Queen of Shadow and Ash, page 24
“Oh my God."
Instantly alert, Charlie leaned over to see the screen. “What? What is it?”
“It’s her. Akasha.” Pale faced, Fallon handed him the smartphone.
* * *
I hear you’re hunting me ;-)
Come meet the same fate as your brother, little boy.
Midnight, tomorrow.
Sydney Marone Middle School
High Star Drive, Alief.
Sweet Dreams,
Akasha
* * *
“Why?” Fallon asked, a shake in her voice as she took the cell from his trembling hands. “Why would she taunt you into coming after her?”
Trying to control the rage and the anticipation that rushed through him, Charlie looked away so she couldn’t see the depths of the darkness he felt gripping hold of him. “Because,” he muttered, “This is what Azazil wants.” He wants me out of the picture. Just like he wants Jai out of the picture. He wants Ari to have no one but him to turn to. The realization made his fists curl into the sheets. His hand brushed his pocket where the emerald was, and the worry for Ari dissipated. That means she’s probably okay, though, he argued with his guilty conscience.
“Charlie?”
Hearing the tremor of worry in his name, Charlie shot Fallon a grim look. “Don’t chicken out on me now. This is what you signed up for.”
Instantly, the fear on Fallon’s face melted into irritation. “Don’t remind me, jerk.”
“You’re free to walk away.”
“You’re free to go fu—”
“Hey,” Charlie cut her off, reaching for her as if she were his personal brand of Xanax. “I know the hard-ass thing is just an act. I mean it, Fallon. You should get out while you can.” He brushed her pixie short hair back from her face, his muscles relaxing as he looked into her non-judgmental, beautiful big eyes.
“Nah,” she huffed, tugging on his T-shirt to pull him close. “I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you. Asshole.”
He lay down, taking her with him so she sprawled across his chest. “I can’t believe this is going to happen.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I know,” he agreed. “But I feel like I might go insane if I don’t get this out of my system.” The revenge or using the emerald? His subconscious queried snarkily.
Fallon sighed, her breath warm against his T-shirt. “I really am afraid for you.”
“I’m afraid for you too.”
“Don’t be. Out of the two of us I have a better chance of surviving.”
Charlie snorted. “Uh, thanks.”
“Come here.” She lifted her head and slid up a little farther to stroke his neck. Responding to her, Charlie wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her until her lips almost touched his. “Take my mind off tomorrow, okay.”
Glad that the rush of need he felt for her overpowered his desire for the emerald, Charlie gripped her by the nape of the neck, his kiss hard and desperate. Fallon met him frantic kiss for frantic kiss, their hands brushing one another’s as they hurried to divest each other of any piece of clothing that hindered the feel of skin against skin. They let their bodies take over—using them to say everything they couldn’t quite bring themselves to admit out loud.
Saying he felt disorientated was an understatement.
Jai felt his father and Ari’s heavy gaze upon him as he tried to compute everything they’d told him. His nerves jangled and his lungs still adjusted to all the extra air, the rush of oxygen making him dizzy. He had been in solitary confinement for two weeks. To someone who was more used to flying than being trapped inside, it might as well have been two months.
And now this. To have to sit and listen to his father apologize for the first time in his life; to have to find the courage to forgive when Jai felt as though he was being suffocated, his limbs still heavy with disuse.
And Ari.
She wasn’t the seal anymore. Asmodeus had almost killed her. The Red King had saved her. The White King had almost killed her. Sala had saved her. Sala had died. Red was in a fury. Charlie was in trouble. Ari wanted to leave right away to help him.
Jai sucked in a deep breath, exhaustion slowing down his thought process.
The first thing that really pressed upon him was that he needed to push Ari harder in her training now that she wasn’t the seal. She’d almost died twice, and would have if someone hadn’t been there to save her. She needed to be able to save herself.
Jai shook his head clear. “Charlie is in Houston going after Akasha and you want us to leave now?”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Luca ordered, shaking his head belligerently. He no longer had that humble, regretful look on his face that had made Jai so uneasy. No. His father was back with a vengeance, the old fire of intimidation in his voice and eyes. “You’ve been through an atrocious ordeal, Jai—an ordeal that even the strongest ginnaye would have found difficult to endure. You need a shower, a shave, some food in your stomach and then a few good night’s rest in a proper bed.”
“Father—” Jai tried to argue, but Luca held up a hand, cutting him off.
“Ms. Johnson is no longer the seal. Your duty to her is over.” He eyed them both meaningfully and with warning.
Ari gasped, as if she hadn’t quite realized he was no longer required to be her guardian any more.
Meeting her stricken gaze, Jai sighed. He hadn’t realized that either.
Not that it changed a damn thing.
Standing up slowly, but as steadily as he could, to convince Luca that he was himself again and at full strength, Jai braced his shoulders, readying himself to face his father for the first time—man to man. “Ari had an immortal jinn king literally rip something out of her body. She almost died. And the first thing she did when she woke up? She chose me, Dad. She came here to save me.” He turned to look at her, letting all the love he felt for her shine out of his eyes, deciding that if he was going to hell for loving her, he was going to do it right. “That’s not about duty to one another. That’s about loyalty. Honor.” He looked back at Luca. “And because she loves me almost as much as I love her.”
“Uh, just as much,” Ari corrected, eyebrows raised in warning.
Jai smiled. His father was unsurprised and disappointed by this revelation. That filled him with a sense of relief—relief because he no longer cared if he disappointed Luca. It had taken him a long time, but his father’s opinion just didn’t matter. What Luca had done to him, even under duress from the White King, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“I’m sure Ari is a perfectly nice girl,” Luca replied, his words careful. “But you cannot possibly think of giving up your tribe, your duty to the ginnaye, to be with her.”
Jai stared at his father in disbelief. This man really had no clue. “Ari took a hit from a haqeeqah to save me. She jumped in front of it for me,” he emphasized so his father could truly understand the significance of his point. “You stood by and watched Nicki beat me to a pulp for years for something I didn’t do. You even took your turn slapping me around to prove to her you loved her more. A woman who didn’t even have the decency to stay faithful to you.” He shook his head, feeling pity for his father. “Ari is more than a perfectly nice girl. She’s my family. More than you’ve ever been.”
Luca stared at him, a myriad of unnamed emotions in his eyes.
“So yeah.” Jai nodded, trying to will the exhaustion out of himself. “I’m going to give it all up for her, even if it means chasing after an idiot who was dumb enough to make a stupid wish.” He twisted his mouth in wry amusement as he shot her a look. The amusement, however, slipped away quickly as he took in her expression. Her face was open and her heartfelt love for him was palpable in the air for all to feel.
A rap at the door broke the moment and Jai turned, surprise jolting through him at the sight of Trey’s tall, familiar figure striding into the room.
“Trey?”
His best friend’s face darkened as he took in Jai’s appearance. Feeling self-conscious for the first time since he was a kid, Jai rubbed a hand over his beard. He needed a shower. He could have magically cleaned himself up, as well as gotten rid of the beard while in the bottle, but it really had been the furthest thing from his mind.
“You look like shit,” Trey said, horrified.
Jai smirked at his image-conscious friend. “Thanks. What are you doing here?”
Trey cleared his throat, casting a quick look Ari’s way. “Uh, Glass came to me. Told me my friends might need me.”
“Glass?” Jai raised an enquiring eyebrow. “You’re calling him Glass?”
He shrugged casually, like it was no big deal that he was on a ‘first’ name basis with an immortal jinn king. “Ari calls the Red King, Red.”
“Because he’s my uncle,” Ari replied, her nose wrinkling with concern. “Trey, watch yourself. I don’t want Glass taking a shot at you for being disrespectful.”
Trey chuckled throatily as he winked at her. “Don’t worry. I think Glass likes it when I’m disrespectful.”
Ari’s eyebrows rose in curiosity, but Jai grew still. Crap. He knew his best friend better than anyone, and he knew the look in Trey’s eyes. Please tell me you are not fooling around with a jinn king? He telepathed, disbelieving Trey’s utter stupidity.
His friend’s smirk slipped, but his eyes still glittered with humor. Fine, I won’t tell you. Spoil sport. Anyway, you have bigger problems. “Fallon is with Charlie,” Trey announced out loud. “The Roes are heading out after them, but we’ll get there quicker using the peripatos. Besides, you have a trace on Fallon which we can use if they’re not at the motel.” His gaze clouded with worry as it searched Jai’s face. “You up for this?”
Reluctantly shoving aside his concern over his best friend’s affair with Glass, Jai nodded and wiped a hand over his face to clear the beard. His magic shimmered around him, cleaning his body and replacing his dirty clothes with fresh ones from the wardrobe in his condo. It wasn’t the same as a soothing shower, but it would have to do.
Feeling a little better, he gave Ari a nod to let her know he was behind her one hundred percent. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Being Too Early is Almost as Rude as Being Too Late
It was six o'clock. Six hours until the meet. The meet that would change it all. He hoped.
Too much adrenaline made his nerves ragged and his stomach sick. Charlie heaved another tremendous sigh, running a hand through his hair as he paced up and down the motel room. He just wanted out. He wanted out now. He wanted his hand around the emerald and he wanted to torture the evil scum who had destroyed his family’s lives.
He wanted to be at peace at last.
He wanted Mikey to be at peace at last.
He needed Mikey to know that he cared…
* * *
The late afternoon sun beat down on the car as Charlie waited outside the grounds of the park Mike’s Little League team used for practice. His knee bounced up and down with growing impatience. Charlie checked the clock. Crap. He was going to be late to pick up Ari, and if they didn’t make their dinner reservations, the entire night would fall to pieces. It had to be perfect. He had her sixteenth birthday all planned out. This was the night. This was the night they finally became a couple.
So where the hell was his little brother?
Charlie scowled, watching the other kids come out to meet their parents. The practice had obviously run over, but nearly every other single kid had been picked up.
Fear suddenly knifed Charlie in the chest.
Had something happened to Mikey?
Unbuckling his seat belt, fingers fumbling with worry, Charlie launched out of the car, heading toward the park. Some moms threw him curious smiles. He wore suit pants and a shirt. He felt like a dork.
Seeing Mrs. Myer and her daughter, Jane, Charlie stopped them. “Have you seen Mike?”
Mrs. Myer looked down at Jane expectantly. The little girl from Mike’s grade shook her head, her tongue gluing down in Charlie’s presence as it always did. Mrs. Myer smiled apologetically at Charlie. “I guess that’s a no. Check the park. There are still some kids in there.”
“Thanks.”
He hurried down the path bordered by a chain-link fence and sighed with a mixture of relief and anger as the park came into view behind the dugout.
Mikey was standing in the middle of the field with a bunch of friends messing around.
Little ass-wipe, Charlie seethed. He knew Charlie had to be on time and he was kicking around with his friends? Where the hell was the coach?
“Get your ass over here now, Mike!” Charlie yelled.
“Mr. Creagh!” a familiar voice snapped as Mike blanched at the sight of his big brother, shoving a friend aside as they sing-songed ‘ooh, you’re in trouble’. Charlie turned to face Mike’s little league coach, who was busy clearing equipment away. She glared at him. “Watch your mouth.”
“Sorry, Coach, but I’m late for something and the little sh… idiot knows it.”
“Hmm. Mikey, get moving!” Coach yelled, and Charlie gave her a brittle nod of thanks.
Mike trundled toward him, dragging his feet. As soon as he was in reaching distance, Charlie snagged him by the scruff of his shirt and gently pushed him in front of him.
“Hey, watch it!” Mike snapped.
“Watch it?” Charlie huffed. “Watch it? I’m going to be late for my date with Ari. The date I told you about! Get in the damn car!” He jumped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door.
Deliberately riling him, Mike took painfully slow steps toward the car until Charlie smacked his hand on the horn. He picked his pace up a little, but not enough to cool Charlie’s growing temper.
“You’re a little shit, you know that.” Mike buckled up. “You’re an asshole.”
“Mike…” Clenching the steering wheel, Charlie took deep breaths as he pulled away from the curb. “I told you I had dinner reservations with Ari and that you needed to be ready and waiting for me to pick you up, and not only does Little League run over its time, but you hang out back with your friends with a complete disregard to what I asked you to do!”
“You’re not dad.” Mike shrugged. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“What is your problem?” Charlie asked in disbelief.
“I forgot! Okay! You didn’t have to pull me away from my friends and make me look like a baby.”
“You’re acting like a baby.”
“I’m acting like a baby? You’re the one who swore in front of Coach Delia and then called me a little shit.”
“You called me an asshole.” Charlie’s voice lowered as he winced at the underlying tone of hurt in Mike’s voice. He was taking his nervousness over tonight out on him. It wasn’t fair.
“You are an asshole.”
“Don’t use that language.”
“But you’re allowed to?”
Feeling his irritation build again, Charlie slapped the wheel. “Can you just for five seconds not act like a little brat?”
“Oh, now I’m a brat and an asshole.”
Charlie whipped his head around to glare at him. “Seriously, dude, what is going on?”
“Nothing.” Mike shrugged and then shot him a look when he wouldn’t turn away. “Nothing!”
Charlie turned back to face the road and his heart jerked in his chest at the sight of the cyclist, who seemed to come out of nowhere. The sound of Mike’s yells garbled among the sound of screeching tires and the crunching of metal…
* * *
“You’re making me nervous, pacing up and down like that.” Fallon glowered at him from the bathroom doorway. “Stop it. I don’t do nervous.”
Charlie gave her a weak smile as she pulled him from his last memory of Mike. A terrible memory. He continued to pace as he checked his watch. Only six fifteen. Jesus.
A playful knock at the door stopped him in his tracks. They both froze, silently communicating on what to do. Finally Fallon nodded.
Treading softly so whoever was at the door wouldn’t hear his footsteps, Charlie crossed the room and looked through the peephole. He frowned. No one. A sense of unease rippled over him as he gripped the doorknob and eased the motel room door open, his magic bubbling at his fingertips. Like he’d been hit with a gale force gust of wind, Charlie staggered back as a streak of color tore past him and into the room. He whirled around, dazed, his eyes widening on the tall, skinny woman who stood beside Fallon. She was plain looking with red hair, pale skin and… yellow eyes. Yellow eyes?
“Looking for me?” she smirked and just as Charlie registered that this was the labartu, that this was Akasha, she had Fallon’s head between her hands.
CRACK.
Fallon’s delicate neck snapped, the life abandoning her body as it crumpled uselessly, empty, soulless to the floor. Unreality washed over Charlie as he stared at his dead girlfriend’s body.
He fought a sudden rush of vomit, gagging as he reached for a wall to lean against.
“Now that’s two people you’ll want to exact revenge on me for, little boy.”
Breathing hard, Charlie pushed himself off the wall to face her, his hand dipping into his pocket with a mind of its own, considering his own was numb with shock. Akasha was too fast. The wind of her departure blew him back again and Charlie stood befuddled for a moment. Fallon’s body laid at the edge of his vision, taunting him to look.
Instead, he curled his fingers around the emerald. Find her, he whispered inwardly, his rage quiet but inextinguishable. Find her. The flames of the peripatos engulfed him and Charlie closed his eyes, preparing himself for a slaughter.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
They Say a Wealth of Emeralds Will Change You
Ari watched as Michael Roe comforted his sobbing wife while Fallon’s Uncle Gerard and Jacob Ballendine arranged Fallon’s body into a wooden crate lined with blankets. They’d cloak it as they removed her from the motel, using one of their more precious stones.
