Demon Hunt

by A. Blythe

  Pinky closed her eyes and I sensed she was trying to pinpoint his location.

  “He’s nearby,” I said quietly. “If you can anticipate where he’ll manifest, you can catch him off guard.”

  “Is this like using the Force? Because I’m not really into Star Wars,” Pinky said.

  I groaned in frustration. “To your left. Now, Pinky!”

  No sooner had he materialized than she sent him flying backward. He hit the base of a large oak tree and slumped to the ground.

  “Good work.”

  We took off down the path. Even though the rational part of my brain knew that running was futile, the message didn’t make it all the way to my feet.

  “Now cloak us from him,” I said, panting heavily.

  Pinky showed no signs of wear and tear. Damn her teenaged body. “Ugh. Okay, let me think.”

  “Think fast.”

  “Like walking and chewing gum at the same time,” she told herself. It wasn’t really, but I didn’t want to discourage her.

  While she attempted to alter the cloaking spell, we carried on running, dodging stray branches and bumps in the ground. I had no interest in tripping again. Once was humiliating enough.

  “Okay, cool. Stop running,” Pinky said confidently.

  “Are you sure?” The image of an intimate dinner date with Flynn loomed large in my mind. It scared me more than seven hundred pounds of angry bear.

  She nodded and we slowed to a walk. “Remember the dual purpose bubbles from the Colony Games?”

  “Sure.” The pink bubbles were designed by Pinky to act as both a shield and a sword during our match against the Shaitans. I’d been impressed by her ingenuity.

  “I modified it and combined it with a cloaking spell.” She beamed proudly.

  “So Flynn can’t see us and we’re in a protective bubble?” I queried.

  “Yep. It’s like a hamster wheel we can’t see. As we move, the bubble moves with us.”

  Flynn manifested in human form further up the path. We watched as he surveyed the woodland, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

  Pinky waved at him and giggled. He continued looking around, uncertain which way to go.

  “What if he shifts back into a grizzly?” I asked. “Won’t he be able to track our scent, even in the bubble?”

  “I’m not sure,” she replied. “I haven’t exactly tested it until now.”

  My phone buzzed. The thirty minutes were up.

  “Great job, Pinky,” I said, and clapped her on the shoulder. “Now hurry up and burst this bubble so we can burst Flynn’s.”

  5

  The door to Tops and Bottoms swung open and Luciano Bendetti swaggered inside. His white blond hair was slicked back and he wore bright blue board shorts and sandals, despite the autumn chill in the air. At least his top had long sleeves. I scolded myself for mentally mothering him. What did I care if he was dressed appropriately for the weather?

  He paused briefly to admire the Thanksgiving-inspired mannequins.

  “Now this is my kind of place,” he said. His grin broadened when he spotted me in the back of the shop. “And there she is. The one and only Miss Winters. I hoped I’d find you here.”

  “Alyse?” Farah appeared in the dressing room area, having just left the armory. Her gaze darted to Luciano and I watched her expression shift from concerned to interested. Very interested.

  “Luciano, what a pleasant surprise.” I met him halfway and he greeted me with the standard crime syndicate kiss on the cheek. “I got the movie, by the way. Sorry I didn’t send a thank you card. I’m not big on etiquette.”

  “Did you watch it?” he asked.

  “We watched it together,” Farah said, joining us.

  “This is my friend and roommate, Farah Brahim.”

  Luciano drank in her tight black top with lace sleeves and black leather pants. “You were Rocco’s girl.”

  “I’m nobody’s girl,” Farah shot back. “Never was.”

  Luciano’s crooked smile suggested that he liked her answer.

  “What brings you here, Luciano?” I asked. “New undergarments for your harem?” When I last visited him, his penthouse had been overflowing with nubile young women, parading around in skimpy clothes.

  Luciano chuckled. “I prefer no undergarments, thanks. Came to see you, tough chick. Thought we could hang. Maybe grab a hoagie and a few beers.”

  Hoagie and beer? He seemed to mistake me for one of his fraternity brothers.

  “That’s sweet, Luciano, but I’m afraid I’m otherwise engaged.” Katrien was upstairs and I wanted to try to pry more information out of her about her time with Aladdin. Although I didn’t want to push too hard and give the girl a nervous breakdown, I needed more answers than I’d been given. It was the only way I could help her.

  Farah stepped forward. “Well, I’m not engaged and I love a good hoagie.”

  Luciano gave her an appreciative look. “Six inch or twelve inch?”

  Farah cocked her hip. “Do I look like an amateur to you?”

  “Not in any way, shape, or form.” Luciano looked at me. “You don’t mind, do you Ally?”

  Ally? “Alyse,” I corrected him. “No, I don’t mind at all. Have fun. Bring me back a chocolate chip cookie.”

  “You’ll keep an eye on the store?” Farah asked.

  “Of course.” I planned to take a quick break and check on Katrien as soon as they left, but I didn’t want to mention her name in front of Luciano. No need for the crime syndicate to get wind of her presence. The fewer people who knew about her existence, the better.

  When I stepped into the apartment, I was greeted by the sound of a whistling kettle. Katrien sat at the small table in the kitchen. She looked better today—more rested. The color was back in her cheeks and her wounds had completely healed. I felt an unexpected pang of longing. I missed my own healing power.

  Katrien smiled when she saw me. “Alyse, you’re back.”

  “I wanted to see how you’re feeling.” I didn’t recognize her clothes, so she’d obviously felt well enough to conjure herself a new outfit. It was very boho chic.

  “Better, thank you. I am making a cup of tea. Would you like one?”

  “Sure.”

  “Excellent.” She pulled a second mug from the cabinet. “I will read your tea leaves afterward.”

  I waved her off. “No need. I’m not a fan of fortune telling.”

  She eyed me curiously. “I would think in your current situation that you would be very interested to glimpse your future.”

  I shrugged. “Like I said, I’m not a fan.” I preferred my future to unfold in real time, no preview required. I’d seen too many people become obsessed with predictions. I didn’t want the random position of tea leaves to dictate my actions.

  Katrien poured the tea. “Sit with me. It is quite nice to have a companion who is not forced to be with me.”

  It seemed like the perfect opening to ask her about Aladdin. She handed me a steaming mug as I joined her at the table.

  “How many companions did you have?” I asked. I’d heard Aladdin kept an entire collection of djinn, but I didn’t know whether he kept them all in one place.

  “In my room, there were four of us.” Katrien pressed her lips together. “Juliet, Sierra, Audrina, and me.”

  I took a sip of tea. “And did you all manage to escape?”

  Katrien’s expression clouded over. “No. Only me.”

  I posed the question I’d been dying to ask. “How?”

  Katrien closed her eyes gently and inhaled the aroma of the tea. “I made a friend in Aladdin’s retinue. He took pity on me.”

  The only members of Aladdin’s team I’d met in Monaco wouldn’t have taken pity on anyone.

  “How did he break the bond?” I asked.

  “An unbinding spell. He paid dearly for a magician to help him,” she said. “He set me free and told me to go quickly, as far away as I could.”

  Unbinding spells were notoriously d
ifficult. He must have planned for Katrien’s escape well in advance.

  “Who tried to stop you?” I asked.

  She looked confused. “No one. It was a clean escape.”

  “Then what happened to you? You arrived with cuts and bruises.”

  Her gaze shifted to the contents of her mug. “That happened afterward. I told you I was in Dubai when I ran into your friend, Rodrigo.”

  “He didn’t do that to you, did he?” M-Rod was an ass, but he didn’t beat women or hold them against their will.

  She shook her head. “It was others. I was still weak from years of bondage. I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t even shift.”

  I understood that feeling all too well. It was awful.

  “Do you know how long you were in Monaco?”

  “Not exactly. Like I said, we never stayed in one place very long because he didn’t want to become a target.”

  Aladdin was smart. The guys with routines and stability were always easier to bring down. It seemed like quite an undertaking, though, constantly moving an entire group of djinn as well as his inner circle.

  “In your time with him, did you ever overhear a conversation between Aladdin and anyone outside of his team?” I was desperate to know who Aladdin’s connections were. He had to have powerful people backing him—he wouldn’t have been able to amass his fortune and his djinn collection without that kind of high-level support.

  Katrien looked thoughtful. “I remember a heated discussion a couple of months ago in Monaco. He was convinced he was on the verge of finding the ring.”

  “The ring?” I queried.

  Her dark eyes narrowed. “Solomon’s ring. Surely you have heard of it.”

  Solomon’s ring was meant to be one of the most powerful weapons in the djinn world. The wearer of the ring possessed the power to control spirits, animals, water and wind—the four realms the angels had power over. Spirits included djinn. Theoretically, the wearer of the ring could raise a djinn army and take over the world.

  “I’ve heard of it. I just don’t know that I believe it exists.”

  Katrien practically spat her tea at me. “How can you not believe?”

  “If it’s so mighty and powerful, why hasn’t it been found yet? Every powermonger in the world would spend his fortune looking for it.”

  “And so they have. What do you think Aladdin has been doing?” she asked, tapping her nails on the side of the mug. “He moved around for safety reasons, but also because he was in search of the ring. Every time he got a new lead on the ring, we would move.”

  So he didn’t want to stop at a harem. He wanted to control a djinn army. But to what end?

  “How did he manage to bind you?” I asked. “Did you know him beforehand?”

  Her cheeks reddened. “I was foolish enough to believe his lies. I thought he cared for me. That was how he acquired most of the girls.”

  I’d been there and back again. To be fair, though, Flynn never had an entire harem. It just seemed that way at the time.

  “What will you do now that you’re free?” I asked, finishing off my tea.

  “I told you what I want,” Katrien said. “I want you to help me take down Aladdin.”

  “And I told you,” I said. “As much as I want to help you, I’m out of commission. In my human form, I’d only be a liability.”

  Katrien stared at my cuffs for a moment before turning her attention to my mug. “Let me see. The leaves will tell us about the fate of your cuffs.”

  She swirled the leaves in the bottom of the mug. As she studied the results, her brow creased, and my pulse quickened.

  “What do you see?” I asked.

  “It is…confusing.”

  “My future? That sounds about right.”

  She slid the mug across the table to me. “Tell me what you see.”

  I peered inside. I didn’t know she expected me to see, but it probably wasn’t brown blobs. Brown blobs didn’t crease anyone’s brow.

  “Um, I see a spider?”

  “A spider?” She snatched the mug. “Where?”

  “On the back of your chair.” I pointed to the tiny spider making its way across the ridge of her chair. She flicked it away and turned her attention back to the mug.

  “Not everything is a joke, Alyse,” she said. “Your life is not a joke.”

  I straightened my shoulders. “It doesn’t mean I have to be uptight about whatever it is you think you see in there.”

  She gave me a hard stare. “I see a raven.”

  “Okay. And?”

  “Ravens are the harbingers of bad news, Alyse. They can mean death.”

  “Mine?”

  “Perhaps.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Perhaps if you did not take them so often, you would not be in this predicament.”

  Well, someone had an attitude. “I’ve never known a Marid to dabble in tea leaves.”

  “It is an ancient practice. Surprising that no one in your colony is proficient in it.”

  “Who taught you?”

  “My youth guardian, Valery. Her skills were highly sought after. She even had the ear of our prince before she returned to the Plasma Plane.”

  “Which prince is that?” I realized I hadn’t even asked about her origins. Some agent I was.

  “Prince Jakub.”

  “The Baltic Colony, right?” From what I remembered, he had a reasonable reputation. His uncomfortable proximity to the larger eastern colonies demanded a form of quiet strength. I also knew that the Marida weren’t as politically powerful among the supernatural groups in that region.

  “Yes.” She continued to study the remnants of the tea. “It is a candle. I was not convinced when I first saw it. That is curious.”

  “What does a candle mean? Enlightenment?”

  “A reasonable guess but no. It is a creational flame.”

  My hand flew to my abdomen. “Creational?”

  Katrien laughed lightly. “It can also mean help from others.”

  I relaxed. “That sounds more likely.” I paused. “So does that mean others will be helping me die or helping me avoid it?”

  Katrien sucked in a breath. “I cannot answer that. Besides, we do not know for certain the death foretold is your own.”

  “Anything else in your magic tea?”

  “I see a jewel.”

  “Well, your tea leaves are a little slow. I recovered a jewel recently, but it’s no longer in my possession.”

  Katrien set down the cup. “What kind of jewel?”

  “Your leaves don’t give you the details?” I clucked my tongue. “It was a ring.”

  “It seems this ring still has a role to play in your future,” she said.

  “I doubt that very much. It was a sapphire ring that belonged to my client’s wife.”

  She frowned. “A sapphire, did you say?”

  “Yes, why? Did your leaves upgrade it to the Hope Diamond?”

  Katrien leaned forward and looked at me intently. “What do you know about this ring?”

  “It’s three carats. Very sparkly. Has both financial and sentimental value for my client. Not remotely Solomon-like.”

  “And where is it now?”

  “Safe,” I said. In a safe deposit box. “I really don’t think it’s the jewel you’re seeing. Besides, shouldn’t a jewel be symbolic of something else? I mean, the candle didn’t mean I would buy one of those Williams-Sonoma kitchen candles later this week.” Although now that I said it out loud, it seemed like a really good idea. Those candles smelled divine.

  Katrien shrugged and dumped the tea leaves into the garbage. “I did not create the interpretations for the symbols. I simply communicate them.”

  “Why did your guardian return to the Plasma Plane?” I asked. Although it was possible, it wasn’t something djinn from this world seemed inclined to do very often.

  “Over time, she grew dissatisfied with life in a human world. She longed for a djinn-only sp
ace.”

  Now some of Katrien’s previous comments made sense to me. She seemed to have been raised by a racist. “Is that something you’ve ever considered?” I asked.

  “Relocating to the Plasma Plane?” Katrien queried. “It seems a bold step. I would much rather create the world I want right here.”

  “And what kind of world is that?”

  Her expression hardened. “One where djinn cannot be marginalized or treated as property.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “What would you do, Alyse, if you possessed immense power?” She tapped her nails on the table. “If perhaps you had power far greater than even Prince Simdan?”

  “For starters, I’d be very uncomfortable.” I wasn’t a fan of any single creature having too much power. I’d seen its twisted results too many times to trust a good outcome.

  “You seem confident and capable,” Katrien said. “And you certainly managed to handle your prince with shocking fearlessness.”

  “If I wanted a boatload of power, I would have stayed in PAN when I graduated from the Academy.”

  Katrien examined me. “You are so different from what I imagined.”

  I pushed back my chair and stood. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but okay. If you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do.”

  She reached out and grabbed my arm. “I was thinking perhaps you could work with me to help me rebuild my strength.”

  “I’m sure we can find a healer…” There were healers who specialized in physical therapy for supernaturals. I was sure we’d have no trouble finding one to quietly help us out.

  “No. I would very much prefer your help. You work with the mage, do you not?”

  “That’s different.”

  “I do not see how.”

  Truth be told, I could probably do whatever a healer could do and it was safer to keep Katrien’s presence under wraps. “Fine, I’ll help you. We have a place we go to train. I can take you there when you’re up for it. Help you get your groove back.”

  “Today?”

  “Are you sure? You’ve been through a hellish ordeal.”

  “Yes, and I want my revenge,” she said firmly. “I will not get it if I am too weak when the time comes. And, trust me, the time will arrive sooner than you expect.”