Kissed by Smoke (19 page)

“Sounds like Alberich has been a busy
boy.”

I shot Kabita a look. “No kidding. I
seriously think the guy has a screw loose.” I ran my blade over a
whetstone until the steel sung. Is it wrong that I love the sound
of a really sharp blade?

“Don’t underestimate him, Morgan. He may be
nuts, but he’s a very dangerous nuts.” She was filling up some kind
of aerosol can at the kitchen sink.

“What are you doing?”

She grinned. “Salt water.”

“Salt is for demons and ghosts, not the
sidhe.” Though I had to admit the whole idea of salt in a spray
bottle was kind of awesome.

“True,” she admitted, “but this sidhe is
different. He’s been corrupted by demon magic and hate. I doubt the
salt will hurt him much, but it might slow him down. Besides, he
could have more demons under his control.”

She made a good point. I checked over the
rest of my weaponry. Machete or
dao
? Machete or
dao
?

The machete was more multi-purpose, but
since I wasn’t headed into a jungle, I settled on the
dao
. Unfortunately, I
knew very well that none of our weapons would stop Alberich for
long.

There was a knock at my backdoor. Kabita and
I exchanged glanced before she shrugged and went to open it.

“Kabita. How lovely to see you.” It was
Eddie, a smile beaming from ear to ear.

“Eddie, we’re about to go on a Hunt,” Kabita
began.

“I know, I know.” He waved her away and
plopped into the kitchen chair across from me. He withdrew a hand
from his coat pocket and laid a thin silvery strip on the
table.

I picked it up and turned it over in my
hands. It looked just like the plastic zip cuffs a lot of the cops
used now, except it was made of some kind of metal, etched with
what looked like runes.

I glanced up at Eddie. “What is this?”

“You’re going up against a sidhe, Morgan.
And not just any sidhe, but a Fairy King.”

“He was banished.”

Eddie shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. He
was born King, and King he remains. At least when it comes to
power. You will not be able to kill him, but you may be able to
capture him.” Eddie tapped the metal strip with his finger, “With
this.”

“How?”

“This little zip cuff not only contains
iron, which is anathema to sidhe magic, it’s also imbued with the
most powerful magics I know.” He glanced at me through his thick
spectacles, an odd expression on his face. “And a few I don’t. Get
this thing around his wrists, and he’ll be powerless long enough to
get him to the Other World.”

So, all I had to do was track down a crazy
sidhe, subdue him, slap on a pair of cuffs, and haul his ass over
to the Fairy Realm. No problem.

***

Trevor was waiting on the edge of the djinn
lands when we pulled up. Zip was with him, still dressed in her
ridiculous Marilyn dress and practically dancing with excitement. I
hadn’t realized a djinni could be so … perky.

“How do we know the Marid is still on djinn
lands?” I asked after everyone had done the greeting thing.

“We don’t,” Trevor admitted. “But Zip says
she can track the Marid, so this seemed a good place to start.”

I glanced over at the djinni, who gave me a
little wave and flashed Inigo a far too flirtatious smile. I
managed not to roll my eyes. “That true, Zip?”

She grinned merrily as though we were all
about to go on a picnic, instead of hunt down the evil sidhe who
had her Marid. “Oh, yes. All djinni can sense their Marid. It’s
part of the … ” she trailed off, eyes going wide. Very Marilyn.
“We’re not supposed to talk about that.”

“Because of the Binding. Yes, I know. What I
want to know is, how did Alberich get to the Marid in the first
place?”

She pouted a little. “I don’t know. The
Binding is supposed to protect the Marid.”

“Unless Alberich used the magic of the
Binding to control one of the lesser djinni. He did it once, he
could have done it again,” Kabita pointed out.

Frankly, it was the only option that made
sense. Somehow Alberich had tapped into the magic the last High
Priest of Atlantis had used to bind the djinn. The very magic that
was supposed to protect them, had now become their Achilles’
Heel.

But that begged the question: Why hadn’t he
done it before? With the first djinni he bound? He wouldn’t have
needed to kill Vega or Trevor. He wouldn’t have needed me.

“Shit.” I turned back to Trevor. “What about
the SRA? Surely they can’t care about keeping a low profile at this
point. Can’t they send, I don’t know, backup or something?” After
all, they’d helped out with my last baddie: A dragon Hunter gone
rogue.

He shook his head. “They’re refusing to get
involved.”

We all stared at him in absolute shock.
Except for Zip who was still smiling perkily.

“What do you mean?” Inigo spoke up
first.

“I had a little chat with a friend of mine
who works in Operations. She told me on the down low that the SRA
is well aware of the possibilities of a war between supernaturals
and they want to … wait and see.”

“What about a war between the djinn and the
humans? Or the sidhe and the humans? Have they thought about that?”
I practically shouted.

“Apparently there were some questions after
the last operation,” Trevor said.

The last operation being the one where we
captured Dara Boyd aka Jade Vincent, psycho Hunter extraordinaire.
And unfortunately did not capture Alister Jones. “And?”

“The agency is trying to keep a low profile.
So, they decided to let the chips fall where they may.”

That didn’t take much mulling over. “They’re
going to deny everything, aren’t they?”

Trevor nodded. “Plausible Deniability. They
can claim no involvement, and say I did this on my own.”

“They hung us out to dry.” My voice was
practically a snarl.

“That would be correct.”

“Bastards.” The irony that I used to paint
my brother with the same brush was not lost on me. “Fine, they want
to keep their lily-white hands clean, let them. We’ve got a job to
do.”

We followed Zip onto djinn lands. This time
there was no wind. No Mongolian Death Worms, either, thank the
gods.

“Zip, did you ever figure out where the
Worms came from?”

She shook her head sending blond ringlets
dancing. “Nope. And we haven’t seen any more, either.”

I frowned at that. Something niggled at the
back of my mind. Something about Alberich, the Binding, and the
Worms, but I couldn’t quite grasp it.

“Okay, Zip,” Trevor prodded. “Can you sense
the Marid?”

She closed her eyes and screwed up her
rosebud mouth. “Yes!” She gave him a triumphant grin.

“Okay, where?”

“Oh, there.” She pointed toward the distant
mound that made up the djinn underground home.

The rest of us tried not to roll our eyes
while Trevor held back a smile. “Anywhere else.”

“Yes.” She etched her fingers along the
horizon toward the west and the mountains. “There. It’s faint, but
he’s definitely that way.”

“Without a car, that trek is going to take
hours,” Kabita pointed out. “Surely we can get our hands on some
dirt bikes or something.”

Kabita and her motorcycles. Frankly, I’d
rather give myself a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it.

“Oh, no, we don’t need anything like that,”
Zip giggled. “Hold hands.”

We all stared at her like she’d grown a
second head.

“Hold hands.” This time it was an order
worthy of a drill sergeant. No giggling. No breathy Marilyn voice.
For the first time I felt the true power of the djinni. Frankly, it
was a little scary.

We grabbed each others’ hands.

With the snap of her finger we flashed out
of existence. And reappeared in a small valley at the base of the
nearest mountain.

Ingo squeezed my hand and whispered, “We
could have just flown.”

“Now where would be the fun in that?” I
grinned back.

“Okay, Zip, now where?” Trevor looked
ridiculously official with his flak vest, badge, and assault rifle.
I hoped he had something more than ordinary rounds in that thing,
or it was going to be pretty much useless.

Zip screwed her eyes closed again. “Over
there.” She pointed toward a copse of stunted junipers.

I couldn’t see anything other than a bunch
of trees and rocks, but then again I hadn’t been able to see
Alberich when he attacked me, either. Apparently invisibility was
his thing. Which meant that without Zip, we wouldn’t have had a
snowball’s chance in hell at finding the sidhe, or his victim.

Zip bopped ahead over the rugged terrain in
her kitten heels and floaty white dress. How on earth she didn’t
break an ankle on a rock, or snag the chiffon on some brush, was
beyond me. What was even more beyond me was that I actually knew
what chiffon was.

And then our resident djinni let out a
bloodcurdling shriek.

Trevor was by her side in a flash, but it
was too late. The demon had come out of nowhere and slashed Zip
across the front of her chest. She collapsed in a heap, bright red
blood pouring from the gaping wound. I could see white bone shining
underneath the severed muscles. So not good.

The demon turned on my brother. Trevor
managed to get off a shot, but it barely phased the thing. Its fist
smashed into Trevor’s chest and sent my brother flying a good ten
feet. Fortunately, he didn’t get caught by the demon’s claws.

The demon was huge. About the same height as
the Marid, but build like a tank, complete with armor plating and
claws like razor blades.

“What the fuck is that thing?” I hollered at
Kabita.

“It’s a Behemoth.”

“No shit.”

“No, I mean that’s the kind of demon it is.
There’s no way we’re going to get through that armor plating. Not
even with salt.”

She was right. Even my blades wouldn’t
penetrate the demon’s hide. “What the hell is he doing?”

Inigo had slipped into his dragon form and
was fighting the thing tooth and nail. He hit the demon with a
blast of dragon fire. It didn’t even blink. Shit. This was so not
good.

“Morgan.” Kabita grabbed my shoulder.
“You’re the only one that can stop it.”

“Are you kidding me? Have you seen the size
of that thing? My Hunter strength is no match for it, and without
weapons … ”

She gave me a little shake. “That’s not what
I’m talking about. I’m talking about your powers. You have to use
them to send this thing back to wherever it came from.”

I swallowed as I stared at my brother and my
boyfriend getting the shit beat out of them. At Zip lying on the
ground bleeding. “Last time I let them out I couldn’t control them.
Not without the Marid.”

“It’s either that, or we’re all dead.”

I smiled weakly. “Good point. Stand
back.”

She moved back a few steps. Far enough to be
out of my way, but not so far she couldn’t get to me if she needed
to. I hoped she didn’t need to.

“I pull this off, you so owe me.”

She grinned. “I’ll buy you that pair of
boots you’ve been lusting over.”

“The purple Doc Martens? Two pairs of shoes
in one week. I’m a lucky girl. Okay, here goes nothing.” I closed
my eyes against the battle in front of me and reached down to that
place where my powers lived.

The Air came first, its silvery tendrils
spilling up and out of me. The wind kicked up, spinning into a
whirlwind that tore at the surrounding brush.

The whirlwind danced across the space
between me and the demon. Inigo managed to fly out of its way
before the Air wrapped itself around the Behemoth. The giant demon
screeched in anger, tearing against the wind, but the Air held
fast.

Slowly, almost in a daze, I walked across
the space that separated us and right into the whirlwind. The demon
tried to swipe at me, but the Air held its claws back. I placed my
palm in the center of the thing’s chest, like the Marid had done to
me. Then I let loose the Fire.

The flames poured from me, encasing both me
and the demon in a spinning tornado of Fire and Air. “Shall I
banish you?” My voice held a strange hollow quality.

The Behemoth opened its mouth as if to
speak, but all that came out was a scream of rage. The amulet
flared to life, burning the tender skin of my chest. That’s when I
knew. I don’t know how I knew, but there wasn’t a shadow of a doubt
what I had to do to expel the magic from the creature.

The Darkness boiled out of me, a living
thing, echoing the demon’s scream. I placed my other palm against
the chest of the giant, and with a voice that was my own — yet not
my own — I said, “Magic of Alberich, I banish you.”

There was a slight thump, like one of those
percussion bombs they use on TV shows. It was as though all the air
was sucked from our lungs. Then a whoosh of wind that flattened
everyone and everything except me and the creature standing in
front of me: The Marid

The Marid’s big hands curled around my upper
arms. “Zipporah.”

I swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

The king of the djinn practically tossed me
aside like a rag doll in his hurry to get to the fallen djinni
girl. Surprisingly, she was still alive. Barely.

“Zipporah.” The Marid knelt next to the
girl, ignoring the blood that quickly stained his clothes. He
cradled the fragile djinni to his massive chest. “Oh, Zipporah, I
am so sorry.”

Blood bubbled from her lips. “Marid, it is
not your fault.” Her delicate white fingers stroked his cheek,
leaving a smear of blood behind.

“I should have stopped him,” the Marid
choked. “I should have been stronger.”

“Were it not for the Binding, you would have
been,” she whispered. “‘Tis I who was supposed to protect you.”

“No. Zip, no.” Tears spilled down his face,
anguish etched in every line of his body.