The snow melted beneath Irial’s feet in a slowly widening circle, a showy reminder that the Djinn were creatures of fire. Wicked amusement danced in the Raven prince’s eyes like a wild flame set in the midst of a green forest, setting Addai’s teeth on edge and making him struggle against lifting his hand and calling his sword from its sheath of air and hidden reality.
Irial’s teeth flashed white in his deeply tanned face, goading Addai, daring him to break the silence and ask what message he’d brought.
“Tell me,” Addai said, willing to cede that much of a victory to Irial, satisfied in knowing the prince of the Raven House would one day be brought to his knees by a match arranged for him to serve the purpose of seeing the Djinn returned to Earth.
“My father sends word. He wants you to know the reward promised is now yours to claim. He says you will recognize it when you see it, but cautions you to remember all things are part of the weave, including this.”
“Where?” Addai asked, refusing to name Sajia it or to reveal her existence to either Irial or Tir.
“Your prize is in San Francisco. Or will be shortly. In the occult shop protected by the Tassone sigil.”
TWO
Sajia girded herself to approach the threshold of the occult shop. No other description of the effort fit as well.
It’d been like this from the very first visit she’d made with Corinne. Not just a sensitivity to magic, but a deep aversion to it.
Sweat ran down her back. And already her stomach roiled, leaving her fighting to suppress a violent spew of vomit, as if her soul would flee any way it could.
She smoothed slick palms over her pants and forced herself forward.
A step.
Two.
Her lungs constricted, as if squeezed by a giant fist to force the air out. She barely stifled a gasp. Another step and the Tassone mark was clearly visible, etched in the glass next to the door: a serpent with an apple in its mouth, the three segments of its S-shaped body impaled by an arrow that ran from a point behind the head to just before the tip of its tail.
Unlike in Oakland, the city across the bay, there were no bars covering the glass, no shutters of solid wood or steel to keep someone from breaking in during the day, or guard against the things that roamed the night. The Tassone symbol alone was enough protection.
Sajia resisted the urge to touch the knives she wore at her hips. Except in practice she’d never had to pull them since becoming bajaran. The recently carved symbols on her arm served as a deterrent to trouble.
She wondered if that would remain true when she crossed to Oakland. Unlike San Francisco, that city was controlled by humans, many of whom would gladly rid the world of anything touched by the supernatural.
Those humans with gifts were required to live in a certain area of town, outside of the one patrolled by guardsmen and police. Their houses were marked, identifying the nature of their talents.
Beyond the area set aside for them lay the red zone, a place where vice thrived and the lords who controlled it enforced their own set of laws. Brothels lined the streets, human as well as the ones housing shapeshifters not welcome in the lands controlled by the Were. Gambling clubs and opium dens were common, as were private gathering places where humans could indulge in whatever amused them.
Oakland was a port city. But even without the visiting sailors and merchants, there was plenty of business for the red zone. And that’s where Sajia feared she’d find Corinne. She couldn’t imagine one of the gifted sheltering a vampire scion, or one of the law-abiding.
Given the fisherman’s corpse, she didn’t think she’d find Corinne’s trail by going to the docks. Which left the occult shop as a starting point.
Forcing air into lungs that fought against expanding sent a spasm of pain through Sajia’s chest as she opened the door and stepped into the shop. It smelled of books and incense, scents she usually found pleasing, relaxing.
Not today. And never here.
She made her way to the counter. The man behind it looked up at her approach.
He was a stranger to her, gray-skinned and balding, cadaverous in appearance. His fingertips and lips blackened from ink.
Choice stood in front of her. Honor played a role in vampire society, and with it came the concept of saving face.
She could ask about Corinne directly, inquiring as to what, if anything, he might have seen while her charge was in the shop. The scarring on her arm gave her the right to those answers. Or she could ask about the token, hoping that finding its source might lead to where Corinne was hiding. She couldn’t do both.
If she survived this and found Corinne unharmed from her adventure, she’d prefer not to suffer additional punishment because she’d confirmed, by use of a name, that a scion had slipped away from the Tucci estate, in all likelihood because of a betrothal.
Sajia chose the latter, and though she’d been raised in a vampire-controlled city, the word master still tasted vile on her tongue. She forced herself to use it anyway, to evoke what courtesy might be extended to the Tucci family.
“I’m inquiring on behalf of one of my masters,” she said, “trying to find out the name of someone skilled enough in the use of magic to create a token allowing a human with blood obligations to hide.”
The clerk’s lips pulled back. Smile or grimace or show of distaste, it tightened his skin and accentuated the shape of his skull. “Visit the Wainwright witches for that answer. You’ll find them in Oakland. But be prepared to pay for the information. Nothing comes without cost where they’re concerned.”
Sajia thanked him and turned away from the counter just as a man entered the shop. At the sight of him her heart flip-flopped in her chest, seeming to stop and then race forward in wild abandon, torn between fear and desire.
He was mesmerizing. The face of a god—
Or a fallen angel like those painted on canvas, created in the imaginations of artists who’d lived well before mankind developed the technology to destroy the world.
Black hair and equally black irises. Carved perfection and carnal sin.
She wet her lips without being aware of it until his gaze dropped to them, hungry and fierce and commanding.
“Sajia,” he said, her name turned into a caress, into images of naked bodies stretched out on silky sheets, lips and hands exploring without inhibition, mesmerizing her until she forced the erotic pictures from her mind.
How he knew her name, she didn’t know. But unless he’d been sent by The Master to assist her, she had no time for him.