The Hour of Dust and Ashes cm-3 Read online

  “Any idea how they see inside?”

  “None, I’m afraid. I wasn’t even aware this was a talent they possessed. I’ll research mo If I find anything, I’ll let you know. How’s your arm?” I followed his glance to my right arm. It was covered by my sleeve, but underneath, the scars from the battle atop Helios Tower remained. More precisely the scar or the imprint left from reaching inside of the agate sarcophagus and taking the divine sword from the grip of the First One lying inside, and using it to kill Llyran, the Adonai serial killer who’d been working with the Sons of Dawn for his own psychotic agenda.

  That weapon was meant for a divine being to wield. It meant death to anyone who touched it. But because I had the genes of all three worlds coursing through my body—much like the First Ones—I had lived. And now I had what appeared to be some kind of ancient script/molecular-looking symbols running from my fingers to my shoulder.

  “I’d very much like to copy the symbols, to study them. When you’re up for it, of course.”

  Aaron felt strongly that the markings on my arm were from the language of the First Ones. Divine script. The first writings. The root language of the three worlds. And to him it was further evidence that I was morphing into—or evolving back into—a First One, a divine being, the first beings formed by the Creator and the genetic forefathers of the three noble races: humans, Charbydon nobles, and the Elysian Adonai.

  “Maybe when you’re up to it,” I said, standing.

  He actually smiled at that. Aaron was a long way from being healed and he knew it.

  After I left the tiny hut in the woods, I took the meandering path that led to the school.

  Bigger and grander than the Mordecai House, the League’s school, all done in gray stone and Gothic architecture, seemed like the perfect atmosphere to study the arcane. The grounds were beautiful and just as immaculate as the grounds of the Mordecai House.

  I really didn’t think about what I did next, just let my feet carry me to the front of the main building and then followed the signs that pointed to the office, where I spoke with the administrative assistant. After looking over the scholarship application that Aaron had partially filled out, I signed my name to it, also signing the form giving permission to release my daughter’s academic records from Hope Ridge.

  There. Done. I swallowed tightly, handed the pen back, and left.

  It was just one small step, I told myself. Just to see if she’d even qualify. It didn’t mean I’d made a decision.

  It was only a baby step.

  5

  I spent the rest of the day checking out the residences and workplaces of the suicide victims and talking to friends and family before heading into the office. There’d been no notes, no hints from family or friends that either ash addict had been contemplating suicide. Nothing to suggest they were about to take a leap from a twelfth-story window.

  Walking across the back lot of Station One, a sense of defeat settled over me. I was tired. Anxious for a call from Alessandra. Worried about my sister and the other potential victims.

  How did you fight something you couldn’t see or weren’t sure existed in the first place? How did you protect someone you love from an unknown like that? I shuffled up the steps and into the building, heading robotically toward the elevator that would take me to the fifth floor—home to my tiny office set amid a sea of overflow office equipment.

  Hank and I no longer worked for the Integration Task Force of Atlanta. I’d gone rogue to save my kid and Hank had joined me. I’d known at the time it would cost me my job and end up in jail time.

  Ask me to do it again and I would in a heartbeat.

  What else could I have done? Tell my kid I couldn’t break the law to save her life? That I just had to sit back and let her die? Please. I’d give my life for my kid. Saving her had been the only choice.

  The decision had been a no-brainer, but it was that decision which gained us the attention of the covert bigwigs in Washington. It was either take the job or go to jail. We took the job.

  There were teams like us in every major city. Anywhere there was a gateway into the other worlds, anywhere there was a large population of off-worlders you’d find two detectives like Hank and me willing to go above and beyond.

  The elevator doors slid open with a whisper. My stomach growled as I walked down the hallway, reminding me that I never should’ve skipped lunch. I slid my key card into the lock and then made my way through the maze of discarded office equipment and furniture before coming to our nifty space in the back corner. With a heavy exhale, I dropped into my chair, laid my arms on the desk, and rested my forehead on my arms.

  So tired—my stomach growled again—and hungry.

  If only I could feel normal. Stop feeling so drugged out all the time and like I had to eat like a sumo wrestler, stop hearing random voices whenever I finally relaxed and stop seeing visions … My insides were being pulled in random directions all the time. I wanted to be normal again. Human again. At this point, I’d even settle for my evolution—as Aaron called it—coming to a close and leaving me in whatever state I ended up in.

  The door to our office clicked open. I didn’t raise my head. The air of calmness trickling through the room and the scent of mint and lavender told me all I needed to know.

  I didn’t know what it was about the jinn hybrid that brought about this sense of tranquility. When I first saw Sian in Grigori Tennin’s strip club, she’d had the same effect on me and everyone in the place. I wondered if all jinn hybrids possessed that ability or if it was just something unique to her.

  “Oh, good, you’re back,” she said, entering our nook and bringing with her the scent of food. My stomach twisted. A stack of files dropped beside me. “Here’s everything on the ash support group, all the members, personal info, vital records, et cetera. Oh, and Hank called. He’ll be in the office later.”

  I finally lifted my head and looked at her tall, cloaked form. “Hank called?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I waited for more, some message for me, but she continued on, going to her desk by the window, dropping her canvas bag and an armful of files before removing her cloak and draping it over the hook on the wall.

  I grabbed my cell and checked it. No missed messages from my partner. What the hell was going on with him?

  “You okay?” Sian straightened her black pencil skirt as she came back to my desk carrying a large brown bag.

  The scent of dough, freshly baked and wonderful, wrapped around me like a warm blanket. Sian’s white eyebrow rose, and she lifted the bag. “I think I should get a raise for supporting your eating habits.”

  Hunger pains radiated through my gut. I motioned with my fingers. “Hand it over.” My hand shook as I sat back and dove into the bag, pulling out an everything bagel. The first bite was pure, one hundred percent, Grade-A pleasure. “Bless you,” I muttered, cheeks full.

  She parked her hip on the edge of Hank’s desk, which was pushed up against mine. She wore a thin cashmere turtleneck in dark gray, much darker than her light gray skin. Her snow-white hair was pulled back into a braided bun and her indigo and violet eyes held a note of apprehension.

  Sian was gorgeous—high cheekbones, full lips, almond-shaped eyes … Yet she didn’t go outside of her home or the office without covering herself with her cloak.

  Bias and racism was alive and well even in the off-world community. And while the jinn prized the extremely rare product of jinn and human offspring, the rest of the Charbydons and Elysians did not, nor did some humans.

  I wanted Sian to hold her head high, to ignore the criticism and step out into society as the beautiful, alluring, and harmless being that she was, but after a life spent growing up in the confines of the jinn underground, she had miles yet to go. There was one good thing about being forced Topside and taking this job—she was slowly gaining confidence.

  After I’d wolfed down the first bagel, I went in for another. “Thank you,” I told her. “So you gonna keep stari
ng at me or tell me what’s on your mind?”

  Sian’s father had used a blood debt against me to secure his daughter a job within the ITF so she could feed him information. He gained a lot of useless fluff instead. Sian didn’t have the cunning chops of dear old dad. He knew this, refused to accept it, and had placed her here anyway. Grigori Tennin used everyone and everything, even his own daughter.

  “I have no loyalty to my father now. And I don’t want Daya’s death to be for nothing. I want the Sons of Dawn stopped. I don’t want war. For anyone. She’d want me to do this.”

  “Do what exactly?”

  Sian was still mourning the death of Daya Machanna. And Tennin had no idea his involvement with the Sons of Dawn and Llyran had resulted in the death of someone Sian had loved. Their relationship had been a secret: totally forbidden, since Sian was a jinn and Daya was an Elysian whose life force had been sucked dry and stored in Solomon’s Ring along with Aaron’s and those of the others Llyran had murdered. All to raise the Star, the First One …

  “I’m in the perfect position to keep an eye on my father.”

  Ied chewing and considered her words.

  In the end, I didn’t think it was my place to deny her the opportunity to get some closure for Daya’s death, and if this was how she wanted to do it … “I wouldn’t want you to play spy. No riffling through his things or anything. But if you want to take a mental note of who comes and goes, keep your ears open, learn his routines … I think that would be okay. You’ll have to clear it with the chief.”

  “I’ll talk to him as soon as he comes in. I can tell you already that he’s the one who hired the Pig-Pens to go after you at the club last night. One came early this morning to report to him, and she mentioned the sidhé fae you asked me to research, but neither she nor my father seemed to know why they were in the club. They think the fae are also after the sarcophagus.

  “My father doesn’t believe it was destroyed. He’s convinced you know where it is. Is he right, Charlie? Was it destroyed? Did you see inside?”

  “Yes.” Because of the absolute necessity, this particular lie was easy to tell and I was exceptionally convincing. “There was a sword and a bunch of bones. But I didn’t destroy them. I’m not strong enough to do something like that. The Druid King is, and he did. It’s done. Your father needs to accept it and move on.”

  “He’ll never do that. He asks me to find out, to listen to what you say, to follow you sometimes. He is angry over the loss.”

  Again, not surprising. But I doubted even Tennin himself knew exactly what rested inside. It had taken Llyran calling down the darkness and uttering the language of the First Ones to open the sarcophagus lid, and Tennin had never made it across the rooftop during the battle to see inside before Pendaran went dragon on his ass and took him down. Literally. Six feet into the pavement below.

  Only Pen, Hank, and I knew what really rested within the thick agate. No bones. No remains. But a perfect, black-winged being at rest, in some kind of eternal stasis, but able to plead, to somehow fill my head with her sorrow and make me feel a connection with her. We couldn’t destroy her. So we hid her at the bottom of Clara Meer Lake under the protection of the Druid King.

  “Charlie.”

  I jerked. “Huh?”

  “I said he is thinking, always thinking of ways to find out, to make you tell him.”

  I resumed chewing my bite of bagel. “What ways? Has he said?”

  “Not anything that makes sense. It’s mostly grumblings, bits and pieces of his thoughts. My father is very careful, he will think of every angle, every outcome, every way his actions might affect him and his goals. He is only rash when there is no time to be anything else.” The corners of her lips turned down. “He is more of a beast to live with than usual. Maybe we can give him some kind of proof that the tomb was destroyed. Maybe that would put an end to his obsession.”

  I mulled the idea over. “Maybe,” I said quietly, dragging another bagel out of the bag. “What’s the latest on the ash victims?”

  “All the bodyguards reported in at noon. So far everyone is accunted for and safe.”

  “Good. Any luck on the exorcists?”

  “None. No one will come after the warning went out from the union.”

  I polished off the third bagel and pushed away from the desk, heading to the small corner kitchen for a bottled water. After a long drink, I leaned against the small countertop. “What about the sidhé and that creature? Did you find out anything based on my description and that name, Sachâth?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. I tried every variation and spelling of the word. I’ll keep trying, though. As for the fae, I found a few warrior sects that might match. I’m going to work on getting that together for you now,” she said, sliding off the desk and making for her own.

  “You want a bagel?”

  She gave a careless wave, her back to me. “Nope. They’re all yours.”

  Smiling, I returned to my chair, stuck a fourth bagel in my mouth, and grabbed a sheet of paper to write the chief a Request for Salary Increase for our researcher/secretary/spy/bagel-bringing angel.

  The boost did me good for the next hour as I worked on transferring my notes from earlier into my computer and then compiling my report on the suicides, which would then be encrypted via our new protocol, sent to the chief, and then passed on to Washington.

  My cell rang, making me jump. Alessandra’s number flashed on my caller ID. “Madigan,” I said.

  “You should try those Starbucks energy drinks or a SoBe Adrenaline Rush with an Aeva bun and that should kick your ass into high gear.”

  “Thanks,” I said dryly. “You get the intro?”

  “I did. Your first meeting will take place now at the covered bridge in Stone Mountain.”

  “Wait, what do you mean, first meeting?”

  “You’ll meet four sylphs. Ryssa, Nivian, Melki, and Emain. Each element is needed to see inside. That’s how it works. Have fun. Oh, and don’t bother holding your breath.”

  She hung up, but still I said, “Ha, ha,” into the speaker.

  I used the restroom, washed my hands and face, tucked my hair behind each ear, and then went back into the office, where I rechecked all three of my firearms. My 9mm firearm, my Hefty, and my Nitro-gun. Since sylphs were originally from Elysia, I was hoping the Hefty would perform as it should and the high frequency sound wave tag would do to them what it did to most Elysian races: drop them like a stone.

  Not that I was going to battle. I was going to ask a big favor, to beg for help if necessary. If I succeeded, we could know in a few hours if Bryn was in the clear. That thought gave me all the energy I needed.

  6

  Stone Mountain was less than twenty miles from the city. Unfortunately, it fell within the forty-mile-wide mass of Charbydon darkness roiling overhead. But despite the drop in tourism, Stone Mountain wasn’t the ghost town you’d think it’d be. Fireworks were planned for New Year’s Eve. The granite rock would be lit up like always, and a concert on the lawn would go on as scheduled.

  As I drove through the main gate and down Jefferson, lights blinked through the trees and across the water. Still some die-hard campers around and a ton of employees to maintain all of the features in the park—the animals, the country club, the marina, all the stores, inns, and attractions …

  I navigated around Robert E. Lee Boulevard, passing one car before turning onto the road that would lead me to the covered bridge and across the water to Indian Island.

  The headlights illuminated the long structure as I slowed my Tahoe to a crawl. There was no one waiting on this side of the bridge, so I drove inside. The lights from the vehicle beamed off the lattice sides, creating odd shadows as I went. The effect only heightened the apprehension already pricking my skin.

  After parking, I took a moment to steady myself, turned off the engine, and got out. A mild breeze rustled the leaves and branches. My boots crunched the gravel. Spooky bridge, wooded island, darkne
ss overhead … Christ. It felt like I’d just stepped into a damn horror film.

  Ripples in the water caught my attention. I found the source standing at the edge of the lake near the embankment only a couple yards from the bridge.

  Sylph at eleven o’clock.

  She looked human, so that was promising. But I didn’t see the other three.

  Okay. Here we go.

  Carefully, I made my way down to the grassy edge, where I had to completely readjust my initial thought on the sylph: human-looking, yes, but in a highly disturbing, heart-pounding way.

  The sylph stood at arm’s length from me, her feet in the water. She was reed-thin and willowy like the fae, but a tiny thing in stature, no bigger than my eleven-year-old. Her skin was the color of moonstone and oyster. Tiny blue spider veins threaded through portions of her neck, cheeks, and arms. Her face was technically pretty, petite nose, small mouth, but it was difficult to see beyond the fact that she looked like a drowning victim come back to life.

  A slash of shimmering blue-gray cloth covered her small breasts and wrapped around her hips. Her dark hair fell in long, tangled strands, trapping bits of mud, sand, and what looked like algae.

  Her eyes, though …

  Unease curled up my spine. Her irises were a rich blue ringed in white, and a clear wash of water passed over them in a continuous stream, going from one corner to the other.

  I glanced around, swallowing. “I thought there were four of you.”

  The creature looked in my direction with an un-focused stare. Water bled like tears from her eyes, running down her cheeks, and taking gravity-defying paths to her mouth, ears, and nostrils.

  Her lips parted. A high voice came out, ringing in an unearthly tone and thick with a distinctive Irish-like lilt. “You’ll meet each of us in turn,” she said very slowly, as though talking was a rare occurrence for her. I am Nivian. This is my water.”

  And territorial, I added to the list of strange attributes.