Djinn Justice (The Collegium Book 2) (20 page)

Liz slipped out, sidling around their dad. “Come on, Steve.” She linked her arm with his and tried to pull him away.

But it was John who broke the impasse. The old man shoved them all away from the door. “Kippers and steaks, boy,” he roared. It was the earl’s favorite cuss word. “Focus on the important point. There isn’t anything in this world that’s going to drive your woman from you, so you focus on protecting her in whatever mess this is. And by mess, I mean the fool jackal and his tame mage. Some in the family might take longer to remember that they’d like some great-grandkids, but don’t you worry about their ageing brains.”

Steve didn’t get to hear Grand-mère’s response to this attack. John gripped one arm and Liz the other, and they towed him away.

Fay walked around the portal to sit opposite the stairs with the portal between her and everyone else, and a wall at her back. She could feel the surge of power from the portal.

Whatever Faroud’s evident interest in gossiping—and his gaze tracked her avidly—he was taking guardianship of his portal seriously. No one would be coming through it without his knowledge and permission.

The stone floor was cold. Fay ignored the discomfort, crossing her legs and placing the amulet in front of her. It was harder to ignore her emotional state. She didn’t understand families. Her own family was small, distant and messed up. Steve’s family, both in their support and antagonism, bewildered her. It was as if she couldn’t find secure ground. Did she fight or placate, engage or ignore? His mom, Michelle, seemed to think Fay should let others fight for her.

Fay had never had anyone fight her battles, although Steve had fought beside her.

“Just do your job.” It was a relief to return to the discipline of the work she’d been trained for.

She centered herself in her magic, withdrawing gradually from awareness of the waves of the portal’s power that lapped over her to a humming focus on the coiled magic within her. Keeping her eyes closed, she activated her mage sight. She concentrated on the rhythm of her breathing with the underlying beat of her heart and the softer, soundless pulse of the portal. She braced herself and opened her eyes.

To her mage sight, magic flared everywhere. The portal blazed with it and she could see patterns Faroud must have traced around it, spells of defense and containment, and other, stranger purposes. Yet that magic was strong and true, clear and distinct. When she looked at the amulet, all of that changed.

Against the backdrop of the portal’s clean power, the fraying spell wrapped around the amulet and the dream essences leaking from it were cloudy, muddled and wrong. Skin-crawlingly wrong. Fay forced aside her repulsion to peer closer.

Her concentration deepened and shifted. She fell into an unfamiliar trance state. She didn’t know if it was caused by the dream essences spilling from the amulet, the power of the portal or her own new, mate-bond inspired awareness, but she chose not to fight it. Checking that her personal warding remained strong, she let the trance state take her, curious as to what it would reveal.

In her mage-sight, the spell strands weaving around and through the amulet acquired a translucence, as if they faded back. The spilling dream essences came forward. Their colors shifted and strengthened, growing out of grayness into hints of green and purple and even orange shades of brown, the raw ochre colors of deserts. The dream essences appeared as cords, twisted around and strangled by the amulet, leaking off color like dye dripping from newly dipped yarn.

Fay touched one and it had a tangible weight for her trance-enhanced senses. She pinched it lightly between thumb and index finger. She could move it fractionally.

The cords of dream essences became visible about half a meter from the amulet, and fed in and out of it before vanishing again. Fay slid her finger along a cord. A drop of dream essence fell and she captured it in the palm of her other hand. It pooled there, collecting a second drip. The color shimmered purple, like poor quality amethyst crystal.

Fay looked at the floor and the other dream essences spilling there from the fraying spell. Carefully, she tipped her hand, letting the dream essence she’d collected fall to join the rest. She watched it drop, and then, startled, saw it join and merge with a facet of purple already in the puddle.

Fay closed her eyes. She couldn’t risk breaking the trance to think. What if she couldn’t sink into this state again? She had to think within this slow and solemn space formed of her heartbeat, the portal’s pulse and the unordered dream essences before her.

If she broke the amulet, it could destroy the enslaved weres; and the spell around the amulet was frayed, so any attempt to touch or alter it could break it. However, the dream essences leaking from the amulet were no longer part of the spell. They might be lost, but they’d also escaped before Tarik could steal them. If Fay could return this lost energy to the enslaved people, it might strengthen them so that they survived her and Steve’s encounter with Tarik and Narelle, and the consequences of it. The leaked dream essences might provide a cushion.

Or, returning the dream essences to their originators might feed Tarik more energy.

Fay didn’t underestimate Tarik’s power. His ability to overwhelm her was shocking. She’d withstood demons, yet he’d nearly locked her into immobility through malaise of the psyche.

She opened her eyes and the dream essences had grown even clearer. She saw them in a pool around the amulet, a puddle that didn’t drain away but formed a blob of many colors, each distinct. The dream essences coalesced, each drop finding its own self.

That decided Fay. The energy knew itself.

She sunk her hands into the pool of essences. It closed cool over her hands and coated her wrists. When she banished demons, she returned them to hell, to the place of their belonging. She didn’t want to banish the dream essences, but that familiar spell gave her a pattern. Just as she’d sent healing to Steve along their mate-bond, she could use the cords channeling dream essences into the amulet to restore to its originators the energy that had leaked.

Hardly aware of the scooping motion she used, Fay lifted the pool of dream essences and whispered to it. “Return yourself and strike fast, embed yourself in what nurtures you.” She used her experience with Barbara, the North Carolina wolf-were, to shape the spell, and hopefully, to protect the recovered energy. She flicked her fingers open, sending the gathered energy spinning back along the outer edge of its individual cords.

For an instant those in-coming cords glowed brighter and the amulet shuddered ominously. Then the glow vanished. The recovered energy had found root, beyond the pull of the rogue mage’s spell.

Fay’s trance state also shuddered, under the force of her relief. She grabbed for it and steadied herself. There was one final element to this temporary spell, now that she knew the energy had rooted and wouldn’t be used by Tarik against her and Steve. She shaped a continuance to the spell so that future leaks of dream essences would send those drops, too, back to their originators.

Only then, exhausted, did she emerge from the trance. She looked across the portal and there was Steve, sitting at the bottom of the stairs, watching her. She scooped up the amulet and stood, only to stumble as pins and needles attacked her feet and legs.

Steve loped around the portal, reached out and took her weight.

“How long was I out?” she asked, stamping her feet and wincing.

“Over three hours.”

It hadn’t seemed that long.

“We found a map of the cave system in the Mountains of the Moon, and we have a plan.”

Night had fallen while Fay was below ground, by the portal. She climbed the stairs beside Steve. He’d suggested they take the elevator, given her cramped muscles, but she’d chosen to walk off the stiffness of immobility. After the third flight of stairs, she was questioning the wisdom of her stubbornness.

She and Steve didn’t talk. He’d said he had a plan for attacking Tarik, and maybe when they reached the end of these endless stairs, he’d tell her.

Finally, he held a door open for her.

“I thought I was fit.” She gasped in air. “But obviously—” Her thoughts stuttered and stopped in shock. The door opened to the roof of the fort, a level space with chest-high walls surrounding it. But it wasn’t the roof that shocked her. The endless stairs made that a reasonable destination. No, it was what had gathered on the roof that shocked her speechless.

There was a crowd waiting for them. A party crowd. People were in work clothes, but they held glasses and food. The aroma of barbequing meat filled the air. Strands of electric lights twinkled, and below the hum of quieting voices, came the sounds of two acoustic guitars. Then those, too, faded into silence.

Mr. Jekyll came forward. Visible behind him were the rest of the family, scattered among the curious guests. Mrs. Jekyll pushed through and took the hand her husband extended to her. He raised his voice. “It is our great pleasure to welcome to the fort, Fay Olwen, our Steven’s mate.”

People went to clap and realized their hands were filled. They settled for polite cheers.

Fay smiled uncertainly. A party? Now?

And how was she meant to respond?

“Surprise!” Liz managed to make her shout both wry and humorous.

Fay laughed.

That seemed to break the frozen moment. People hurried forward with glasses of icy mixed fruit juice and plates of food. Fay ate and listened to people chat to her. Liz stayed near her, unobtrusively easing things with her cheerful babble. Gradually, Fay noticed that she was talking to an older, predominantly female group, while Steve had gathered a crowd of younger men. The older men gossiped among themselves.

This was all the weres in the fort, bar those on duty.

Mr. and Mrs. Jekyll sat on chairs at a table with two other elderly couples.

Steve’s parents roamed, the de facto hosts, ensuring everyone had someone to chat with, unless they quite obviously weren’t in the mood to chat. Like John.

The earl lurked on the outskirts of the group around Fay. Liz might be easing Fay’s social entrée. John was ensuring her safety. A few glances were directed his way, people rightly wary of him. Old he might be, but he was powerful.

Fay stole a few seconds in the midst of the party, enclosing her and Liz in a momentary bubble of silence. “Why a party?”

Liz, who was the smiling life of the gathering, lost her smile. Only for a second. “Rumors started, of Steve’s kidnapping and a threat to us all.”

Fay released the privacy bubble. The party was a statement of confidence. It would reassure the nervous and—she caught sight of Michelle watching her and Liz—Steve’s mom had ensured Fay’s public acceptance by the current Suzerain. Fay nodded her head in thanks and acknowledgement.

Michelle smiled before the crowd shifted, blocking her from Fay’s view.

“How did you and Steve meet?” someone asked.

Fay studied the teenage questioner.

The girl had figurative stars in her eyes, evidently anticipating a romantic tale.

“Um. It was in New Zealand. Some idiot imagined himself a Tolkien wizard, and unfortunately, had a bit of magic. When he found a grimoire, he tried one of the advanced spells and partially summoned a minor demon. If the demon had been anything more than a dagmir, the wannabe wizard would have been eaten. As it was, the demon was stuck half in its world and half in ours, and it was trying to open the doorway and enter fully.”

Around her people stopped talking and openly listened. She wasn’t accustomed to so many people paying attention to her in a social setting. She swallowed some juice. Ice cubes jangled in the glass. She tasted lime, watermelon and mint.

“The wizard had rented a small house near one of New Zealand’s active geothermal areas. The place smelled like hell from the sulfur in the air. The mud pools were hot and gloopy. When I arrived to banish the half-summoned demon, Steve was already there. He was in the wizard’s house, retrieving the grimoire, which had been stolen.”

She smiled. “The wizard thought his magic was so clever and powerful, and Steve being a were, none of it worked on him. The wizard nearly danced out of his shoes with frustration. In the end, he tried to hit Steve with the big stick he called a staff. Steve threw him into one of the mud pools—not one of the blisteringly hot ones.”

Steve had approached during her storytelling. “The little rat was annoying me and the sulfur was eating out my nose. I was cross. But as I threw the wizard, I noticed that I nearly hit a gorgeous blonde.” He grinned at Fay.

“He splattered me in mud,” she said. “And unfortunately, the mud pool in which Steve threw the wizard was also the place in which the minor demon was stuck, half-present in our world. When its summoner arrived on top of it, that gave the demon the boost to cross all the way into this world.”

“Did it eat the wizard?” the teenager asked, awestruck.

“No, it just needed some of the wizard’s blood. One claw-strike was enough,” Fay said absently. She hadn’t thought of her first meeting with Steve in ages. “Steve called the demon ugly, and it charged him.” But when she thought back, that bit of provocation…she turned to Steve. “You did that on purpose. The demon was focused on me, so you distracted it.”

He put an arm around her. “That was before I knew you kicked demon ass.” He looked around at the crowd. “She did. That demon found itself headed like a comet back to hell.”

“Well, it was only a minor demon, not a real challenge.” She leaned into him. “Not like those we encountered later.

“And then what happened?” the teenager demanded. “Steve, did you ask her out?”

“Not exactly.”

Fay laughed.

He looked at her. “We could end the story here.”

“Don’t you dare,” Liz said.

He sighed, mock reluctant. “So the demon was gone, but the idiot who’d summoned it was still stuck in the mud hole. Each time he tried to get out, he slipped back. It was either leave him there to die or give him a hand. But as I gripped his arm to pull him out, I was a fraction off balance, and like I said, the sulfur stink was eating out my nose. I sneezed.”

“It was a huge sneeze,” Fay interjected.

“Thank you,” he said ironically. “My foot slipped. The idiot summoner grabbed at my shirt, and the next thing, splat! I belly-flopped into the mud.”

“I laughed,” Fay admitted, which was what their audience did now. “But you looked so surprised to find yourself in the mud. And I did translocate a couple of buckets of water to wash you down.”

“It was cold.”

“I know.” She caught Liz’s gaze and both of them dissolved into giggles.

The teenager was disappointed, but something had changed in the crowd. The intensity with which people watched Fay eased. Was the reason as simple as shared laughter?

Steve put his mouth near her ear. “Come and meet some of the marshals. They’ll be going with us, tomorrow.”

She glanced at him, startled. But now wasn’t the time to question his intent to bring a combat force to tackle Tarik. She let herself be led to the corner where a group of twelve waited: nine men and three women.

They watched her and Steve approach. They’d finished eating and simply held glasses; fruit juice like hers, by the look of it. Pre-mission sober.

Steve made the introductions, using names and were-nature, plus any combat specialty.

Fay memorized the faces of those who’d be their back-up.

For their part, the marshals would already be able to identify her, by sight, voice and scent. What seemed to fascinate them was her and Steve’s relationship. They were as direct as the teenager.

“How come a clever, beautiful mage has hooked up with a cat?” one asked.

Miguel Layton, a coyote-were, reconnaissance and unarmed combat. Fay considered him, and her answer. Steve was warm and solid, his arm still around her. “Steve purrs,” she said seriously.

Two men snorted a laugh and one of the women yelped in amusement.

Miguel studied her solemnly. “Damn.”

“So that’s where you’re going wrong, man.” They ribbed Miguel, who grinned.

Fay had been involved in enough missions that this meet, and its aura of tense anticipation, was familiar to her. What was new to her was the sense of inclusion. The other Collegium guardians had worked with her, but she’d never been part of the teasing. She’d been too envied, too lethal.

The marshals didn’t seem to care about her magic. Then again, they were yet to see it in action.

“It’s been a busy day,” Steve said. Everyone knew he’d been kidnapped and Fay had rescued him. It was the details that, hopefully, had been kept under wraps. “We’re going to have an early night.”

“I bet you are.” Miguel again, irrepressible.

Under cover of the laughter, they slipped away. Once they were in their room, Fay demanded details.

Steve sat on the bed and pulled off his boots. “We’re going after Tarik in the morning. When you freed Barbara, the lone wolf, from his spell, that shook him up. I doubt he meant to kidnap me so soon, but he saw a chance and took it. Then we escaped. He’s rattled. Now’s the time to strike.”

“Only if we’re ready.” Fay didn’t take off her boots, but paced to the window, turned. “If we use the portal—”

“We’re not. Helicopter.”

“That’s a long flight.” But better than walking through the portal into who knew what “welcome” party. “Why are we waiting? We could fly, tonight.”

“What did you find out about the amulet?”

“I can’t tell if the spell will hold even if I destroy the amulet, but I did gather up the dream essences leaking from it and loop them back to their originators. I’m hoping that grounds the enslaved the way Barbara’s homestead nurtured her. I wish I knew more about dream essences.” She walked to Steve. “How much can be stolen from a person before it erodes their personality and independence?”

He put his hands on her hips, pulling her closer. “We’re doing all we can.”

She looked down at him and whispered her deepest fear. “How does Tarik intend to challenge you?”

“He’s not dictating our encounter, so it doesn’t matter.”

“It feels like it does.” She massaged his shoulders, fingers digging into the muscle. “What if attacking him is exactly what he wants?”

“Dad found maps for the cave system Tarik’s using.”

“Did he?” That sounded promising.

“Three of the marshals going with us are experienced cavers. They’re calculating bolt holes and possible entrances we can use. But all of that can be discussed on the helicopter flight. We’ll have hours.” He nuzzled her breasts through the barrier of shirt and bra, telling her wordlessly what activity he preferred.

She’d nearly lost him today. The despair that had rolled over her in the mountain rainforest was only a whisper of what she’d feel if anything happened to him, tomorrow. She took her hands off his shoulders and unbuttoned her shirt.

He waited, looking up at her, his breath warm against her skin as the shirt came off.

She undid her bra, and his lips found her nipple, closing warm and wet over it even as the bra dropped to the floor. He sucked as she struggled with his shirt buttons. As the buttons went lower, she bent to the task, and suddenly, he fell backwards, bringing her with him.

“I love your breasts.” Gravity plumped them in his hands as he played with their fullness.

Her back arched. It felt good, so very, very good. Only, she still had her boots on. “Just a tick.” She rolled off him and tugged at her boots.

His eyes laughed at her, even as he traced her spine with one finger. A lover’s intimate touch.

“You could get your clothes off,” she suggested.

“Hmm.” He waited till she’d stripped off her last sock, then captured her hand, guiding it to his zip.

She shaped him through the fabric. The rasp of the zipper sounded loud.

And then, he purred.

The remainder of their clothes came off fast.

Steve was kissing her everywhere, a whirlwind of heat and muscle, need and worship. She understood, because she couldn’t get enough of him either. They were fighting each other for more, more of the intoxication of touch, more of the driving need; desperate for the completeness that waited for them.

The fullness of him inside her wasn’t enough. She wrapped her legs around him, angling to take him deeper.

He kissed her roughly as he established the rhythm of their loving, fierce and hard. She cried out at the beauty of it, almost a protest that she couldn’t hold any more bliss. It broke her and he came a minute later, a roar mangling her name. Their hearts thundered. Breathing seemed impossible. He was a heavy weight over her until he lifted himself off, rearranged the bedlinen and her, and crawled in beside her.