Stone Chameleon (Ironhill Jinn #1) (19 page)

A cool breeze swept over me. When I found the energy to raise my cheek from the ground, I discovered I lay on damp grass in a wide open space I recognized as Colony Park in the center of Ironhill. The sweet scent of dew and summer wildflowers filled my nose, at which point I realized it was no longer broken.

Had the ceremony healed me? My fingers brushed against something cold. I groped in the dark and found one of my elven blades and my katana, both in their sheaths. Beside me lay a groggy Amun, who pressed dirty palms over his eyes. Nice of the hive lord to leave us some place useful, like my apartment.

I shook off my internal hissy fit. We were alive, and we were free.

Three days.
The number repeated in my head like an ominous baseline in a horror film. I nudged Amun with my foot. “We need to go.”

“
T
his is a bad idea.” Amun paid the driver—who’d been staring at us as if we were zombies raised from the dead because of our filthy bodies—and climbed out of the cab after me. I’d have protested if I’d had a stitch of cash on me, but Isaac hadn’t seen fit to return my wallet, nor anything else other than the two weapons.

“You’ve said that already.” I stared at Rhoda’s shop, wondering how badly the water had damaged it. I had a silly thought that I liked my apartment and didn’t want her to be cross with me, before I remembered I could be dead in three days and she’d be renting it to someone else, anyway. Perspective was a sobering bitch.

Beyond the parking lot, the cotton candy light of pre-dawn backlit the cityscape. It took a moment for me to avert my mind from the beautiful picture back to the dilemma. “I’m not going to your house without my clothes or the rest of my weapons, and not without Benny.”

The cab drove away, and Amun stood beside me. “Benny?”

“Yes, Benny.” I opened the door and mounted the first stair. It seemed a mile to the top, but I forced my feet to move one at a time.

“Look at you, you’re hurt. I need to get you to the hospital.”

“Although it’s hard to believe, Isaac healed my injuries during that bizarre ritual. I just need a hot shower to wash away this terrible night, along with a few hours’ sleep, and I’ll be right as rain again.”

Amun ascended behind me, his steps echoing mine. “Shower at my place. If the woman was here, then it isn’t safe.”

“Is there any place or time in this world that’s truly safe for people like us?” My voice lacked emotion, but it waited to erupt behind my exhaustion. I stopped at my door, remembering the vampire hadn’t returned my keys, either. Splendid. “This is my home. I refuse to feel afraid in my own home.”

Another thought smashed me in the ribcage. “Someone told Mum I was dead, a woman.” That would explain how she’d appeared in the bathroom—the woman had probably dripped out of the bloody faucet. She could go anywhere from the city’s water supply completely undetected.

“I’ll arrange for some security for Mayvern until this is over.” My self-appointed keeper stopped a few steps down.

I considered driving there myself, but I couldn’t put all hope that the water witch would show up there again. “That would be kind of you. We can work a repayment schedule when this is over.”

Silence stretched on before he spoke again, each of his words underscored with certainty. “I won’t let him hurt you, Baylou. I swear it on my life.”

I laughed because I needed something to chase away the sting in my eyes. “You’ve already sworn it, haven’t you? And now if I don’t figure this out, your life is forfeit right alongside mine. What a stupid thing for you to do.” I twisted the knob and found it unlocked, so I elbowed the door open.

There wasn’t a speck of water on the tile. My gaze swept the room as I wandered in farther. The apartment sparkled even more than usual. My pictures and rock collection were dusted and tastefully arranged on the shelves beside the window. The TV screen gleamed. Not a crumb marred the shine on the countertop in the kitchen, even around my full bread box. I shed my muddy shoes and left them on the mat.

“Where’s all the water?” Amun moved ahead of me. “And what’s that humming?”

I hadn’t heard it until he mentioned it. “Not sure. Benny?” His squeaking came from the bedroom. I rushed through the door, my feet squishing into damp carpet. Two large fans swirled air around the room, and an industrial sized wet/dry vacuum that wasn’t mine sat in the corner. Someone had made my bed.

“Who did this?” Amun inspected one of the fans. “It couldn’t have been Isaac.”

“He must have hired someone to do it, and I’ll be getting a bill in the mail.” How would he have gotten someone in so quickly? He’d only discovered the issue a few hours ago.

My little friend emerged from his plastic enclosure the vampire must have moved up to the bed, cooing at me and raising his face up enough to look at me from beneath his fringe. The sight of him eased my heart a little.

“I need to call Harper and make sure she hasn’t done something rash, like have one of her relatives locate the hive and is preparing to storm in after me with every gun she owns.” I scooped up the cordless from my bedside table and dialed her number.

“Lou?” Harper’s harried voice squealed out of the handset. “Tell me that’s you. God, please tell me it’s really you.”

“I’m here.” A painful lump formed around my voice box. “I don’t have a lot of time to talk, but I wanted to let you know Isaac released me for the time being, so you wouldn’t worry.”

Enough curses to make a biker blush filled my ear. “He’s going to pay for this, Lou. I swear I’ll pop his arse myself.”

“You’ll do no such thing. This isn’t entirely his fault. It’s far more complicated than that, coming down from the chain of command.”

“But…are you saying the council ordered it? How did you get out, then?” She cleared her throat, and although she’d taken the phone away from her mouth, I heard her sniffling. “He was so mad when he got to the pool that night he almost tagged you right there and then.”

I thought about the moments I’d seen past his armor. When he’d touched Marina. When he’d spoken of Daniel. When he held me in his arms as if I was precious. I didn’t think Isaac would have appreciated me sharing that, so I kept my mouth shut. Why I felt the need to defend him at all eluded me.

“Mr. Bassili has arranged for my release. I have three days to find the water witch. Three days until the trial, where either I produce the villain or die.”

“I’m coming over right now.” Her voice cracked with emotion.

“No, you aren’t.”

“You can’t stop me. You can’t keep me out of this, I won’t let you. You’re my friend, dammit.”

“I forbid it. Dominic’s dead because of me, and my heart is broken. Do you have any idea what it would do to me if I lost you, too?” A tear went for a lazy stroll down my cheek.

Snuffling preceded a heavy breath. “Kiss my lily-white arse, Lou. I’m coming, and that’s final.” The dial tone rang in my ear.

The barrier that had separated me from my grief crumbled. “I need to be alone.” I clutched the phone to my chest.

“You can’t ask me to do that.” The sympathy emanating from Amun’s gaze weakened my control even more. “I swore not to let you out of my sight.”

I swiped away more tears, once again shaking with the effort needed to push my swelling energy into the bowels of my soul. “For pity sake, give me a moment!”

He opened his mouth and edged forward, though only nodded, exited, and shut the door behind him.

I collapsed on the bed, curled around Benny. As I trembled and fought with the sobs that wanted to escape, he remained still in my arms. His little piggy sounds lent comfort to me.

I’m so sorry, Dominic.
Why did he have to die like that, in terror and what had to be excruciating pain? He’d said he was sorry, that I shouldn’t have come. Had she told him what she planned for me? Remembering the look in his eyes, I thought maybe he knew he was about to die and me along with him.

There had to be a tie between her hatred of me and of Isaac. Or maybe she’d chosen him because of his nature, knowing he wouldn’t have an issue with destroying me if she gave him cause. If she wanted me dead that badly, why wouldn’t she have killed me herself right from the start?

When I’d calmed enough I no longer feared going nuclear, I patted Benny and climbed off the bed. The itch of my dirty hair and the flaking filth on my body sent me toward the bathroom, where I didn’t imagine there’d be enough soap in the entire world to make me clean again. I entered the living room and found Amun sitting on my sofa, looking as bleary-eyed as I felt.

“I’m sorry,” he said, struggling to meet my gaze. “I know you’re not a helpless little girl who needs a rescuer. You must understand the need I feel to protect you, all jinn, especially the females. It’s as strong as my own survival instinct, maybe stronger.”

All ability to see reason had abandoned me at some point, it seemed, because his admission ignited rage in me. “So that’s why you’ve been stalking me all these years? Because you feel some inexplicable duty to protect me because I’m jinn and a woman? I knew you couldn’t feel any…”

What? I’d have said attraction, but I didn’t want him to know it stung that he didn’t see me as a potential lover, but as a charge he needed to look after. “I can’t talk to you right now. I need to wash, to get clean of this.”

“Wait.” He jumped to his feet, blocking my path. “That’s not what I meant at all. I’m here because I want to be, because you’re fascinating and beautiful and worth three of my lives combined.”

“Don’t be absurd,” I said, meeting his stare with a hard one of my own. “Tell me, what if I wasn’t jinn? What if I was just some woman who lived over an antique shop and hunted monsters?”

His hesitation spoke volumes. “I’d still care for you, still enjoy your company. I’d still want to be with you.”

“But you wouldn’t have come to the hive and signed away your life for me.” At his deer-in-the-headlights expression, I added, “Thank you for not denying it. At least, after all the times I’ve wondered, I finally understand what I am to you now. Thank you for giving me a chance to survive, and for helping protect Mum, for whatever reason you did it.” I skirted by him, went into the bathroom, and shut the door.

A fiery coal settled in where my heart should have been. Why had it surprised me that his affection had nothing to do with me, only my ancestry? I’d always suspected motives other than his desire to know me. I hardly knew the man; his admission shouldn’t have hurt so much. After our dinner together, did I have some peculiar notion he’d fall in love with me, and my solitary life would come to an end? Ridiculous.

Overwhelmed with more pressing matters, I filled the tub with scalding water, undressed, and settled in to scrub my skin free of Dominic and Marina’s deaths.

Washed and dried, but still feeling unclean, I wrapped a large towel around myself and headed for my bedroom.

Amun had resumed his position on the sofa, his face in his hands. “You’re not being fair, you know.”

I stopped, but continued looking toward my room. “How so?”

“You haven’t given me a chance to know you yet. All I know for certain is that you’re jinn. If you’d given me the time of day even once, let me in past this standoffish way you have about you, I’m sure my answer to your question would have been yes immediately.”

Through my sopping hair, I glanced at him. “Fine, I’ll accept the blame for this, too.”

He recoiled as if I’d slapped him. “Why do you keep twisting my words?”

“It doesn’t matter. I have work to do.” I rushed into my bedroom, knowing I’d been unfair. The truth often hurt more than anything else, especially when said truth showed me a less favorable side of myself. I hadn’t let him know me because I’d been afraid of living a lie and continued to push him away because I might be dead in three days and he’d be a slave to the hive. Better to keep our distance, for both our sakes.

With my back to the full-length mirror, I craned my head around to inspect the mark between my shoulder blades. The snake dragon emblem had been burned onto my skin below my nape, raised and sore, aglow with an angry red. For as long as I lived—however short or long a time that might be—I’d bear the brand of Isaac’s ownership. Whatever magic existed in his blood ran through mine unchecked.

No matter where I went, he could simply stretch out a thought and summon me to his side, or touch me through his metaphysical tether and find me with ease. I snatched my brush and drew it through my hair with harsh strokes to cover the cursed thing.

Dressed in black jeans and a white and black striped T-shirt, I collected the final sample of the water I’d taken from the stairs and returned to the living room. “Harper will be here any second. We need to go to...” I stopped, realizing I was talking to an empty sofa.

A clanking noise drew my attention to the kitchen, where Amun moved a fork around a pan on the range. He must have washed, his face and arms clean and pink, as if he’d scrubbed them hard. I wasn’t the only one feeling unclean.

“Where?” The way he stopped and winced mid-turn, I wondered if he’d felt his mark when his back muscles bunched the way I noticed mine.