Kissed by Smoke (20 page)

But Zip wasn’t there to answer. I felt the
Air stir inside me and I watched as a tiny spiral of silver twirled
out of Zip’s body and danced away on the wind.

***

“Marid.” I placed my hand gently on his
shoulder. “If we have any hope of stopping Alberich, we need to
know what happened.”

The Marid still sat on the frozen ground,
his body hunched over Zip’s crumpled form while everyone else stood
around looking helpless. I understood the guilt and grief that must
be ripping him to shreds, but it wasn’t his fault. Yes, he killed
her, but it had been Alberich who’d pulled the trigger. Of that I
had no doubt.

“Alberich forced the change, didn’t he?” I
prompted. If the Queen had told the truth, it was a power Alberich
shouldn’t have had.

Muscles moved in the Marid’s massive jaw.
“No sidhe has ever before forced a Marid to take demon form.”

I glanced over at Kabita, who gave a little
shrug. So, the demon form was one of their natural forms. I tucked
that little nugget away for future reference. “Alberich isn’t like
other sidhe.”

“This, I know. Now.”

“I’m guessing he subjugated one of your
people to get himself onto djinn lands.”

The Marid nodded. “Yes. He used the Binding
magic in a way I’ve never even heard of before. Once he was here,
he was able to … ” he choked.

“And the Worms weren’t there this time to
stop him,” I guessed.

But I didn’t need the Marid’s answer. I was
betting that Zip had been wrong about the Worms. They’d always been
there, protecting the djinn. It was only Alberich’s magic that had
awakened them, and sent them on the hunt. He probably hadn’t even
realized it was his own magic working against him, aggravating the
Worms.

Once I killed the Worms, Alberich had been
able to get onto djinn lands and take the Marid captive. When we
got too close, Alberich had forced the Marid into demon form. And
apparently, demon form didn’t allow for clear thinking.

“Do you know where he went?”

The smile that crossed the Marid’s face was
a little scary. “Oh, yes. Yes, I do.” He nodded to the copse of
juniper trees. “He’s still there. Watching.”

I stared at the little clump of trees. I
couldn’t see anything. “Why?”

“He gets off on pain and suffering. And,”
the Marid glanced over at me, “he’d like to finish what he started
with you.”

“He must be pissed as hell I escaped into
the Other World.” The very thought made me smile. “Okay, I’ve got
some special cuffs that should hold him long enough to turn him
over to the Fairy Queen.”

A look of pure outrage crossed the Marid’s
face. “You are turning him over to the Queen? That bitch is the one
who let him go in the first place.”

“I know.” She’d admitted as much during our
little meeting. “But no mortal can kill him. She’s the only one
with enough power.” Frankly I wasn’t sure that was true, but it was
the best I had.

A calm seemed to settle over the Marid.
“Very well. I shall help you capture him.”

“Good.” I nodded to the others. “We need to
surround the trees, hem him in.”

“Won’t he just flash out?” Trevor asked.

I fingered the gold key that was still in my
pocket. “I think I can prevent that. If only we could just surround
him without him knowing … ”

“I’ve got that covered,” the Marid
interrupted.

“Okay then,” I said. “Let’s go.”

***

I don’t know how the Marid did it, but one
second we were standing around hashing out our plan and the next we
were spread out in a circle around the copse of junipers. It made
Zip’s teleportation trick look like child’s play.

Now it was up to me.

I spread my hands out from my body, and
closed my eyes. Fire and Air weren’t going to help here. But there
was one thing at my disposal that might: Darkness.

It raised its head eagerly, like a hound
scenting blood. With a howl it shot out of my body and into the
trees, pulling me along with it.

My feet flew over the ground, my vision
tunnelling down to a pin prick. There was me and the Darkness, and
the wild around me. And in front of me the beating heart of
Alberich.

Unfortunately, he was waiting for me. With a
blast of pure power he knocked me off my feet. Breath whooshed from
my lungs and stars danced in my vision as he landed on top me, his
hands at my throat.

What was with people and strangling me
lately? I placed my palm against his chest and willed the Fire to
burn him, but nothing happened.

Alberich laughed. “What’s the matter,
Hunter? Fire won’t burn?” He leaned down, hissing his words in my
face. “You are not a true creature of Fire. You cannot burn me. Nor
are you a true creature of Air, so that won’t work, either.”

Once again I could feel myself fading. Even
the Darkness wouldn’t come. I gasped for air and thought I heard
the shriek of Inigo’s dragon. Where were they?

“They can’t come for you, Hunter. Did you
honestly think I didn’t know your plan? I allowed you in.” The
smile that creased his face was downright creepy. “I wanted to
play. Before I rip out your heart and send it to my sister.”

Why his sister would care if he ripped out
my heart was beyond me. Still, I kind of liked that particular
organ right where it was.

Oh, this was not good. Some instinct had my
fingers fumbling for the amulet around my neck. The amulet which
had once again grown incredibly hot against my skin. I yanked it
out from under my coat and slapped it against Alberich’s
throat.

He shrieked in pain as a blast of sapphire
light sent him tumbling across the small clearing. I was on him in
a flash, zip cuffs at the ready. I straddled him, yanking his arms
behind his back and slipping on the cuffs. The minute they were on,
his magic dissipated, allowing the others into the clearing.

Kabita stared down at Alberich struggling
against the cuffs. “We better get him to the Other World fast. I
don’t think those are going to hold him for long.”

“Kabita, you so owe me a pair of purple
Docs.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Whatever.”

Inigo and Trevor hauled the struggling sidhe
to his feet. It was the first time I got a good look at the Queen’s
twin brother.

Unlike the first time I’d seen him,
Alberich’s face didn’t permute, but kept a single incarnation.
Something that I had thought only the Queen could do. That
incarnation was breathtakingly beautiful. He had the same silver
eyes and shimmering blond hair of his sister. But unlike the Queen,
there was darkness in Alberich. And, dare I say, evil.

“You wanted back in the Fairy Realm,
Alberich. Consider your wish granted.” I started to reach into my
pocket for the key, but the Marid stopped me.

“I want to speak to him for a moment.”

The Marid’s hand on my arm was warm. Too
warm. I felt a little dizzy, and then my Air swirled out of me to
wrap around the Marid’s fist.

Before any of us could so much as blink, the
Marid punched Alberich in the chest. His fist crashed through skin
and muscle and bone like it was nothing. And when he pulled his
fist out of the gaping hole in Alberich’s chest, he held the
still-beating heart of the sidhe in his hand.

“For Zipporah,” the Marid declared, and then
swallowed the heart hole.

Alberich’s lifeless body crashed to the
ground, his words playing in my head.
You are not a true creature of fire. You
cannot burn me. Nor are you a true creature of Air, so that won’t
work, either.
The Marid was a creature of both, and an
immortal. He’d used my Air to bolster his own magic.

As we all stared down at the dead brother of
the most powerful Queen in existence I had a bad, bad feeling.

“The Queen is not going to like this.”

In fact, the Queen would be furious. She may
have hated her brother. She may have wanted to stop his plan, but
he was still her brother. And he’d been murdered at the hands of
the King of the Djinn. So not good.

“Holy hell.” Trevor sounded as shell-shocked
as I felt.

I was pretty sure we’d just witnessed the
start of a war.

***

I’d been to Nevada once before. The usual:
Gambling, drinking, male strippers. That had been back when I’d had
a normal life, with a normal job and normal friends who had normal
bachelorette parties.

This particular trip was anything but
normal. I slid a sideways glance at Trevor in the driver’s seat,
his eyes shaded by mirrored sunglasses.

“Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t
have to, you know,” he assured me for about the hundredth time.

“I know.”

We passed through the gate in the cyclone
fence and continued on our way, the car kicking up a cloud of dust
behind us. I was trying really hard not to think about why I was
there. Trying to figure out the inner workings of a crazy person’s
brain was enough to drive me loony.

The past few weeks had passed in one big
long stretch of tension. So far, the Fairy Queen hadn’t declared
war on the djinn, but I was worried it was only a matter of time.
Yes, the Marid had killed Alberich to avenge Zip. Yes, Alberich was
nuts, not to mention evil. Still, the sidhe were a law unto
themselves, and I doubted the Queen saw it quite as logically as I
did.

What worried me even more was she wasn’t
taking my calls. Or, rather, the key she’d given me no longer
seemed to work. Not a good sign.

Not only did I already owe her a favor for
saving my life, I now owed her for getting her brother killed.
Shit.

On top of that, we still didn’t know who’d
ordered the hit on me, or why. It certainly hadn’t been Alberich.
It had been much too cold and calculated for him.

The good news was that the junky kid, Mikey,
had kept his promise and rung the number on the card I’d given him.
There was hope for him yet.

Trevor pulled up to the second checkpoint
and handed over his government ID and my passport. The young
soldier waved us through to the grim concrete buildings beyond.

“Welcome to Area 51.” Trevor flashed me a
grin.

“I can’t believe I’m actually here.” It was
a little disappointing, to be honest. I’d imagined … I don’t know
what. Alien space ships, maybe? “It’s all so … normal.” Or as
normal as a military base ever got.

“What did you expect? Little green men?”
Trevor laughed.

“Oh, excuse me. It’s okay to believe in
demons and vampires, but not aliens?”

“We’ve got enough crazy on this earth
without worrying about crazies from other planets.”

He made an excellent point.

About an hour later we were finally sitting
across from the reason we were there: Jade Vincent. Former dragon
Hunter and full time crazy person. Also, Alister Jones’s secret
weapon. And she wanted to talk.

Orange wasn’t her color. Or maybe it was the
lighting. She looked washed out and skinnier than I remembered,
though her hair was still the same defiantly spiky, platinum
blond.

“Okay, Dara. We’re here.” Dara Boyd was her
real name, after all. I hoped it would remind her of who she was
before she became a Hunter.

She didn’t so much as move a muscle.

I sighed. “Fine. Jade. You wanted to speak
to me. Speak.”

“I have something for you.”

I blinked. “For me?”

She took a crumpled envelope from inside her
jumper and slid it across the table. The expression on her face
could only be described as mocking.

I glanced down at the envelope and my heart
stopped. I recognized the crest. It was the crest of the Jones
family. I’d seen it in Alister’s office back in England.

“How did you get this?”

She ignored me. Instead she crossed her arms
over her chest and leaned back in her chair, the chains around her
wrists clanking. I knew without a doubt she wasn’t going to answer
me or anyone else.

Trevor nodded to the guards who grabbed Jade
and hauled her back down the hall, presumably to her cage. Frankly,
I hoped she’d rot there.

“What’s in the envelope?”

I stared down at the thing lying on the
table like it might bite me. Slowly, I opened the flap and pulled
out a single piece of vellum. Scrawled across the creamy sheet was
a single line of unfamiliar handwriting:

Tick tock, little Hunter.

###

“Approaching Omicron 5, Captain.”

“The Chancellor knows we’re here?”

“He has been notified and sends his
greetings for a Happy Solstice. We are allowed free rein as long as
we …” Audley shot a hesitant glance at the Captain.

The Captain’s eyebrow inched toward her
hairline. Her expression spoke volumes. None of them good. “As long
as we what?”

Audley swallowed back a laugh, hiding his
smile behind a fall of dreadlocks. Somebody was about to get his,
or her, ass handed to them. “As long as we’re subtle, sir.”

A slow grin spread across the Captain’s
face. “Oh, I’m always subtle, Audley.”

* * *

The spaceport on O5 was pretty much like any
other planet-side spaceport outside the home galaxy. A couple of
landing pads sat in the middle of a dust-bowl of a plain, a shanty
town sprung up around them.

Captain Zala Lei had spent more than her
fair share of time in such places over the last few years. Figured
she’d been spending this year’s Solstice in another.

A hawker with half-rotted teeth shoved some
kind of dead carcass at her. “Turk-bird for the lady’s Solstice
table?”

Her nose wrinkled. “Get that thing out of my
face.” She kept her voice calm, but with a thread of steel
underneath. Starship Captains didn’t snarl like hawkers’ wives.
They glowered and made idiots mess their pants with the sheer power
of their voices.

Obviously the hawker hadn’t gotten the memo.
The stench of his breath wafted straight up Zala’s nose as he
leaned in just a little too friendly-like. “I’m sure the lady’s
husband would be pleased if she brought home such a feast for his
pleasure.”