Stone Chameleon (Ironhill Jinn #1) (26 page)

How had my simple life turned into a train wreck? I tried to be a good person. What had I done to bring the sword of fate down on my head? Perhaps being born jinn had been enough, and that’s what Mum meant when she said my father had gotten what he deserved. Perhaps I deserved my fate, like my father before me, without ever having done anything extraordinarily wrong.

I didn’t know what the rest of the ritual to claim Amun’s life as my own included, but I wouldn’t do it. Not and remain who I was, who I wanted to be. Part of me wanted it, the jinn part, I had to believe, whether or not it was true. I wanted him to want me and no one else. I wanted every other woman to look at him and know he was mine. Even if I knew him better, trusted him and loved him with every part of myself, I still wouldn’t take away his free will. It went against everything I stood for.

* * *

Screeching broke me out of a deep slumber. Darkness dominated the landscape beyond the window. Another squeal from the glass made my teeth ache, and another sound, like wood shifting against wood, came after.

I climbed off a strange bed, taking a moment to orient myself in Amun’s spare room. The clock on the night stand read 1:15 am. Was it the water jinn trying to get in? I edged closer to the half-open window, squinting at whatever waited beyond the glass, but found only trees aglow with filtered moonlight. The sheer curtains billowed inward with the breeze, ghostly apparitions that reached out to touch me. My heart knocked a troubled tune against my ribs.

“Is someone there?” I whispered so as not to rouse Amun. After the way I’d left him, I wasn’t eager to face him again until I had to.

“It’s about time.” Isaac stepped into view on the outside of the window and slid his claws along the glass.

My hand deadened most of my yelp.

I hadn’t found a good night’s sleep in days, it had taken me hours to drift off, and the blasted vampire lord wakes me up? I wondered if he could invade my head undetected with whatever he’d done to me, but that theory seemed unlikely, or he’d have knocked on the inside of my skull instead of the window.

“I might have thought you were dead if not for the snoring.” He grinned at me as if we were great friends, and I wasn’t fighting for my life.

“What do you want?” My tone left no question as to how annoyed I was.

His smile deflated. “You’ve found her, then?”

I nodded, wondering how he knew, but I had no strength to decipher his cryptic musings at the moment. “Her name is Celeste. We found and confronted her at the aquarium, where she killed one of her own and left another for dead. That one’s unconscious at the reservation, and I plan to question her tomorrow.”

“This Celeste…” Isaac tilted his head as he always did when scrutinizing me. “What is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Lies.”

“I don’t have the energy to argue with you right now.” I shivered in the damp air filtering in through the window, cursing my pulse for giving me away.

Something glinted in his palm. He spun the object in his fingers, intent on it. My thinking rock, the black ebony I always kept in my pocket. He must have found it at the pool after my fight with Celeste. “Tell me why you cherish this.”

We were going to indulge in small talk, apparently. “I collect rocks. It’s smooth and pretty. Why do you care?”

His golden spark eyes rolled up to gaze at me. “You’re a terrible liar, lass.”

I shrugged, hugging myself tighter. Denying it would only add a third deception onto my pile. “Then you should have known right from the start I wasn’t murdering your people.”

“Who says I didn’t?” That infernal smile again.

I wanted to smack it off him. “Give it back.” I held out my hand for the stone, moving as close as I dared to the window.

“Lou is an unusual name for a woman. What is it short for? Marylou? Luanne? Lucinda? Louise?” Fingers curled over the sill, he leaned closer. I hadn’t seen him put away my rock, but he no longer held it in his hands.

Marvelous, he intended to ignore me. Two could play at that game.

“In case you’ve forgotten, it’s the middle of the night for most of us breathers. Is there something you wanted other than to ask me pointless questions?”

For a long while he went still. Had he felt my slip of power at the hive? Did he suspect what I was? No, he’d have taken my mind by force if he did, and I’d have been taken before the council.

I squirmed under his continued scrutiny. “I’d like to go back to bed, so if you have something to say, now would be a good time.”

He pulled my cell phone from his sporran, all traces of amusement gone. “Detective Peterson tried to reach you and got me.”

Mercy. If he’d called in the middle of the night, given everything that had being going on with me, chaos had broken out in Ironhill. “How does he know you let me go? And why did you keep my phone?”

I reached through the window for it, but Isaac stepped out of my range. “I grew tired of him cursing at me, so I told him I released you. He was rather upset you didn’t call and tell him yourself.”

I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me that Gerry had worried about me, but it did. “When did he call? Have you approved the autopsy?”

“No.” It was more the growl of a beast than a human word.

“And you call me stubborn. Why ever not? Are you trying to make this harder for me?”

“Doona be absurd.”

“Arg, you are infuriating. What’s happened, then? What did Gerry want?”

The low light didn’t obscure the tips of Isaac’s fangs from showing below his upper lip. “Tell me, can you think of a reason why every ground-dwelling creature within the city limits would have stampeded into my district and begun to wreak havoc there?”

Bloody hell. “It would seem Celeste is having a temper tantrum.”

I
stood in the middle of Rouge Avenue, just over the border into what most of Ironhill’s citizens referred to as Fangtown. Although most preternatural species who didn’t have their own realm did their best to spread out amongst the humans population, the vampires clustered together. The hive lord would buy property in one area where they lived and set up businesses that served only those of the undead persuasion. It bothered me to no end. They called for more acceptance than they gave in return.

A ten-foot-wide plated scorpion—a known pet of the haven—spun in circles farther down the street, its spiked tail smashing against store windows in confusion. Glass tinkled against the pavement, glinting with reflections from the overhead lamps like a grand mosaic.

Beyond it, a blind rat hound bayed at a banshee curled around a lamp post like a tattered flag. Fire sprayed up from something on the east side of the district, likely from one of the dragon bats that nested in the subway tunnels that were mostly unused on this side of the city.

Just what I needed to be doing in the middle of my hunt for Celeste. That was her point, I supposed. How had she done it? Flooded the subway system? Yes, that would have worked. Most of the creatures within my visual reference didn’t care for water.

“Never seen anythin’ like this,” Blake said, gripping a rifle with both hands. His light hair stood every which way, as if he’d gone straight from bed into the car. The lipstick smeared across his cheek suggested he hadn’t been alone. “And I’m some kinda glad you’re here, Lou, or we’d have been screwed eight ways from Sunday.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that if Isaac had killed me like he was supposed to, we wouldn’t have been neck deep in a deadly round-up.

“This speaks of frenzy.” Rudy tapped his gnarled wooden staff against the street in a nervous gesture. “Like fish rising to the surface to evade a predator.”

Unlike Blake, he had no hair to mess up and appeared as sleek and polished as he always did. The four-foot-nothing male wore his usual black robe. Before Rudy, I’d never met an umikan. Typically forest dwellers, they were a timid race, rich with animal magic, though it only worked on the non-preternatural sort.

He was the real-life version of the pied piper, a wonderful skill for ridding buildings of lice or cockroaches. Both of which frightened him down to the bone.

His large yellow eyes blinked up at me. If insects scared him, I couldn’t imagine what havoc the sight before us caused him. “What is it you said did this?”

Not who, but what. For the first time, that distinction stung me. By that same thinking I was also a “what”, not a “who”.

“I haven’t said, but since you asked, I don’t know yet. She can control and become water, and she’s not very happy with me right now.” I feigned interest in the chaos down the street to hide the lie on my face.

Amun grunted behind me. “We don’t have time for this. You know this is a distraction, and this is Isaac’s territory. Let him clean up the mess.”

“You know I can’t do that. Nobody else has my knowledge of these creatures, and regular police aren’t even allowed here. These beings are just scared.” And it was my fault they’d been displaced, but I left that unsaid. “If I can stop them from hurting the vampires and being destroyed themselves, I will, no matter the risk to life and limb.”

“And Celeste knows it. You’re giving her what she wants.”

I glared at him over my shoulder, annoyed he appeared as polished as always when I felt disheveled. “I won’t stop being who I am because it’s inconvenient. I’ll clean up her mess and then deal with her, now stop pouting and help me, or go back home.”

How much of his angst had to do with my refusal to finish my claim on him, and how much had to do with whatever he and Isaac had fought about outside before we left? The two of them had locked themselves in my car until they were done. A mighty dent in my dash told of an unpleasant conversation.

Isaac’s admission that he’d known of my innocence from the start still burned me. As did his refusal to help us now. The grouch made himself scarce after returning my throwing knives and my other elven dagger. I’d strapped those, along with the katana and my other dagger, onto my body. Harper, as I suspected would be the case when I tried calling, still didn’t pick up her phone.

“So what’s the plan, boys?” I asked. “We’ve got no comms, only us and the retrieval trucks, and by the looks of what I can see, we’ve got at least a dozen creatures to wrangle, maybe more.” With so many with me, and every vampire in the district crawling along rooftops to evade the onslaught, I couldn’t use my power. Clearly, Isaac had forbade them to help me, too. Splendid.

I received nothing but shrugs from my company. Sighing, I headed toward the scorpion, katana in hand. “Amun, bring the truck close to it. Rudy, keep it from venturing any farther down Rouge with whatever tricks you can perform from a distance. Blake and I will distract it long enough for Amun to send out the tone.” If it would even work.

We’d developed a sonic pulse that incapacitated many of the larger insect-type creatures, but it wasn’t flawless. If that didn’t work on the car-sized scorpion, we wouldn’t have much choice but to destroy it. It wasn’t like it would follow me out of Fangtown if I left a trail of bread crumbs.

Blake gave a nervous laugh. “And how do you s’pose we’re gonna distract something that big without it spearin’ us with that javelin-sized stinger on its ass?”

I tugged him along with me. “Very carefully, Blake. Very carefully.”

He gripped my shoulder with his sweaty hand, squeezing hard. “I sure am glad you’re all right, Lou. Really don’t know where we’d be without ya.”

It seemed he meant it, so I nodded. Sentimental musings from my usually crass boss could take up mental space later. We had a tank of a scorpion to snag first, thanks to that hag. When I found Celeste again—provided I managed it in the next two days—I needed to prevent her from going liquid on me before I could wring her scrawny neck.

* * *

A flare shot over the rooftops to our left. I dove at Blake and slammed him to the pavement as another column of fire streaked toward us. Flames seared my back. The dragon bat was not a happy camper.

Someone landed on my backside, crushing a grunt out of me and pounding my shoulder blade while Blake gasped beneath me. “Bloody hell, Amun,” I said before realizing he’d done it to put out the flames eating up my shirt. “Oh, I see. Thanks.”

He pulled me up, and the three of us ducked behind a car in the parking lot beside the Whip and Tickle, a vampire fetish-wear shop. The owl-sized bat swooped over us again, blasting an inferno that exploded the front window of the shop, sending studded leather and melted mannequins onto the sidewalk.

Three of the other creatures we’d hunted lay dead on other streets, the scorpion included, all by my sword when I’d been left with two options: kill or die. We’d contained twelve more in three trucks. The bat remained the only unwelcome visitor in Fangtown. Other than us, of course.

“This is madness,” Amun said, panting beside me. His arms rose to shield his head as the bat exhaled on a Mini Cooper two cars over, the crackling and popping suggesting we should find a new hiding place.

“I agree with Mr. Bassili.” Blake’s drawl worsened with his fright. “What the hell in a hand grenade do we do now?”

Rudy poked his head out from behind the newspaper boxes he’d used as cover during the first fiery blast. Umikans changed their skin color to match their surroundings the way chameleons did. The more frightened Rudy was, the harder he was to see. At the moment, he appeared as little more than a shadow on the sidewalk. The poor guy shook so badly I’d have been surprised if he saw anything other than a blur. I gestured at him to stay put.

“We’ve scared it, not something you want to do to a dragon bat.” A deep exhalation centered me enough to think. “I seem to recall the pecking order in a colony of bats. If we want protection from the dominants, we must present an offering of food.”

“And that helps us how?” Amun, his face blackened with soot and smeared with dirt, tilted to rest against the tire of the car, appearing as frazzled as I’d ever seen him. The sight induced a belly laugh that wouldn’t be contained.

He took on a strange expression of one eyebrow cocked and a half-grin. “What?”

I waved him off. “Nothing, I think exhaustion is making me crazy.” I so hated to ask more of Rudy at the moment, but my idea would be useless without his help. Rising enough to see around the car, I shouted, “Rudy, do you have any rodents in your truck? Rats or mice?”

He cleared his small voice twice before he spoke. “No, but I can call some for you.”

I nodded. “As fast as you can.”

Flapping came from our rears. Crackling. A blast tossed the front of a car up until it crashed down on its hood, crushing a Mazda behind it.

“Move!” I shoved at Amun and tugged Blake toward the back of the fetish shop, since it was much closer than the front where flames still poured out of the broken window.

Amun kicked out with a startling force against the wooden door. It took three tries, but it finally gave. My, but he was strong. We rushed inside and crouched behind a cement wall beside a set of stairs leading down.

“What do you want the rats for?” Amun eyed me with obvious suspicion. “Tell me you’re not suggesting one of us should go and dangle something for that thing to come and snatch? Because I’ve grown a healthy dose of sympathy for marshmallows right about now.”

“Don’t worry, Amun. I’m going, not you. We just need to listen for Rudy to come back, if he hasn’t run for the hills. Hopefully rats like to hang out here and aren’t snapped up for evening snacks.” Poor little sod. Although he’d deal with the scarier stuff when the need called for it, he usually didn’t have enough courage to fill a thimble.

“You can’t be serious.” Amun gestured toward the door. “Have you been oblivious to the destruction that thing caused in the last ten minutes alone? It’s pissed, and I don’t think it’s going to care about some little morsel you offer it.” His frown deepened. “Why are you smiling like that?”

I shrugged, hopped up on adrenaline and enjoying the sight of the great Amun Bassili squirming. “This is what I do for a living.”

“You’re enjoying this?” he asked, squinting at me.

“Yup.” Blake chuckled from deep in his belly. “Weirdest broad I ever knew. Takes a bit of starch outta the ole manhood, don’t it?”

I wiped the char from my hands onto my jeans. “To do a job one takes no pride in is a travesty.” At Rudy’s shout from beyond the wall, I said, “Stay here. Don’t come out until I call, or you’ll send the bat into fits again.”

Ignoring Amun’s shouts, I dashed outside, ran along the side of the building, and peered around the corner. Smoke trickled out of the broken window around the bend. I scanned the street and located Rudy waving from a sunken doorway of a strip club on the opposite side.

I took in the rest of the street, almost every storefront offering products that involved sex. Massage parlors promising happy endings with every purchase. One displayed orgy-sized furniture, a spanking bench, and a photo of a ridiculously oversized bed in the display window.

Shaking my head, I scanned the sky, the first hints of dawn bleeding into the eastern horizon. Nothing moved, all the vampires having gone off to die for the day. A deep breath and a healthy dose of fear gave me an extra spurt of adrenaline as I dashed across the street and joined Rudy in his hiding place.

“I did not know if you needed them alive or dead, so I stunned them.” He held four rats by the tails, the shaking of his hands extending to the limp bodies.

“Either will do. Thanks.” I took the rodents from him and peered around the corner. “Have you seen it since you returned?”

“That way.” Rudy’s trembling finger pointed back the way he came, toward the trucks. “It’s perched upon a motorcycle parked in front of the Cuffs ‘R’ Us store.”

“Good lord. Do they sell any other kinds of products here?” I snickered at the absurdity of such a place.

A pink tinge crawled up Rudy’s face. “Other than a shoe store that looked normal enough, it would seem not. This is tame compared to what I noticed two streets over, when I was running from that hellfly.” A shudder rattled through his stout body from head to toe.

“Splendid.” I thought about asking what had disturbed him so much, but held my tongue. “Stay out of sight until I call. I’m going to try groveling, since all of my other efforts have done nothing but rile up this testy little dragon.”