djinn wars 04 - broken (24 page)

But if his pursuit kept the djinn occupied elsewhere, that could make things easier for Zahrias. He would only have to manage Lyanna, and not the both of them…although he did not much look forward to dodging her clumsy attempts at a seduction.

She had sent one of her
jann
servants — not the same one who had brought Zahrias to her audience chamber earlier today, he thought, although it was difficult to tell them apart — to guide him to her private apartments, where a sumptuous feast had been spread out on a low table there.

For Lyanna dined in the old way, reclining on soft pillows on the polished floor. She had changed into a new ensemble, one of shimmering aquamarine woven with gold that left her arms bare and was cut precariously low. Once upon a time, he had thought he could never want anything other than her lush curves. Now, though, he could only think how overdone she looked, how artificial and false.

“Sit, Zahrias,” she said, gesturing to the cushion near her.

He lowered himself to the oversized pillow, remembering how he had never cared for this way of sitting down to a meal. It always seemed to give him indigestion.

Or perhaps that was merely Lyanna’s effect on him.

He remained silent as one of the
jann
stepped forward and poured a healthy measure of wine into the golden goblet before him. Zahrias wished there was some way to refuse it — after all, he was not entirely certain that Lyanna hadn’t stooped to drugging the drink in some way — but to do so would only anger her, and he knew he had to step carefully, at least until he had had adequate time to analyze his situation and decide on his best course of action.

Lyanna lifted her goblet. “Let us drink to renewing old acquaintances.”

Ah, if only she were a mere acquaintance. Too much history there, and even though he hated very much what she seemed to have become, he knew he had loved her once, or at least had thought he loved her. It was nothing like the need he felt for Julia, the sense that his world had something essential missing from it when she was not around, but there had been some kind of affection…just not enough.

“To old acquaintances,” he said, tone neutral, and took a cautious sip from his goblet. The wine tasted well enough, heavier than the vintages he had been drinking back in the mortal world, but he couldn’t sense anything overtly wrong with it.

Lyanna chuckled low in her throat. Perhaps she thought that laugh was an enticing sound, but to Zahrias, she merely sounded as if something had made her cough.

“Look at you,” she remarked, mouth pursed. “So dignified. So proper. Has all your time among mortals taken away your sense of fun? I don’t remember you being nearly so stiff. At least,” she added, a sly light dancing in her eyes, “I don’t recall
all
of you being this stiff. Parts of you, perhaps.”

He decided to ignore the innuendo. “Lyanna, we both know that there is no point to any of this. Even if I were not interested in Julia Innes, I still have my responsibilities in the mortal world. The elders entrusted the djinn and Chosen of Santa Fe to my care. Do you truly believe they will overlook your actions when they have resulted in my people being left with no one to lead them?”

“As to that,” she responded, giving an airy wave of her hand before picking up her goblet once again, “I am sure your brother can manage things well enough. Does it really matter which al-Harith oversees your little group?”

That carelessness about others was one of the traits which had finally made Zahrias break away from her. Dani was a good man, and he did have the knack of making others like him, but a leader he was not, as he was uncomfortable telling others what to do, let alone making the hard decisions required of those in command. Lyanna should have known that — if she had ever bothered to think about anything other than herself.

“I fear that my brother is somewhat occupied at the moment,” he said as evenly as he could. “For he and his partner just had their first child. Indeed, my being here means that I cannot be with them to properly celebrate the boy’s birth.”

Lyanna’s amber eyes took on a malicious glint. “I had never imagined you as a doting uncle, Zahrias. Especially when the child is only a half-breed.”

His fingers clenched, and then he forced himself to relax and take another sip of his wine. “Children of mixed blood can sometimes be the strongest of all.”

“Or they can have so little power that they might as well be all human.” She set down her goblet and leaned toward him, breasts swelling precariously against the low-cut bodice of the tunic she wore. “You and I could have had wondrous children, Zahrias.”

“I find it better not to dwell on what might have been.”

“Why does it have to be ‘what might have been’? We could start again now.”

The very thought of sharing that kind of intimacy with her made him want to gag. Now that he’d held Julia in his arms, he couldn’t imagine being with anyone else, especially Lyanna al-Syan. Sidestepping her suggestion, he said, “Perhaps we should eat. This does seem to be quite the feast you’ve had prepared.”

They’d both been ignoring the food in favor of drinking wine, but Lyanna gave a negligent lift of her shoulders. “Of course, Zahrias. I do want to make sure you keep up your strength.”

She snapped her fingers, and the
jann
hurried over so he could heap their golden plates with lamb and rice and fruit swirled with honey. The whole time, Lyanna’s amber eyes seemed to laugh at him.

Clearly, she thought it was only a matter of time before his willpower failed him. After all, he couldn’t care that much for Julia, when she was only a mortal.

Julia had hoped that no djinn would be loitering around the U.S. Marshals’ building — when you got right down to it, there was nothing left for them to guard — but that hope was dashed when she spotted Murrah, the big elemental who was Martine’s partner, propped up against one of the pillars in the lobby. Oddly, he seemed to be playing a game on an iPad. That was something she’d thought she’d never see, since most djinn didn’t appear all that comfortable around human technology.

Even so, she was less than thrilled to see him. All she could do was hope that he hadn’t noticed anything strange about her parking behind the building and coming in through one of the side entrances, instead of walking in through the front like someone who had nothing to hide.

“Hi, Murrah,” she said, and summoned what she hoped was a natural-looking smile. “Are Miles and Lindsay still working downstairs?”

“Yes,” he replied. At least he didn’t appear overly surprised to see her there. Maybe someone had mentioned she might be back eventually to pick up the two remaining members of her team. “Should I get them for you?”

“Oh, no,” she said hastily. “I’ll go down and talk to them. I’ve gotten to the point with Miles where he doesn’t get too crabby if I interrupt him.”

Murrah nodded. “Sure, then.” And he returned to the iPad, brow furrowing as he worked away at his game of Candy Crush.

She sent him another smile, then walked over to the elevator as if she didn’t have a care in the world. The whole time the car was descending, she kept worrying that Murrah would decide to join her — or worse, that whoever the spy might be had spotted the unfamiliar black truck parked behind the building and would then come in to investigate.

But she reached the sub-basement without incident…and walked into a strangely intimate scene. Miles and Lindsay weren’t anywhere near Margolis’ former cell. Instead, Miles sat at the guard station, his glasses off and resting on the desk before him. Lindsay was rubbing his shoulders, her lips pressed against the top of his head in a gentle kiss.

It wasn’t so much that they were doing anything which couldn’t be seen in public, more that the two of them never seemed to share any open displays of affection. Something was going on between them, or they wouldn’t have been plowing through those boxes of condoms at a steady pace, but whenever anyone else was around, you’d be hard-pressed to believe they were a couple at all.

As soon as Julia stepped into the room, though, Lindsay lifted her hands from Miles’s shoulders, and he immediately picked up his glasses and put them back on. Maybe they were his shield against the world; Julia thought he looked a lot younger, and strangely vulnerable, without them.

“Julia…?” Lindsay said, obviously startled to see her.

“You need to come with me,” Julia said, not bothering to mince words. “There’s no point in looking for clues here. Margolis was helped out of his cell by a djinn named Qadim, but they had a falling out. Margolis is dead.”

“Wait,” Miles put in, pushing back the chair where he sat. Lindsay got out of the way just in time. “Why would a djinn help Margolis, of all people? Their goals were diametrically opposed.”

Not as much as you might believe,
she thought, but she just shook her head. “It’s complicated. I’ll tell you everything once we get to Jace and Jessica’s house.”

“Why there?” Lindsay asked. Her tone was puzzled, but not worried.

“Because it’s not safe here. The Santa Fe community has some sort of spy hidden among them, only I don’t know who it is. So the best place to regroup is with Jace and Jessica, because I’m going to need a djinn’s input on this, and he’s the only one I can trust.”
Well,
besides Zahrias,
she added mentally.
But he’s a million miles away right now.

The shifting expressions on both Miles and Lindsay’s faces seemed to tell her that they had roughly a hundred questions for every answer she’d given them. Julia tensed, wondering if they were about to start lobbing those questions at her. She really didn’t have time for that.

But then they looked at each other, not speaking, and Miles nodded. Lindsay said, “Okay. We have a few things with us here, just because we didn’t want to waste time going back and forth to the hotel.”

That was something. Julia had no idea how long any of this was going to take, but she knew she didn’t dare risk having Miles and Lindsay return to the La Fonda to retrieve their belongings. “Good. Then get them, and we’ll head out. Murrah is loitering in the lobby, but we’ll just have to hope he isn’t the spy.” She really couldn’t imagine the big, quiet djinn as a spy, since he didn’t seem quite as quick-witted as most of his compatriots, but for all she knew, his demeanor could just be an act.

Lindsay went over to a door that proved to be a sort of supply closet, and got out a black backpack and a brown canvas duffle bag. While she was fetching those items, Miles rose from his chair and retrieved a couple of pieces of electronic equipment Julia couldn’t identify from where they’d been sitting in Margolis’ former cell. He took the backpack from Lindsay and slid the equipment into it.

“All right,” he said. “That’s everything.”

They all headed for the elevator and silently got inside. When they emerged in the lobby, Murrah was nowhere to be seen. Julia wanted to feel relieved, but she didn’t know for sure whether or not his absence was a good sign. Either way, the best thing to do was to get out of there as quickly as possible.

She guided Miles and Lindsay out the side entrance and over to the truck. Lindsay raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar vehicle but didn’t say anything.

It was crowded — the truck didn’t have an extended cab, just some space behind the seats to stow their duffle and backpack — but no one said anything as they squeezed into their seats and Julia pointed the truck eastward, staying to side streets until she didn’t have any choice except to cut over to Canyon Road. As they passed a sprawling adobe-style house, Lindsay and Miles exchanged a glance.

Julia wondered what that was about, and then realized it must have been the home they’d shared before returning to Los Alamos with her.
If only those walls could talk,
she thought, repressing a smile. Lindsay had always sworn up and down that she and Miles hadn’t become intimate until after they left Santa Fe, but Julia still couldn’t help wondering,

Not that it was really any of her business, but focusing on their unlikely relationship gave her something to think about besides worrying what this Lyanna person might be doing to Zahrias at that very moment. Someone so unscrupulous as to stoop to kidnapping and murder probably wouldn’t bat an eye at drugging the man she wanted, if that meant she could be intimate with him.

Torturing herself probably wasn’t a very good idea, but Julia’s thoughts kept circling that awful possibility. Of course Zahrias would resist…if he was able to. She had no idea what sort of resources Lyanna had at her disposal, but clearly she was able to make her brother jump at her command.

“All right, we’re away,” Lindsay said at last. Since she was much shorter than Miles, she’d gotten stuck with the uncomfortable middle seat, squeezed in between him and Julia, and she didn’t look too happy about it. “So are you going to tell us what’s really going on?”

“Yes,” Julia replied as she took the cutoff for the dirt road that led out to Jace and Jessica’s property. “But I might as well wait until we’re at the house. Then I can explain the whole thing to everyone at the same time.”

That response didn’t seem to please Lindsay all that much, but after a moment she gave a grudging nod. Her practical engineer’s brain probably saw the logic in Julia’s explanation, even if she didn’t particularly enjoy it.

After bumping over the rutted dirt lane for about ten minutes, Julia caught sight of their destination, the shimmering gold of the aspens that surrounded it looking like a beacon. She eased the truck up to the wall that enclosed the property, wondering if she was going to have to stop and get out, but then the gate opened slowly inward.

There weren’t any visible signs of a security system, but that probably didn’t matter when you had a djinn in residence. She drove up the small hill where the house was built, then parked in the open area to the left of the detached garage. As they got out of the truck, she saw Miles give an oddly grim glance around the property, his mouth set in a flat line.

Julia wondered what that was about, then realized he hadn’t been here since he came with Margolis to haul Jace away all those months ago. Was the scientist reflecting on his guilt in that particular scenario? It looked that way, judging by his expression.