I threw Dutchie one last scrap of sausage that I’d saved for her, then went to rinse off my plate. As I did so, my brain kept working away at the problem. The leader of the group from Los Alamos had said that Jace would be put on trial for his supposed crimes. Would it be a real trial, or at least a facsimile of one, with a prosecutor and a defense attorney and all that? Or would they dispense with the niceties, declare him guilty after a sham trial, and string him up anyway?
The thought crossed my mind that I could go to Los Alamos and offer myself as his defender. Never mind that everything I knew about courtroom procedures I’d gleaned from watching old episodes of various crime dramas. Then again, even my limited knowledge might be better than the so-called “defense” Jace would get from whoever in Los Alamos was assigned to his case. If they assigned anyone at all. Maybe they expected him to defend himself. That would go over really well.
After heading back to the living room, I pushed the curtains aside and peered out. The sky still looked lowering, but the snow, if it was coming at all, hadn’t made an appearance yet. And although I’d shut the gate, I hadn’t secured it. Until I could attempt to make repairs, I really should get out there and lock it up with some chain and a padlock or something.
First I made a detour to the office and woke up the computer so I could take a look at the security feed. As I’d feared, even though the cameras on the rest of the property seemed to be working normally, the one that overlooked the front gate was dark, so it had to have been disabled at the same time the main mechanism was circumvented.
Well, at least I had eyes on the rest of the compound. That was better than nothing. Also, I was able to scrounge some chain and a padlock — still in its clamshell packaging — from the storage area in the basement, and that made me feel…well, not better, exactly, but at least slightly safer.
I pulled on my coat and scarf, but not my gloves, since I needed the full use of my hands. Once I was outfitted, I went back outside, Dutchie bounding along at my heels, and headed down to the gate, which I secured to the wall as best I could by looping the chain around the steel frame bolted to the adobe. When I pulled on it, there might have been the slightest amount of give, but overall, it seemed sturdy enough. No, it wouldn’t stand up to someone driving a Hummer through it, and if you were determined enough, you could probably still climb up and over the gate itself, but I thought it should deter anyone who was only out for some casual looting. If such a person even existed; for all I knew, I was taking all these precautions for nothing. The Los Alamos team had included the only people I’d seen since I’d left Albuquerque.
But having the gate locked made me feel a little better, if nothing else, and I needed to feel better. I needed to tell myself there was still hope, that this would all somehow work out in the end. Right then I couldn’t see how that was possible, but when the Heat had swept through Albuquerque, I was sure I would die along with everyone else, and yet here I was.
Good enough for now.
We went back inside, and I piled a few more logs on the fireplace. A long, empty afternoon stretched in front of me. Funny how I’d never felt at loose ends when Jace was around. We’d always had plenty to occupy us. Well, in a few hours I’d have to go out and feed the chickens and the goats, make sure they had fresh water, but what I was supposed to do between now and then, I didn’t know. Sit down with one of the new-looking paperback mysteries from the shelves in the office and pretend my world hadn’t just ended?
No way.
I did go into the office, but ignored the paperbacks in favor of the manuals that sat on one of the shelves. There actually was a book on basic electronics, but when I picked it up and started flipping through it, my eyes wanted to cross at all the diagrams and the figures and formulas I found in it, and I felt like crying all over again. After all, there was a reason why I’d been getting my master’s in English, and not in electrical engineering.
A meltdown was not something I’d allow myself, though. I made a few desultory notes about possible methods of fixing the gate, peered outside and saw the snow had finally arrived, then decided I’d better take care of the animals early before it got too bad.
The goats had already taken shelter in their shed, so I filled their trough with pellets. Their water still looked good — Jace had handled that in the morning — so I left it for now. Same thing with the chickens, although there were a few new eggs. I scooped them into my pockets before heading back to the house, dodging snowflakes the whole way. It seemed the storm had decided to arrive in earnest.
Inside it was snug and warm enough, though, and I puttered here and there, forcing myself to focus on mundane chores, such as bringing in more wood from the log room on the side of the house and stoking up all the fireplaces to combat the rapidly dropping temperatures outside. Busyness helped a little, although I couldn’t help feeling the gnawing, aching sensation somewhere in my midsection, the one that told me Jace was gone and I had absolutely no idea of how to get him back.
It isn’t fair, I thought irrationally. To survive the Dying, to lose everyone I cared about, and then to lose him, too.
Well, as my parents had been all too fond of pointing out, life wasn’t fair. And right then I wasn’t about to dissect the cognitive dissonance that came from knowing Jace’s people were the ones responsible for the Dying, and yet still to miss him, to want him, to know that I loved him in a way I hadn’t thought I could ever love anyone. My anger with him at deceiving me about his true identity had been as intense as a summer monsoon storm, but just as short-lived. Now I only wanted him back.
Sitting at the table in the breakfast nook where we’d shared too many meals hurt far too much, and so did the idea of trying to eat at that vast dining room table. I took my dinner of heated-up canned soup and toasted bread to the living room where I could eat in front of the fireplace, although even the warmth of that fire didn’t seem to penetrate the core of cold at the very center of my being. Nothing could dispel that inner chill, except Jace’s touch.
I wondered if I should leave here the next day, head up to Taos and see if the djinn there could do anything to help me. But no, that wouldn’t work. Zahrias had said his people were unable to penetrate the veil that had apparently descended on Los Alamos, and had resorted to sending some of their Chosen to that enclave of the Immune to see what they could discover. Since none of the Chosen had returned, I had to believe that they’d either been captured as spies, or had a change of heart once they were safe and among their own kind.
No, that didn’t seem right. I knew that being around the other survivors wouldn’t have changed how I felt about Jace; if anything, it would have made me work harder to convince them that not all the djinn were evil. Those other Chosen must have been caught, found out. Would they also be put on trial as traitors?
I didn’t know for sure. The leader of the group that captured Jace had appeared interested in convincing me to join them, and not because he seemed to think I was guilty of crimes against humanity or whatever. No, I’d seen that look on enough guys’ faces at bars or clubs to know what it meant — that he wouldn’t mind getting into my pants in the near future.
There was a joke. I would rather have jumped into bed with Zahrias than with that human bastard.
But his interest was still something I might be able to exploit at a later date, and it also told me that he was willing to overlook my fraternizing with Jace, as long as there was no chance of it happening again.
All right, I’d found an angle. What exactly I could do with it, I didn’t know. I also couldn’t help wondering if Jace had told me to stay away because he wanted me to be safe, and not because he thought I actually had a better chance of rescuing him if I was out in the world where I could find an ally, some assistance. It would be just like him to think of my safety and not his own survival.
His concern wouldn’t stop me, though. He could be as noble and selfless as he wanted, but in this matter, I intended to be utterly selfish. I wanted him b
ack. I wanted him. No matter what.
All right, so I was resolved to rescue him. I still needed a plan.
Scowling, I picked up my plate and bowl and took them to the kitchen, then poured my half-eaten soup down the drain. Completely wasteful, and not like me at all, but in that moment I couldn’t really force myself to care. There was pallet after pallet of canned soup down in the storage area in the basement, far more than I could probably eat before it went bad.
Especially now that I was the only one around to eat it.
That thick, choking feeling, the one of despair, caught at my throat, and I grasped the kitchen counter, forcing myself to breathe. To calm down. Jace was alive for now. I had to believe that. Otherwise, I might as well lie down and die, and I wouldn’t allow that to happen. Not after everything I’d already survived.
The clock in the living room chimed. Seven o’clock. And in one of those moments of pure incongruity, I realized it was Christmas Eve.
Merry fucking Christmas.
I went back out to the living room and stood there for a long moment, staring at the tree Jace had brought me. How could a djinn have known that such a simple thing would be so important to me?
Because he hadn’t been thinking like a djinn. He’d been thinking like the man who loved me.
The doorbell sounded, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. At least, I thought it was the doorbell. I’d never heard it before.
My frazzled brain eventually processed the meaning of that doorbell ringing. Someone was standing outside the door. How had they gotten into the compound? Climbed over the gate? Then I decided that wasn’t really the important consideration here.
Someone was outside.
And irritated, too, by the way they rang the doorbell again, then started banging on the door.
An unfamiliar voice — a woman’s voice — called out, “I know you’re in there, Jessica! Open the goddamn door! It’s freezing out here!”
That someone was a woman, and she knew my name. What the ever-loving hell?
Before I could even stop to think about what I was doing, I crossed the living room, then hesitated for a few seconds. That could be anyone out there. Someone from the Los Alamos group, come to finish me off. That didn’t sound right, though. I hadn’t seen one woman in their group; clearly, they didn’t seem to think women made good enforcers.
You’re crazy, Jessica, I thought, just before I turned the deadbolt and opened the door. Outside on the porch stood a young woman around my age, a pretty Hispanic girl wearing a red and green Nordic-style knitted cap and a bulky red parka, both of which were dusted with snow.
I’d never seen her before.
We stared at each other for a few seconds, and then she said, “Are you going to let me in? Because you’d better, if you ever want to see your djinn lover alive again.”
You can purchase Taken at your favorite online bookstore.
Bad Vibrations
The Sedona Files: Book 1
Chapter One
If it hadn’t been for his air of extreme agitation, I could have ordered my first client of the day from Central Casting. Perfectly tousled hair, abnormally white teeth, clothing meant to look loose and casual but which he probably overpaid for at Fred Segal or any number of the high-priced shops along Melrose Avenue.
Alex Hathaway. He’d called for an appointment the day before and had seemed quite frustrated that I hadn’t been able to see him sooner than this. But I couldn’t see more than four or five clients a day, and it was only because Olivia D’Ambrosio had canceled that I’d been able to squeeze him in at all. Too many clients, and I’d be so overloaded I wouldn’t be able to read the information off their driver’s licenses, let alone interpret their auras or a tarot layout.
Another West Hollywood pretty boy, I thought automatically, then gave myself a mental shake. Of all people, I shouldn’t be prejudging anyone else. Lord knows I’d been on the receiving end of some serious side-eye more than once in my life.
I let my hand rest lightly on the Tarot deck. I never knew when I met with a client what sort of reading would speak to me. I didn’t bother with a crystal ball — they’d always been mostly for show, as far as I was concerned — but I found the Tarot useful…some days. At other times, I might as well be consulting a poker deck for advice.
“What seems to be troubling you?” I asked, and waited for the telltale tingle from the deck to let me know it was receptive to my client’s vibrations. Nothing. Just a stack of coated cardboard. With a sigh, I folded my hands on the tabletop and hoped Otto at least would be on the line for this one. I hated flying solo, as my own sixth sense tended to be about as reliable as my spirit guide.
Alex Hathaway shot a nervous glance over his shoulder. At what, I wasn’t quite sure, since my small office didn’t even have a waiting area. It was simply a cramped little space I’d tried to make more welcoming by painting the walls a serene sage green color and lining the tops of my bookcases with a variety of plants in painted ceramic pots. The peace lilies and pothos and philodendron seemed to thrive in the fluorescent light, even though I hated it. I’d always meant to replace the office-standard fixtures with something a little more friendly but somehow had never gotten around to it.
“It’s my girlfriend,” Alex said, after one last look at the door.
That particular confession was a little surprising. Considering his outward perfection and the area of L.A. where my office was located, I’d just sort of assumed he must be gay.
Sooner or later I’d get past the assumption stage. I hoped.
“What about your girlfriend?” I asked, thinking, All right, Otto…any time you want to drop in would be fine by me….
Another one of those shifty looks. “No one can hear us in here, right?”
“Of course not,” I replied in soothing tones. I wondered whether Alex had smoked a bowl before coming over to his appointment. True, the twitchiness indicated something a little stronger than marijuana, but I knew people sometimes got paranoid when coming down off a pot high. I couldn’t comment from personal experience — I’d had enough mind-expanding experiences on my own without messing around with drugs.
I went on, “We’re the only ones here, and I always schedule my clients at least fifteen minutes apart so no one can see you coming or going.”
These words didn’t appear to have reassured him. “But they could still be listening.”
The DSM-V strongly advised against labeling anyone as crazy, but either he was exhibiting sure signs of paranoia, or at the very least had been watching way too many spy movies. “I’d know if someone were spying on me,” I said. “Trust me.”
That was only half a lie. Sometimes I really could sense when other consciousnesses were trying to impinge on my space. Not always, of course — like the rest of my powers, that extra sense wasn’t one hundred-percent reliable. But even eighty percent was pretty good odds, and that tended to be the percentage of times I turned out to be right.
Right then, the only consciousness I wanted focusing on my office was Otto’s, and he remained conspicuously absent. Sometime soon we were going to have a talk about that. After all, what good’s a spirit guide who’s never around when you need him?
Alex stared at me through long-lashed baby-blue eyes that were narrowed with suspicion. But after a few more seconds, he gave a slight lift of the shoulders which seemed to indicate he’d decided to confide in me after all. “I think my girlfriend is possessed by an alien.”
Oh, great. It was times like these that I really wished I’d gone into something a little less wacky, like selling insurance or used cars. I was pretty sure most people in those fields didn’t have to deal with clients who claimed their family members were possessed, or that their dead relatives had come back and taken up residence in the cookie jar, or any of the other questionable tales I’d heard over the years.
Still, rolling my eyes or letting out a put-upon sigh wasn’t exactly the professional way to handle this. Besides, Alex w
as obviously upset by something, so I owed it to him to at least say something comforting.
“Actually, there really isn’t anything such as possession — not the way books and movies show it,” I told him. “Spirits do speak through some people, but their intentions are always benign. And ghosts can’t possess people.”
“I’m not talking about ghosts,” he said stubbornly, arms crossed. “I’m talking about aliens.”
This time, I didn’t bother to keep the skepticism out of my voice. “As in little green men from Mars?”
“They’re not from Mars — and they’re not green. I mean, I don’t think they are. I’ve never seen one in its true form.”
“But you think one has taken over your girlfriend.”
“Yeah.” He rocked back in his chair and then hunched forward, fixing me with an intense stare. “Don’t you think I know how crazy that sounds? Why else do you think I’d come see someone like you instead of the cops or something?”
“‘Someone like me,’” I repeated. I knew exactly what he meant, but that didn’t mean I had to like the sound of it.
He waved a hand. “Well, you know — you have to believe all sorts of stuff to do what you do…don’t you?”
Like six impossible things before breakfast? I figured it was best for me to keep that thought to myself, though. I took a calming breath, drawing in the air through my nose the way I’d been taught, and said, “I consider myself a professional, Mr. Hathaway. Just because I deal in things that not everyone can believe in or can tap into doesn’t make them any less important to me, or any less real. I assure you, I only believe in phenomena I’ve experienced myself. It’s just that my experiences tend to be a little different from those of people who don’t have any psychic abilities.”
Magic in the Desert: Three Paranormal Romance Series Starters Set in the American Southwest Page 53