A bloom of dark red spread across Hank’s white shirt.
He stilled completely, his face turning pale as his anger bled away. “Don’t push, Charlie,” he said in a ragged tone.
My fingers flexed on the branch, my heart pounding like a million drums through my ears. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.”
“Because if that ink reaches my heart, it will kill me in less than ten seconds. No cure. No healing. Just … dead.”
My mind foundered. I blinked. We sparred all the time. He always healed. Stabbing him with a twig should’ve caused him an hour or less of discomfort as he healed. Right? For a long moment, I didn’t move as the blood continued to spread across his crisp white shirt. Slowly, my anger gave way to the reality of his words. I swear, I hadn’t known the ink would kill. “Snap another branch.”
“What?”
“You’re getting a mark, too. Or I’m pushing.” Which was a lie, and he knew it. All he had to do was call my bluff. I’d let go, and he’d come out of this fight without a mark. But I knew he wouldn’t challenge. No. He’d crossed the line by marking me. He knew it, and he wasn’t the type of guy to shirk away now.
His jaw tightened and his stony gaze met mine for a long moment. Carefully he reached over, wincing, and snapped a small twig from the fallen Throne Tree. “Here.”
The liquid pooled at the end. “Unbutton your shirt.”
He reached under my hand and began unbuttoning, his face refusing to show the pain I knew the movement caused him. Our collective anger had gotten us into this mess, and we might as well see it through to the very bloody end.
I didn’t have to tell him to pull the right side of his shirt off his shoulder. He did it with a glare, offering his skin for my mark.
I placed the dripping edge of the branch against a spot above his right nipple and met his gaze. A moment passed. And then I pressed until the skin broke. I cut the same shape into his flesh and muttered the same words he had, but used my name where he had used his. His dark, thunderous expression never changed; his eyes never looked away from me.
Once I was done, I dropped the branch. I had no idea what kind of mark I’d just given him. My attention returned to the stick embedded in his chest.
He gave me a sharp nod.
I drew in a deep breath, feeling the stark twinges of guilt and remorse for what had transpired. Hindsight was a bitch, and I was pretty certain Hank was thinking the same thing. My hand tightened around the stick.
One. Two. Three!
I jerked hard.
It came out with a slight sucking sound, releasing a fresh blossom of blood. Hank flinched and then lifted himself off my pelvis to sit on the floor beside me. Sweat beaded on his brow. He swiped it off with his forearm before placing his hands flat on the floor, hanging his head low and breathing in deeply.
The mark on my shoulder blade burned, the inky poison sealing the symbol. His was doing the same—but even worse for him, the ink was running through his wound, seeping into his bloodstream with a larger dose than that of a simple mark.
As the last bit of anger retreated, the cold crept in, leaving me trembling and realizing the enormity of our situation. I leaned over on my knees and touched Hank’s hand. The skin was hot. Sweat dripped from the tip of his nose and his chin. His head remained bowed. “Tell me what to do, Hank.” He didn’t answer. “Hank!”
“Cold,” he forced out. “Need to … cool … down.”
I scrambled to my feet and hooked my arm under his, pulling until he made it to his feet. By the time he had, I was sweating, too. I led him into his bedroom and the master bath, the only place I knew to get him cold.
The extravagant bathroom had a shower big enough for a party of five and an assortment of showerheads. It took me several seconds to figure out the nozzle/shower combination. I set it to rain cool water down from the round showerhead on the ceiling and then turned to him to see him fumbling with the small buttons on his shirt.
I took over, fingers flying through the buttons and then removing it carefully, briefly touching hot skin and making me feel guilty again. Once his shirt was off, he straightened, trembling all over, blood seeping out of the small wound and over his flawless skin. Next I fumbled with the zipper and pulled his jeans down.
He held on to my shoulder as he stepped out of them. I glanced up to see he wore black boxer briefs. I straightened, avoiding his gaze, and pulled back the glass shower door.
“I’m fine now,” he muttered, but I helped him step into the shower, leaving the briefs right where they were. He gasped at the cool spray, the water thinning the blood on his chest as his arms went protectively up, his muscles tensing.
I swallowed. Seeing him weakened like this—my eyes stung—I’d almost killed him. And for what? Because I had to win? Couldn’t admit the truth that he so easily saw? “I didn’t know about the ink,” I said quietly.
He bowed his head and stepped fully under the rain shower, the water flattening his hair and running over his wide shoulders. “I know, Charlie.” He spit water from his lips and then stepped back, using both hands to rub his face and swipe the hair back off his forehead.
The mark on his chest was angry and red, but the cold water washed away the blood as soon as it surfaced. The other wound was worse, but he’d heal. Both wounds, however, would leave a scar. That was another one of the Throne Tree’s unique properties. Hank would heal on the inside—most likely in a few hours—but he’d carry the scars for the rest of his life. I tried not to think about my own mark, and the warm, sticky blood that soaked my back and shirt.
“Here, turn around,” Hank’s solemn voice jerked my gaze from his chest to his face. He held out a washcloth. Mutely I turned as he slowly lifted my shirt and pressed the cold, wet cloth against my mark. I hissed, but the initial sting was lessened by the cold.
He wrung out the cloth a few times, pressing it against the mark until finally it stopped bleeding. “You should take off the shirt,” he said. “You can borrow one of mine.”
I turned, stepping out of his reach and pulling the hem of my shirt back down. “It’s okay.” My gaze snagged on the tile under my feet for a long moment before I lifted my chin. “I’m sorry.” I frowned and shook my head. “I didn’t mean to fight, I just … I’m not … I don’t think I’m ready …”
“Don’t worry about it.” His attempt at a halfhearted smile came out as a pain-laced grimace. “That’s the last time I drink Yrrebé around you.” He shook his head, quiet for a moment, before saying, “I wasn’t thinking straight … about the mark.”
Two small dots of heat stung my cheeks. “What, um, kind of mark is it exactly?”
A slow exhale whispered through his wet lips as he turned regretful eyes on me. “It’s a truth mark.” My stomach dropped, my mouth opened, but he continued quickly, “We’ll make a pact not to ask each other anything that involves things of a personal nature. And if we mess up and ask, then don’t answer. The ink won’t respond unless you outright lie.”
My eyelids fluttered closed, and I shook my head in total disbelief at what we’d done. “I can’t believe this …”
“Yeah,” Hank echoed, one corner of his mouth dipping into a frown. “Me neither … So, pact?”
“Yeah. Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Got it.”
“Same here.”
We skirted around the other issue—the intimate one—and that was fine by me. “I should go talk to the Storyteller.”
“Wait for me, Charlie.”
“We just wasted an hour with all this … mess. You’re in no shape to go anywhere. Stay and heal. I’ll call you after I’m done.” I left the bathroom to the sound of Hank’s soft curse, grabbed my jacket and harness off the stool, and hurried out of the apartment.
Only after my feet landed on the sidewalk of Helios Alley did I stop and allow myself to breathe. Holy hell.
Way to go, Charlie. Pop over to meet up with your partner and leave with a freakin’ mark. Just great.
I groaned, tucking the jacket between my knees as I slipped my arms into my weapons harness, glad for small miracles—the strap just missed the mark on my shoulder. I left my jacket off, not wanting to stain the inside with the wet blood on my shirt. I kicked a piece of glass off the sidewalk and into the dip of the curb, glancing up at the blown-out window and realizing how disheveled I must look—clothes twisted, hair a mess, soil all over me. Quickly I rearranged myself, redid my hair, and brushed the dirt from my clothes, then began the trek down Helios Alley toward the plaza.
Throne Tree ink could kill an Elysian. That was a little fact I hadn’t known, and I’d bet that most people didn’t. And I’d bet the only reason I learned of it was because I’d almost killed my partner. I’d seen a few of those trees before, but only in upscale residences and shops—apparently they were high-dollar due to the difficulties in cultivation and the cost of importing them.
I sensed the rain before I reached the plaza. And for once, I was too spent to react much to the raw power that misted over the plaza’s brick floor. It still tingled, still spoke to me, but not so intensely as usual. Probably because I’d just spent much of my power and energy fighting with my partner.
Or maybe sex was the key?
I laughed out loud, garnering weird looks from the two darkling fae standing near the soda machine as I headed toward Solomon Street. Yeah. Just give yourself over to the O and all your problems will be solved.
I weaved my way through the chaos of Solomon Street on autopilot, lost in thought, my mind replaying events, thinking of all the things I should have done and should have said.
My steps slowed as I advanced on the Lion’s Den, Grigori Tennin’s base of operations. It occupied the long row of buildings at the dead-end street—a bar, strip club, and gaming house on two levels. I stopped in front of the door, squared my shoulders, and then opened the heavy wooden door while my other hand came to rest on my weapon.
A wave of humid, earth-scented air and jazz music hit me full on. My boots echoed over the planked floor; the old wood coupled with the heavy timber beams overhead gave the place a dark feel. Typical bar on Solomon Street, though. Steady business. Regulars, mostly jinn. Stripper on stage—this one jinn, undulating against a pole.
The jinn in the room only gave me a passing glance rather than the intent, almost violent regard they’d given me the last time I was here and reeking of a jinn sex-spell. The jinn warrior at the bar, however, fixed a harsh stare on me as he drew beer on tap for the two human males seated at the counter.
I made my way to the bar to the beat of sultry old jazz, which kept the place on a mellow keel, and gave the strippers something to writhe to. Two Pig-Pens—a male nymph and female siren—sat in the back corner. Black crafters. They’d given up their innate Elysian power for the dark power of Charbydon—a very complex ritual with very serious consequences. The thin, dark aura that surrounded them gave them their illustrious nickname.
“Detective,” the bartender said, laying both beefy hands flat on the old bar top, his shoulders hunching over and making him look like a water buffalo on steroids. All the jinn were massive, all with smooth skin that ranged from medium gray to dark pewter. Their violet irises ranged in hue, and the males were completely hairless, bald like this one. His arms were tattooed. He wore several rings on his fat fingers, and his earlobes were pierced several times. A typical jinn warrior.
“Your boss in?” I asked.
Jinn males were extremely chauvinistic to any females but their own, so I wasn’t surprised when he said, “He’s busy.”
“He’ll want to see me.” I turned my back to the jinn, the ultimate in disrespect, and leaned back against the counter, eyeing the jinn stripper on stage wearing nothing but a leopard G-string and deerskin boots. If I had sleek muscles like that, I could do some serious damage. She had to be at least six feet tall, with gunmetal skin and angular bone structure. When I glanced back over my shoulder and saw the bartender had yet to move, I added, “Or I can start asking everyone here for their papers. It’s up to you.”
The bartender muttered under his breath in Charbydon, but he went to the phone and made the call, returning a few moments later. “You can go down.”
Casually I swung around and smiled—the twisted smile I reserved for sarcasm and assholes—and then strode to the door that would lead me into what I liked to call the First Level of Hell.
Damp. Hot. The distinct scent of jinn—tar, and lots of it—assaulted my nose along with the heavy mix of wet dirt and wood smoke as I went down a long flight of wooden steps that led into the jinn’s subterranean village beneath Underground. The walls and chambers had been carved straight out of the bedrock beneath the city, supported by massive beams and arches. Long, vaulted corridors curved out of view, the main one leading into the vast central chamber where Tennin held court and the jinn gathered. Ventilation shafts pulled smoke from the rooms. Running water was fed in through pipes. Food was prepared on spits and in pots over open fires. To be in the tribe meant keeping to the old ways as much as possible. Only the jinn who were wanderers or rogues took more to mainstream society, but there weren’t many of those around.
A male guard met me at the base of the steps and then led me to the main corridor. Two months ago, Hank and I had made this same journey, passing open rooms where the jinn lived their daily lives, where I’d once seen them picking the petals off Bleeding Souls and tossing the bioluminescent centers into boiling pots—one of the steps to making ash. No honeysuckle-like smells this time, though.
As I stepped into the main chamber, I expected to find Tennin sitting at his dining table, dwarfing the female guards behind him. A few jinn warriors sat gathered around the large fire pit in the center of the room, but otherwise the chamber was empty.
One of Grigori’s personal female guards appeared from a small archway across the chamber. Not that he needed a guard. I’d learned firsthand that the tribal boss of a jinn tribe held absolute rule, and had the power to eliminate any tribe member with a simple thought. The guards were merely for show.
“This way,” she said, taking over, and then leading me back the way she’d come.
I followed her down another corridor, past several curtained rooms and wall torches that suggested this was a more personal area of the tribe’s abode. Beneath an archway, down another similar hall, and finally the guard stopped and pulled back a heavy multicolored curtain, ducking inside. The chamber was small, and thick with heat and humidity. A fire burned in a pit dug into the far wall.
Grigori Tennin lay facedown on a stone slab, his well-formed, intensely muscled backside completely bare, completely smooth and hairless just like his massive bald head. A human, mid-twenties if I had to guess, very petite and very pretty with chin-length red hair and pale skin that looked even paler next to his glistening, dark skin, massaged his enormous calf.
Tennin turned his head, resting the side of his face on his hands, the three gold hoops in his earlobe winking in the firelight. His violet eyes held a wealth of cunning. “Make an appointment next time, eh?” He sounded highly amused, though I couldn’t tell if he found his words funny, or the fact that I was here in his massage parlor funny. “Harder, Missy!” he barked as she moved to the back of a rock-hard thigh. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of her red face. “Good. Good. So, Charlie … Miss Detective … what you want this time? Shall we bargain again?”
I let loose a bitter laugh. “That second debt, the one where you beat the shit out of my ex-husband, we didn’t bargain on that,” I said tightly.
He rose onto one elbow. “Ah, but I did. When we bargained, I simply said I hadn’t decided yet on what the second debt would be. You agreed. Then, I made my decision. End of story, as they say. But he lives, eh? So all is good for you.” He put his head back down and closed his eyes.
“Yeah, if you call being stuck inside a body you can’t control living.”
One eye popped open, surprised, and then narrowed in a calculating way. “You don’t say?”
“Cut the bullshit, Tennin. We both know you’re not surprised. You want to tell me about the warehouses?”
“Which ones? I own many, you see.”
I sighed, wondering why I was even bothering. “You sent Ebelwyn into the warehouse. You knew what he’d find.”
“So what if I did? I own them, nothing more. You figure it out. You’re the detective, no?”
I wanted to hit him. Really, just whale on him until that smug look was off his face completely. “I’d like to speak to your Storyteller,” I said.
Grigori’s thick head cocked slightly, and one hand came up to scratch his skull, the red gemstone in his ring flashing. “No,” he said simply, and that was that.
“No?” I repeated, growing more irate by the second.
“You hard of hearing, Detective? I said no. Now you go away.”
“No.” Heat of a different kind surged through my limbs, gathering in my chest. “After all the bullshit you’ve pulled. Supplying ash. Getting people hooked to the point where they can’t function without it? Working with Mynogan to bring darkness to the city—”
A small grin played on his face. “Now why you think I had anything to do with that?”
“Because I got your fucking flowers. I know you had something to do with it, you sonofabit—”
The guard’s blade was at my throat before I could finish the word. Missy the masseuse stilled, her eyes widening. And Grigori Tennin? He just watched me, eyed me so closely that I felt like he could see the angry blood racing through my veins and the chaotic power coiling and screaming for release. I wanted to swallow, but didn’t dare.
Another jinn entered, took stock of the situation, shrugged, and then walked to Tennin and whispered in his ear. The hint of victory in his eyes wasn’t missed. After the jinn left, he turned his attention back to me and motioned to the guard to remove her blade.
“I change my mind. You can see the Storyteller.”
“Just like that?”
He shrugged. “Yes, Charlie Madigan. Just like that.” He laid his head back down, dismissing me.
When I didn’t move, the guard shoved me toward the curtain, knocking me out of my frozen fury. I nearly tripped, but made it out of the chamber without falling on my face or losing control of my powers—as much as I’d wanted to. My anger was slowly tempered by confusion as I was led through a maze of tunnels and chambers. Why had he changed his mind so suddenly?
We came to another curtained chamber. The guard pulled the frayed material back and I ducked inside, finding myself in a small, low-ceilinged chamber that smelled like smoke, onions, and chili. A small fire burned in a pit in the center of the room, releasing sparks that floated to the ceiling and eventually got sucked into the ventilation shaft. A pallet lay against one stone wall, and a small writing table against another. Shadows licked and danced on the earthen walls.
An aged jinn female stooped over the fire pit, her back to us. With jerky movements, she shoved at the fire with a stick, creating several loud pops and sending an eruption of sparks into the air. The guard dropped the curtain and stayed outside of the chamber, leaving me alone in the room with the old Storyteller.
“Come, come. Come closer,” she said, not turning around.
Her long, gray braids were flecked with dirt and pencil shavings, the ends tied off with strips of beaded leather. She wore a brand-new, puffy white ski jacket and a long, stained skirt that had seen better days.
I came around her left side and took up space across the fire pit. There was a pot hanging in the center, the source of the chili smell. “You want a story, eh?” She lifted her eyes, one violet, the other glazed over in blindness. She sighed, her face sinking back into the deep frown lines that curved around her mouth and eyes. “They all wants a story from Vendelan Grist. None comes to see me otherwise.” Her head shook in disappointment. “Very well. Sit, sit.” She motioned with the glowing end of her stick to the low stones set around the pit, her one good eye gleaming with intelligence. “Once I was this great warrior, ya know? But that is more story, for later times. So what is it? What you want? I haven’t got all day, ya know.”
I pulled a fifty-dollar bill from my pocket and handed it to her as I sat down on a low stone, pulling my knees closer to my chest. “The story of Solomon,” I said, slipping my bangs behind my ears and settling in.
“Ah.” She nodded in approval, stuffing the bill into her coat. “That’s a good one, yes. The great king himself. The half-breed. Born of the jinn High Chief and a human mother, much like our Sian.” She laughed, poking the fire again and making it crackle. “But in those days, he was a god to the jinn. Male of two worlds, ya know? A king who wanted to rule the land, to break the yoke of the nobles, and bring the jinn to greatness.”
“I thought he captured the jinn, used them as his slaves, commanded them.”
Her white brow lifted and her lips thinned in a scolding manner. “Who tells this story?”
I held up my hands. “Sorry.”
She began all over again, and I had the feeling we were going to be here awhile as she started in on who begat whom. I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes later, Solomon was finally begat by the jinn High Chief, Malek Murr, and a human woman, Bathsheba, and was raised as a son of David and a prince of Israel. The story, once again, drove home the notion of truths lost in legends, and the fact that the off-worlders had involved themselves in our civilization for untold millennia.
The story continued with Solomon’s childhood with his half brothers, his young adult life, and, through the efforts of his mother and the prophet Nathan, his rise to the throne while David was still alive. He was cunning, ruthless, and ambitious, with a lust for magic and power. He reorganized the kingdom of Israel into twelve tribes and built the temple of Solomon.
It was an hour into Vendelan’s story that Solomon learned of the First Ones from a jinn Storyteller.
“Since the Great War in Charbydon, when the nobles comes into our land, and takes control of the tribes, makes us bodyguards and servants, many jinn tribes they leave, they make home in the human world. But the nobles, they refused the jinn to stay there, they don’t want Malek Murr to raise an army against them. Solomon reacted, ya know? So angry, he was, when the nobles call the jinn back to Charbydon. He learns of the First Ones. He sees, ya know, opportunity. Thinks that with this old knowledge of these great beings that he will set free the jinn, return his sire to the throne to rule over Charbydon, send things back to the way they was before the nobles come. ’Cause the nobles never belonged in our land to begin with, you see.” She waved her hand impatiently. “Everybody knows this. Solomon, he sets out to uncover this knowledge of the ancients. He makes a cult of powerful jinn and human priests. Some says he succeeds in finding this knowledge. Some says he fails. In the end, he dies anyways. The jinn returns to Charbydon under the nobles’ rule, and Solomon is dead.
“But”—her finger shot in the air—“he did great things. It is said he found a star, a star that shone its brightest at dawn. That he forged a ring of great powers to one day give this star life. Solomon’s ring, ya know? But who can tell.” She shrugged and laughed gleefully, her one eye going bright. “They just stories, right?”
“The star,” I said, sitting straight. “He found the star?”
“Oh, yes. And he worshipped it, you see, for the star was a First One. So he makes this new religion. And calls himself the Son of Dawn. They still believe, ya know.”
“Who believes?”
“The Sons of Dawn. Oh, they still around. Trust me. New members, sure, but still around.”
“What do they believe, Vendelan?”
She leaned forward. “What all us jinn already know and everybody else forgets. The Char nobles and the Elysian Adonai are from the same stock. All were once Adonai. They forget, you see. So much time has passed. Ancient time. But we know. We remember. The nobles, they ruled in Elysia first, but they were no good. No good, you see, so they were cast out into Charbydon. Into our land. So long ago,” she sighed, “no one remembers. Sons of Dawn want nobles to remember, you see, to rise up and take back Elysia for their own. And the star is their proof, you see. Not myth, but truth. She is ancestor.”
“If it got out that the First Ones were real, and nobles once ruled in Elysia …” I said more to myself than to her.
“War,” she said with a crazy gleam in her eye. And then she straightened and shrugged, going back to her fire. “Good for the jinn, though.”
“How so?”
“Char nobles leave to fight for Elysia. We return home, back to our land, and rule as we did in the old times.”
I didn’t bother pointing out the fact that Charbydon’s moon was slowly dying, that one day there wouldn’t be a home to go back to, and, instead, asked a question that I was pretty sure I knew the answer to. “If that happened, Vendelan, if the nobles went to reclaim Elysia, who would be High Chief over all the jinn tribes?”
She glanced over her hunched shoulder, her one good eye taking on a zealous violet gleam. “Grigori, of course.”
My stomach went light and cold. Despite the heat and humidity, I wanted to hug myself, to ward off the chill of her words. Even Vendelan, as old as she was, thirsted for war and vengeance against the nobles. If Grigori felt he had a chance to win, there’d be no stopping him. But why would he want to return to a land that was dying? Why fight to reclaim something already lost?
Unless he knew of a way to stop it …
Vendelan turned back to her fire and stirred her pot of chili. “My story is ended, girl.” She waved her spoon, but didn’t turn around. “All they wants is a story …”
I hesitated by the chamber door, feeling sorry for the old Storyteller. “Next time,” I said, “I’ll bring my uncle Walter’s chili and all the toppings. No story. Just food and company.”
She turned at that. Her white eyebrow lifted. A grunt rumbled in her throat. “We’ll see, Charlie Madigan. We’ll see.”
I opened the door and stepped back into the corridor where Tennin’s guard was waiting to escort me out of the Lion’s Den. This time, I didn’t pay attention to the chambers I passed or the uneven ground at my feet. My thoughts were on Llyran’s “cause” and his “star.” He had Solomon’s ring. By his own admission, he wanted to liberate the nobles, to start a war in Elysia. The very same thing the Sons of Dawn wanted.
And Grigori Tennin had a hell of a lot to gain if the myth of the First Ones was proven true.
As I stepped beneath the massive archway that led into the main chamber, I saw several things at once. The jinn still sitting around the fire. Grigori sitting like some kind of Conan the Barbarian king in his massive chair, dressed in his snug, triple-X T-shirt, his guards behind him, his booted feet propped up on the massive table set in front of him as he carved an apple with a dagger that was way too big for the job. And Rex standing to the side, facing Tennin.
I took several more steps before I realized what I was seeing.
Rex.
My Rex.
Here. In the Lion’s Den. With Grigori Tennin.
I drew up short, so quickly that the guard behind me bumped into my back. But all I could react to was the sight of my ex-husband’s body standing there, his profile grim, his hands fisted at his sides as his head slowly turned in my direction. White as a ghost and those stormy blue eyes struck with horror and loss, like he was floundering and disoriented. He blinked several times.
Tennin popped a slice of apple into his mouth and chewed loudly, not bothering to hide the grin on his pitbull face.
Rage flared inside of me, swift and immediate. I burned from the inside out. My mouth was so dry I could barely speak. The hum that tore through my veins drowned out everything else.
Finally Tennin removed his feet from the table, stood, and came around the edge of the table and parked his rear on the corner. Rex hadn’t moved. “What? No words, Charlie Madigan?” A deep chuckle echoed through the chamber as he cut off another chunk of apple and shoved it into his mouth. “No disrespectful curses? No insults?” He pointed his dagger at me. “Cat got your tongue?” He chuckled at that, a deep, resonant echo bouncing off the chamber walls.
I blinked slowly, my eyelids stinging. I drew in a slow, deep breath and forced a swallow down my throat. “Rex.” My voice broke. “What have you done?”
I expected some kind of excuse. Rex always had a comeback, an answer for everything. But this time he stayed quiet, completely stunned. I flicked my gaze to Tennin. “What did you do to him?”
Tennin shrugged his colossal shoulders and when he grinned, his teeth flashed white and wicked against the dark gray of his skin. He spread his arms and said with a dramatic air, “Opened his eyes.” He laughed again, looking down at his apple, tearing off one last bite with his teeth and then tossing it into the fire pit. “I bet you got that collection letter and told him to fix it, didn’t you? He comes here. He bargains. And you get what you asked for, Charlie. It’s fixed. Debt is paid.”
Sweat trickled down the small of my back. No, no, no. “Jesus Christ, Rex, what did you do?” I asked louder this time, hearing the panic in my voice, but unable to hide it, unable to sound strong.
He shook his head as though trying to come out of his fog. “I … was trying—” He shook his head again, closing his eyes and then opening them, his features taking on a harder, stronger expression, his gaze flicking to Tennin and the rest of the rapt jinn in the chamber, then back to Tennin. They exchanged grave nods and then Rex marched toward me, making me wonder what the hell Tennin had done to him, because the look on his face was one I’d never seen before. And it made me take a step back.
He didn’t stop, just hooked his hand around my arm and jerked me along with him and out of the chamber to the sound of Grigori Tennin’s booming laughter.
I stumbled several times before regaining my senses, and pulled my arm from his grasp, my ankle turning as I stepped into a dip in the floor. I cursed and fell back, behind Rex. “Rex! Goddammit, what did you bargain? Rex!”
He kept walking, up the stairs and straight out of the Lion’s Den and into Solomon Street.
“Rex!”
I ran, weaving through the crowd, the vendor carts, and around the fire barrels, until I caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “Stop! For God’s sake, just slow down for a minute.” He finally listened. My chest burned from the run and the large draughts of smoke that had entered my lungs.
Something had definitely changed. Rex’s eyes were filled with turmoil and though it sounded strange, they seemed to hold more depth, more knowing, more … force. Part of me wanted to rail at him, to put my hands on my hips and tell him what an idiotic thing he’d done by going to Tennin, but his grim expression and that look in his eyes gave me pause. “What happened? What did he do to you?”
“I remember, Charlie. I remember everything.”
He started walking again. I fell in step beside him, trying to understand exactly what he meant by that, my sense of dread growing with each step as I remembered standing in Bryn’s apartment two months ago, discussing the Bleeding Souls that were being used as an ingredient to produce ash:
You know why it’s called a Bleeding Soul? It was used in the Great War when the nobles first appeared in Charbydon and fought with the jinn for control. The nobles used it as a weapon, the biological warfare of their time. It forced the soul to separate from the body. Myth says that’s where the Revenants and Wraiths came from, that they’re really the souls of jinn warriors who have wandered so long that they’ve forgotten who and what they once were.
“Oh my God. You’re saying that’s true? That you remember?”
“Yes,” he said, looking straight ahead. “I remember everything.”
Rex was a jinn warrior during the Great War? I stared at his profile, before having to turn back to watch where I stepped. Our insane, goofy, sarcastic Rex was a jinn? A fighter? “You’re saying—”
“Yes, Charlie. And I was the best.” He turned the corner, striding out into the plaza and toward the steps to Topside. “You can close your mouth. It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility.”
My mind raced with all the implications, what this meant for him, for me and Emma. He was at the top of the steps before I caught up to him again and darted in front of him, making him stop. “Rex. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going home. I’m going to take a shower. And then I’m going to sleep.”
He went to sidestep me, but I jumped in front of him again. “But—”
“Just chill, Charlie,” he said tiredly. “The collection debt is paid. I’m not making any decisions right now. You’re fine. Em’s fine. Tennin doesn’t command me. I’m far older than he … if only in spirit.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “What he gave me to make me remember, it’s made me tired. I just want a nap, okay?”
For some reason, I didn’t want to let him go. In fact, the urge to hug him gripped me hard, and I realized that I didn’t want him to leave us. But I stepped back, gave him an understanding nod, said, “Okay,” and then watched him walk away.
I wrapped my arms around myself as cold desolation settled into my bones, followed by a prickle of unease. I scanned the street, getting the feeling of being watched and wondering which of Pendaran’s nymphs was keeping an eye on me this time.