Thea Harrison - Oracle's Moon

There were three older, rusted vehicles near the buildings, but none of them looked like they were in drivable condition. The main building was the house. He slipped close and listened, but he didn’t hear anyone stirring. It appeared Brandon was not at home. As he circled the house, he glanced in the windows at a cluttered interior. One room had several brightly colored signs stacked against the wall and piles of posters and buttons on a table, all with the American flag rippling in the background. Some signs had the slogan: THE HUMANIST PARTY. Others read: JAYDON GUTHRIE FOR HEAD OF THE WITCHES.

A couple of large dogs napped on a covered porch. He took care not to disturb them, in case someone was actually in the house where he could not see them. Some dogs and certain other animals were very sensitive to a Djinn’s presence.

He slipped away and scouted out the other buildings. One was an unused barn with a roof that was falling in. Another was a toolshed filled with a variety of implements and machines, and an aluminum ladder lying on the ground against one outside wall. Even that building had wards glowing on it. Brandon cared for his possessions. The only building that didn’t have wards or other sparks of Power was the rotting barn.

Khalil twisted in a circle, his attention sharpening. The barn really was the only building without sparks of Power glowing on it somewhere. Was there nothing in the building that Brandon wanted to protect?

Khalil really had no reason to go looking in the barn except for his terminal case of Djinn curiosity. He slid inside through a gap in the wooden wall. The interior was deeply shadowed. Cobwebs floated in the air. The bones of yet another vehicle sat inside. The metal lines of its body were heavy and rounded. It had no engine, wheels or seats. Thick dust coated the vehicle and the barn’s pitted floor, along with mice droppings.

A wooden ladder with broken rungs led to a loft. He floated up, intending to exit the barn through the hole in one corner of the roof.

That was when he discovered the loft wasn’t dusty or empty.

He whipped toward it. The repairs to the loft floor had not been visible from below. Fresh planks of wood covered the old floor in places. A new workbench was pushed against one wall made of wood planks as raw as the repairs to the floor. There was also a stool and battery-operated lantern, but that was as close as it came to any resemblance to Therese’s work area.

This workbench was littered with a variety of hand-tools, a blowtorch, wires and other bits of knobby, oddly shaped metal. Nothing felt magical. Khalil materialized in front of the bench. Frowning, he picked up a length of thin, flexible pipe and turned it over in his hands.

How did the human get into the loft in the first place? He saw no point of entry for an embodied creature unless it had wings. To one side of the loft, there was an opening in the wall, covered with a large wooden flap, but that looked as dilapidated and unused as most of the rest of the barn. The only other point of entry was a filth-streaked window.

He walked over to look closer and discovered fresh scratch marks on the sill. Looking out the smudged pane, he could see one end of the nearby toolshed. A corner of the aluminum ladder was just visible.

He returned to the bench. To say that he was not mechanically minded would probably be one of the biggest understatements anyone could make in a year.

Something had been constructed. Or perhaps something was going to be constructed. But what? He didn’t have a clue.

And why go to all this trouble to hide it?

When Khalil disappeared, Grace wobbled her way to the upstairs bathroom. She felt like a drunken sailor.

Gods, what he had done to her.

Every private place on her body felt hypersensitive, and her inner thigh muscles quivered. She touched a dusky area on the side of her breast. It was a suck bruise. She thought of him working her everywhere, and intense arousal pulsed through her. It was followed immediately by a forceful wave of emotion. She covered her eyes.

I did not know I needed grace until I met you , he had said.

I’m turning into some weird hybrid creature, she thought, like that crazy homicidal chick from Species. And Khalil Bane of My Existence told me that he needed me. Today’s forecast calls for free steaks and flying pigs.

Probably all it means is that Djinn males can get caught up in the moment just like human males do. I shouldn’t make too much of it. But I did learn that he likes sex. He likes it a whole lot. We haven’t enjoyed it in a leisurely fashion yet, but he did devote all of his attention to it.

And I already crave it and him.

She tried to lasso the part of her brain that had decided gibbering was a good thing to do before coffee on a Sunday morning. She didn’t have much luck, as she slid into the bathtub, washed her hair and soaped herself all over.

Everything was so sensitive, her body well used and pleasured hard. Even in the middle of their frenzy, he had been so careful with her knee. It hadn’t been strained in the slightest. She still thought she’d better wear the brace for a while, until the rest of her got used to standing upright again.

All of her casual summer clothes were now downstairs. She wrapped herself in a towel and went down to the office and dressed in a tank top and another pair of soft, unstructured shorts. Then she turned on the air-conditioning unit that was fixed into one of the living room windows, and she walked through the house, closing all the open windows. One larger unit was downstairs, and two smaller units were upstairs. With all three running the big, old house should be comfortably cool for the first time that summer. Yee-haw.

As she turned away from closing the window over the kitchen sink, she felt the Djinn enter the kitchen.

Her hackles raised as Phaedra formed in the middle of the room.

Oh damn.

Even though Khalil insisted she call him, every reason she had for not calling him the first time Phaedra showed up was still valid. But she had promised.

He didn’t actually say when she should call him. That was splitting hairs, and frankly, it would be a toss-up whether his Djinn sensibilities could accept that reasoning or if he was going to be royally pissed.

Who was she kidding, he was going to be royally pissed.

But she was still going to protect him, and he would just have to forgive her. She readied the expulsion spell as she said, “Hello, Freaky Bitch.”

Phaedra stared at her, black eyes burning. “Who is it? Who is the ghost?”

Grace studied her, mouth level. “Okay,” she said. “But just so you know—if you ever come uninvited into my house again, or if you come anywhere near my kids without my permission, I pinky swear I will knock the living shit out of you.” Damn, it felt good to have an offensive spell, or at least one that worked on Freaky Bitch.

Phaedra looked as if she hated Grace. “Just show me who it is.”

Grace touched the Power lightly and it flooded her. It really was like drowning, she thought, as the dark sea filled her to the brim and overflowed. She no longer tried to hold herself back from it, because that would be like trying to hold back from herself.

Come on , she whispered into the sea. Show yourself again.

The ghost heard and arrowed toward her. Grace held out a hand, and the ghost took it, eyes shining like the brightest of stars. Somehow she lifted the ghost out of the sea or pulled it into the present, for she was a doorway. She thought she would act as a channel, but instead, with a grateful look, the ghost stepped through her and into the kitchen.

Then Phaedra from a far distant past came face-to-face with the Phaedra she had become. The present Phaedra stared, her expression stricken.