Djinn Justice (The Collegium Book 2) (4 page)

Fay couldn’t read his emotions, though. Steve had locked himself down. It worried her. She had a sense of things kindling, a disturbance she didn’t understand. What had Steve expected that he hadn’t told her? Why hadn’t he told her?

She disciplined herself to wait for more information, to observe and analyze. Steve always had a reason for his actions.

But if Fay was committed to controlling her freak out, Mrs. Jekyll wasn’t.

The elderly woman’s voice hit a note barely short of shattering glass. “Your test…but then…already? No!”

Steve didn’t flinch at the ear-splitting shriek. He sat staring across the table at Uncle.

Fay recognized his readiness to do battle. He could move in an instant to attack or defend. She was already on alert.

Djinni did test and tease humans, that much she knew. But this test Uncle mentioned had provoked a crisis. If Mrs. Jekyll was enraged, her husband has slumped.

Mrs. Jekyll pushed her chair back from the table and glared around Steve at Fay. “This is your fault. You’ve created this.”

“I don’t even know what’s happening.” Fay kept her tone even, her body relaxed, broadcasting that she was no threat and had no intention of responding to the old woman’s attack.

Steve slid his chair back, blocking his grandmother’s path to Fay.

Mr. Jekyll got up hurriedly and gripped the back of his wife’s chair. He pushed her back to the table, trapping her in her seat.

“Tomy!” she complained.

“If I retire, we could take a cottage in the south of France.” Mr. Jekyll dangled it like a candy bribe to a toddler.

A feline, somehow feminine, snarl answered him. “Steve is too young.”

“And I am too old,” Mr. Jekyll said, emotionlessly.

“You’re experienced.”

“Enough.” The command in Uncle’s voice silenced the room, even Mrs. Jekyll’s near-hysterics. Yet the command was absent. The djinn’s attention was for Fay. He watched her across the table. “I remember your great-grandparents when they started the Collegium. It was her idea. He’d come back from the war hollowed out. His temper…” A boom exploded in the air above the table.

Mrs. Jekyll shrieked.

No one else reacted.

Uncle leaned forward, towards Fay. “She gave him a way back into the world. He had the greater power, but she understood people. She knew there would be more wounded mages than him, more men traumatized by what they’d seen and done. They needed a structure, rules, a sense of purpose.”

“The Collegium’s motto is
to serve
,” Fay said.

“Chosen, no doubt, to remind them all that great power, untied to service, destroys most people.”

She knew, it had been shown again and again in her Collegium training and work, that she had more magic than her great-grandparents, and less than a month ago she’d broken her oath ties to the Collegium. She served no one.

Her ties were those of love: to Steve, to her mom and stepfather. That wasn’t a whole heap of relationships to bind her power.

But then, she might have broken the ties that bound her to serve and obey the Collegium, but in her heart, she felt responsible for keeping mundanes safe, for protecting the vulnerable. Collegium-linked or not, she persisted in service.

So she met Uncle’s ancient gaze steadily. “The djinni have immeasurable power. Who binds you?”

“Uncle, forgive her. She doesn’t understand.” Mr. Jekyll rushed in with apologies, while Mrs. Jekyll forgot hysterics to sniff in disapproval.

Steve, on the other hand, lounged back in his chair. He smiled without humor. “The djinni are smoke and fire, trouble and miracle. Uncle serves no man.”

“Very true.” Uncle acknowledged Steve’s words. “We have our own kingdom.”

An ordering of the world that he seemed very comfortable with. Fay refrained from pushing her luck, but she had a sudden suspicion. In the realm of the djinni, Uncle would be near the top of the hierarchy. He was too familiar with the responsibilities of exercising power to merely endure it. He wielded control. His enjoyment of mischief was real, but underlying it…Uncle had an agenda.

“Do you serve Uncle?” Fay asked Steve.

Uncle smiled then, his attention shifting to Steve. “Do you?”

“No,” Mrs. Jekyll snapped.

“No,
you
do not,” Uncle agreed, but he obviously meant her alone—and dismissed her as of no account.

She bridled, but Mr. Jekyll’s hand over hers stopped her responding.

Steve answered, addressing Fay. “Uncle established the Suzerainty centuries ago.”

“Millennia.” Uncle murmured the correction.

“It was formalized in Roman times and globalized in the Middle Ages,” Steve continued. He could have provided all of this information—background briefing—earlier. That he hadn’t, had to mean something. “In the early nineteenth century, inheritance of the Suzerainty shifted to my family. Uncle tests us before the role of Suzerain passes from grandfather to grandson. What we’ve never been able to understand is by what criteria he assesses us.”

Mr. Jekyll interrupted. “My own test was simple. Uncle asked me to spend a night on the beach and at dawn to write a single word on the sand, to be washed away with the tide.”

“Other tests have been violent,” Steve said. “Combat, quests, impossible challenges.”

What word had Mr. Jekyll written? The old man had Steve’s height, but his lean muscularity was ageing into gauntness. Gray hair, brown eyes, an expensive suit. He would never have had Steve’s edge. That wasn’t something that vanished with age. Steve was a fighter. His grandfather…a diplomat. He knew when to withhold information, and when to share it—like now, telling her the bare bones of his quest after Uncle made his interest in her unmistakable.

She looked at Uncle. “Are your tests usually for the heir to the Suzerainty alone or do they include his mate?”

“Tcha,” Mrs. Jekyll exploded.

Laughter danced in Uncle’s eyes. “With you, Fay my lovely, I shall make an exception.”

“Because I’m not a were?”

“Because, my dear, you wouldn’t stay out of Steve’s quest even if I bound you in bonds of flame.”

The compliment startled Fay. She glanced instinctively at Steve.

He smiled at her. Proud of her.

She blushed. Praise had been rare in her life.

“I knew she meddled!” Mrs. Jekyll exclaimed, triumphantly. She hadn’t understood, at all. She’d heard criticism where there was only respect.

Steve’s grandfather had understood. He squared his shoulders in acceptance of a new reality; possibly in acceptance of a new burden—her. “Uncle, I would like to hear the details of the slavery, even if it is Steve and Faith’s test.”

“Yes. It is something you should know—in case they fail,” the djinn added blandly.

“I do not want to hear such horrors.” Mrs. Jekyll pushed back her chair.

Her husband and grandson stood instantly. Steve nodded at Mr. Jekyll, who sank back. Steve escorted his grandmother to the door.

The display of manners surprised Fay; they were so outdated and courtly. She was discovering so many new aspects to Steve. With her, they were always equal partners.

Then she remembered how he’d guide her with a hand to her back and how he held doors. They were small gestures that didn’t diminish her or her power, but showed he cared and treasured her. She watched him stand a moment at the door, head bent, listening. Then he bent further and his grandmother kissed his cheek.

Fay looked away.

Mrs. Jekyll might be hostile to her, shrill, hysterical and capable of missing the point of a discussion, but she loved Steve. She cared about appearances and—Fay guessed—social standing. She might never approve of Fay, but Fay could live with her disapproval, within bounds, if it came from love for Steve and wanting the best for him.

Steve seemed to see his grandmother’s flaws and accept them. Love didn’t insist on perfection.

Fay’s own love for him swelled and steadied her.

He returned to his chair. “All right,” he addressed Uncle. “What are you willing to tell us of the situation?”

“Let me show you.”

An image akin to a holograph appeared in front of the far wall. A woman in her late twenties sat on the steps of a house, a well-tended garden shading in before and beside her, the stone walls of the Court showing through the image’s vegetation. But the woman looked solid. Tired. Blank. Her fair hair lay lank against the contours of her skull. Her forearms rested on her knees. She sagged.

“A wolf-were from North Carolina.

“No.” The protest jerked from Steve.

“Lone wolf,” Uncle said. “Or her pack would have noticed.”

“Is she sick?” Fay asked cautiously.

“She must be.” Steve studied the image. “A wolf would never reveal weakness. She’s sitting on a front porch where anyone can see her. She’s not monitoring her environment. A lone wolf would be even more alert.” And to Fay, reminding her. “Mom and her family are wolves.” He knew what he was talking about.

“She’s not sick in the sense you mean,” Uncle said. “Her dream essence has been stolen. Harvested?” He tipped his head to the side, apparently considering his word choice.

“By whom?” Mr. Jekyll asked.

“Now, that is the question.” Uncle looked at Steve.

Steve looked back.

Uncle smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “I’ve found the problem, but I haven’t sought the solution. Two dozen weres, perhaps a few more I haven’t found, are like this. Zombies.”

“Mindless slaves or flesh-eating horror movie monsters?” Steve asked.

Uncle stared at the holograph woman. The image changed to that of an older man, naked by a forested river, snow still melting on its banks. As they watched, he shifted into bear form. “Left alone, the people function, after a fashion. They run by instinct and habit, it seems. No initiative, though. No planning.”

The image faded as the bear-were lumbered into the forest. The salmon weren’t spawning: no reason to sit by the river.

Fay frowned at the stone wall. How could the weres be slaves if they were living their old lives? What did Uncle mean by dream essence? Was it a were thing? Could these weres be enslaved, waiting some master plan to activate them?

She’d never sat through a mission briefing session quite like this one. The Collegium guardians were very logical. The case for action, and the action to be taken, were clearly laid out.

Uncle wove a different story.

“What is their dream essence?” Steve asked.

So the concept of dream essence was new to him, too.

Mr. Jekyll sighed. As a diplomat, or perhaps, more familiar with Uncle, he’d probably have been less direct in requesting information.

“Dreams bind your souls to your bodies,” Uncle said. “Every day, you stretch your souls out, taking in so many sensory experiences, thoughts and actions. You interact with others and with your world. When you sleep, your dream essence pulls back into you what of that chaos is essential to maintaining you. Everything you encounter could become part of you, but not all of it should be. Not all of it can be.”

The notion fascinated Fay. “Is it visible as a person’s aura?”

Uncle dismissed her question with a flick of his hand. “Your dream essence renews you and pushes you forward. It is who you are becoming.”

“And if it’s stolen…” Steve sounded as if he were thinking aloud.

“Then who you are becoming vanishes, and who you are, gradually erodes. Your personality, gone.” Uncle flicked both hands open.

Without the dream essence he described, a person’s life would fracture and dissipate. Life needed meaning and focus. She was aware of Steve, tense and unhappy beside her. Love gave you meaning and focus. “How are their essences being stolen?”

Uncle leaned back. “As I said, I haven’t investigated.”

Silence.

Fay considered her options. Steve and his grandfather had to handle the djinn for whatever additional information they could get from him. But she had other options. Just because she’d never heard of a person’s dream essence, didn’t mean others at the Collegium were equally ignorant. Different language sometimes hid the same concept. She could ask there. The mages at the Collegium resented, feared and suspected her for her power and, likely, for her dad’s recent failures as president, but enough of them were disciplined scholars. They wouldn’t withhold information out of spite.

They might withhold it for academic glory, but she’d never challenged anyone in the realm of scholarship. Her strength was out in the field.

“I have heard of something similar.” Uncle broke the silence. “Millennia ago.” He smiled as he recaptured their full attention. “There should be a relevant inscription on a tomb in Luxor.”

“Which tomb?” Steve asked flatly.

“Shall we go and look?” Even before he finished the question, the room dropped away.

Late afternoon sun beat down on their unprotected heads. Sand around them shimmered with the beginning of a heat wave. The desert didn’t wait for summer before it baked its visitors.