The Hour of Dust and Ashes (19 page)

“I’m sorry, Rex.” That had to be difficult, to finally remember and realize everyone you knew, everyone you ever loved, was long gone. Tennin’s words came back to taunt me. “Do you want to be a jinn again?”

Rex weighed his answer, appearing conflicted either way. He took another drink. “Sometimes, I guess. Other times, no. I remember who I was, but I’ve also changed. I like who I am now. Not sure my personality would fit well in a jinn body.” He shrugged, still looking undecided. “I don’t know …”

He did have a point. I couldn’t imagine a hulking jinn standing in my kitchen wearing a cherry-print apron and stirring a pot of soup. “Have you had any luck remembering that day?” I asked, changing the subject. “That day” was when Rex’s jinn body had died. The day he’d been exposed to the biological warfare the nobles had concocted to win the Great War.

“Bits and pieces. It’s coming back slowly. I remember the sensation of leaving my body and watching it die on the battlefield. Of watching so many others drop like stones and the nobles celebrating their victory. I wanted to kill them, tried to get back into my body, but it was already too late. There was nothing I could do.”

The solemn tone in Rex’s voice struck a deep nerve in me. I’d never thought I’d have compassion for a jinn, and here I was sympathizing with an ancient warrior who’d fought in the legendary war against the nobles for control of Charbydon.

The war was ancient history to the nobles and the jinn, but it had created the Revenants and Wraiths, those lost jinn spirits able to roam all three planes, casualties of war, slowly losing their identities until they had no idea who or what they once were, only that they craved a body to live in once again. And eventually they’d found a way to have what they wanted. One by force. The other by contract.

“So the nobles put this formula into vials, right?” I asked, remembering an earlier conversation I’d had with Rex over Christmas.

“Yeah, they threw them like grenades.”

“So no peculiar smells or tastes when the vials exploded in battle?”

“No. Just a cloud of white and the honeysuckle smell.”

The same as
ash
. The formula the nobles used to win the war had been derived from the rare, bioluminescent
flower
Sangurne N’ashu,
a Bleeding Soul. They’d found a way to use it to rip the spirit from a jinn body. There was no way the jinn could fight
that
. After the war, as the years passed, the Bleeding Soul became legend, just a myth. But it was very real. Mynogan and Tennin had rediscovered it, cultivated it, and used its properties to create a new formula that wouldn’t rip a spirit out, but could subdue a human’s will, leaving them vulnerable and open to even the weakest of spirits.
Ash.

Emma and Brim came inside. The hellhound was out of his armor, and the tap of his claws on the hardwoods was starting to become a welcome sound. “What are we talking about?” Em said, grabbing a yogurt from the fridge.

“The Bleeding Soul,” Rex said. “How to get me out of your dad. The usual.”

I rolled my eyes as Em pulled a clean spoon from the dishwasher. “Maybe all we need is straight Bleeding Soul,” she said, pulling out a chair to sit. “If there’s only a little bit of the flower in the
ash
for humans, then maybe the nobles needed all of it for the jinn. You know, like, full concentrate to yank a jinn spirit from his body.”

“She gets the smarts from me,” Rex said.

I gave him a twisted smile that told him exactly where she’d gotten her intelligence. Emma’s words could, in fact, be right on the money; it was a thought both Rex and I had discussed in the last week.

Titus had identified the properties in
ash
in order
to make a synthetic replica for the victims to take in small, regulated doses. Without it they would die from withdrawal. But during this process, he’d discovered that just a small amount of the Bleeding Soul was actually in the drug. So it might stand to reason that a larger dose of the flower might do more than make a spirit docile—it might very well make it separate from the body entirely.

In order to get Rex’s jinn spirit out of Will’s body and restore my ex-husband to his former self, using the flower seemed like the only viable option.

“I need to get into Charbydon,” Rex said.

With a mouth full of yogurt, Em said, “That’s crazy.”

“Not really. Think about it. The nobles must have that formula somewhere. It’s not going to be here; it’ll be somewhere in the City of Two Houses. You know, in their library, the arsenal, their hidden stash, whatever you call it. Heck, it’s probably in with their crown jewels.”

Emma’s eyes grew round. “The nobles have crown jewels?”

“A double set, since they have two rulers.”

She pointed her spoon at Rex. “It’s called an oligarchy. Means a country ruled by two kings or queens. One is from the House of Abaddon and one is from the House of Astarot. They each contributed a ruler.”

“Very good,” Rex said, pleased. “And when disputes arise between the rulers, how are they settled?”

“Council of Elders, made up of old royal dudes from both houses.”

My eyebrow lifted. “I hope you didn’t answer like that on your last test.”

Emma smirked playfully. Off-world Studies was obviously one of her better subjects in school, and Rex had taken it upon himself before Christmas break to help her with midterm exams. I’d been relegated to mere math and science.

“Have you been to the City of Two Houses? It’s supposed to be thousands of years old,” Emma asked.

“Not inside, but I’ve been to the gates. The nobles built their city above Telmath during their siege of the city.”

“So all their valuables are there.”

“The formula being one of the most valuable. It’s the only reason they’ve ruled for so long without contention from the jinn again. The jinn know they have this formula; they know the nobles can use it again and wipe the jinn out for good.”

“So fat chance of us getting it, then,” she said, glumly.

Emma spent a lot of time thinking about her father being trapped inside of his own body, of a Revenant being in control. She was determined to save him and find a way to make everything right. She had the unrelenting optimism of a child, and it worried me because I knew better than anyone that things didn’t always turn out the way we hoped.

“Well,” I said. “It’s not like we know for sure that
the formula would work anyway. We’d have to be sure it would only pull Rex out and not Dad.”

“I don’t think it would pull Will,” Rex said. “I’m the dominant one, and it was designed to work on the jinn. Theoretically, it should yank me right out.”

No one spoke after that. I tossed my bottle into the recycling bin and reheated the soup again. Sure, we all loved Will. We all wanted him back. He’d made a terrible mistake by contracting with a Revenant to begin with.

Getting around the issue of reversing this possession was going to be tough. Once a Revenant was in, he couldn’t get out unless the host body died. If Rex wanted out, he could commit suicide or stop healing and regenerating his host body and let it die naturally. Only then was his spirit able to leave. And, of course, losing Will was not an option. The only reason my daughter had not had a major break was because her dad was still here where she could see him. If we lost Will, she’d be devastated.

But losing Rex was not something she wanted, either.

Emma wanted to fix things. She wanted her father back, and she wanted Rex to stay in her life. She might not have said that last part out loud, but she didn’t need to.

The microwave beeped. I returned to the table with my soup.

“Before I forget,” Rex said. “Em and I were invited to help decorate the League for the New Year’s Eve
party and help with last-minute stuff. We can go the day of and just change there for the party.”

“Yeah, Bryn told me. I told her it was fine with me.”

“Have you gotten your dress yet?” Emma asked, knowing I hadn’t.

“I
will
. Don’t worry …”

“Mom. The party is in two days.”

Rex pushed away from the table, grabbing Em’s yogurt and tossing it into the trash.

“Hey!”

“Bah on the good-for-you crap. Let’s go get milk shakes.”

And this would be just one of the many reasons why Emma loved Rex.

After eating my soup, I drove us to Blue Barry’s Ice Cream Shop.

I was just walking back to the truck with our order when my cell rang from inside the vehicle. I saw Rex through the windshield pick it up and answer. By the time I got to the window, he was staring at me, his face pale.

I set the milk shakes on the hood. “What? What happened?”

He handed me my cell. “That was Hank. Bryn’s gone.”

“What do you mean, Bryn’s
gone
?”

“Gone. Like escaped. Broke out. Got the hell out of—”

My hand flew up. “I understand what
gone
means, Rex.” I jumped in the car and sped out of the parking lot, the milk shakes flying off the roof and landing somewhere in the lot.

My hands trembled on the wheel. There was no doubt in my mind now. If Bryn had been in control, she would have stayed. My eyes stung, and I prayed all the way to the station.

I told Emma to wait in the car with Brim, and I raced inside and down to the holding cell area.

Rex followed me down to the cell block. Every single
ash
victim was where they were supposed to be except one. Bryn’s cell was empty, her door open. The guard stood by the door, another in her room searching through the bag of clothes and books Bryn had brought with her.

“What the hell happened?” I barked.

One of the guys shook his head as the other came out of the room. “Look, we were doing our job—”

“Don’t feed me that bullshit. If you’d been doing your job, she’d still be here!”

“Calm down, Madigan,” the chief ordered from behind me.

I spun on my heel. The chief and Hank marched down the hall. I wanted to hit something. Scream. Casey and Mike were dead. Amanda had tried to
commit suicide, and Bryn was gone. Christ, she could on the roof right now, stepping off …
Oh God.

My eyes caught Kyle’s as he sat on the cot, watching us. Silent wasn’t his style. I ran to his door. “How did she get out?”

Power stirred in my gut, so hot and angry that my limbs tingled.

He shrugged, not bothering to hide the smug light in his eyes. “Said some words. Door popped open. You know how mages are.” He made a motion with his hands and said, smiling, “Poof. Gone.”

My blood pressure rose, and I had to force myself not to pound the plastic. “Did she say anything?”

A female voice piped up, two cells down. “Yeah. She said, see you in hell.” Her chuckle grated on my composure.

Kyle shot to his feet. “Shut up, Grace.”

“Fuck you, Kyle,” Grace responded. “I’m not one of her flunkies like you. I’m not going to leap off some building because she fucking tells me to.”

Fear-fueled adrenaline shot through my limbs. I walked closer on numb legs. “Wait a second. She told Mike and Casey to jump? Bryn? Bryn told them?”

Grace gave a nonchalant shrug. Her hands were flat against the plastic. She looked the same as every other time I’d seen her, always in and out of the station on drug and prostitution charges—thin, strung-out, and pale. But now her dull eyes burned. “We’ve got a second chance at life, and all he wants to do is kill us off and go have his revenge.”

“‘He’? Who are you talking about? Who is inside of my sister?”

“Let me out and I’ll tell you.”

Ah. So this was the game. Whoever was inside of Grace wanted freedom, wanted to take her body, steal her life, and live it for her. Fat chance.

I shook my head. “Can’t do that.”

“I’m not one of them,” came another voice opposite Grace’s cell. I spun around. A young woman stood at the plastic. I couldn’t place her. “I’ll tell you. I sit and I listen to them; they don’t think I can hear but I do.” A small part of me acknowledged how odd her calmness seemed, but in that moment all that mattered was finding my sister. I approached, my heart pounding hard, mouth dry in fear. I stood in front of her cell and waited.

“Your sister is going to Charbydon, to Telmath, to kill the Abaddon Father.”

The others shot to their feet and yelled at once, a cacophony of curses and threats erupting throughout the holding area, but they all sounded far away as I reached for the wall to steady myself, the hallway turning like a fun house ride.

My mark oozed warmth as Hank placed his hand on my shoulder. “Hey,” he said softly, “we can get to her, Charlie. We can stop her before she goes through the gate.”

“I’m calling the gate officials now,” the chief said from behind us.

Deep breath. Okay. Focus.
“Who’s controlling her?” I asked the woman.

“I don’t know. They never use names other than the host body’s.”

“Why the Abaddon Father?”

“Revenge. Your sister said the Father would pay. Said the winter solstice plan was a failure, and the Sons of Dawn were finished, and this would be the final act. You know, like Plan B basically. Can’t start a war, then go straight to revenge. She said she was going to kill the one who killed Malek Murr, her father. Or his. Who knows who’s inside of her …”