Djinn Justice (The Collegium Book 2) (18 page)

“Wouldn’t a male candidate have been available for the job Lilith does? I think Mrs. Jekyll deals better with men.”

“So you’d have indulged Grand-mère?”

“Her preferences would have been a factor in my decision.” She’d have thought he’d feel the same.

“Lilith dressing as a butler does that. But spin the situation another way. If you decided an important element of fort, and all were security based on Grand-mère’s preferences, then isn’t
she
manipulating
you
?”

Fay’s mouth dropped open.

Steve grinned, amused and sympathetic. “Family is complicated. Decide what is right, then soften the edges.”

She gathered her composure. “Is that how a wolf pack works?”

He laughed. “No. Grandfather simply tells people what to do and roars when they have their own ideas—which they do, frequently. You’ll like Grandfather. He’s direct. He’ll expect you to call him John.”

“And I’m to meet him in a few minutes?”

Humor curved Steve’s mouth and danced in his eyes. “Which is worse, the rogue mage and crazy jackal, or my family?”

She punched his arm.

“How do you feel about meeting them in public, in the café?”

To some extent, public life would be her future. Staying with Steve meant enduring the curiosity of the weres. Heck, even in Siberia Victor had heard of her. “I wouldn’t mind another coffee.”

He kissed her quickly in a sign of approval.

Ten minutes later, they stood in the café’s kitchen with Steve sliding their tray of empty plates onto a counter. “Thanks.” He introduced Fay casually, just her name, and requested two coffees. There were sidelong, curious glances from the staff before she and Steve sat at a table where they could see the entrance to the fort.

It was like magic. Within seconds, people filled the café. All were curious, none approached their table. Fay wondered what stopped them. Was there some protocol for addressing the heir to the Suzerainty?

“Lilith posted guards.” Steve didn’t bother to whisper. Were hearing would catch any comment. “We’re ringed in by marshals at the closest tables.”

And that’s how closely we’re monitored here in the fort
, Fay thought.

Steve stood. “They’re here.”

Adrenaline surged through her and receded.
We should have waited somewhere private.
Wherever she looked, people watched her. Standing seemed a huge effort, her feet suddenly gigantic and clumsy, her body stiff. She’d rather fight a hundred demons than face this moment.

Steve put a gentle hand at the small of her back.

She saw the love in his eyes and his pride in her. It calmed her sudden fear. Through their mate-bond, she felt his love. She had to trust him. She had to believe that his family did welcome her; that their love for him was enough to ensure her acceptance.

She had to relax. She had to show them that she wanted to like them.

Two tall men and two women almost as tall walked in. Silhouetted against the evening light, their faces were momentarily obscured. Then they rushed forward.

Chairs scraped as the people in between got out of the way—even the marshals.

Steve’s mom reached them first, and hugged Fay. She ignored her son who’d been kidnapped in favor of hugging Fay! “Welcome to the family.”

“Um, thanks.” Fay returned the hug uncertainly.

Michelle was her height, strong and lean. She wore an expensive suit and smelled of expensive perfume, but her make-up had worn off and she hadn’t renewed it. When she drew back a little, her blue eyes showed red rims. Tears. She smiled at Fay, then abruptly launched herself at her son.

As Steve hugged his mom, his dad pulled Fay in for a quick hug. He looked so much like Steve, only older. And then there was Steve’s grandfather, the earl. John. He was a large man with white hair and sharp blue eyes, as burly as a lumberjack.

“Good girl.” The old man slapped Fay on the back. “Rescued our boy, I hear. Good girl.” She was crushed in the longest hug of all as he whispered under his breath. “You’re his, so you’re ours, and now these bastards know it.”

They sure did. Around them, in the crowded café, everyone watched. Not that Fay had time to worry about everyone. Breathless, she faced the last of the quartet, Steve’s sister, Liz.

The young woman was Fay’s age, Fay’s height, but dark to Fay’s fairness, and astoundingly beautiful. Liz wore shirt, jeans and boots, ready for action. She also had an understanding smile. “You’ll get used to us. Hello, sis.” The hug was brief but real.

Released, Fay’s knees went wobbly. Steve wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her up. “Thanks.” She glanced up at him and saw the understanding in his eyes. She hadn’t been nervous of meeting his family: she’d been terrified. Mrs. Jekyll’s hostile reception had rattled Fay more than she’d been willing to admit, even to herself.

She looked at his parents, grandfather and sister. Steve’s dad was the most reserved, but all of them smiled at her.

Then the earl’s smile widened into a teeth-baring grin. “Where’s Tomy?”

Lilith seemed to materialize out of nowhere. “The Suzerain will meet you in the Court.” All very formal and official, except that the look Lilith exchanged with Steve’s mom, Michelle, had a fleeting complicity.

Comprehension swept through Fay. Steve’s family had made such a point, a public point, of welcoming Fay because Lilith had reported the disaster of her encounter with the older Jekylls. Michelle and Lilith were allies.

And Fay had allies, too. Steve’s family had her back.

Walking towards the Court, Steve knew a deep gratitude for his family’s response. Of course they’d been worried for his life when he’d been kidnapped, but with him safely returned, they’d rallied to support Fay. As much as he’d tried to help, meeting Tomy and Raha had been an ordeal for her. He was still angry with Grand-mère over her attitude and words.

But Fay was more settled now. She’d didn’t stride beside him, ready to repulse an attack. Instead, bemusement had relaxed her a little.

Steve smothered a grin. His mom might be the exuberant, sociable personality, but his dad had a way with him. With Grandfather leading the charge down the corridor to the Court, his mom and sister squashed in around him and Fay, and his dad brought up the rear, musing on changes to the fort.

“We’ve not had magic in the fort for ages. Except for Uncle, obviously. But you can’t ask him to re-orient it.”

Fay tripped as she turned her head to look back at his dad.

“Don’t listen to him.” Michelle caught Fay’s arm; unnecessarily, since Fay had steadied herself. “David has this idea that the view from the fort would be better if we turned the building twenty degrees.”

“What’s twenty degrees? Nothing.” His dad’s dry tone almost hid his teasing. He was clever, enviably so. With one tease, he’d told Fay that not only was her magic accepted, it was considered an asset.

“I could swivel the building,” Fay said slowly, evidently thinking through the implications of more than simply moving a hulking pile of stones.

“Really?” And that was Liz, bumping into Steve in her eagerness. “You could move the fort?”

“It would cause chaos, ripping up plumbing and electricity supplies,” Fay responded cautiously. “I’d need all those mapped if I was to—”

“Who cares?!!” Liz squealed. “That is so cool. You can literally rock the Suzerainty to its foundations.” That was Liz. Despite qualifying as a doctor, she sounded like a teenager. But an enthusiastic one.

Grandfather ignored all of them and pushed open the Court door. “Tomy, Raha, we’re here.”

Fay caught Steve’s hand and squeezed it.

Yeah, John’s opening statement did sound ominous. Challenge laced it. Did Fay realize his grandfather was going to war on her behalf?

His other granddad did. Steve saw the wariness in Tomy’s eyes—light brown like his own. Steve thought he also detected regret as Tomy’s gaze found Fay, surrounded by the family. This was how Tomy should have responded to Fay’s presence in Steve’s life. Instead…

Grand-mère sat to Tomy’s right. She’d changed clothes from two hours ago and wore a severely tailored purple suit, and had redone her make up to match, including her fingernail color. Her battle armor.

Perhaps that was why Michelle hadn’t bothered to change from her office clothes and still wore a suit?

“Hi, Granddad.” Liz broke the ice. She walked in and around the boardroom table to kiss Tomy on the cheek, then bend and kiss Grand-mère’s cheek.

David quietly closed the door, a statement that this was private family business as much as official Suzerainty duty. Uncle’s magic, even without his presence, made the happenings of the Court secret, when necessary.

Everyone took a seat at the table.

When Steve would have sat to the side, as he usually did, John shoved him instead into the chair at the foot of the table. It was a not so subtle statement as he found himself facing Tomy at the head. Meantime, John held the chair to Steve’s right for Fay.

“Thank you.” She sat.

John sat on her other side. They stared diagonally the length of the table to Grand-mère and her pinched expression.

David sat beside his mom, touching her shoulder briefly. Michelle sat beside him. It left a no man’s land of six-chair-distance between the two groupings. The gap wouldn’t help mend matters and it would make discussion harder.

Abruptly the six empty chairs either side of the table vanished, as did the table itself. A smaller table replaced it, and Fay, John and Steve’s chairs all slid up, carrying them, to fit around the new table.

“That’s better,” Fay said. Her voice was quiet, but she’d just asserted herself. She’d used her magic, in the heart of the Suzerainty, to send a message.

Steve grinned. No matter what they faced with the crazy jackal and his rogue mage, this wasn’t wasted magic. His family regarded Fay with stunned expressions.

“I hope you can return the table,” Grand-mère snapped. “It’s an antique.”

Everyone ignored her, busy staring at Fay.

Liz giggled.

David smiled. “I’ll calculate the best angle for the fort. Maybe eighteen degrees.”

Michelle snorted a laugh.

Fay stayed on topic, although her level gaze at Grand-mère was itself a statement. “I want to hear about Steve’s kidnapping and how he escaped. He hasn’t told me yet. But I’ll report my dealings with the rogue mage first. I used the portal to Vladivostok, then a plane flight and hired car and driver till I reached the village where the tiger-were the rogue mage had targeted lived on the outskirts.”

She described her encounter first with the tiger-were, then the rogue mage. “I compelled the truth from her. Narelle Fletcher. She’s an Australian, badly trained in magic, and with emotional and psychological issues. She’s an abuse victim, and Tarik Joshi continues to abuse her. She is utterly his.”

“So the wicked were makes the mage do his wishes? Convenient.” Grand-mère sniffed.

Fay brought a silver locket out of her pocket. She laid it on the table. “This is the amulet Narelle used to ground her spell. She channels the enslaved weres’ dream essences through it to Tarik.”

“It doesn’t look impressive,” Liz said.

The silver of the palm-sized amulet was tarnished, smudging the pattern etched into it. The broken chain connected to it was shinier, but that only made the amulet resemble worn out costume jewelry. Yet Fay studied the amulet with horror and fear, and sadness.

“What do you see?” Steve asked her.

“The stolen dream essences are leaking from it. Narelle’s spell is unstable. I could destroy the amulet, but the risk is that it would break the enslaved people’s connection to their dream essences. And I’m not sure if the amulet is actually necessary to the spell Narelle cast. The spell appears self-sustaining, which means it might continue without the amulet, having a life beyond the object used to focus it. I’d like to know how Tarik is using the dream essences. The energy I felt on the mountain was…wrong.”

“Demoralizing,” Steve agreed. “The energy felt warped and it seemed to choke a person, as if we were breathing in depression.”

“You fought through it,” Fay said.

“I despaired for my own safety, but they weren’t going to get you.”

Granddad interrupted. His thin face held deeper lines. Worry and sadness. “How did they get you, Steve?”

Like Fay, Steve had had time to think over his experience and to arrange his thoughts so that he gave a clear report. “The porter of the Mountains of the Moon portal—a portal I didn’t know existed—snatched me from Faroud during the handover.” He censored how that had felt—the terrifying violent helplessness of abduction in the in-between. “As soon as we stepped out of the Mountains of the Moon portal, they tranq’d me. As the drug shut down my ability to move, I had a brief glimpse of the compound. They put me on an all-terrain vehicle, lashed me to it, and drove me up a mountain. A different route to the one Fay and I took running down, but I was unconscious before we were far into the climb.”

He looked around at his family. “I can’t have been out for long, given how quickly Fay rescued me.”

“You rescued yourself,” she interjected.

“No. The enslaved weres would have recaptured me on the mountain. Seven chased me. Another two remained in the cave.”

“I counted four more weres at the compound,” Fay said.

“Thirteen known enslaved. Plus the others he’s just draining the essences from.” Mr. Jekyll put a hand to his forehead in a gesture of weariness and worry.

Steve looked around the table. “Uncle said there were two dozen weres enslaved. Fay and I returned the wolf-were, Barbara Winnet, to herself. So we know they can be freed, in controlled situations.”

“Narelle said she had five more names, five more to enslave, on a list Tarik gave her. But she didn’t think he needed them. She thought he already had enough power to accomplish his goals.”

“And what are his goals?” John asked.

Fay looked at Steve. “To challenge Steve. Tarik told Narelle that he is the true heir to the Suzerainty and he intends to rule the weres.”

“Nobody rules us,” Liz said.

Steve frowned. “What do you think he means by challenge?”

“No idea. I hoped you’d noticed something during the kidnapping,” Fay answered.

He rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen their tension. “When I woke up in the cave—”

Granddad interrupted, scowling at Fay. “You should have given me this information immediately. Lilith could have profiled Tarik. At the least, we’d have background on him.”

Fay put a hand on Steve’s arm, requesting his silence. “It doesn’t matter who Tarik was. Using the spell, a magic so ugly and unstable, he’s someone else now. Uncle showed us a warning. Tarik is poisoned, and judging by the energy he unleashed at us, poisonous. No matter his reason for having Narelle cast the spell, now it owns him. He’ll be unpredictable because we don’t know the effects of the spell.”

“Except for that story you found.” Steve recalled her research on the plane flight to North Carolina. “The Egyptian wizard who had so many voices within him.”

Fay nodded. “Narelle seemed a coherent personality. Troubled but herself. If the spell does swell the spell-caster with the essences of the various enslaved, that must have passed to Tarik, along with the bulk of the power. He is being destroyed by his own actions. The human psyche isn’t designed to hold multiple dream essences.”

“He’s mad,” Michelle said bluntly.

“Evil and powerful,” Fay agreed. Her hold on Steve’s arm lessened, shifted, and became a caress. “Tell us about the cave.”

He saw his grandmother’s gaze narrow on Fay’s hand. Steve looked at Fay, at the clear blue of her eyes, sharp with worry for him. Turned to watch him, she couldn’t see Grand-mère’s expression.

His mom did, though. She glared at Grand-mère and opened her mouth to say—

His dad hastily intervened. “We interrupted your report, Steve. Tell us how you escaped this madman.”

“Tarik has adapted the cave for habitation. It’s above the snowline with a narrow entrance, difficult to attack and easy to defend. Once through the entrance, the cave opens to a substantial cavern approximately five meters high and thirty meters across.”

John whistled appreciation of the cave’s size.

“They didn’t bother to light it much, so the shadows could hide other exits or caves.” Those were the problem. Crazy Tarik might be, but Steve doubted the man had chosen a base where he could be trapped. A frontal assault with weapons developed to stun the enemy might only flush Tarik and his slaves from one location to a new hideout.

And that was something else he had to remember. “Not all the people serving Tarik are enslaved. Apart from the porter, I didn’t smell any non-weres. But not all the weres appeared enslaved, their dream essences stolen.”

“How were they different?” Fay asked.

“A certain level of awareness. They didn’t trudge, they moved with purpose. They showed intelligence and the ability to make decisions. I woke up within minutes of arriving inside the cave. I don’t think Tarik anticipated that. His people had dumped me by the side of the cave. They were busy with…something else, and I had time to observe them.” He didn’t mention how bad he’d felt at the time or what he’d seen. Tarik had skins and stuffed animals: weres killed in their animal forms. Trophies. Vile.

Steve hadn’t been able to do anything about that outrage. He might have been awake, but the drug had cramped his muscles and left him fighting the urge to vomit. That would have been a disgusting way to alert his captors to his consciousness.

He had worked at the ropes that bound him. There shouldn’t have been any give in the bonds, but he’d found enough to rub his wrists raw as he freed them. “I’m not sure if it was honest accident or if at least one of the enslaved weres has retained or regained a sliver of independence. My ropes held just enough slack that I could get free. When I did, I didn’t hang about. I knocked out one guard by the cave entrance, and then, I sensed Fay’s presence.”

“How?” Granddad snapped.

But Steve was deep in that memory. “When I woke up in the cave, it was awful. The feeling in there sat on my chest like a stone. It was a burrowing grief, a despair. Just to want to escape was an effort. The temptation was to do nothing.”

“I felt that energy on the mountain,” Fay whispered. “I couldn’t believe how you fought through it. I could feel it overwhelming me. I almost couldn’t move.”

Steve looked into her haunted eyes. They alone at the table knew the horror of Tarik’s power. What they didn’t know was if that was the extent of it or if it could be worse. He spoke to her. “Sensing you there, through the mate-bond, cut through the drag on my soul and muscles. I didn’t know how you came to be there—I didn’t know then how long I’d been unconscious—but everything in me screamed to get you away to safety.”