Rhiannon and I had decided to nurse our wounds at The Hideout, our go-to bar on the corner of Stone Giant and 60th Street. Despite its name, the place was well lit by the Edison bulbs hanging from the ceiling. We sat at a long granite-top bar, staring at the collection of strange and familiar liquor bottles on the shelves.
Conveniently, The Hideout was also located near Exposition Park, where I’d be meeting the mysterious note writer later tonight.
A chill ran through me, but I bit my lip. Tell no one.
I desperately wanted to tell Rhiannon, but there was no way I’d put her at risk. I’d handle this problem just like I handled most others. On my own.
Anyway, I had a lot of secrets. The note writer might not even know the big one.
“You’re not screwed.” Rhiannon sipped her crisp pint of Old Style. “It’s not a total disaster. Gretchen was really impressed with your spell casting.”
I jabbed at the mint leaves in my glass, relieved for once to focus on work problems. “For all of five minutes. Until she got fifty-thousand angry phone calls. Now she’s in total bitch mode again.”
After we had busted the demons, Gretchen had been screamed at by the head of special collections, the head of circulation, and her direct supervisor, the department chief.
Apparently, saving the day did not make up for robbing the library.
“Yeah. The chief apparently tore her a new one.”
“And it all trickles downhill. I got such an earful. She hated me before. I’m never gonna make detective while she’s running the show.”
“Well, maybe stop putting salt in her coffee whenever she’s not looking. It’s the wrong way to get noticed, and she’s got to know it’s you by now.”
I brushed aside a whisp of my red hair. “You’re right. I’ve gotta think of a new trick.”
Rhiannon laughed and threw a handful of beer nuts into her mouth. “The shifters on the force only see you as a researcher. You’ve got to start using your powers, Neve. Show off a bit.”
“What powers? So I can planes-walk. The most hazardous and indirect form of travel.”
She leaned in closer. “We both know you’re capable of more.”
I swallowed hard. Of all my secrets, this was the big one.
No, don’t think of it now.
The note writer might not know that I was half-djinn, one of the four elemental species of genies. I wasn’t sure what I was capable of, or how to control my powers. Worse, if the wrong Magica found out what I was, they might try to capture me and force me to grant wishes—which I certainly couldn’t do. As much as I wanted to explore my power, I needed to do so discreetly.
I shook my head. “I can’t risk people finding out what I am. You know what happened the last time I used my magic. I won’t do it again. I can’t.”
Rhiannon frowned. We had done this dance many times before. Rhia hadn’t mastered her own powers yet, either. She was a time traveler, a talent that was extremely dangerous to use without years of practice.
Lucky for her, Rhiannon could also use her powers to look into the past—a super valuable skill for a detective. Even though we joined the Order of Magica at the same time, she’d climbed the ranks while I was stuck in neutral.
Eager to change the subject while killing time before my meeting, I leaned in close. “Do you think the gallu have anything to do with the string of sups gone missing?”
It was the topic on everyone’s mind. For the past month, supernaturals had been disappearing at an alarming rate throughout Magic Side. Nobody at the Order of the Magica had any leads—which was why I’d started surreptitiously researching the case on the side.
“Maybe. Perhaps the gallu pulled the missing supernaturals into the underworld.” Rhiannon idly glanced at her watch. “Aw, crap, it’s late. I have to go.”
“You’re leaving already?” It would be for the best, though. I didn’t want to have to ditch her suspiciously at eleven.
“I’m beat, and I’ve got a date with my bed.” She gave me a wink and put her fingers to her forehead, like a seer. “Anyway, I’ve been to the future. And tonight is the night that a tall and handsome gentleman buys you a drink and makes you a proposition you can’t refuse.”
I rolled my eyes. “One, you can’t travel to the future. You can’t even travel to the past unsupervised. Two, it would be more convincing if you didn’t predict the same thing every other week.”
She laughed and winked at me. “Well, I’m gonna be right one of these days. Have a good night.”
Rhiannon dropped some cash on the bar, and waved to the bartender. “See ya tomorrow, Di. Unless the tap runs dry.”
Diana waved back. “It never does. You’re the only one who drinks Old Style here!”
Rhiannon maneuvered out of the bar, switching her black stilettos for a pair of flats she pulled out of her oversized handbag as she went.
I caught Diana’s eye. “I have no idea how many pairs of shoes she can fit in there, but I love that girl like she’s my sister. It has nothing to do with the fact that we have the same size feet.”
The tall bartender laughed. “Enjoy your book, hon.”
“You know me too well.”
I pulled out my evening’s reading and stared blindly at it. Normally, The Sorcerer and I would suck me right in. Now, all I could think about was the upcoming meeting in the park. Just an hour to go.
Two pages in, Diana slipped a cocktail in front of me. The vivid yellow liquid glittered in the short Delmonico glass.
Intriguing. This wasn’t my usual order.
“What is it?” I asked, breathing in the herbaceous scent of anise, lemon, and elderflower.
Diana smiled. “Elder Monk. With gin, your favorite.”
Rhia and I had known Di for at least five years. If she brought you a drink, it was usually worth checking out. Plus, she was good about vetting the weirdos.
I took a sip. It was tart, light, and surprisingly refreshing. “This is so good!”
“It’s from the handsome guy standing at the end of the bar.” Diana nodded in his direction, then turned to serve another customer.
What the heck? Guys never sent me drinks in bars.
I glanced over my shoulder and unintentionally locked eyes with him.
Whoa.
He stood, and I had a moment of vertigo. He must have been six-three. Jeans, T-shirt, black leather jacket—he wore them like armor over his chiseled form. He strolled toward me, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from his. They were dark green, penetrating, and spoke of danger. The opposite of mine, which were an icy blue. My skin prickled, and I shifted warily.
“You.” My heart thundered. “You’re the one who knocked me down outside the Hall of Inquiry.”
“I prefer to think of it as being the one who helped you back up.” His deep voice brought to mind visions of broken shores and windswept peaks.
As he moved closer, his magical signature hit me like a rogue wave, its strength overwhelming me. A faint heat caressed my skin. His magic smelled of juniper, sea salt, ancient forests…and something that was just at the periphery of my senses. I’d missed it earlier. A scent that had gone missing somewhere along the way.
Powerful supernaturals had signatures that hit all five senses. Though I knew he had to be strong, he was concealing part of his signature well. What was he hiding?
We weren’t at Exposition Park, but had he written the note?
He shot me a dark smile and pulled back the stool. “May I join you, Ms. Cross?”
“How do you know my name?” I demanded, heart racing. I shifted on the stool, ready to flee.
His dark green eyes locked on mine, pulling me toward him with an irresistible force. “I’m a seeker, and I’ve been looking for you.”
Ice rushed over me. “You wrote the note.”
He nodded. “I’d planned to meet you at the park, but then I saw you here. Convenient that we were waiting in the same spot, isn’t it?”
“Convenient isn’t exac
tly the word I would use.”
Did he know I was half djinn? Was I being hunted? I wanted to bolt, but I had to figure out what he knew. “What do you want?”
“I have a job proposition. I need your expertise to help me find something.”
“What do you mean, my expertise?”
As he took a sip of his whiskey, my eyes traced the sharp line of his jaw. “Let’s get acquainted first.” He smiled. “I’m Damian. Damian Malek.”
I nearly choked on my drink. Damian Malek? Shit. I knew who he was for sure. Elite bounty hunter. Gangster. He was a central figure in the Chicago Underworld, and worse, one of the Fallen.
A dark angel.
No wonder my alarm bells were ringing. This guy was bad news.
I studied his face. I’d missed it before, but at that moment, I saw a trace of those too-perfect angelic features and a dark glow at the corner of his eyes. I had misread his aura, thinking it was simply sinister and dangerous. Nope. It was the dark radiance of a fallen angel.
Much worse.
I took a breath and tried to calm my nerves. “You realize I work for the Order, right?”
His lips twitched in contempt. “Yes. Which is unfortunate. You’re wasting your talents.”
Malek was notoriously lethal and elusive. Word on the street had it he ran a ring of bounty hunters who did jobs for all the crime families in Chicago, dispensing some form of Underworld vigilante justice. His activities often ran crosswise with the Order, though his wealth and connections had kept him beyond our reach so far.
“I could lose my job if somebody sees me speaking to you, so spit it out. What’s your end game here?” What do you know about me?
I wanted to shout it, but bit my tongue instead.
“Come now, Ms. Cross. This is not the first time that you’ve had Underworld liaisons in this bar.”
“What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“We both know that you’re not afraid of anything. Not even the Devil himself.” Knowledge glinted in his eyes.
The Devil himself? It dawned on me—he didn’t mean the devil in a general sense. He meant the Devil of Darkvale, the crime boss from Guild City, London’s supernatural district. I’d met him here a few months ago. How did Damian know that?
Damian smiled and rattled the ice in his glass. “I see you understand me. I know about your meeting. Your employers don’t…for now. Maybe you should hear me out.”
Oh, thank fates. That was the secret he had on me.
The threat was a bad one, but not nearly as bad as if he’d known my species. I could handle a little fall out with the Order. I could not handle getting mixed up with Damian Malek. “No. I’m not getting involved with the Chicago Underworld.”
“Come on. You’ve dealt with the Devil. Why not an angel?”
“You mean fallen angel. There’s a bit of a difference.”
Damian shrugged. “This has nothing to do with the Underworld. More to do with you.”
What did he mean by that?
He read the question on my face. “I need to get to the Realm of Air, and I need a planes-walker to get me there.”
I froze.
He knew.
But how?
Rhiannon was the only other person who knew I could planes-walk to the Realm of Air. I’d only done it once before, and it ruined my life.
I set my drink down slowly and stalled for time. “I’m afraid I can’t help you with that.”
He examined me, trying to peel away the barriers I had wrapped around myself. “I think you can, Ms. Cross. You’re half djinn.”
I stopped breathing. Shit. This was exactly why I had concealed my nature. Fumbling for an out, I managed, “I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken.”
He put his drink down on the granite bar and leaned in closer. “Ms. Cross, I have a gift for reading magic. I know what you are and what you can do.”
I shook my head weakly but couldn’t force a denial past the lump in my throat.
Seeming to sense my rising panic, his voice lowered soothingly. “No need to worry. I understand you don’t want anyone to find out what you are. So much so that you’ve kept it a secret from everyone, including the Order.”
I searched his dark green eyes for his intentions but came up short.
He sat back. “You should know that I’m in the business of secrets. And if you help me out, your secret will be safe with me.”
My mouth was dry, and I was holding my breath again. Releasing it, I said through clenched teeth, “Blackmail?”
He smiled, the barest movement of his lips.
A predator. That’s what this man was. A predator wrapped in a beautiful shell.
I glared. I was trapped, no way around it. “I won’t even contemplate helping you until I know what you’re after.”
He nodded, seeming to understand. “I don’t normally discuss details until a contract is signed, but I can tell you this—there is an evil djinn on the loose, and I need to get to the Realm of Air to find it and trap it. You’re the only one of your kind that I could locate.”
I did some quick mental calculations.
The bad: he knew I was half djinn, and his plan indicated that he had enough power to trap a genie. I could feel the magic emanating off him, and I didn’t doubt it.
The good: I didn’t seem to be his primary target. At the moment, at least.
I looked for a way out.
“I haven’t planes-walked for fifteen years,” I whispered, which was the truth. “I can’t control it. I’m sorry, but I’m not the one to help you.” I grabbed my purse and rose to leave.
He reached out and his fingers brushed my arm, sending a wave of electricity across my skin. For a second, I didn’t want to move away. His touch lulled me and drew me in, almost by hypnosis. With a sharp breath, I cleared my head and came to my senses, snatching my hand back.
He looked surprised.
This man was not used to being refused.
He met my gaze, recovering quickly. “I can help you harness your power and planes-walk.” With a smile, he added, “Plus, I’ll make it more than worth your time.”
My cheeks flushed.
“And…if you help me,” he continued, “I will keep your secrets. Your origins. Your dealings with the Devil of Darkvale.”
It was a barely veiled threat. Naked as a hairless cat.
Again, I turned to leave, but he stopped me. “Nevaeh, this is an opportunity to see the world you came from.”
How did he know so much about me? I desperately wanted to see the Realm of Air, a world lost to me as a child…but I couldn’t think. Not at the moment.
I needed to get the hell out of there.
4
I caught a cab outside The Hideout and made my way to Rhiannon’s place. Hopefully, she didn’t have a guy over. Not that it really mattered. I was going to storm in anyway. Rhia would forgive me anything. We’d been through countless tough times together, and she’d want to know that I’d just met the actual Damian Malek.
I pulled my cell phone out and called her. No answer. That’s strange. She’d pick up in the middle of anything.
My fingers raced over the screen as I tapped out a text: You’re not going to believe who I just met. Need to talk. Heading over now.
What was I going to do? Essentially, a fallen angel and underworld boss was blackmailing me into using powers that I couldn’t control and didn’t understand. No way this would end well.
To clear my head, I rolled down the window and sucked in the cool night air.
What were my options? I could search my books for a spell to bind his tongue so that he could never speak of my half-djinn secret to anyone. Would a spell like that even work on one of the Fallen?
I could go straight to the Order. Now. Tell them I was half djinn and that he had threatened me. Unfortunately, as far as I knew, he was untouchable. He’d still get what he wanted out of me, one way or the other.
And who knew what the Order would do? G
enies were supremely powerful and dangerous. Sure, I wasn’t a full djinn, but I couldn’t control my powers, and that made me a loose cannon. I would get fired, or worse, slapped in magicuffs and thrown in Bentham Prison. And what if outsiders found out? The Order leaked secrets like a sieve…
I choked out a gasp. I had been holding my breath, a terrible stress habit.
Damian said that he could help me master my powers and the ability to planes-walk. Was it possible?
He had offered me a chance to explore the Realm of Air. Could I find clues to my past there? I’d been to the Realm of Air only once, fifteen years ago, the day I’d accidentally used my powers and planes-walked away from a family I’d never found again. Pain seared me at the memory of my lost mother and father, an ache that never really went away.
I’d attempted to find my way back to them, but I became further and further lost between this world and the other. So I’d buried my magic in the back of my mind and hadn’t unlocked it since.
I looked at the time. 11:04 p.m. Rhia would know what to do. After all, she had a similar predicament: she could travel back in time but could barely control it and had to hide some of her magic from the Order as well.
The cab bounced over potholes in the poorly maintained road as we pulled up to Rhiannon’s. She lived in a third-floor walk-up on 69th and Ravensclaw.
I had keys, so I let myself in through the front door and took the stairs two at a time. As I neared the landing, I stopped cold. Her door was ajar.
The hairs on my neck prickled. I instinctively reached for my curved dagger, a khanjar, which was sheathed at my hip.
I pushed the door open, and my heart stopped. A whirlwind had been through here. Books and papers laid strewn about the room, with overturned chairs and a broken table in the center.
Holding my breath, I crept into the room, ready to strike.
I cleared the rooms, one by one, but found no sign of her. Rhiannon was gone, as well as whoever had taken her. Because someone had to have taken her. No way she’d have left her apartment like this. And if she were chasing down the culprit, she’d have called me for backup.
Wicked Wish (Dragon's Gift: The Storm Book 1) Page 2