Djinn Justice (The Collegium Book 2) (22 page)

Panic welled up in Fay, and she beat it back. Screw the djinn. If she saw Tarik, she wouldn’t leave him alive to fight Steve—except, the problem she’d identified earlier remained: would killing Tarik effectively kill the people whose dream essences he used?

No deaths were acceptable as collateral damage. If possible, and despite the order Steve had given the marshals, she or he had to take Tarik alive.

She gripped Steve’s hand and felt the strength of his clasp. Love and determination flowed along their mate-bond.

Without further discussion, everyone linked hands. Fay took Faroud’s. Steve grasped Miguel’s. In a long conga line of deadly fighters, they stepped into the in-between.

Faroud hadn’t lied. He did know where the Mountains of the Moon portal was in the in-between. He led them there to Fay’s slow count of ten seconds.

It seemed an eternity to her nauseous, dizzy progress.

He squeezed her hand tightly, and she knew they were at their destination when he pointed at a shimmering splodge in front of them. She’d readied her magic before entering the Alexandrian portal, knowing that her concentration would be affected by her negative reaction to the chaos of the in-between.

As the in-between swirled and eddied, weak gravity pulling from three directions, Fay hit the portal, slamming it with a gigantic version of an open sesame spell, the sort of thing usually reserved for minor magics of entering uninvited. In other words, she’d amped up a spell spies and thieves used.

The shimmering appearance of the portal dimmed, darkening fast. Tarik’s porter hadn’t set attacking defenses, at least, not as his first response. This was a lock. The porter was attempting to close the portal.

Fay smiled grimly. She had gotten lucky, choosing her own attacking spell well. The open sesame spell held, wedging into a sliver of the portal. And she had one other point in her favor, one she wondered at the porter overlooking. Portals were naturally open. Her stepfather had told her. He could guard who came through his, but closing a portal required a lot of energy. All Fay had to do—instantly—was redirect the portal’s power away from the lock to its natural state of openness.

The energy resisted a moment.

Faroud pointed.
Here and here
, his gesture said.

She pushed the energy at the points he indicated and the lock broke. The portal shimmered brighter than ever. It would stay open. But now that she had some feel for the energy of the portal, she kept her mage-sight focused on it. She couldn’t wait. With her next heartbeat, she dragged at the portal’s energy and flung it out to where the compound surrounded it.

On their last visit, she and Steve had destroyed the hut around the portal. They would emerge into clear ground, visible to all threats. She had to protect her people. She released Faroud’s hand and ran through the portal, shaping the energy around her into a protective warding that pushed outwards, pulsing away from the portal and forming an invisible barrier. How long she could hold it, she didn’t know, nor how far she could push it.

Steve ran out, overtaking her and crouching, as she had, to present a smaller target while he assessed their situation. The marshals emerged behind them, moving instantly to cover every direction. Around them, the rainforest was gold and silver where the early dawn light lingered, trapped in a heavy mist.

Men raced from the four remaining buildings in the compound.

Bullets and grenades hit the barrier Fay held. She’d pushed it so far that inside it lay three of Tarik’s people. They must have been beside the portal when she blasted its power out, and one of them had to be its porter since no one was fighting her for the portal’s power, and surely he’d have fought to regain it.

However, she wasn’t a porter and keeping hold of the portal’s energy was a severe distraction. Her brain strained, she could almost feel it bleed, as she struggled to hold the dome of coverage over Steve, the marshals and herself, all while casting a new spell.

The dome was impossible as a long term solution. For a start, she couldn’t extend it any further, and once they moved out, they’d be vulnerable in open ground. However, from her own magic, using the tag she’d placed on each marshal’s shoulder, she could personally ward them for the two minutes they’d need to break from the compound or otherwise find cover.

She felt the personal wardings lock in place and shuddered with relief as she released the dome. The power of the portal slipped from her grasp.

Bullets spat at the dirt at their feet which was charred and littered with burned debris from yesterday.

“Go!” Steve shouted.

They ran, the main force with her and Steve, the other two groups breaking off to gain the compound and to find the hidden cave entrance. They ran as humans, unwilling to discard their weapons. But behind them, roars and howls indicated that their pursuers didn’t share their concern. Perhaps Tarik’s cave held enough weapons for all? Perhaps the lack of their dream essences made the weres prefer their animal forms for hunting? Or perhaps her ward had worked psychologically as well as physically and they believed the marshals untouchable by bullets? In twenty more seconds, that wouldn’t be true.

Fay tripped on a fallen branch and Steve caught her arm, keeping her upright and moving. She ought to save her breath—the mountainside was steep—but for once she ignored discipline. “If I’d known I’d have to run back up here, I wouldn’t have torn the rainforest down.” Hazards from the storm’s destruction were everywhere. It wasn’t just Fay who tripped.

She didn’t see a signal, but suddenly the remaining marshals turned and shifted into their animal forms. Three tigers leapt at the pursuit and halted it. They were buying time.

The other marshals fanned out.

She dropped the warding around the marshals. As much as she hated to do so, it was better now than adding the loss of protection to the awful effect when Tarik’s evil energy reached them. She kept waiting for it. Radio contact, if nothing else, would have told him that she and Steve had returned with support.

What if he wasn’t in the cave? What if he’d already retreated somewhere else and Narelle had been a distraction as much as a message?

Fay lost the rhythm of her breathing and pace. Her thigh muscles trembled, burning and threatening to cramp from the run uphill. But she was fitter than that. She should be able to continue. She looked at Steve as he pulled ahead. She had to go faster. If Tarik attacked him, Steve would die.

She halted, shocked.
Steve would die?
That wasn’t her thought. Her Steve could and would fight. He’d win. She believed that with her whole heart.

Poison!
Tarik’s bad energy was already enveloping them, but this time he was sneakier. He was worsening fears.

“Poison!” she shouted it to the rainforest and any were, marshal or enslaved, who might benefit from the warning. She used magic to amplify her voice. “Whatever you’re thinking, whatever crippling fear, it’s not true! You can defeat it.”

Machinegun fire raked the area where Fay stood.

Ahead of her, on the obliterated path, Steve turned. His expression was agonized, as if he expected to see her dead. He knew about her warding, but Tarik’s poison was in his mind.

The bullets bounced off her warding and his.

Steve grabbed her arm and pulled her into a denser thicket, a bit of rainforest undestroyed by the storm she’d sent through yesterday. That meant they were off-track for Tarik’s cave. Steve bent his head to her ear. “We have to give the cave team their ten minute start.”

She put her hand over his heart. Despite knowing that her despair and horror were coming from Tarik, she needed this reassurance that Steve was alive.

He covered her hand with his. “Tarik lies. We’ll survive this. We survived my family.” His grin was more rictus of pain than humor.

But Fay appreciated the effort.

A wolf-were attacking from the side broke the moment, such as it was. The rustle of leaves, branches and hanging vines gave away the wolf’s presence.

Steve reversed his gun and used it as a club, swinging upwards to catch the wolf under the jaw. The downward swing knocked the wolf out completely. Caught mid-leap, the weight of her body thudded to the earth.

Fay looked incredulously at Steve. “Did you see?”

He nodded. “She left herself open to attack. It seems the dream energy you fed back to the enslaved has restored some independence. She couldn’t refuse the command to attack us, but she made herself vulnerable.”

It was a thread of hope that pushed back against the malaise Tarik sent at them.

And it seemed that he felt their resistance. Energy pulsed down the mountain. It was as if a dark bell had rung, summoning all the denizens of the night. The sun vanished behind a cloud. This high, with rainforest clearing soon to snow, the morning was cold.

Fay shivered.

Apart from the wolf-were unconscious at their feet, no one had followed them up this part of the mountain. Sounds of fighting came muffled by the dense undergrowth. The marshals could be dying slowly.

Without thinking, she took her hand from Steve’s chest and drew her knife. The blade had sent over seventy demons back to hell. An overly impressive banishment count that was the result of her father losing control of the Collegium and allowing demon summoning. That had been righted, but at what cost?

She had no family. Her mom was a near-stranger, only recently found and living a world away in Australia. Her dad had vanished or done his best to. He was on an island off Seattle.

She was alone.

Steve’s family hated her. They mistrusted her magic. So did she. She’d been born because her dad wanted power—and see how he’d abused it. Abused her.

Despair numbed her. This was the slow crawl, the smothering shroud, of depression. This was knowing she’d be alone, so wanting death. “Steve!” She couldn’t fight this. Even when she’d been truly alone, she’d never endured such weakness. This wasn’t just suffering: this was accepting that she could only be a victim. “I can’t…”

His mouth was warm and hot, real, over hers. For a second, she breathed his breath, before he drew back.

Her emotions stayed chilled, but she could think. “Why isn’t this affecting you?”

“It is. But not as much as you. Your skin is cold.”

She nodded. Her internal chill was stronger.

“Is it the amulet?”

She touched the invisible locket at her throat. “I don’t know. I can’t risk throwing it away. The enslaved...we’re their only chance.”

“We’ll save them.” His hand rested against the curve of her face. “The cave is two hundred meters up and to the right. We have to go.”

“Yes.”

“Can you do this?” Ruthless assessment, not quite disguising his fear for her.

Her own fear, her fear of losing him and being alone, resurged. She beat it back. She turned her head enough to kiss his palm.

For a fleeting moment, his expression was anguished. She could have pierced him with a spear.

She felt the echo of his pain in her. To love so deeply meant this fear of loss.

She’d been on missions before, more deadly ones this this. Summon an Axlttrea demon and they ate alive the people around the summoning pit. Men, women, children, the demon didn’t care. Just being near an Axlttrea demon made your humanity quake. It was fear and outrage, disgust at the vileness. Yet, Fay had been able to control her emotions, then. It was only post-mission that she’d shake apart, shuddering under a hot shower, crying till the water ran cold, and still unable to melt the frozen horror from her bones.

But this was worse. Even without demon stench and blood, this tore at her discipline—and it wasn’t all Tarik’s doing. Now, Fay had something—someone—to lose. Steve, happiness, even the unexpected and uneven welcome of his family. She’d been the strongest of the Collegium’s guardians and isolated because of it. Only now did she realize that her isolation had been part of her strength.

Steve gripped her shoulders. Unlike her, he’d grown up in a loving family. He’d learned how to use love as a shield and source of strength. He gazed into her eyes, finding the words she needed to hear to fight back. “Tarik will not use our love against us.”

Cleansing anger flared through their mate-bond.

He was right. She would not let Tarik disrespect their love by using it to weaken her.

Steve nodded, once, evidently sensing her renewed commitment. He set off up the mountain, along the final, concealing strip of rainforest. Above, the cloud forest gave way abruptly to low shrubs, bent trees, and then, to melting snow. It was open ground on which they’d be visible.

Fay hurried to stay near Steve and maintain their warding against attack. She could feel Tarik’s energy tearing at it.

Was this perversion of dream essences antipathic to magic? Narelle’s spells and control of magic had been fraying, and Fay had blamed poor training and control. What if, instead, it was the rogue mage’s prolonged exposure to this negative energy? She and Steve had to act, and act fast.

The plan was simple in outline, impossibly difficult and dangerous in practice. The idea was for Steve to engage with Tarik, keeping him occupied, while Fay studied the magic around the jackal-were for a way to dissolve his control of the enslaved. Then she had to dissolve that control, no second chances.

It wasn’t a great plan, but Steve and his family had put weight on the fact that the djinn, Uncle, had set this as Steve’s test to confirm his right to be Suzerain. Despite Fay’s horror and fear, Steve had to fight Tarik.