Thea Harrison - Oracle's Moon

It’s not just what the hell, she thought. It’s why the hell?

She didn’t have any money for Therese to steal, and the other woman would have known that. Grace certainly didn’t have any secrets. It wasn’t as though Therese was a teenager, with a teenager’s sometimes irresponsible sense of boundaries. Had it been pure, simple nosiness?

Forcing her muscles to unknot, she moved quietly through the living room into the office.

As she studied the room, she tried to remember exactly how everything had been. The stack of papers on her desk was a hodgepodge collection of bills, photocopies of journal articles for her unfinished school projects and various drafts of her resume. The papers seemed slightly disarranged—or was that only because she knew Therese had gone through them?

She rubbed the back of her neck. The truth was, her desk wasn’t all that neat, and she would never have noticed anything if Khalil hadn’t caught Therese. Her computer was on, and she distinctly remembered turning it off earlier. But again, if Khalil hadn’t said anything, she would have shrugged it off, thinking perhaps Therese had wanted to check her e-mail.

Maybe none of it meant anything. Maybe Therese had checked her e-mail. Maybe she had dug through the papers because she had been looking for a pen and a blank piece of paper.

She had been awfully outraged at Khalil’s unexpected appearance.

Was that really bigotry, or was it anger that she had been caught?

Caught doing what, exactly?

Grace and Therese weren’t friends, merely acquaintances. Therese belonged to one of the local covens, and Grace had met her a time or two—enough not to question having her on the babysitting roster or think twice about leaving her alone with the children. But Grace still felt angry and unsettled, betrayed and hurt.

And she wasn’t even sure if she should.

Except for Therese’s callousness. As far as Grace was concerned, even if the other woman had reacted out of anger, what she had said and how she had said it were unforgiveable. Grace went back into the living room, to the bookcase where she kept her purse. She looked through the contents. Car keys, identification, checkbook, a packet of gum, one of Max’s pacifiers. She had the same amount of cash in her wallet that she’d had earlier, sixteen dollars and fifty-three cents. As far as she could tell, Therese hadn’t taken anything.

Grace turned and studied the living room, her hands on her hips. It was the same as her office area, untidy and lived in.

Khalil glanced at her again from under his brows. He asked, Are any of your possessions missing ?

His expression promised trouble for Therese if there were. Grace shook her head, her mouth a tight, unhappy line.

I do not care for this babysitting roster if other people like Therese are on it , he said.

I don’t either , she told him. I really don’t.

If she couldn’t rely on the people on the roster, what the hell was she going to do now? She rubbed the back of her neck and added it to the growing list of shit she needed to think about.

And thinking wasn’t going to make the kids supper. She walked toward the kitchen.

As she passed the armchair, she asked, “Will you stay for supper?”

The smooth flow of words in Khalil’s low, pure voice halted.

He said, “Very well.”

…

Friend , Grace had called him.

Khalil resumed reading to the little ones, while he mulled over the word. The baby sucked his thumb and leaned back so he could look up at Khalil’s face. Chloe rested light as a pixie against Khalil’s other side and fingered the edges of the page as she listened to him. Her blonde hair floated like dandelion fluff around her head. His daughter, Phaedra, had not been, even at her youngest, as fragile as these two humans were. These baby birds were warm, soft, openhearted and open-minded. So trusting.

When he had caught Therese digging through the papers on Grace’s desk, Max and Chloe had been in the living room. Max had been chewing on a stuffed animal while he watched Chloe pull toys out of her toy box. Khalil had felt a rage so deep at Therese, the only reason why she remained unharmed was because the children had been present.

Friend.

Over the last day, Khalil had been busy with his own life. He hadn’t accomplished everything he wanted to do. He still wanted to discuss Grace’s vision with one of the first generation Djinn of his House. He was too disturbed to dismiss the experience. Even if the vision had been Cuelebre’s, Khalil had heard the voice too. “Global,” Grace had said. And “elemental.” Perhaps the Oracle needed to distance herself from the visions that came for other people, but he did not.

Other matters interfered with his goals. He ended up talking through the night with certain members of his House about an issue that had arisen with House Shaytan. House Marid had convened this morning to decide how they would, as a collective, respond to certain actions made by Shaytan members. When the folk of the air gathered en masse, they did so over oceans or deserts, because their energies swirled like gigantic tornadoes and endangered those who were bound to flesh.

He had been bored by House Shaytan’s actions and had found the discussions and arguments made by his own House just as dry and uninteresting. Why must everything always be balanced, down to the most precise equation? Grace was right; they had become a pedantic lot. Perhaps House Shaytan had meant to cause offense, and offense had certainly been taken, but nobody had actually been attacked or injured.

When it came his time to speak, he urged his House to ignore the whole idiotic thing and get back to the business of living their lives. The other Djinn were startled and disturbed. Grudgingly, one or two admitted that the issue might not be as urgent as had been first believed. Then a few others agreed, and eventually the whole assembly had disintegrated into disgruntled mutterings.

The entire process had been a colossal waste of time, and that was not a phrase an immortal being, who had all the time in the world, bothered to use that often.

After that, because the Djinn were part of the greater Demonkind collective, Khalil traveled to the Demonkind demesne offices in Houston.

Demonkind were like the Nightkind in one regard; they were the only two Elder demesnes in the United States that contained a variety of creatures, for the Wyr, despite their immense variety, were all essentially two-natured beings.

However, for the Nightkind, Vampyres had long since become the dominant race, and their demesne was ruled by a Vampyre monarch.

The Demonkind demesne was unique among the U.S. demesnes. Like the human U.S. government, and also like the Djinn, the Demonkind demesne was the only one that governed by consensus, through representatives of each Demonkind race: the Djinn, devils, the medusae, ogres, monsters (those creatures who did not develop a Wyr form, such as the Sphinx) and, unfortunately, the Goblins.

Everyone considered the Goblins unfortunate.

Djinn elders from the five Houses took turns acting as representatives in the Demonkind legislature. Khalil was currently serving his two-year term. It was not an especially onerous task, although it was time consuming. When he reached his own offices in Houston, he assumed his physical form to spend the afternoon reading through papers and answering e-mails.

At midafternoon, he took a break. On impulse he Googled “Grace Andreas” and “Oracle.” He discovered the Oracle’s website and read all the information posted there. The history of the Oracle was long and rich, even by Djinn standards.

Friend.

His world was vast and intricate, and built on associations upon associations. His House. The Djinn. The different creatures of the Demonkind. The Demonkind demesne’s various alliances and antagonisms with humankind and the other demesnes. Favors granted and favors owed.