Page 16

Mira

Shortly after supper the next day, John called with some information they’d dug up on Solomon’s djinn, the ones Hubler controlled with his ring. He sent it to Kerry’s phone, which he handed to me to read it out to everyone.

A stranger came to the place called Drish and brought evil to its people.

None could stand against him, and neither their prayers nor supplications could gain them surcease.

At last, their loud wails reached the ears of the king, who sent Benaiah, for he was a warrior as well as a priest, to end the matter in one way or another.

Benaiah obeyed and found the stranger and issued his challenge.

“Let us fight, and the defeated will serve the victor.”

And the stranger agreed, for a demon’s heart ever longs to make war. The two battled for many hours until the stranger at last raised his hands in surrender.

“Mark this day, Benaiah, for you have bested Asmodeus, king of demons.” The stranger bent his head, but not his knee. “To honor our bargain, I offer forty slaves to serve you.”

Then Asmodeus called forth djinn and bound them to a ring he wore on his thumb.

“They bow to the will of the one who wears this ring.” Asmodeus handed it to Benaiah. “Any deed you desire, ask of them and they shall see it done, so long as it is within their power to grant it.”

So saying, he disappeared in a pillar of dust and ash, and Benaiah hastened to his master and presented the ring.

And Solomon delighted in the gift and called it precious above all things and made it his seal.

“So the djinn were slaves to Asmodeus, then bound to the ring.” Gigi made a face. “Bet it sucked being a demon king’s slaves. Maybe we could turn them to our side.”

“No, but if we get the ring from Hubler, we could barter their freedom for Gemma’s, ” Rome said.

“ Classic tactic,” Kerry agreed. “Find what someone wants and lure them in with it.”

“Hey, John, while I’m thinking of it, I have a question for you,” Jax said. “How did you get Reilly Argaud to leave Tara alone when he was harassing her?”

“Had a little talk with him.”

“Duh.” Jax rolled his eyes. “What did you say that made him stop so suddenly? He didn’t leave Gemma alone after Kerry had a little talk with him, and Kerry’s way scarier than you.”

“You’ve never seen me angry,” John said. “I reminded him that my mom is an investigative journalist with a major news outlet and asked him if his parents would like the world to find out that their son was a sexual predator.”

“Whoa! Did you know that Hubler—”

“No,” John interrupted, “but I’d heard a rumor that one of his parents was a politician. I thought maybe like a mayor or something.”

“Worked, though.” Jax grinned. “Ha! Bet he crapped his pants at the thought of that headline splashed all over the networks and newspapers.”

“Anything else to report right now, John?” Kerry was getting impatient.

“No, but Tara’s working on a different angle. We’ll call if we find more.”

After John hung up, Gigi frowned up at me.

“What?” I asked her.

“Where’s your ward bracelet?”

“My what?”

She pushed up her sleeve and tapped a gold band around her wrist.

“Oh. That . I pawned it. Why?”

“It hides our Divinity. I’ve been thinking about your warden and wondered if he or she ever issued you one.”

“Well, crap. That woulda been handy a coupla years ago.” I blinked. “Wait! I hocked it at a human shop. It won’t hurt anyone, will it? Humans, I mean?”

“No,” Rome reassured me. “It has no effect on humans.”

“What were you thinking about my warden?” I looked back at Gigi. “I didn’t even know I had one until I met you people.”

“Every neph has a warden assigned to them at birth. If they’re living in the Real World, the warden is supposed to ferry them to the nearest outpost of the Sanctuary if there’s any sign of trouble at home or with the Diabolical. Why didn’t your warden do anything when your home life deteriorated?”

“I dunno.”

“Text Hank,” Kerry growled to Jax, “and ask if he can find out who Mira’s warden is.”

“You don’t have to take time and energy away from what we’re doing just for that.” I waved a hand.

“It won’t take long to find out, and I’d be interested in hearing their answer,” Kerry said. “Hank’s looking into why it took so long to replace my original warden, too.”

“I’ve never heard of a nephilim child left to fend for themselves before you two.” Rome shook his head. “Do you think there’s a connection? Or is more going on with wardens in the field than we’ve been led to believe?”

“Or is there a breakdown in the Council protocols?” Gigi asked. “Or is it our traitor at work again?”

“You both sound like conspiracy theorists,” Jax said with a grin.

“I don’t believe in luck or coincidence,” Rome said, “but fate is attracted to nephilim like magnets to metal.”

“Yeah,” Kerry agreed. “We found Mira for a reason. Maybe there’s a connection and maybe not, but it won’t hurt to look into it.”

“Sure.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

Kerry caught Jax’s eye and gave him a nod, and he whipped out his phone.

#

Rome

Later that night, Chance handed me a small leather messenger bag.

“In case of emergency,” he said.

I opened it up and found two water bottles and a plastic squirt gun.

“It’s not ideal, because it takes too long to get the stopper out of the bottle and get the liquid poured into the gun.

You can’t store it in the squirt gun, though.

It’ll leak out. But if Kerry’s in crisis, you’re not going to be able to touch him.

” Chance pointed to the squirt gun. “That gives you a few feet to work with.”

“Nice.” I held up one of the bottles and watched gold power swirl though clear liquid. “Calm and heal?”

“Calm and coma . In case of extreme emergency. Coma’ll knock him out for an hour or so, but I don’t know what he’ll be like when he wakes up. At least it would give you time to get things under control or for Gigi to ’port him or whatever.”

“Thanks. I wouldn’t have thought of this.” I raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you whipped these up after he insulted you over Chessie.”

“Nah. He was being protective. Plus, I’d like to keep the rest of you alive. If he explodes, you’d all be collateral damage. Between Jax’s ability to hold him and those,” he nodded at the bottles, “maybe the odds will be in your favor.”

“Wow. For you, that’s pessimistic.”

“You don’t understand. What’s inside him is— All it’s going to take is a single misstep and ka-boom .

” He met my eyes for a moment, then reached over and tapped a finger on the bigger bottle with the blue lid.

“This one’s calm. The red is coma. Start with two trigger squeezes of any of them.

If you need more, increase by one trigger squeeze at a time. ”

“I’ll remember.”

“Without me there to give him his daily fix, he’s going to be a little wild tomorrow.

Keep your eye on him and use the calm. You’ve got plenty of it.

” He scrubbed a hand through his hair as he yawned.

“I wish I would have thought of it sooner. I could have made you a heal one, too. I can try in the morning. Might be able to eke out a tablespoon or so, anyway.”

“Don’t worry about it. We can find a healer at the outpost here if we need one. This is a lot of concentrated power. Did you drain yourself?”

“I’m good.” He smiled a little, but his white face and the black rings under his eyes drove home how exhausted he was. “Listen, I know we both believe in positive thinking. However, if she dies, and especially if he sees it happen, you need to have a plan.”

“I know.”

“I can only see two options: Take him down or ’port him somewhere he can self-detonate. How you’ll do either of those, though, I don’t know.”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while.

” And I was no closer to a solution now than I was that day in the motel when he’d lit up blue and melted a comb in his hands.

“He really loves her that much?” “ Loves her?” Chance snorted.

“Love’s not a strong enough word. He adores her.

And if he loses her because she was the bait in a trap he set for his enemies?

Well, devastation isn’t a strong enough word, either. ”

I sighed, and he laid one hand on my shoulder.

“You do have a plan, don’t you?”

“Short of asking Hank to check a sniper kit out of the Armory, I’ve got nothing.”

“Dude, that is not good.”

“I’m amazed he hasn’t lost it yet.”

“His control is better than you’d think. All those years spent fighting to control a demon, I guess. He grumps and growls to take the edge off, but keeps the rest locked down tight.”

Mira had said something similar to me earlier. She’d compared Kerry to a pressure relief valve and pointed out that he needed to bleed off a little steam once in a while so he didn’t explode.

“He knows all about keeping control in a bad situation,” she’d told me. “He’ll hold it together so long as everything else stays tolerable. We just need to make sure everything else stays tolerable.”

Then she’d given me a cheeky grin that made me want to pull her close and—

“Too bad you don’t have one of those blankets the demons wrapped us up during the ambush,” Chance said now. “They shut our power down like a switch flipping off.”

“I wonder if Hank or Gina could smuggle me one. Then again, even without power, Kerry would still be a tiger.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “but you can wrestle with a tiger. You can’t do anything against a firestorm.”

“Facts.”