I walked the darkened streets, my sensitivity to everything around me heightened. I paid more attention to the smells lingering on the air and the way the breeze felt against my skin. At one point, I’d felt a presence near me and whipped around, only to see a flash of golden fur duck into an alley across the street. But the creature was much too large to merely be another stray dog. I chalked up the sighting to an overeager imagination and continued on my way.
The usual crowd of hopefuls had queued up outside the door. I greeted Tiny, who stood at the head of the line, holding the fate of their social lives in his hands. He was on a total power trip. Cute.
“Hey, Darian,” he greeted. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
I flashed him my most earnest and sexy smile, and he pulled the red velvet rope aside to let me in. Grumbles filtered from the line behind me. I ignored their complaints, sliding into the packed club to lurk in the shadows for the night.
I ordered a drink and took up my place in the farthest, darkest corner. Sipping from the glass, I watched the humans come and go, hooking up, getting shot down, dancing, flirting, drinking. Their actions so normal, it made me feel a momentary sorrow for my own lost humanity. But I shook it off. Even when I’d been a regular human girl, I hadn’t enjoyed the freedoms women had now. All the boo-hooing in the world wasn’t going to change the fact that I wasn’t one of them anymore, and I never would be.
I faded into my shadow self, blending with the hazy, dark air. No one noticed, too wrapped up in themselves to pay attention to my corner of the club. I felt better this way, maybe a little more voyeuristic. I didn’t go there for any other reason, so what did it matter if I watched in my solid form or under the cover of darkness? A woman, laughing and swaying in the arms of her date, leaned in to bestow a kiss to his cheek. He smiled and squeezed her tight against his body before swooping down to return the favor. Wrapped up in each other, they kissed and laughed, talked and swayed. A stab of jealousy shot through my gut as I watched them. The building could have fallen down around them and they wouldn’t have noticed. I would never have that. I was too hard, too cynical, and too deadly for soft emotion and affection. I was fire and passion, but not love.
I’d had enough, so I passed from shadow to my human form and made my way to the door. Tiny watched me go in; he’d wonder if I never came out.
“Goin’ home, Darian?” He asked me the same question every time. What would he say if I answered with, “Nope, going out to assassinate some asshole, Tiny”?
“You know it.” What else was I going to say? “See ya later.”
“Be careful,” he said. “I heard there’s been some people go missin’ around here the last few nights. Stay away from dark alleys.”
“Promise,” I said, flashing a reassuring smile. What he didn’t realize: Dark alleys were exactly my thing.
I traveled in shadow form, crossing the darkest places I could find. I didn’t have anything to fear; I was safe in the dark. At least, that’s what I thought. The sounds of a struggle traveled to my ears, and I remained shrouded, approaching the source of the scuffle with caution. At first, all I noticed were a pair of legs jutting out from behind some battered metal trash cans. But as I allowed myself to take in the scene, I realized this was not just some homeless person asleep in the alley.
A long, lanky body hovered over the poor guy, its wide mouth fastened on his waist near the stomach. Devouring its meal with indulgent grunts and moans, the creature pulled away, only to paw at its bloody mouth before dipping down and resuming the feast. Shit. Levi hit the nail right on the head. Sounded just like a goddamned smoothie being slurped through a straw. Too horrified to do anything but stare, I watched as the Lyhtan brought its head up from its dinner.
“I feel you, Shaede,” an unsettling set of voices said.
I froze. Through my fear, I forced myself to become corporeal and face the source of those grating, seething voices. And let me tell you, Delilah wasn’t kidding about ugly.
The Lyhtan couldn’t have looked farther from human. It couldn’t even pass as animal. Tall, at least seven feet by my estimation, it resembled a praying mantis more than anything. Long, lanky arms and legs connected to a thin, elongated torso. It hunched at the shoulders, giving it a stooped appearance with a distended stomach. It was naked as the day it was . . . born? Made? Created? Slimy greenish drool leaked from its mouth, tinged with its victim’s blood, causing its sharp, pointed teeth to glisten in the dark night. Glowing amber eyes bulged from its pale and drawn face. A shudder of revulsion passed through me. I reached for my pocket, for the bottle that was home on my counter. Could I have even used the bottled shadows at night? Fuck if I knew. I was unarmed, with not even a container of magic sludge to help me. Shit. Shit.
But a coward I’m not, no matter how on edge I felt. Making sure to keep my distance from the creature, I took a step back; I didn’t intend to be its next liquid snack. I had no idea if this Lyhtan was my personal tormentor, but I figured I’d find out soon enough.
“Who are you, Shaede?” it asked in its many voices.
Well, this one wasn’t mine. I didn’t know if I should be relieved or not. “What do you care who I am?”
“I don’t know you,” it seethed. “Are you one of his?”
“One of his . . . who?” I asked. “I don’t know you either, but what difference does that make? Who do you belong to?”
The creature laughed, and my spine seemed to lose some of its starch. I reminded myself I was the stronger opponent. It was night and he was the weak one. The Lyhtan crept closer.
A menacing hiss issued from its jagged-toothed mouth, and it crouched, looking ready to strike at any moment. It edged toward me. I stood, virtually defenseless, with only my stealth to aid me. I could have passed into shadow and left the Lyhtan behind me, but my curiosity burned. “I wish I had a sword right now,” I said under my breath.
Something moved behind me, and Tyler’s voice murmured close to my ear, “Your wish is my command.”
I didn’t have time to think about the hows and whys of what happened. The handle of the katana slid into my hand. I struck in a flash, passing into shadow and reappearing feet from my attacker. I spun and swung the samurai sword with all of my strength.
A screeching gasp burst from the Lyhtan’s mouth, like a great swarm of people crying out in agony. I sliced through its midsection as if it were made of butter. It doubled over, clutching at its gut, which oozed a thick, orange-tinted blood, and screamed words in a language I couldn’t understand. The wound began to heal as I watched, and the creature looked up, the drool running in a stream from its ugly mouth. Drawing a rasping breath, it turned and jumped, using the buildings of the alley for momentum as it bounced from wall to wall, ever upward, and fled into the dark with a speed that belied its clumsy form. Another grating scream pierced the night, echoing and then dissolving into eerie silence.
Tyler’s footsteps shuffled behind me, and I swung the sword around, its tip barely brushing his chest as he stopped dead in his tracks. He smiled at me.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
His lazy smile grew, and he tried to take a step closer. I pressed the sword’s tip closer to his heart. “No,” I said, staying his progress. “No more games. I want an answer. Now.”
“I told you: Everything is changing.”
Some explanation. The Lyhtan’s blood glistened like wet rust on my blade. I paused to look at it, disgusted, confused, and angry. I looked back at Tyler’s unchanging face. “What does Jinn mean?”
“It roughly translates to ‘genie,’ ” Tyler said.
Fuck me. Genie? “Like the kind that lives in a lamp?” I asked.
“Yes and no.” He shrugged. “I grant the occasional wish.”
I couldn’t take it. One more shock and I would have fallen down dead without anyone’s assistance. I became one with the darkness and left Tyler where he stood.
Chapter 13
Delilah waited by my building, l
ooking like a potted plant wilting under the morning sun. Maybe she was getting as tired of our little arrangement as I was. We rode the lift in silence, but she cocked her head in my direction. Perhaps she sensed the questions forming on my tongue.
“Spill it,” I growled. “Everything you know.”
“If I tell you everything I know, we’ll be here for a year,” Delilah said, plopping down in front of the TV. It drove me crazy the way she talked and channel surfed at the same time.
“I’m not in the mood for your smart-ass answers,” I said. But she was right. Good Lord, between her and Levi it would cost a year of my time and a million dollars in fifties to properly educate me. “Tell me about Tyler. When you said you’ve known him for ages, you weren’t kidding, were you? Exactly how old are you?”
“Older than you by about ten centuries,” she said.
“And Tyler?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Older than me.”
My cheeks flushed with anger and humiliation. Here I’d been, so superior in my otherness, boasting and tossing casual threats, demeaning Ty with human this and human that. And he literally had lifetimes on me. He’d let me make a fool of myself over and over again, never letting me in on his little secret.
“What about the wish granting. How does it work?”
“Well.” Delilah paused to listen to the verdict on her court show. “It’s not like the stories. You don’t come across a lamp or bottle and give it a good rub. He’s not a slave, per se. But he can tie himself to someone if he wants to. Once he’s chosen the bond, he becomes that person’s sworn protector, and he only grants that person’s wishes. No others until you break the bond. His loyalty is uncompromising.”
“How do you break it?” Delilah’s attention drifted back to the television, but she heard me.
“There are no magic words or rituals, Darian. You simply end it.”
Kind of like a breakup, I guessed. “So if I say, ‘Tyler, I don’t want you as my genie. Go away,’ he has to do as I ask?”
“Pretty much,” Delilah said. “But why would you want to? If it’s in his power, he’ll help you any way he can.”
“Are there restrictions?” I asked. “I mean, could I wish for world peace, a billion dollars, or a new car—and just get it?”
“There are restrictions,” Delilah said, “but you’ll have to ask Tyler about that. I’m no Jinn, and I don’t know the rules.”
“What are you?”
“I’m a Seer, plain and simple. More to the point, I’m an Oracle, but as few can afford that service, it goes unused for the most part.”
“So . . . you see the future?”
“Sometimes.”
“Can you tell me mine?”
Delilah laughed. “Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. You have to make a sacrifice. Like I said, few can afford the price.”
“You’ve been around the block a few times. You know all about us, don’t you?”
Delilah turned her attention from the TV and threw down the remote. “If you’re talking about Shaedes, sure, I know about them.”
I hated feeling vulnerable. And this moment proved no less unsettling. I had once been strong, confident, and self-assured. Now I was weak, self-conscious, and unsure. I had no sense of identity. A creature without race or allegiance. Even more of a nothing than I was by my very nature.
“Delilah,” I ventured, “how do you kill a Shaede? Is it with a magic blade?”
Her head jerked in the avian fashion that made her look so wild. Pity poured off her like rotten honey, and it made me sick. I didn’t want pity. I wanted answers.
“There are stranger and stronger bonds than the one you have with Tyler,” Delilah said. “A bond with one of your own is what gives you power over life and death.”
Fear congealed into a sour lump in the pit of my stomach. I could barely comprehend the words as she spoke them. Here I was, nearly one hundred years since my making, and tiny, strange Delilah was laying out who I was more plainly than Azriel or Xander ever had.
“A parent and child, husband and wife, maker and made: These are all the strongest of bonds, and the only thing that will lend you dominion over one of your own. It’s not that strange. These bonds are strong no matter your creed.”
“No matter the time of day?” I ventured.
“Anyplace, anytime, anywhere,” she said.
Xander. That son of a bitch. He’d known all about me; he hadn’t stumbled across me. My skills weren’t impressive or unique. I held power over someone he wanted dead, and I was the only one who could deliver the blow. No magic blade would do the job, no weapon designed specifically to carry out our executions. I was the weapon. Me and me alone.
“Azriel,” I whispered in disbelief. “He’s alive.”
“Who’s that?” Delilah asked.
“My maker. I can kill him after sundown. Even in his shadow form. No one else. Is that right?”
“Yep,” she said. “No one else. Well, that’s not exactly true,” she said, tapping a finger on her bottom lip. “His father, mother, or maker could kill him as well. A wife, if he’d been sworn to one. It’s a real tangled web when you get right down to it. Like a family tree of death.” She giggled, which put her weirdness factor through the roof, and then she turned up the volume on the TV.
“And the Lyhtan?” I spoke over the noise. “Raif said we are equals in the gray hours. Can we kill one another then?”
“As far as I know,” Delilah said after some consideration.
I slumped down on my bed, dead tired and emotionally spent. I’d let Xander play me like a fiddle, all because the words sounded pretty coming out of his mouth. I’d never thought of him as anything more than a man. But he was, and had always been, the king, and I was simply his pawn. Not a subject, not even a woman. Just something to use. I could be discarded as easily as I’d been picked up.
The sour feeling of betrayal in my stomach bubbled up and lodged near my sternum. Without thinking, I let out a primal scream. It felt good to vent the rage trapped in my chest. I ached a little less by releasing that scream. Delilah didn’t even flinch. She watched her shows as if I weren’t there, oblivious to my display of temper.
I jumped from the bed like it was on fire and tucked a dagger into my belt. Swinging a black jacket over my shoulders, I stalked toward the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” Delilah asked, saccharin sweet.
“Out.” I didn’t have the patience for more than the one word.
“I’m supposed to go with you when you go out,” she called after me.
I paused at the counter and stared at the bottle of anti-Lyhtan goo, wondering if I should stuff it in my pocket. I didn’t. “No. I don’t need you tagging along right now. Stay here, Delilah,” I said. “I’ll be back in a while.”
“Tyler’s not going to be happy,” she said.
I stalked to the lift and shut the gate in front of me. “Do I look like I give a flying fuck?” I asked.
“I don’t know how you look,” I heard her say as the lift began its descent. “But you sure don’t sound like you do.”
I stared from the street toward the iron gate of Xander’s place. It looked less menacing in the light of day. The house sat deep in Capitol Hill, which was a better place than Belltown to remain obscure. The area reminded me of the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Grunge met grandeur, and the seedy, dirty, and half-crazy mingled with the haughty, spiffy, and wealthy every day. Of course, wasn’t that the case almost everywhere? Old cities were the perfect melting pots. Ever expanding, always making room, modern architecture never steamrolling over classic elegance. Flashy condos felt right at home next to early-1900s Victorians. A twelve-million-dollar mansion could sit beside a rundown motel and it didn’t bother anyone. Well, maybe except for real estate agents. But social variety made it easy to hide, and I had no doubt Xander had picked the area for its eccentricity.
The winding driveway was bordered by manicured grass and tall shru
bs, and the entire property had been barricaded by a tall stone wall. I bypassed the iron gate, complete with guard station, scaled the wall, and dropped to the lawn on the other side. I didn’t exactly want my presence announced. If I’d been bolder, I would have stomped right up the driveway. But since meeting Xander, I’d lost a little of my pluck.
I found a set of double doors toward the back of the house and used them to gain entrance. The house wasn’t quiet or noisy; it just bore the normal sounds of day-to-day bustling. And though I was sure I’d be outnumbered if it came down to a fight, somehow I didn’t care.
A daytime wraith, I crept through the many rooms of the ground story with an assassin’s stealth until I found what I was looking for. Xander sat at a desk in a large office, his head bent low over something of interest. I moved to the doorway and took the dagger blade side in my hand. With speed and precision, I pulled back and threw. The point buried itself in the wood inches from his head. How I missed, I wasn’t sure, because I aimed for the middle of his high-and-mighty forehead.
I pitched forward as a heavy foot made contact with the back of my knee. I twisted as I fell, landing facing my assailant. Reaching out, I grabbed the offending foot and turned it sharply. Anya’s startled form flew in an acrobatic roll before she crashed to the floor beside me. I reached an arm to the ceiling and jerked, bringing the full force of my elbow down on her chest. I owed her a hundred times over, and payback is a bitch.
My training finally proved useful. I rocked back and kicked hard, propelling myself from the floor to a standing position. Dragging her sorry-ass, leather-covered body beside me, I brought up my knee and sunk it into Anya’s stomach, eliciting a grunt, before I threw her back and kicked again, this time at her ribs. It was when I reached to pull at a hank of her long, flowing hair that I felt a soft touch at my shoulder.
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