered what she’d just learned. The return trip to Shympolsk had just grown infinitely more complicated.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Watching Miu pace back and forth in the mouth of the cave, Jafar wished he could have spared her this sight. Hell, he wished he’d never taken her out of his chambers back at the temple.
Double hell. He had it bad.
He could feel his emotional toughness slipping away, like shadows fleeing before the moon. It was more than just erotic attraction he felt for her, he admitted silently: he’d started to have emotions about her—and not just protective ones. How could he do what must be done if he had feelings for her? He should have excised those feelings as ruthlessly as the Ifrits had slaughtered Miu’s men, made this just about sex and power—instead of about the woman he’d held in his arms.