hand of hate 01 - destiny blues (32 page)

“Are we okay?”
 

He smiled.  “See you around, brat.”
 

“Later, grease monkey.”
 

I took a deep breath and pushed back out through the double glass doors into the parking lot. I spotted Rhys standing amid an assemblage of two dozen people. Something about the crowd jarred my senses, something that couldn’t solely be attributed to the loose cluster of unattached djinn hovering around the edges. None of these people had been inside, I realized. They loitered in the parking lot, skulking like feral cats. Several were accompanied by named djinn. They appeared dressed for a wedding instead of a funeral, in soft pastels and bright summer whites with seersucker instead of the somber funereal colors of the midsummer mourners inside. Two women in the group wore gaudy feathered hats that would have been more appropriate in an Easter parade. But something else seemed incongruous with this occasion of death.  
 

I slid up behind Rhys, feeling my way forward, like a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. It was their auras. Not all of them had one. Most did not even have lifelines. These were the paranormals, I realized.  The supernaturals. Anomalous individuals. A dozen or more strays from the hidden underbelly of the town. These were the refugees; the real residents of Shore Haven. Hiding in plain sight, drawn here like moths to the flame, they belonged here more than any of us.  
 

I felt a whisper, the first promise of belonging. Would they embrace me, or would they brand me an outsider, and crush me with their rejection? I choked down a sob and stood shoulder to shoulder with Rhys. These were my people too, now. I could help them, I know I could. Rhys and I could keep the intensity of the FBI and law enforcement gaze away from them. Allow them to maintain their cloak of invisibility, keep them safe from prying eyes and restore their sense of safety in their secret sanctuary. I slipped my hand into the crook of Rhys’ elbow. Without turning, he drew me to him, and curled my arm protectively within his own.
 

I rested my head against his shoulder, and tried to concentrate on the conversation, but my emotions were too chaotic. With each breath, my chest unclenched a little. Calm joy filled me. A sense of renewed purpose bubbled up inside me.  
 

As I listened to the conversation, it began to dawn on me that these people were all complaining to Rhys about something. They were all being plagued by djinn.  
  
 

“What am I supposed to do, Warrick? They’re  everywhere. The feds are going to start a witch hunt any day.”
 

“If the FBI finds out I’ve got one of these, you know what will happen. I’m already on their watch list.”
 

“I hear you, Dave,” Rhys answered. “I promise we’re working on it. Give me a few days to get this taken care of.”
 

A wave of heat washed over me, and I remembered my promise. What was I waiting for?  
 

“How are you going to do that?  Now that the Hand is gone, how can you expect to control these things? Who knows what’s going to happen next?”
 

Rhys hesitated, and I answered for him. “I promise you, the djinn will be gone from your lives tonight. Give us just a few more hours.” Rhys gave me that great smile of his. The one that was just for me.
 

“Who are you?” This from the skeptic on the FBI watch list.  
 

“The torch has been passed.” Rhys pulled me forward. “This is Madame Coumlie’s heir, Mattie Blackman.” He winked at me, and my heart fluttered happily. For an uncomfortable moment the group stared at me. Then, without warning, they alerted to something coming up behind me, and without a word slunk away into the shadows.  
 

I turned to see the FBI’s paranormal control agent, Frank Porter approaching at a brisk walk.  
 

“Hey you two, I’m glad I caught you.” I experienced a moment of panic before I remembered I’d ordered Blix and Larry to stay at home.  
 

“Shoot,” Rhys said.  
 

“I wanted let you know that in addition to the bodies in the walk-in, we found body parts of three more in the main kitchen freezer upstairs. We’ll need to run DNA to identify some of them. Looks like some of the missing go back years.”
 

“He was a demon master. His djemon killed them.” I hoped it was true.  
 

“Well, not all of them. More than half the victims had been strangled. You were lucky you weren’t one of them.”
 

“Lucky for me he bled to death.”  
 

“Actually no. He died of a massive brain hemorrhage. In spite of all that blood, the doc thought he would have survived.”   
 

Guilt and confusion flooded through me. On one hand, I know I’d done the right thing. One the other hand, I couldn’t forget the sound that his life’s thread had made when I snapped it, or the surge of savage glee I’d experienced at the moment of his death. Morta. I shivered in spite of the heat.  
 

“We found five more skeletons down in the tunnel below the sub-basement. Coroner is guessing that they’ve been there for decades, maybe since prohibition. He thinks they might have been rival bootleggers or inconvenient witnesses. We followed the same rail line you told us about, and guess where it led us?”
 

“The basement of Mad Otto’s estate,” I answered.  
 

“Bingo. When we asked to search the premises, the old coot refused us and threatened us with his demon. Can you believe that?”
 

Rhys and I looked at each other, neither of us surprised. “What happened?”
 

“He’s got a smart lawyer. Because of his age and health, he’s under house arrest. With all his money, I doubt he’ll ever serve a day in jail. The Bureau has never run into a situation like this before, so we’re not quite sure how to proceed. Probably be in all the papers tomorrow.”
 

“This must put you back in good graces again,” Rhys said.  
 

Porter beamed and blushed ear-to-ear. “I’m not disappointed.” He glanced around to make sure no one was listening in. “The Bureau is going to be looking for a replacement for me. The paranormal task force needs people with special talents. Either of you interested? What about it?”
 

“You said neither of us had psychic abilities.”  
 

“Obviously those tests don’t tell us everything.” He nodded at Rhys, and I realized some unsaid message had passed between them. “What do you think of my offer?”
 

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Frank. I’m an academic, remember?”
 

“What about you, Mattie?”
 

I chewed my lip. I’d wanted to work in law enforcement, real law enforcement, not just Parking Control, all my life. But today’s snub by Mike and the department’s rigid stance against the anomalous community bothered me. Porter’s antagonistic attitude toward the Hand of Fate and demons shocked me. In spite of what Karen said, I wasn’t so sure things could ever go back to the way they used to be. And to be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to. I didn’t picture myself as a hypocrite.  
 

“Thanks, I’ll think about it.”  
 

Porter took off and Rhys and I drifted over to my car. We leaned against Trusty Rusty, waving to people as they left, not looking at each other. After ten minutes, I couldn’t stand it anymore.  
 

“I’m sorry I freaked out last night.”
 

“Don’t beat yourself up over it.”
 

“Can we start over?”
 

Rhys turned to face me, his expression serious. “What did you have in mind, Mattie? Other than sealing up that cavern, what do you want from me?”
 

What exactly did I want? Now that we’d come to the moment, I didn’t seem able to string the right words together. When in doubt, chicken out.  
 

I smoothed my hair.  “I have a plan.”  
 

“What’s your plan?”
 

“Well, two things.  First of all, we don’t need the journals, we have Oneiri-- I mean Henri. We can just ask him, but I’m pretty sure I already figured it out. That’s what I came over to tell you yesterday. I found a way to banish the djinn. I sent all mine to the cavern. It was so easy, Rhys. I think Madame Coumlie did the same thing. I think she used Oneiri to herd all the djinn back into the original cavern and she commanded them to stay there. Then they sealed it. We can use Blix and Larry to do the same thing.”
 

His sharp eyes drilled into me. “Blix and Larry?”
 

I blushed. Oops. “It’s a secret. Don’t tell anybody.” How did I forget Lance’s warning so quickly?  
 

“So you have two djemons now? When did this happen?”  
 

I winced.  “Um, three. The first one was by accident, but I sent him to the caves with all the other djinn that had been following me. Blix and Larry have been with me from the beginning.”
 

Rhys gaped at me.  “You surprise me.”
 

“After I sent the other djinn to the cavern, I ran to your office to tell you. When I found blood all over the floor and Henri hiding in the stairwell, I figured the Night Shark’s djemon had taken you. The only place I could think it would go was the caves. I called on Blix to lead me to you. And if it weren’t for Larry, I’d have been chopped into little pieces by Garr and his machete.”
 

Henri came up to us at that moment, and confirmed my suspicions about what had been done in 1930.  He had indeed rounded up the unnamed djinn that had attached themselves to the unsuspecting citizens of the Shore.  
 

“I was able to assist Madame in finding the djinn, and once they were in her presence, she ordered them into the cavern, which was then sealed. People believed the entrance was sealed to keep the djinn inside, but that wasn’t true. The command of the Hand of Fate alone kept the djinn in their cave. The seal was nothing but a safety measure to keep people out. However, as Madame’s powers began to fade, so did her compulsion and power over the djinn. They began to drift beyond the confines of the cave and into the town.”  
 

“Henri, tell me about the others. What happened to the named djinn?”
 

He shrugged. “As long as they had not yet been made flesh, they obeyed the Hand of Fate, and were banished. The fully materialized djemon could not be compelled, except by their master. Most answered to a single man, and once he died, they were too small to survive.”  
 

“So what happened to all the new djemons that Garr named?”
 

“Any djemon made flesh which kills its master is banished, along with all the other djemon who served him.”
 

Frank said Garr died of a brain hemorrhage. “What if the djemon didn’t cause its master’s death?”
 

“If they are large enough to transform into human shape, they become djenie, just as I did. It is unusual for a djemon to serve long enough to do so. Those who have not served so long remain small. They live the life of vermin, and soon die. Why do you ask?”
 

“Can you help us round up the stray djinn, like you did before?”
 

“Non. Once we transform, we can no longer see djinn. Only your djemon can help you.
 

CHAPTER 38
 

Rhys and I agreed to meet up first thing in the morning, after Blix and Larry rounded up all the loose djinn  and I sent them in to the cavern to wait for us. The FBI would be sealing the doorway entrance from the bootleggers’ tunnel, but the entrance I’d used needed to be sealed as well. Once we finished, no more stray djinn would be able to attach themselves to unsuspecting citizens.  
 

The dismissive goodnight peck from Rhys disappointed me. I wished I’d had the nerve to ask him to come home with me, but with Henri standing there I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I got back to my apartment and curled up on the couch to read, but couldn’t concentrate. I recalled the panic I’d felt as I sought to find Rhys’s thready pulse, cold against my lips. I felt a connection to Rhys, as if he was already a part of me; like Lance and Mina. People trusted him. I trusted him. I wanted to be with him.
 

There were people out there I could help because of who I was becoming. I’d given my word to help these people. My people. Being the Hand of Fate didn’t mean I had to help them, but I wanted to. Rhys had the right idea. He didn’t make excuses for who he was, and neither should I.  Not anymore.  
 

#
 

The morning sun peeked over the horizon as we pulled Trusty Rusty up behind Rhys’s truck on Sentinel Hill. This time, I’d remembered to wear my winter long johns underneath my jeans. Rhys had brought clean coveralls, a portable acetylene torch, welding mask, tools and other equipment we’d need to seal up the access tunnel I’d used last time. I’d protested when I’d realized I’d have to wear the Cavewoman Barbie getup again, but Rhys told me wearing dirty clothes into the caves violated caver protocol. Sheesh.  Bit late for that.