The faintest ghost of a smile flickered across his face. He relaxed a little, found his pants, and pulled them on. Not me. I stayed rigid and ready to strike. I was also trying very hard to think of him only as a potential threat, not as the man I’d just slept with. Because if I thought about that, I might falter. Worse, I might have to face the fact that I had just let a creature of the Otherworld His pants now on, he approached me. “We need to talk about this-”
“No. Don’t get any closer.” If I could have cocked the wand like a gun, I would have.
“What are you going to do? You can’t cast me out. It won’t work.”
I hesitated, wondering about that. He seemed so human. He had felt human. I hadn’t sensed anything from him like I would one of the gentry, yet his speed and strength had been superhuman. And that wasn’t even counting his unholy stamina. That should have been a dead giveaway right there.
“What do you want from me? Why did you bring me back here?”
His eyebrows rose. “I thought it was obvious. I wanted to have sex with you.”
“No, damn it! There’s more to it. What’s going on? What are you trying to get from me?” My cool demeanor was plunging rapidly. “Did someone send you?”
“Look, Eugenie, just put the wand down. We’ll talk. We’ll figure this out.”
“I thought you couldn’t be cast out,” I reminded him. “Why are you afraid of the wand? Maybe the Otherworld couldn’t hurt you…but what about the Underworld?”
He didn’t answer. I sent my will into the wand and felt the air crackle with power. Fear crossed Kiyo’s face. So. He was afraid. That was all I needed to know. The words were on my lips to send him to the crossroads, but suddenly he moved with that rapid speed I’d seen earlier. He backed up toward the sliding glass door, opened it up, and then ran out and over the edge of the balcony.
A small scream escaped me in spite of myself. We were three floors up. I dropped the wand and dashed off to the balcony, peering around on the ground for him. No way could he have survived that uninjured.
Yet, there was no sign of him. A few bats flew up over the eaves of the building, and around the far side of it, I saw the flicker of headlights. A coyote howled from far out in the desert, and a cat slunk into the shadows. There was life out here but not the kind I sought. With a lot of maneuvering, I hung over the side of the balcony, making sure he wasn’t hiding under it like escaping people often did in movies. Nope. Nothing.
I gazed back over the desert, wondering what had happened to him. It was possible he could have “jumped” figuratively to the Otherworld. He’d have to be a very powerful gentry to do that without a thin spot nearby, but similarly, a strong gentry would have also been able to hold a perfect physical shape in this world. I supposed it was also possible someone so powerful could pass themselves off as human. I hadn’t encountered any who were that strong.
Walking back inside, I sat on the bed cross-legged, wrapping my arms around me. The residual ice from the elemental had melted into small puddles. The bed smelled like Kiyo and sex, and I swallowed down the nausea building within me. Oh God. What had I done? Had I had sex with a monster? Had I had sex with the very kind of thing I hunted and hated and killed? Kiyo had spoken to me about honesty, yet it seemed to have all been a lie. At least it had been safe sex.
Worst of all, I had liked him. Really liked him. When was the last time that had happened? Dean and I had seemed to date and sleep together simply because neither of us had anything better to do. With Kiyo, I had started to feel a real connection. Real chemistry. His betrayal hurt me deeper than I liked to admit.
I opened my eyes, thinking. Most gentry were too technologically inept to function seamlessly in the human world, yet he had navigated it well. He’d had a car back at the bar, one we’d passed over in favor of letting me drive. He’d also had a wallet and cash to pay for drinks and the condoms. And if he was checked into a hotel, he had to have a credit card. Credit cards were traceable. If he had a dual life in our world, I should be able to find out something.
I picked up the phone and hit the button for the front desk.
“Good morning, Mr. Marquez,” a pleasant desk clerk answered.
Kiyo Marquez. It was a start.
“Um, actually this is Mrs. Marquez. I was wondering if you could tell me if my…husband already prepaid for the room?”
A pause while she looked it up. “Yes, he did upon check-in. He left the same card on file for incidentals.”
“Can you tell me the number on the card he used?”
A longer pause. “I’m sorry, I can’t give that out to anyone but the cardholder. If you can put him on the phone, I can tell him.”
“Oh…I don’t want to bother him. He’s in the shower. I just wanted to make sure we weren’t maxing out the wrong card.”
“Well…I can tell you it’s a Visa ending in 3011.”
I sighed. That wouldn’t do me much good, but I doubted I’d get more from this woman. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Is there anything else I can help with you?”
“Yeah…can you connect me to room service?”
I ordered breakfast on Kiyo and then showered while I waited for it to show. I needed to wash away the sweat, to wash away the scent of his body on mine. When the food arrived, I munched on toast and ransacked the room for some kind of evidence. Kiyo’s wallet had been in his pants, so that was gone. He had no other personal possessions in the room, save the other discarded clothing from last night. I explored every drawer and nook, just in case he’d hidden something away.
The sun was well up over the horizon when I finally left the hotel. When I arrived back home, I called Lara and told her his name. I asked her to see what connections she could find to it, Phoenix, and vets. She excelled at that kind of thing, but I knew it might take a few days. Fortunately, a career in banishing and destroying is a great way to relieve frustration while waiting.
My first job the day after the Kiyo incident involved frisking a marid out of someone’s bathroom. Marids are one of the djinn-genies to most Americans-and are tied to the element of water. Like the keres and most other djinn, marids tend to occupy some sort of physical object. Only, rather than a bottle or lamp, they prefer someplace wet-say, like, a sink pipe.
Annoyed at being troubled with such an idiotic task, I cast my circle in the large, black-tiled bathroom and used the wand to yank the marid out of the pipe. She materialized before me, looking very much like a human female, save for her death-pale skin and rippling blue hair. A silk dress hung from her body.
I saw her tense up, instinctively ready to lash out at me with her power. Then she did a double take, sizing me up from head to toe. A funny look came over her face, and moments later, she lit up with a schmoozing smile. She swept me a low bow.
“My lady,” she said grandly. “How may I serve you?”
“You can’t,” I told her, holding up the wand.
She kept the smile, but there was tension in it. “Of course I can. I have the ability to conjure up riches and other wonders. I can make your dreams-”
“Stop it. I’m not falling for this.”
The myths about djinn granting wishes aren’t entirely fabricated. She wasn’t all-powerful, but she could definitely pull some tricks out of her hat. When faced with danger, a djinn’s most common strategy is to try bargaining with the enemy. Unfortunately, the “wishes” they grant rarely turn out the way others expect.
Uneasily, she backed up toward the wall. She hit the edge of the circle first. Glancing around, she realized she was trapped. The smile slipped, replaced by true fear.
“Surely there’s no need for violence,” she said. Her eyes widened. “Please.”
I stared. I rarely had Otherworldly creatures beg for mercy. I hesitated for a moment, then my Kiyo-induced bad mood took over. I poured my will into the wand, ready to push her through the gate.
She felt the power charge up in the air and kicked into true self-defense mode, now that she realized her wheeling and dealing wouldn’t work. Her magic trickled into the circle. It reminded me of mist or fog, a soft dampness filling the air. I blinked in surprise. I didn’t usually sense magic in this way. Most often, I felt Otherworldly power as a tingle or a pressure. This was tangible.
She saw my surprise. Her eyes widened with hope. “You see? You have no need to tear me apart. Like calls
