by R. L. Naquin
I nibbled a warm chocolate-almond biscotti. “Don’t say end.” The biscotti, while tasty, was crumbly and too much work to chew in my present state. I dropped it on my plate. “So, what happened to you guys? I take it Petaluma was the right place to go.”
Andrew put his cup on the coaster Maurice had put out. Maurice hated rings, and we could all sense how agitated he was. No need to upset him further with poor housekeeping. “Christie narrowed it down to an area within a three-mile radius of the fairgrounds. Taking that with what Madame Emilia said, we followed a hunch.”
Daniel leaned forward, picking up the narrative. “There were no hospitals out there, abandoned or otherwise, but there was an old animal clinic that went out of business several years ago. I volunteered there one summer when I was a teenager. The place was huge—they treated livestock as well as smaller animals, and sometimes boarded horses.”
Andrew reached across the coffee table and wove his fingers through Daniel’s. “Daniel saved us a lot of time. We might have driven around for hours if he hadn’t remembered that old place.”
Daniel’s blush was adorable. The two of them together were adorable. I noticed Riley’s leg pressed against mine and wondered if he felt the heat of my skin through his jeans as conspicuously as I felt his through mine. I shifted and tried to give us a little space to ease some of the awkwardness. It wasn’t easy on the crowded sofa.
I cleared my throat. “So, what did you find?”
“The parking lot was empty,” Andrew said. “But the building wasn’t.” He wiped his empty palm on the knee of his jeans.
“It was dark inside,” Daniel said. “Ceiling tiles on the floor, chairs overturned and torn up, plaster dust over everything. But we knew somebody was there because we heard chanting in the back. So, we followed it.”
Maurice froze in the middle of refilling Sara’s tea. “Please.” His voice was soft and pleading. “Tell me Pansy wasn’t there.”
“We peeked around the corner and saw the cultists holding hands and singing.” Andrew shook his head. “We didn’t see any gargoyles, Maurice. She wasn’t there.”
Maurice closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. “Good. Okay. She really did leave, then.” He busied himself rearranging the plates on the table. “Thanks, Andrew. Thanks.”
Daniel dipped his finger in the cookies-and-cream frosting on his cupcake, then licked it clean while he gathered his thoughts. “There were eight of them. All sorts of Hidden. And they were huddled around a filthy gurney.” He stopped, his throat catching. “Kam was strapped to it, and a satyr in the center of the circle had a knife held to Kam’s wrist.”
I gasped and held my hand over my mouth. I’d seen the bandage. I was afraid to ask the question hanging in front of me.
Riley wasn’t afraid. “They were after her gems, weren’t they?”
Andrew nodded. “He had the tip of the knife already digging into the flesh around one of the gems. We didn’t have any time to think about it. We just charged in before the satyr could do any more damage.”
My eyes grew wide. “There were eight of them. Shit, guys. You could’ve gotten yourselves killed. You weren’t supposed to go in without backup.”
Daniel ducked his head and didn’t say anything.
Andrew scowled at him, but held Daniel’s hand tightly. “In spite of my objections, Daniel went behind my back and brought a gun.”
This surprised me, and I sat back against the sofa. In all the confrontations I’d run into so far, nobody had thought to bring a weapon. It made me wonder if maybe Daniel wasn’t the smartest one of us. I’d never been crazy about guns, and if I tried to shoot one, I’d probably end up making a one-in-a-million accidental shot that took out the entire power grid for a ten-mile radius. Or, you know, shot myself in the ear while looking down the barrel.
I touched Daniel’s sleeve. “You saved Kam. It doesn’t matter how you did it.”
He lifted his head. “I didn’t do it, though. I froze up.”
Andrew’s gaze was distant, as if he were watching the scene play out as he told it. “We charged in, shouting. The chanting stopped, and the satyr waved his knife and yelled at the rest to stop us. Daniel reached for his gun tucked in the back of his pants under his coat, but he couldn’t get it out fast enough.” His voice sounded far away. “A chupacabra knocked him to the ground, and the gun went spinning. So, I grabbed it.”
Riley reached over and took my hand. Without thinking, I let him, then leaned into him, tucking my elbow under his.
Andrew had stopped talking, and Daniel took over again. “The chupacabra was on top of me, and it took everything I had to keep it from biting me. Then there was a loud crack and the thing fell over. Andrew stood above me with the gun shaking in his hands.” They gave each other a long look. “I got up and grabbed it from him before he dropped it. When I aimed it at the rest of the group, they scattered.”
Andrew was an herbalist. He’d built his business and his life around assisting in the wellness of others. To have taken a life went against everything he had inside of him. Not that it would have been much easier for Daniel. He was a nurse’s aide at the retirement community where Andrew’s grandparents lived. Life was sacred to both men, and taking one in order to save another affected them both deeply.
The room was silent but for the occasional clink of a teacup or scrape of a plate against the table. I don’t know how long Kam had been standing in the shadowed hallway watching us before I noticed her.
She smiled at me, though her smile wasn’t as bright as it normally was. “You’re holding hands.” She gestured at Riley’s thumb caressing the back of my hand.
Riley and I gave each other a shy, sideways look, but didn’t let go. We might have had a big discussion. We could have fallen into each other’s arms in a moment filled with drama.
We didn’t need all that.
All we needed was each other.
Kam stepped into the room. “You saved me.” She knelt between Andrew and Daniel and placed her hands over theirs. “I will forever be in your debt.”
She let go of them and pinched the metal teeth that held her bandage in place, then unwound the gauzy material, layer by layer.
I swallowed hard, wanting to look away but unable to avert my eyes. With each layer, the tiny spots of blood widened until she revealed the final piece, which covered a piece of padding still damp with her blood. She peeled it from her skin. Only two of her three gems remained. The third had been gouged from her body, leaving an ugly wound.
My gut clenched, and my voice cracked. “Oh, God, Kam.”
She nodded and replaced the pad. “I hit full capacity at sunrise this morning. They weren’t just draining djinn magic, they were stealing the gems.” She sniffed but stuck her chin out in a show of bravery. “Thanks to these guys, they only got one of mine. It could have been worse.”
Without that third gem, Kam could never save up enough magic to go home. She might find someone else to get her there, but she’d never be self-sufficient enough to do it herself. She’d been maimed—a part of her body had been stolen. By djinn standards, she was handicapped.
I had a feeling we wouldn’t learn the full repercussions for some time.
Maurice zipped out of view, then returned within seconds, having moved at a speed the eye couldn’t follow. He handed a first aid kit to Andrew. “Fresh bandages.”
Andrew took the white plastic box and rummaged for materials, then re-bandaged Kam’s wounds as she talked. “It was that Lionel guy who grabbed me, but you guys already know that.”
I nodded, guilt stabbing me in the heart. “I’m sorry we weren’t there to stop him, Kam.”
She waved her free hand at me. “He had me fooled. It’s not your fault. You tried to tell me that you didn’t like him.” She winced as Andrew applied antibiotic ointment from a jar. It wasn’t the standard tube of stuff that came with the kit. He’d bullied me into throwing that away in favor of the smelly gunk he mixed in his shop. “I tried t
o get away when he attacked me. I got loose and tried to run back in the house to warn you, but...”
Her gaze met mine, and her eyes filled with tears.
“He had your full name,” I said. It was the only way he could have controlled her. Horrified, I swallowed my own tears before she could see them. I knew what it must have cost her to be captured that way again.
Her brave front was crumbling. She nodded, miserable.
I’d released her from a century of slavery with a terrible master, only to have her captured again in front of my house.
A single tear slid to her cheek. She swiped it away and sat up straighter. “He put me in this twisty, blown glass bottle. I don’t know how he did it, but there were already four other djinn in there.” Her brow creased. “That’s not supposed to happen. One djinn. One receptacle.”
Sara, silent up to that point, snorted. She may not have looked much like herself, but she sounded the same, snort and all. “Leprechauns sold it to him. Those bastards have their fingers in everything.”
Kam noticed Sara for the first time. She tilted her head and looked Sara over as if she were a new car or a piece of artwork, then flinched as Andrew tightened the new bandage. “Hey, not so hard.” She accepted a cup of tea from Maurice and took a sip. “I hadn’t seen other djinn for a really long time. He kept taking them out until there were two of us left. I was the only one who didn’t have a full charge.” She stopped speaking and stared out the window.
I gave her a gentle verbal prod. “Until this morning.”
She twitched. “Yes. Until this morning. He called us both out of the bottle and strapped us each to a table.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “Then he left. We were stuck that way for hours before his people showed up.”
I glanced at Andrew with a questioning look. He gave a slight shake of his head in answer. They hadn’t mentioned anyone else being there—only the cult whackos and Kam.
Sara leaned forward in her chair, and her silver hair fell over her shoulders in a shiny cascade. “What happened to the other djinn, Kam?”
Kam chewed her bottom lip. “Her name was Sinira.” She rubbed her bandaged wrist in an absent way. I wondered if she could still feel the hardness of the missing gem the way people with missing limbs still felt an arm or a foot. “She died screaming as they cut the gems from her skin. Some—” She choked on the words and had to take a moment. “Somebody collected the gems and put them in a box. I saw the inside before they closed it. There were a lot of gems in there.”
Daniel put his arm around her. “You’re safe now.”
She shook her head, her voice a whisper. “Nobody’s safe now. They took the box with them.”
Riley smoothed his finger over his cheek. “What does that mean, exactly? How can anyone but a djinn use djinn magic?”
She sighed her eyes filled with sorrow and fatigue. “I’m not sure. Djinn can exchange magic with each other. I’ve heard of some really intense poker games in Vegas where djinn play for magic instead of cash. They don’t remove the gems, though, obviously. That’s barbaric and often fatal. The only way to use them would be as refills for another djinn. A human still couldn’t use the magic directly.”
Sara crossed her legs. “So, Lionel must have a healthy djinn he could use for opening the portals, refilling her magic each time.”
We all glanced around the room at each other.
Andrew folded his arms over his chest. “Then where’s this djinn being kept?”
“And where’s the box with all the magic?” Sara asked.
I pulled closer to Riley. “This was going on all over the world.”
Sara nodded. “So, who’s in charge of the whole operation? We’re still not out of the woods, are we?”
The front door flew open. “I’m afraid not.” Marcus stepped into my house, looking around as if he’d arrived at a bed and breakfast. “There’s much to be done if we’re going to prevent the end of the world. Where should I put my suitcase?”
Chapter Twenty-One
I swallowed my initial response to Marcus’s question about where to put his suitcase. Several creative and painful places crossed my mind. I had more than enough going on without having to play ambassador to the Hidden King of Canada, or whatever he was. I didn’t care about his actual job title, other than “more important than Bernice.”
Unfortunately for him, Bernice’s title didn’t impress me in the slightest, so her boss wasn’t going to be any more interesting. Or intimidating.
“It’s a small house, Marcus. You should have called first. We could have gotten you a nice hotel room.” I smiled sweetly.
“I’ll be staying here where I can monitor things more closely.”
Sara grunted, but remained otherwise silent. Marcus glanced at her, looked away, then did a double take.
I smiled. “I never turn anyone away, Marcus. That’s my policy. But I’m afraid you’re relegated to Tent City. No room in the inn. Sorry.”
A shadow crossed his face, but the cheery smile never wavered. “I suppose if you have nowhere else, I’m sure your tents are perfectly comfortable. Why don’t you give me the grand tour?”
I took a deep breath and counted to ten, waiting for the heat in my face and the urge to throat punch this guy to recede.
It didn’t work.
“We’re a little busy here, Marcus. Unless you’ve got the answer to all our problems, you’ll have to wait your turn.” I may have been a little sharp. Okay, I was a lot sharp. But I didn’t give a flying aardvark patty if he thought I was a poor hostess.
A pooka named Silas had once walked into my house with a similar attitude to what Marcus was giving me. Between Silas and the bureaucratic bullshit I’d been forced to put up with in the past from Bernice and her flunky, Art, I had zero tolerance for pushy people who thought my job was to do as I was told. I’d have thought Marcus would have figured out the last time we met that he should take a milder approach if he wanted anything from me.
Apparently, Marcus was slow.
His cheery grin slipped, and his jaw muscles tensed, as if he were grinding his teeth in an effort to keep himself calm. “I’m here to help you.” He spoke through clenched teeth, so I’d probably been right about the grinding. I’d send an apology note to his dentist later. “You’re obviously in need of assistance, considering how many attempts have been made on your life, and the fact that you were unable to keep those poor women we sent you safe. I’m sorry to be blunt, but someone needs to step in and take over. And I happen to be the one most qualified.”
No wonder Bernice’s panties were in such a bunch. Two minutes with this guy and my blood pressure was through the roof.
Come to think of it, he’d had the same effect on me the last time I saw him.
I opened my mouth to say something scathing, but Riley cut me off before I could utter the first syllable.
“How about I show him around? You guys finish up in here, and I’ll get... Marcus, was it? I’ll get Marcus settled in the VIP tent.”
There was no VIP tent in my backyard.
Riley leaned in and kissed my cheek, then winked at me as he rose to escort Marcus outside. I tried not to grin at either the kiss or the wink. The first made me tingle, but the second made me want to laugh. I knew what Riley was up to. There was one area on the south side of the property line that was a good distance from the rest of the living areas.
A lot of creatures came and went in my small campground, each with varying tastes and sensitivities. Some—swamp bogeys, for instance—preferred a more pungent environment. And no matter what kind of creature stayed with us—course or elegant, ethereal or substantial—they all had to take a dump eventually. The south side of my property was where it all ended up before it was composted.
Riley, love of my life who was no longer estranged from me, was taking my latest problem and setting him up by the latrine.
If I hadn’t loved Riley before, I’d have fallen all over again.
The moment t
hey were out the door, I bolted for my room and snagged my phone from the bedside table.
It rang so many times, I nearly gave up.
“Yes?” Bernice sounded apathetic, as if she didn’t care who was on the phone and had no intention of helping whoever had called.
“Bernice, why didn’t you tell me Marcus was coming? Are you okay?” She should have called me. The fact that she hadn’t set off warning bells in my head.
She was silent at first, but I could hear her breathing. “So, that’s where he went off to.” Ice clinked in a glass. I wondered if I needed to worry about how much she’d been drinking lately.
“You didn’t know he was coming?” What the hell was going on out at headquarters?
A lighter clicked in the background as she lit a cigarette. I hadn’t known that she smoked. Maybe she hadn’t before.
“I don’t keep track of what he does, and I don’t care.” She paused, presumably to take a drag, then exhaled. “It’s not my job to care.”
Her self-pity soaked through the phone and made me want to slap her. “It is your job to care. We’re trying to hold off the end of the world, Bernice. Help me out a little, here.”
I heard someone say something in the background, and she answered sharply. There was some muffled noise, like the phone exchanging hands, then another voice came on the line.
“Zoey? Is that you?” The sound of Art’s voice filled me with relief.
I’d hated the guy once. Now, I’d never been more relieved to hear from the obnoxious windbag. “Art, what’s wrong with Bernice? Is she drunk?”
“Yes.” He pulled away from the phone and spoke to her. “Give me that.” They had a heated exchange I couldn’t hear, then he came back. “I had to put her cigarette out before she set fire to the place. She was falling asleep.”
“What the hell is going on over there?”
“Marcus fired us. Or rather, he intends to fire us when he gets back from wherever he went.” Bitterness spattered my cheek through the phone.