Daughter of Gods and Shadows (32 page)

“It's you I came to talk to, Khale,” he said finally, forcing his attention back to the Shifter.

She stared back at him suspiciously. “Me? Why?”

“Alone,” he insisted.

Khale hesitated for a few moments, considering his request. Kifo was obviously here on Sakarabru's orders. She needed to hear what he had to say. “Leave us,” she told everyone.

The two of them waited until everyone in the room left. As Eden passed by him, she gazed up at him with a familiar scowl in her eyes, so reminiscent of Sakarabru.

Khale had tried to reason with Kifo weeks ago, and he'd chosen to ignore her. Now, of course, she was fascinated and curious to know what he had to say to her.

“Talk,” she said simply.

The proud and obedient Kifo almost seemed to melt before her eyes. He stiffly walked away from her and stood looking at the crowd gathered outside of the window. “They'd have torn me to shreds had they seen me walking among them,” he said absently.

“Deservedly so.”

“You told me that Sakarabru had tortured me.”

Khale watched him closely. The Djinn was a master mystic, and with a wave of his hand or the murmur of a word he could cast a spell on her, making her susceptible to whatever trap he was trying to set for her.

“You accused me of lying, if I remember correctly,” she said.

He turned to her. “You were the enemy, Khale. What did you expect me to say?”

“Were? I
am
the enemy, Kifo,” she reminded him.

Unexpected vulnerability appeared in his expression. “Sakarabru is the enemy of us all.”

She stared suspiciously at him. “Why did you really come here, Djinn?”

“Have you found the third Omen?” he asked, pulling back his shoulders.

Khale couldn't help finding his question funny. “As if I'd tell you. Go, Kifo.” She motioned toward the door. “You are wasting my time.”

“I know where the third Omen is,” he volunteered.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Kifo had just said a mouthful, but the problem was, it was either a lie or a trap or both. Khale was exhausted. She'd spent the last few days trying to coax the location of the Omen from Eden, and she hadn't slept for staying up all night long worrying about what their next move would be.

“Really, Kifo,” she said wearily. “You can't possibly think that you can come in here and drop a bomb like that on me and expect me to take the bait. Do you?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

Khale shook her head in disbelief and walked over to the sofa and sat down. “Go,” she demanded, waving her hand toward the door.

“You should hear what I have to say.”

“Just … get out of here, Kifo, before—”

“You told me that he tortured me,” he said quietly.

“I told you the truth and you dismissed it.”

He looked thoughtful all of a sudden, and vulnerable. Kifo hesitantly took a seat in the Queen Anne chair across from Khale.

“I didn't believe it because I … didn't remember it,” he admitted.

She watched carefully as he gradually unfolded his lie. She was beginning to admire his acting skills. Kifo was quite impressive. The Djinn was the enemy, and the enemy had to die, but for a moment she had conceded that fact. Kifo was a victim of Sakarabru. As much of a victim as she had been, as much of a victim as the human Brood Army had been.

Kifo took a deep breath. “I was so young, Khale,” he said, introspectively. “Equivalent to a human boy of fifteen, maybe sixteen.”

She had heard that Sakarabru had found a young Djinn, a master mystic, and had held him captive for longer than anyone. The child had survived ten of Earth's years in Sakarabru's torture room. Kifo didn't seem to know it, but when Sakarabru had found him, he was closer to a boy of six.

Kale watched him shrink under the heavy weight of sadness and discovery. “It's hard sometimes, but I try not to linger on the details,” he offered. “They come to me, though, more and more in little packets, mostly when I'm sleeping,” he admitted.

“Why are you telling me this, Kifo?” she asked suspiciously.

“The Djinn masters who took care of me were spiritual beings, peaceful and accepting. I have dishonored their memories by things I've done. I've committed terrible acts of cruelty believing that what I was doing was right.” He looked meaningfully back at her. “I've destroyed an entire race of people, Khale. Because of me, this world will never be the same, and I can't forgive myself for that. I don't deserve forgiveness.”

She wanted to believe him. Hell, Khale needed to believe him, because right now, if he truly did know where the third Omen was, he was the closest thing they had to salvation. But again, Kifo was the enemy and he had been for a very long time. Sakarabru had taken that little Djinn and molded him into exactly what he'd wanted him to be. It had taken so much pain and darkness. She wanted to believe that Kifo had changed, but trusting him would be foolish.

“Did Sakarabru send you?” she asked, point-blank.

He nodded. “Yes. He did. But he believes that it was his idea. He believes that he sent me here to set a trap for the reborn.”

“He believes it?” she asked cautiously. “So what's the truth?”

He took a deep breath. “Andromeda sent me,” he confessed. “And she said that you probably wouldn't believe me.”

“I don't. Why would she send you?”

He shrugged. “You'd have to ask her. But she told me your secret, Khale.”

Khale sat up straight in her chair. “What secret, Djinn?”

“She told me the reason that Mkombozi was chosen as the Redeemer. She told me why Mkombozi was the only Ancient capable of bonding with the Omens,” he explained cautiously.

Sakarabru could've told him this. The Djinn was as much of a liar as the Demon ever was.

Kifo seemed to read her mind. “I would never speak of this to anyone, Khale.”

The dragon in her began to stir awake. The Djinn's eyes grew wide at the subtle transformation he saw in her eyes. Kifo would not live to see the outside of this house.

“What if I am telling the truth, Khale?” he said quickly. “What if I am truly repentant for my transgressions and Andromeda really did send me here with this message? Are you really willing to risk the salvation of this world and the opportunity to destroy Sakarabru once and for all over what I have told you?”

“He sent you here to set this trap.”

“He has Andromeda, Khale,” he said, choking up. It seemed too authentic to be faked. “He wanted me to convince you to bring the reborn to Yankee Stadium tomorrow and to tell you that I had seen Andromeda hide it there. But that's a lie. Andromeda
is
the third Omen. He has her in New Orleans. And if the reborn is going to claim it and bond with it, she'll need to get to the Seer.”

It was far too elaborate and well thought out to be a lie, and Kifo had either put on an Oscar-worthy performance or he was telling the truth. Either way, Khale had to be prepared for both. And she had to decide what to do next. Eden would have to decide. Ultimately, Eden was going to have to rise to to occasion of her destiny and make that final bond. If Kifo was lying, she pitied him.

 

RIVER DEEP, MOUNTAIN HIGH

Eden paced nervously back and forth in one of the bedrooms upstairs. “This is weird,” she kept muttering to herself, wringing her hands together. “I know him, but I don't know him,” she said out loud.

She had never seen that dude before, but there was something eerily familiar about him. “How can I know him?” She was talking to herself more than she was to Prophet. She had a sense of d
é
j
à
vu with the guy who had appeared out of thin air in Khale's living room, but Eden couldn't make the connection in her mind. Then it dawned on her that the feelings reeling inside her weren't hers. They were Sakarabru's.

Eden stopped pacing and headed for the door. “I need to talk to him.”

Prophet got up to come with her, but she didn't want that. “No.”

“What?”

She didn't need him hovering over her all the time. Eden didn't want him shadowing her every move. Prophet was smothering her. She understood that it was his job to be her Guardian and to look after her, but lately she was starting to think she couldn't even take a piss without him standing close enough to wipe her ass. It was an unexpectedly ugly thought. Eden just needed some space.

“I'll just be downstairs,” she said, attempting to ease the tension.

She closed the door behind her when she left.

Kifo. Khale had called him Kifo. They both froze when they saw Eden coming down the stairs.

“Eden, you should be resting,” Khale said, but Eden ignored her and walked over to this Kifo and stood directly in front of him.

He had dark beautiful skin and was clean shaven. The irises of his eyes weren't brown. They were black. She didn't trust him. He seemed to tense in her presence. Kifo was afraid of her.

“Why did you really come here?” Eden challenged.

He noticeably swallowed and worked doubly hard to maintain his solid and polished composure. The illusion of dignity was important to him because he'd lost it long ago.

“I came to tell Khale that I know where the last Omen is,” he admitted.

The thought came to her about Kifo. He'd been hurt before so badly, and he'd suffered so long, until she wondered if he'd actually enjoyed it. Did he savor his suffering and relish these moments the way that she … These weren't her memories. They were residual memories of the first Omen, of Sakarabru.

“Why should I believe you?” Eden sneered. The longer he was in her presence, the angrier she was becoming.

Kifo seemed to sense this rage swelling inside her, and he took a step back. Eden immediately filled in the space he'd tried to put between the two of them. She was the dominant, the one he answered to, the one he owed his allegiance to. Kifo had no choice but to be obedient.

“Convince me that you know where my Omen is!” she commanded.

Khale's voice came from some faraway place. “Eden! Stop it!”

The shifter had no place in this. Kifo, her little Djinn, Eden's little magician, would answer to her.

“Convince me that you can be trusted, Djinn! Convince me that I was right in choosing to let you live!”

This wasn't her! It didn't even sound like her! Eden craved the sounds of his screams! She salivated at the thought of spilling his blood. Kifo could not be trusted! He could not …

“Eden!”

The sound of Prophet's voice brought her back inside this room. Pictures had fallen off the walls, vases had been broken. Kifo stood there looking as if he had seen a ghost, or worse. She was so close to losing what was left of herself.

“Where is the third Omen?” she asked softly.

She needed to know where it was. Eden needed to get this shit over with. Her end was here. It was right here in front of her.

“Where is it, Kifo?” she asked again, looking into his hooded black eyes.

“The Omen is the Seer Andromeda,” he told her.

Eden shook her head, confused. “I don't … I don't get it. The Omen is
in
Andromeda or it
is
Andromeda?”

“It
is
her.”

How the hell was she supposed to make sense of that? The first Omen had been a thing, an object passed from that crazy old man to Eden. He passed it to her by touching her. The second Omen was a … a spirit, the spirit of Sakarabru's rage. Eden had to literally die to go into the afterlife to get that one. And now he was telling her that the last Omen was a person?

She looked at him as if he were out of his mind. “I'm supposed to bond with Andromeda?”

He raised his chin defiantly. “Yes.”

Eden was dumbfounded. “How?”

Kifo's blank expression pretty much answered her question. He had no idea.

Eden slowly turned away from him. She'd come too far to go back. It would be impossible to unbond with the first two Omens. She couldn't change her mind and say, “That's it. I'm stopping right here. No more bonding, and to hell what happens to all you Ancients and the rest of the world. Y'all can kiss my ass.”

Eden looked at Khale. “You're the genius,” she said sarcastically. “Any ideas on how I'm supposed to bond with the Seer of the Ages that doesn't involve you cutting my throat?”

“None.”

Eden turned to leave the room. “I need my Guardian.”

She sat cross-legged on the bed while he paced slowly back and forth.

“He's setting us up,” Prophet eventually said, stating the obvious.

Even if he hadn't said it, she knew the moment she laid eyes on the guy talking to Khale that he had come here under false pretenses. Eden knew him but not directly. He was familiar to her because Sakarabru knew him, intimately, and he wasn't to be trusted.

“We've got nothing else, Prophet,” she said.

He stopped and stared at her. “Do you hear yourself?”

“What?” She shrugged.

“Three months ago I couldn't get you to stop crying, and now you want to go rushing off to New Orleans on the chance that you can make this last bond.”

So what was he saying? “I mean, what else am I supposed to do? I need all three to defeat Sakarabru, and I've only got two. This dude may be lying or he may be telling at least a part of the truth, and we've got nothing else.”

“You sound almost anxious to do this, Eden.” He was studying her, looking at her almost as if he didn't recognize her.

“You're right,” she admitted reluctantly. “It's incomplete, Prophet. I'm incomplete.”

She felt like some junkie in need of a fix. As terrifying as it had been to make these first two bonds, Eden felt off balance without that last one. There was a void inside her that desperately needed to be filled.