After I hung up my jacket and secured my weapons in the closet, leaving my sidearm on, since it didn’t bother me as much as the shoulder harness, I went into the kitchen and grabbed Rex’s leftover soup from the fridge and a clean bowl from the dishwasher.
As I filled my bowl, I heard the low voices of my child and Rex coming from the backyard. From the window above the sink I could see that the floodlights were on, but not where they stood.
I placed the bowl in the microwave, hit the timer, and then stepped out back to say hello. As soon as I crossed the brick patio, Emma jogged over, her face lighting with excitement. “Oh my God, Mom! You have to see this!”
She grabbed my hand and tugged me into the grass. “Slow down,” I said as she dragged me, chattering so fast I couldn’t understand a word she said, my main focus on trying not to trip.
Then she stopped in the middle of the yard. I looked up.
Oh.
Her hand slipped out of mine as goose bumps sprouted all over my legs and arms. For a moment I couldn’t wrap my head around what I was seeing. I gaped, knowing in the lucid part of my brain that surely I was facing something most people, off-worlders included, had never or would never see in their lifetimes.
Warhound.
The floodlights beamed off polished armor plating. Red eyes glowed through holes of the skull plate, which had spikes running down the center. Brimstone stood in a wash of bright white light. In full battle gear. Looking like he’d just stepped out of the ancient past.
A loud whoosh of air finally breezed through my open mouth. I gulped and recovered enough to say, “Wow.”
“Gives you goose bumps, doesn’t it?” Rex came up behind us.
“Uh-huh.” I couldn’t take my eyes off Brim. He stood there strong and tall, balanced and ready, like a warhorse waiting for the command to surge into battle. “This is really how they used to look?”
“From what I can remember.” Rex’s voice held a quiet kind of reverence. “Hellhounds accompanied the jinn in every battle. The armor is really light, made of typanum and something else—can’t remember … Once the nobles came and started taking over, they killed entire bloodlines, ancient ones. And after we lost the Great War, the jinn weren’t allowed to train hell-hounds for battle or protection; weren’t allowed to have them at all. The jinn set them free. The young ones and the pups stayed away, but the trained ones kept coming back. The nobles slaughtered so many …”
There was a time when I feared hellhounds, when I believed they were mindless, vicious beasts intent on killing anything in their path. I stood there ashamed of myself for being so narrow-minded. As an officer I’d been taught to either kill them on sight, depending on the danger, or leave them to Animal Control. Same as if a lion or bear got loose from the local zoo. I’d believed the hype and the fear, until Brimstone came into our lives. “Where did you find all this stuff?” I asked.
“eBay.”
“It’s my Christmas present from Rex,” Emma said, removing herself from my side to go stand next to Rex, putting him beteen us.
“Had to wait for the final piece,” he explained. “So that’s why she’s getting it late. It’s just a replica, of course—nothing from that age would’ve survived this long—from one of those stores that make reproduction weapons and armor.”
That age being thousands of years in the Charbydon past.
Emma nudged Rex; he nudged her back. They erupted into a jabbing session and an under-the-breath argument, which consisted of: “You ask her.” “No, you ask her.”
“Fine, you little tyrant,” Rex huffed and then turned to me. “I hereby ask permission, O Great and Powerful Mother, to teach this child hellhound battle tactics. There. I asked.”
Emma leaned over with an encouraging nod. “Every Warhound had a trainer. They worked together in pairs on the field. They knew all kinds of stuff, all kinds of commands, and ways to—” Kill. Rex elbowed her. “To fight. So, what do you think? Is it okay?”
The beast stood there looking so damn … badass. It spoke to all my protection instincts, to my love of the good fight, and all things noble and strong. My kid walking around with this at her side—no one would mess with her.
Well, that was if we could get a special permit from the city to permanently keep him. As it was, we were on borrowed time. My neighbor had reported an illegal hellhound living in our backyard. But thanks to the chief and some strings, we were able to get permission to keep him under an ITF Weapons Research Permit. Meaning we lied and said we were researching ways to utilize the hellhound for law enforcement purposes.
But standing here now—how cool would it be to patrol Underground with an armored tank with fangs and claws? With a daughter who could direct entire packs of them with a thought? The first true War-hound in thousands of years …
Okay, getting way ahead of yourself, Charlie.
“Mom.” I looked over at Emma. She was leaning past Rex, clasping her hands together in prayer, smiling at me, and mouthing, “Please, please, please.”
“There will need to be some ground rules … But I guess”—Emma’s monstrous, high-pitched squeal made me cringe—“it would be okay.”
“C’mon, kid, let’s get the armor off him.”
“Right.” Emma ran to Brim and began unlacing the armor plates. She looked so tiny and exposed next to him—a giant Warhound looming above a kneeling eleven-year-old with a ponytail, jeans, and a faded Mickey Mouse T-shirt.
And there were days when you didn’t think it could get any more bizarre.
“Hey,” I said to Rex before he could take off after her. “Can we talk a minute?”
After giving Em some instructions, Rex followed me into the kitchen, where I removed my soup, which had gone lukewarm, from the microwave, set it on the table, and then opened the fridge. I grabbed two beers and handed one to Rex. It was ice-cold, and stung my throat, and I welcomed it with several er gulps. My eyes watered from the sting. “I so needed that.”
He toasted the air with his bottle. “Not every day you see a Warhound.” Then he took a long swig.
“So basics for now, okay? Protection only.” Rex agreed with a nod. I took another gulp before setting the bottle on the counter, leaning back against it to cross one ankle over the other and my arms over my chest. “You were really in the Great War … It’s hard to imagine.”
“Not hard if you saw my original form. A bit taller than Tennin. Leaner. Meaner. To be honest, Charlie, I still can’t believe it, either. I spent thousands of years roaming as a disembodied spirit, losing my memories, forgetting how I came to be a Revenant … And I lived so long ago that now when I do remember, it doesn’t matter because there is no one left.”
“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 Wa 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.