Kelly Gay: Shadows Before the Sun

I turned away from the lake and resumed my study of the area. I might’ve missed the long, arcing scar in the tree if it hadn’t been eye level and a sliver of bark missing to reveal the lighter wood beneath. The cut was thin and clean. Razor-sharp, too. A breeze stirred the woods and a flash of movement caught my eye. I stepped closer to the tree to find a long white hair caught in the corner of the scar.

Killian had black hair.

Male jinn were bald. And no female jinn had long white hair unless they were elderly. The exception was Sian, the human/jinn female currently working as our office assistant. She also happened to be Grigori Tennin’s daughter, but while Tennin was harsh, demanding, and confrontational, Sian was soft, timid, and kind. If Pen had seen a huge, dark figure, I was pretty sure I could rule out both an elderly jinn female and Sian. The only other race of beings that came to mind were the sidhé fae warriors who had appeared in the oracle’s club on New Year’s Eve, looking for me and the sarcophagus. Albeit they had light gray skin, not dark, but anything in these woods would seem darker than normal . . .

“There was a jinn here.”

Rex’s voice nearly gave me a heart attack. I swung around, heart in my throat. And then his words sank in. “A jinn was here? Where?”

“Came over the fence, through the woods. Stopped a few feet back from the scene and that’s it. Like he watched and then went home.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Shit.” So the jinn were snooping around in nymph territory. Near the lake. Near Ahkneri. Could be, if the hair belonged to a sidhé fae, the jinn had merely followed the fae. Tennin’s goons had been at the club that night, too. The fae hadn’t exactly made their purpose a secret, either. Tennin would be smart to stick a tail on them just in case they found the sarcophagus before Tennin did. I glanced down at the hair strand knowing it could just as easily be human or any number of beings, but . . .

Christ, this is a mess. I parked my hands on my hips and watched Rex wander along the lake’s edge, head down, occasionally bending over to look at something.

How do they know you’re here? I asked, more to myself than to the being in the lake, but her voice flowed through my mind with an answer.

They follow the signs.

What signs?

The call of power. The wakening. And . . . you.

Me?

. . . Perhaps.

I glared at the lake. Ahkneri should’ve been in league with the oracle using a cryptic answer like that. A straight answer, for once, just once, would’ve been nice.

Laughter breezed through my mind. That was a straight answer. You are an . . . uncertainty. A divine being, made not born, imbued with the blood of the three noble races my kind created. You are like us, but not. An unknown. A confusion.

I knew several people who would totally agree with those words, and I was one of them. Ever since I’d been brought back to life a year ago, the Adonai and Charbydon noble genes I was given were fusing with my own human code. I was becoming like those who had seeded the three races. The First Ones. That was the theory, anyway.

“Who are they? Who follows the signs?” I asked her.

“So is that like a rhetorical question or do you really want me to answer?” Rex stood beside me, staring at the lake as if trying to figure out who I was talking to. Apparently I’d asked my questions aloud.

“Not unless you know more about those sidhé fae we ran into at the oracle’s club,” I said, pulling a set of plastic gloves from my pocket.

“You mean the night I kicked ass?” Rex’s mouth twitched. “It kills you that I have skills, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.” I shot him an eye roll and handed him the small plastic evidence bag and extra pair of gloves Liz had given to me earlier. “Here. Put these on and hold this open. Skills or not, you shouldn’t be fighting. If Will’s body takes a mortal blow, you’ll be heading straight to the Afterlife. No wandering around until you find another body. You’ll be gone. Finished. Game over.”

“And your worry for me comes out of a deep, unwavering love, is that it?” I went to reply, but he cut me off, saying, “I knew I was growing on you.”

Whatever I was about to say deflated and I was left shaking my head. I gently removed the hair from the tree. There was no need to deny it; Rex was growing on me. Already had, in fact. He’d become an indispensable part of my family and a huge part of my daughter’s life. I’d thought living with him would be strange and uncomfortable, and at first it was. Now, I couldn’t imagine him gone.

Once the hair was in the bag, Rex sealed it. “To answer your question, no, I don’t know any more about those puffed up old faeries than I did before. I thought you asked Sian of the Beautiful White Hair to dig around.”

“I did.” Rex fell in step beside me as I headed back to the main temple to deliver my find. “She hasn’t turned up much other than a few vague mentions about a very old, very secretive warrior sect. And as we all know, legends turn out to be true in most cases. Those guys were definitely old school . . . And speaking of Sian, is it really necessary to call her every day? You do know she’s not interested in guys, right?” The memory of finding Sian clutching Daya’s photo came to mind. From the moment Rex had seen Sian, when she’d pulled a gun on me and shoved me into an alley in Underground, he’d been smitten, too smitten to even come to my aid—not that I’d needed him to. But still. It was the principle . . .

“I’m just being friendly,” he said defensively. “Nothing wrong with chatting and getting to know someone. Consider it therapy,” he said, amused by his logic.

“And what? You’re the doctor of the shy and introverted?”

He laughed. “Sure, if you want to call it that. I’m helping her come out of her shell a little, all pro bono, of course. And who knows. She might swing both ways.”

“Rex!”

He was grinning like a damned idiot. I wasn’t sure whether he was being serious or just giving me a hard time like usual. But I decided not to proceed down that particular road. If Rex wanted to beat himself up against the impenetrable shell that was Sian, then he’d do it whether I advised against it or not.

After giving the bag to Liz, Rex and I left the Grove. Pen wasn’t in sight, and I didn’t go in search of him. I’d call him later. He wouldn’t see having a possible jinn witness to Killian’s murder as a positive thing. In fact, he’d most likely scour the jinn underground to find said witness and end up causing a war we didn’t need.

I dropped Rex off at the house and then drove back to the station to file a report and talk to the chief about handing the case over to Ashton Perry, a.k.a. “Asston,” and his crew. They’d have to be briefed on Pen’s sometimes volatile nature, and the current state of relations between him and Tennin.

As I exited the elevator onto the fifth floor and headed down the hall, Sian stepped out of our office, saw me, and froze like a thief caught red-handed.

Immediately, I knew something was wrong.

Her hand was still on the doorknob, holding it ajar, but her eyes were pinned on me and her pale gray skin went paler. Slowly, her expression went from shocked to sad. What the hell?

“Sian,” I said, approaching. “What’s wrong?”

My voice was like a jolt. She jumped, blinked, and then stammered. She was such a contradiction, this tall, beautiful creature with indigo eyes, a cascade of white hair, and a body that wouldn’t quit. Her hand shook as she smoothed down a black pencil skirt.

“What happened? What is it?”