The Better Part of Darkness (16 page)

“Any time now!” I barked at my partner, jamming the heel of my pump into Len’s shin and then dragging it down. He growled, grabbed my hair, and then jerked my head up. Pain flashed across my entire scalp, making my eyes water.

“These are second-rate, man,” Hank said to Len, examining one of the spell vials.

“Hank!” It was one thing to know your partner had complete confidence in your fighting abilities … But after I got through with Len, I was going to beat Hank senseless with one of my sister’s black pumps.

He shook one of the vials and then said, “Duck.”

The small glass tube came hurtling toward us. I barely had time to relax my body and drop through Len’s arms, despite the fact that he still had a nice chunk of my hair clenched in his fist. As I dropped, I grabbed the chunk to alleviate some of the pain even as hair began to pull from my scalp.

He let go as the vial broke against the side of his smooth, gray head, engulfing us in a cloud of muddy green stench.

Immediately, I held my breath, glad my arms were over my head, shielding me somewhat from the chain reaction above me. If I didn’t breathe it in, I was okay. Len stiffened for a count of three, then tipped over like a dead tree in the forest. Coughing from the thick scent of something acrid and tangy, I crawled out from under the small mushroom cloud. Whatever it was, it burned the insides of my nose and throat raw.

I grabbed on to Hank’s leg and pulled up, my fingers digging as hard as they could into his knee, thigh, and then arm.

He was
laughing
. Not out loud, but with his eyes. And to me, that was the same thing.

When I straightened and regained my balance, I shoved him hard. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I coughed again, hacking loudly and trying to get the taste out of my mouth. “Idiot! You could have shot him!”

“Yeah, I know,” Hank sighed, chuckling softly.

“I know you’re Mister Invincible and everything, but could you
try
to take things seriously once in a while?” I eyed him with a glare of disbelief. “You’re so annoying. Don’t even talk to me. You almost hit me with that friggin’ vial. You have no idea how lucky you are right now.”

Blue eyes glittered back at me. He tried to put on a serious face. What the hell was so damn funny? I turned to study Len, and didn’t see anything amusing about his unconscious form. I whirled back to Hank. “What the hell was in that potion?”

“It was an attraction spell. To lure a jinn female.” He rubbed his chin, studying Len. “Don’t think you’re supposed to use the entire bottle though.”

“Ya think?”

I massaged my closed eyelids, trying to ease the stinging aftereffects of the spell shower. “Come on, let’s get him into the back or else we’re gonna have the entire female jinn population sniffing him out in no time.”

“That guy’s not going anywhere near my car.” Hank made an offended face. “Neither one of you.”

I bent down and grabbed one of Len’s ankles, but not before shooting Hank a dark look. “Payback will come, my friend. When you least expect it.”

“Hey, all I did was save your ass.”

“Uh-huh. Help me get him into the SUV.”

It took Hank and me a good fifteen minutes to drag the two-hundred-fifty-pound jinn to the back of the SUV, pick him up, and deposit him into the back. I’d have to drive with the windows down all the way to Underground.

Despite the old-fashioned-style streetlamps that burned twenty-four hours a day, the light on Solomon Street was murky at best, the perfect environment for crooks and convicts. Old Savannah bricks paved the street. Peddlers occupied alleyways. Butcher shops, inns, bars, herberies, magic shops, and strip clubs practically spilled onto the sidewalk. Doors stayed open. Inventory was piled against walls and storefronts. Small carts had permanent spaces on curbs. Open fires burned in barrels, making the air steamier than normal. This was the Charbydon quarter, and while they could tolerate the sunlight, they liked things crowded, hot, and dark.

Despite the atmosphere, there was a modicum of safety here during the day. The true danger lurked in the back rooms, alleys, and late nights. But for me, daytime or not, the danger was very real with a debt hanging over my head.

The farther we went down Solomon Street, the more attention we attracted. Business owners and patrons came out of storefronts to watch our procession. There was no way to hide the artificial pheromones Len cast off. Every jinn female stopped and sniffed the air as we passed by. In the darkness, their rapt violet eyes glowed eerily, lit from within.

No one stopped us. There was no need. From the moment we stepped onto Solomon Street, Grigori Tennin had known. I cast a glance over my shoulder, and wasn’t surprised to see the hulking silhouettes of four jinn warriors following behind us, spanning the breadth of the street, their dark forms passing in and out of shadow and the orange glare of open fires. There was no turning back now.

Tennin’s home and business encompassed the long stretch of buildings at the dead end of the street. A sleazy strip club, bar, and gambling establishment called the Lion’s Den was the tribe’s base of operations. The bar and strip club covered the first floor. The upper level housed the gambling parlor. The tribe, however, lived in the earth.

Underneath Solomon Street, the jinn had excavated a vast network of tunnels and chambers.

Bulky ironwork framed the rough-planked front door, the coarse handle warm to my touch as I opened the heavy door. The heat had become oppressive. Sweat beaded my brow and lower back. I stood back, allowing Hank to cross the threshold. He wasn’t immune to the heat either, or the strain of carrying two hundred plus pounds of jinn warrior. Sweat dampened his shirt and face and darkened his blond hair.

Once inside, the first thing to hit me was the smell; of earth, wood-smoke, and tar. It was like we had just descended into a deep cave near an active volcano.

The bar was doing steady business. A darkling fae—a sidhé fae would never be caught dead in a place like this—danced onstage to an old seductive jazz tune I couldn’t name. She was topless and wore only knee-high red boots and a sequined red thong. While her reed-like luminescent body writhed to the music, her face was passionless and void. She danced on autopilot, her slanted eyes open but glazed over and never really focusing on anyone or anything.

A jinn worked behind the bar. The tables were waited on by two jinn females. They were muscular and just as menacing as the males. Except for their gray skin, they reminded me of Amazon warriors with their long black braids and sinewy forms. The rest of the patrons were jinn, ghouls, imps, goblins, and one or two humans thrown in.

As soon as Hank deposited the spell-drunk Len on the wooden floor, the two jinn females swung their heads in our direction and stilled completely, trays in hand, and eyed us with a hunger that bordered on violence.

A bouncer came forward just as our escorts entered behind us. We were surrounded.

Like a domino effect, each being realized who I was. The fae backed off the stage as tension and the unmistakable scent of bloodlust added its mix to the thick earthy air.

“Tell Grigori Tennin we’re here,” I said, surprised that my voice came out steady.

The bouncer curled his lip and prepared to either spit at me or curse me, but before he could do either, I grabbed his wrist, whirled behind him, and brought his arm to his back, wrenching it as high and hard as I could and bending three of his fingers back at an unnatural angle. I might have been smaller and lighter, but I could bring any male to his knees. And this one hit the floor hard. I shoved my knee against the back of his neck, holding him down. He growled. Chairs scraped across the floor. Weapons were drawn and my heart pounded with adrenaline.

No one moved.

Hank had moved beside me, Nitro-gun drawn.

A door along the back wall creaked and my eye moved off the bartender with his shotgun propped on the bar, aimed at my chest.

A female walked through, tall and unusual looking with large, slanted eyes, a wide mouth, and high cheekbones. Her skin was the color of muted silver, without the shine, and without a single blemish. A hybrid. A rare and prized commodity in the jinn world—the only place one like her was accepted in society. Aboveground she would have experienced discrimination from almost every off-world quarter imaginable. A sad, but true, fact of life. It wasn’t fair, by any means.

She walked with slow, fluid steps, her lithe body accentuated by a dark gray jersey dress that ended at the knee and black knee-high boots that added four inches to an already tall frame. While the dress covered her from neck to wrists to knee, it molded to her body and was more provocative than the naked stripper on stage.

As she drew closer, I saw she had the most incredible eyes: violet and indigo blue, a mix I’d never seen on human or off-worlder. They were framed by thick lashes and long, heavy snow-white hair parted in the middle and swept back into a spiky pile at the base of her neck. She was striking, and I found myself staring despite the things I’d seen in my lifetime. I snuck a quick glance at Hank, hoping it wasn’t just me. He had the same fascinated reaction.

In fact, everyone had the same reaction, and I got the feeling they knew her but didn’t get to see her nearly as much as they would’ve liked.

She didn’t seem to care about the weapons or the state of near-war in the bar. Her gaze was fixed on me, and she seemed to find the whole thing rather dull. She halted in front of us, taller than me, but only because of the high-heeled boots. Her eyes flicked to Hank and then back to me as her nostrils flared slightly, sampling the air around me. Her eyelids drifted closed for a second. “Hmm,” she barely breathed. A cold hand closed lightly over mine, and I released my hold on the bouncer as though in a trance.

She leaned in closer as though breathing me in. The invasion of my personal space should’ve alarmed me, but I didn’t care. My pulse leapt, and I had to force my eyelids to remain open as she leaned toward the left side of my face and neck. A shiver pricked my skin. The scent of pine and earth and something more feminine surrounded her, a faint aroma of fresh mint mixed with something else. Lavender, perhaps. Her soft chuckle stirred my hair.

“Grigori will see you,” she said in a deep, smoky tone, straightening back up and then walking back to the side door.

Hank shot me a quick questioning look as we moved forward. I shrugged, not understanding what had just happened any more than he did. The hybrid didn’t bother waiting for us to catch up.

I resisted the urge to fix my hair and smooth the skirt and torn sweater set. Instead of looking like a tough-as-nails officer, I was going into Grigori Tennin’s lair looking like some deranged secretary. Figured. I was going to make an impression, all right, just not the one I would have liked.

The hybrid led us down a long flight of creaking wooden stairs. The air became wetter and substantially thicker with the smell of warm dirt and stone. The walls had been left bare. Massive wooden beams held up doorways and supported the ceiling in places. Ditches lined either side of the walkway to hold water and condensation that collected on the walls. We passed rooms open to view, fire pits dug into the centers and the ceilings outfitted with a fan-driven ventilation system to draw out the smoke.

I’d heard about this place for years, but this was a moment I never thought I’d see.
It may be the last thing you see,
I thought.

“Hey.” Hank’s hand nudged my shoulder. “On the left.”

I followed his gaze and saw a room occupied by male and female jinn. A few were seated at a large table with piles of flower blossoms spread across the surface. The flowers were easily the size of a man’s hand with snow-white petals and the most riveting center I’d ever seen; each one glowed like moonlight and was ringed by a jagged ribbon of red that leaked down the center of each petal like bloody spikes. Jinn females were removing the petals and tossing the centers into a large pot placed over the fire.

The corridor was filled with the scent of honeysuckle.

Ash
. It had to be.

The hybrid led us into a vast chamber with torches burning along the walls and a great fire pit in the center. Jinn lurked together in dark corners, sitting around the fire and at tables. All eyes lifted at our procession. This was the largest gathering of females I’d ever seen, and they were all fixated on me. At first I thought it was Hank, but after meeting a few of those disturbing stares, I knew it was me they’d latched on to, and the realization was unsettling.

At the end of the chamber sat an enormous wooden table. Grigori Tennin occupied one long side, facing us.

He was bigger, darker, and meaner-looking than any other jinn around. Colossal shoulders filled the back of an ornately carved chair. He wore a black T-shirt, which had to be XXXL, but it was pulled taut over beefy muscles. He had the thickest neck I’d ever seen. His back was to the wall and on either side of him, standing like sentinels ready to defend, were two jinn females decked in war regalia. Their arms were folded across their chests and their intense regard missed nothing. Their nostrils flared ever so slightly as I approached.

We stopped, as the hybrid walked to the short side of the table and slid into the only empty chair. Grigori didn’t look up; too busy cutting a plate-sized steak with a serrated dagger. A goblet of red wine sat next to the pewter plate. He stuck a piece of meat into his mouth and then grabbed the goblet, the rings on his large fingers flashing in the firelight.

His wide jaw flexed like a pit bull’s as he chewed. After he swallowed and drank deeply from the goblet, he relaxed against the back of the chair and wiped his mouth. I hadn’t come all this way to watch the man eat his dinner and made a move to say so, but Hank’s hand on my arm stopped me.

Finally, Grigori turned his attention to us, a faint violet gleam lighting the depths of sharp, calculating eyes.

“I ask myself,” he began in a deep, accented baritone, which seemed to have an echo all its own, “how is this … Detective Madigan, a female who killed two of
my
warriors, going to come out of this visit with her head still attached to her scrawny human body?”

The hybrid’s mouth quirked. “You can give her to the females. She reeks of sex. Even I can smell it on her.”

My head whipped to Hank as heat shot to my face. Seriously. I was going to murder him. Apparently the spell worked on other species as well. Len wasn’t the only one capable of attracting the entire female jinn population. No wonder they were following my every move with such intensity. It was lust. And it was all over me.

Grigori leaned to the side and smoothed a dark thumb down the hybrid’s cheek, but his attention remained fixated on me. “Sian is my daughter. My only heir. She is unique, you see, prized, for human and jinn blood rarely mix. But look at the beauty it creates, beauty the rest of the world shuns.” Suddenly his hand went to her throat, and he squeezed hard, practically pulling her onto the table. Her eyes bulged and began to water. Grigori’s gaze burned into mine and took on a fervent glow. “But even she is subject to the laws of the tribe. Don’t think I wouldn’t strike her down.”

He shoved her back into the chair. My heart raced as she coughed and quietly tried to overcome near strangulation by her own father. I’d gotten what I came for—evidence that the jinn were manufacturing
ash
. Now I just needed to figure out the connection to the CPP, and get the jinn off my back long enough to get out of here alive and then gather the troops to put a stop to their entire operation.

“This isn’t Charbydon,” Hank spoke up, his voice coated with steel. “Here you’re subject to human law.”

The jinn in the chamber nervously mimicked their leader’s rumbling chuckle. Grigori eyed Hank beneath hooded lids. Hank’s air of confidence never wavered. Grigori leaned forward and plucked his wine goblet off the table, swirling the liquid inside. “Why come here, Detectives?”

“Ash.”
I figured I might as well push this as far as I could. “You’re manufacturing it for the CPP.”

He slapped one beefy hand on the table and threw back his head. The deep laughter sent chills down my spine. No one else dared laugh with him. When he was done, he leaned forward and grinned like Satan himself. “So?”

“You’re not above the law.”

He sat back and threw his arms wide. “Look around you. I
am
the law. My
word
is law.” He paused. “You coming here … It amuses me. I assume you want to make payment or bargain?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

Blood pounded through my temples. I swallowed. “Do you take Visa?”