Kelly Gay - The Better Part of Darkness

The hybrid led us down a long flight of creaking wooden stairs. The air became wetter and substantially thicker with the smell of warm dirt and stone. The walls had been left bare. Massive wooden beams held up doorways and supported the ceiling in places. Ditches lined either side of the walkway to hold water and condensation that collected on the walls. We passed rooms open to view, fire pits dug into the centers and the ceilings outfitted with a fan-driven ventilation system to draw out the smoke.

I’d heard about this place for years, but this was a moment I never thought I’d see. It may be the last thing you see, I thought.

“Hey.” Hank’s hand nudged my shoulder. “On the left.”

I followed his gaze and saw a room occupied by male and female jinn. A few were seated at a large table with piles of flower blossoms spread across the surface. The flowers were easily the size of a man’s hand with snow-white petals and the most riveting center I’d ever seen; each one glowed like moonlight and was ringed by a jagged ribbon of red that leaked down the center of each petal like bloody spikes. Jinn females were removing the petals and tossing the centers into a large pot placed over the fire.

The corridor was filled with the scent of honeysuckle.

Ash . It had to be.

The hybrid led us into a vast chamber with torches burning along the walls and a great fire pit in the center. Jinn lurked together in dark corners, sitting around the fire and at tables. All eyes lifted at our procession. This was the largest gathering of females I’d ever seen, and they were all fixated on me. At first I thought it was Hank, but after meeting a few of those disturbing stares, I knew it was me they’d latched on to, and the realization was unsettling.

At the end of the chamber sat an enormous wooden table. Grigori Tennin occupied one long side, facing us.

He was bigger, darker, and meaner-looking than any other jinn around. Colossal shoulders filled the back of an ornately carved chair. He wore a black T-shirt, which had to be XXXL, but it was pulled taut over beefy muscles. He had the thickest neck I’d ever seen. His back was to the wall and on either side of him, standing like sentinels ready to defend, were two jinn females decked in war regalia. Their arms were folded across their chests and their intense regard missed nothing. Their nostrils flared ever so slightly as I approached.

We stopped, as the hybrid walked to the short side of the table and slid into the only empty chair. Grigori didn’t look up; too busy cutting a plate-sized steak with a serrated dagger. A goblet of red wine sat next to the pewter plate. He stuck a piece of meat into his mouth and then grabbed the goblet, the rings on his large fingers flashing in the firelight.

His wide jaw flexed like a pit bull’s as he chewed. After he swallowed and drank deeply from the goblet, he relaxed against the back of the chair and wiped his mouth. I hadn’t come all this way to watch the man eat his dinner and made a move to say so, but Hank’s hand on my arm stopped me.

Finally, Grigori turned his attention to us, a faint violet gleam lighting the depths of sharp, calculating eyes.

“I ask myself,” he began in a deep, accented baritone, which seemed to have an echo all its own, “how is this … Detective Madigan, a female who killed two of my warriors, going to come out of this visit with her head still attached to her scrawny human body?”

The hybrid’s mouth quirked. “You can give her to the females. She reeks of sex. Even I can smell it on her.”

My head whipped to Hank as heat shot to my face. Seriously. I was going to murder him. Apparently the spell worked on other species as well. Len wasn’t the only one capable of attracting the entire female jinn population. No wonder they were following my every move with such intensity. It was lust. And it was all over me.

Grigori leaned to the side and smoothed a dark thumb down the hybrid’s cheek, but his attention remained fixated on me. “Sian is my daughter. My only heir. She is unique, you see, prized, for human and jinn blood rarely mix. But look at the beauty it creates, beauty the rest of the world shuns.” Suddenly his hand went to her throat, and he squeezed hard, practically pulling her onto the table. Her eyes bulged and began to water. Grigori’s gaze burned into mine and took on a fervent glow. “But even she is subject to the laws of the tribe. Don’t think I wouldn’t strike her down.”

He shoved her back into the chair. My heart raced as she coughed and quietly tried to overcome near strangulation by her own father. I’d gotten what I came for—evidence that the jinn were manufacturing ash . Now I just needed to figure out the connection to the CPP, and get the jinn off my back long enough to get out of here alive and then gather the troops to put a stop to their entire operation.

“This isn’t Charbydon,” Hank spoke up, his voice coated with steel. “Here you’re subject to human law.”

The jinn in the chamber nervously mimicked their leader’s rumbling chuckle. Grigori eyed Hank beneath hooded lids. Hank’s air of confidence never wavered. Grigori leaned forward and plucked his wine goblet off the table, swirling the liquid inside. “Why come here, Detectives?”

“Ash.” I figured I might as well push this as far as I could. “You’re manufacturing it for the CPP.”

He slapped one beefy hand on the table and threw back his head. The deep laughter sent chills down my spine. No one else dared laugh with him. When he was done, he leaned forward and grinned like Satan himself. “So?”

“You’re not above the law.”

He sat back and threw his arms wide. “Look around you. I am the law. My word is law.” He paused. “You coming here … It amuses me. I assume you want to make payment or bargain?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

Blood pounded through my temples. I swallowed. “Do you take Visa?”

The entire room froze. Even Grigori.

My blood pressure soared. With one bad move I’d be history, and I prayed to God I was reading him right.

Another eruption of laughter boomed through the room, startling me and everyone else. Grigori’s chair shook with the sound. As it receded, he wiped the corners of his eyes with his napkin. “Charlie Madigan. You make me laugh. You’re not the brightest female in the world coming here like this, but you have grômms, I’ll give you that. You and me, we will bargain.”

A female jinn shot up from a table at the far end of the chamber. “She cannot bargain; she has nothing! Her blood, her blood for my Neruk!”

Jaws dropped. It was obvious she’d made a terrible, fatal mistake.

Grigori pushed back from the table and stood, both hands coming to rest flat on either side of his plate as he focused on her. Her dark gray skin turned to light ash. She fell to her knees and tripped over desperate-sounding words in the jinn tongue.

A vein thickened in Grigori’s temple and ran back along his bare head. His eyes glowed brighter and brighter. His breathing became shallow, taxed, but also in a way that suggested he relished this part of his job. He shouted something short and brusque, causing the female’s head to jerk up. Their eyes connected. Power leaked into the chamber. The hairs on my arms rose as the female’s eyes began to glow so bright, they burned. No one moved to help her. A primal scream tore from her throat as violet-orange flame shot from her eye sockets and open mouth.

Appalled silence descended on the chamber as she fell over dead, black blood and brain matter leaking from her ears, eye sockets, and open mouth.

I gulped down the repulsion that rose in my throat, stunned by her death. I knew the jinn had power, and I also knew the tribe boss possessed the power of life and death over his tribe. I just never realized how literal that statement really was until now.