Alaskan Fury (23 page)

Father Vega fiddled with the
pages of the book on the coffee table.  “What is most likely to be in the
north, Imelda?”

“There’s no
roads
,” Imelda
cried, frustrated.  “We don’t
know
what’s up there.  There’s the rivers
and a few gravel airstrips and that’s
it
.  What could they be looking
for?”

Then she remembered the
wereverine’s vicious smile. 
“Oh, about a couple hundred dragons.”
  Her
heart started pounding a brief moment, before she forced that idea down.  No,
the dragons were dead.  Hunted to extinction centuries ago, one of the great
success stories of the Order.  The beast had just been trying to scare her.

“Let me put it this way,” Father
Vega said.  “If your kind were naturally predatory, requiring vast quantities
of meat to survive, yet were both reviled by human civilization and hunted by
the Order, where would you go?”

She frowned.  “Somewhere with
lots of game.”

“And, what is Alaska but one of
the few places on Earth not honeycombed with roads, with bountiful game still
thriving in untouched forests?”

“And we’ve found them,” Imelda
agreed.  “We’re sweeping up the last of the problem now, along the Yentna
River.”

Father Vega shook his head
sadly.  “You misunderstood.  Alaska has over five hundred thousand square miles
of wilderness.  Do you know how much of that can be reached by road?  Or how
much of it is completely untouched by modern humans?”

Imelda’s heart began to hammer. 
She had honestly not considered that the problem could have spread beyond the
Yentna River area.  She had been looking at it as a few last survivors, fleeing
the Order-patrolled cities like rats off a sinking ship.  It had actually not
occurred to her that they could have been here
before
the urban sprawl. 
She had always looked at them as predators slinking at the edges of a campfire,
picking off those unwary enough to travel beyond the light.  Scavengers that
lived off of the misfortunes of humanity, prowling the outskirts of
civilization.  After all, they were the agents of Satan, and Satan’s goal was
to corrupt the souls of humans.  Why would they have gone to the still-wild
areas of the world, if they were seeking to desecrate humanity, as the Bible
claimed they were?

“You mean,” she said softly,
“they’re just trying to hide.”  She had seen too much violence in her life to
believe that, and told him so.

Father Vega shrugged.  “Just as
in humans, there are those that get cornered or those that are bad eggs that do
things that make the hearts of the rest of us ache in dismay.  For the rest…” 
He sighed and stood.  “I’m sure they’re just trying to continue to exist.”

She peered at Father Vega, trying
to divine his meaning, yet trying to find some other explanation than the
obvious.  “Are you…
defending
…the demons, Father?”

“Not defending,” Father Vega
said, as he walked to the kitchen.  “Commiserating with them, perhaps.  Are you
in a cream and sugar mood?”

“Please,” she managed.  “My
stomach has been…finicky…of late.  The straight stuff would probably kill me,
at this point.”

Father Vega gave her a concerned
look over the coffee carafe.  “You need to take better care of yourself,
Sister.”

“It’s hard,” she managed.  Then,
considering, she asked, “What do
you
think are in the mountains,
Father?”

“Dragons,” he said simply.

Again, the wereverine’s words
came back to her in a cold rush. 
“Oh, about a couple hundred dragons.”

“Then,” she said softly, “we have
a very big problem on our hands.”

Father Vega chuckled.  “There are
over a billion members of the Church, Sister.  Even if there were dozens of
dragons up there, they would not fight an outright war, not as they did in the
Middle Ages.  They are too few, and the Order’s powers too great.  Besides, the
dragons were mainly reclusive, if you read the histories.”  He set a cup of
coffee down upon the table beside her.  “No, I’d be more worried about this
beastie you’ve been chasing with the djinni.”

“Why’s that?” she asked,
frowning.

Her Padre gave her another of
those looks that left her believing he knew a good deal more than he was
telling her outright, and asked gently, “What do you know of God’s angels,
Sister?”

Her heart began to pound.  “They
are messengers.”

Father Vega nodded.  “And do you
know the history of angels?  Where in the Bible does it say when they were
created?”

Her blood began to feel like acid
in her veins.  “It doesn’t.”

“Yet these beings were filled
with great wrath and awesome power, meting out God’s justice for him, were they
not?  Utterly loyal to God and his commands?  Did a single one of them not wipe
out an entire camp of a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrian soldiers in
one night?”

“Yes,” Imelda whispered.

“So,” Father Vega said, “if there
is no record of God creating them, who did?”

Imelda’s stomach began to twist
upon itself.  “Father, what you are saying is blasphemy.”

Father Vega sighed and pulled
something silver from his pocket.  “Yes,” he said, holding the symbol between
his fingers, “I’ve seen this before, Imelda,” he confessed.  “And if the one
who carried it is the symbol’s rightful owner, I wish you the caution of a
hundred-and-eighty-five thousand Assyrians.”  He handed it back to her, his
face sober.  “Drink your coffee, Sister.  You’re going to have a long day.”

Imelda laughed in desperation. 
“Are you trying to tell me I’m hunting an
angel
, Father?”

Father Vega gave her a long
look.  “What do you think?”

She considered.  An angel…cursed
by a wolf.  The thought of one of the awesome messengers of God being brought
low by a mere
wolf
seemed ridiculous to her.  “Why would an
angel
allow herself to be bitten by a
wolf
?”

Father Vega smiled.  “Only one of
many oddities, isn’t it?”

But Imelda’s mind was already
racing onward.  Suddenly, things were falling into place, making total sense to
her.  Imelda felt her breath leave her in a whoosh.  “The djinni…he’s not bound
to an object.  He’s bound to
her
.  He gave her his
service
.”  But
why?  Immediately, her head began to pound with possibilities.  Why would a
djinni offer his service, unless in the greatest act of desperation?  There
were the legends of the magi who passed djinn back and forth with their final
wishes, resulting in near-perpetual wishes, until someone got greedy and broke
the cycle.  Yet, those magi
used
their wishes, instead of holding onto
them in perpetuity.  Further, while the wolf was a magus, Imelda could not
imagine an
angel
participating in such a scheme.  Did that make the
djinni a demon so vile it had received the direct attention of God?  Or was an
angel nothing more than another First-Lander demon?  Not something to be
respected, but something just as vile?

As her ever-present migraine
continued to intensify, Father Vega continued on unawares.  “It would certainly
explain why this djinni, by being bound to this wolf, managed to survive the
Incursion,” Father Vega said softly.  “It might also explain how an angel
survived into the twenty-first century.”

“An angel…survivor?”  The idea
was almost beyond comprehension for her.  “What killed them?  And how?”

Father Vega gave her a woeful
smile.  “What always destroys the great messengers?”  When she had nothing to
offer, he said, “Betrayal, my dear.”  He looked deep into his coffee mug, eyes
distant.  “Betrayal.”

Chapter 10:
The Sleeping Beauty

Kaashifah made them a small
shelter within a rocky peak overlooking their backtrail, which appeared as if
it continued for a mile into the valley ahead of them, when in reality she had
spent the final moments of the evening levitating both herself and the djinni
to the rocky ledge and shooting a blast of energy down a ley line, allowing its
energy to surge and melt the snow in the same way as the djinni’s passing.  It
gave her a completely unobstructed view of those that would follow them, while
at the same time making it look as if they had continued further up the valley.

“And
that
,” Kaashifah
said, wrapping a field of invisibility over the entrance of their cave, “is how
we set a
trap
, ‘Aqrab.”

“And this in-for-red will not see
us here?” the djinni asked, giving the valley below a dubious look.

“Let it try,” Kaashifah said. 
She patted a large boulder that was part of the rocky outcropping beside her. 
“I have plenty of rocks.”

The djinni grunted, but
eventually just shrugged and turned to enter the cave depression she had
‘bubbled’ into the mountain behind the rocky ledge.  Following him inside, she
gestured at the floor.  “My stomach is killing me, djinni.  Where would you
like me to sit while you fondle my hand tonight?” 

‘Fondle’ was perhaps the wrong
word.  He had taken to massaging it, and, after Kaashifah had fallen into the
habit of his nightly routine, she had almost begun to look forward to the
moment she would slip her fingers into the djinni’s hand and allow his heat to
warm them.  For she, unlike a djinni, did not have the innate heat to survive
this place without spells and shielding to protect her, and, once she got over
the fact that it was being done by a
man
, found the sensation rather
pleasant.  Sometimes, she almost wished he would turn her attentions to her
other
hand, or her perpetually-cold feet.

The djinni turned from where he
had been examining a glittering vein of gold that glinted in the white quartz that
her bubble had unearthed and gave her an amused look.  “Oh?  And what makes you
think I will bargain for your hand tonight?”

Kaashifah felt a stab of panic
before she fought it down.  She should have known, after three weeks of
touching only her hand, the djinni would get bored.  “Don’t be ridiculous. 
It’s been my hand every night until now.  Why change a good thing?”

The djinni crossed his arms to
regard her with that regal pose he had perfected.  “Perhaps I tire of petting
your hand, mon Dhi’b.”

“Perhaps…?” she managed, in a
strangled voice.  Her rage rising, fighting the urge to curse him for the fear
of the Law resetting her seven days, as she had already made it through
three
whole days
, she grated, “And what would you…require…instead, djinni?”

For the longest time, ‘Aqrab’s
violet eyes simply watched her.  Then, seemingly coming to some sort of
decision, the djinni said, “As it is your stomach that pains you, mon Dhi’b, it
seems only fair that I be given free rein to touch your abdomen.  To my
satisfaction.”

Kaashifah froze, horror hitting
her in an icy wave that left her struggling to breathe as she met the djinni’s
gaze.  “You jest.”

“I grow tired of your hand,” the
djinni said, watching her reaction closely, “I would find diversions
elsewhere.”

“My
stomach
?!” Kaashifah
snapped.  She could think of no more sensitive spot, no more vulnerable area of
her entire body.  No man had ever laid his hand upon her stomach.  The thought
of allowing the
djinni
to touch her there left her feeling both sick…and
oddly excited.  Almost as if part of her
wanted
to trust him enough to
let him touch her there.

…which was utterly insane.

When she did not speak, only
stared at him in slack-jawed horror, the djinni shrugged.  “If you do not wish
to bargain tonight, mon Dhi’b, I would understand.  After all, you had a long
day of war-making.”

“Which is exactly why I need to eat,
you miserable
cretin
,” Kaashifah snapped.  Then, glaring, “But then, you
knew that.  That’s why you waited until we were stranded in the mountains and I
couldn’t tell you no.”

“You have reset your seven days—you
always can tell me no,” ‘Aqrab said, his voice carrying a note of indifference. 
Then his lips quirked in a mischievous smile.  “But then, if you do, perhaps I
will have to console myself with a meal, to ease my disappointment.  I believe
I’m in the mood for sirloin.  Grilled to perfection, topped with a portabella
gravy…”

“Stop it!” she cried, shuddering
at the succulent flavors his words were conjuring up for her.  “Pick something
else.  My back, my feet, my calves.  Not my stomach.”

He cocked his head at her.  “I
want access to your stomach, mon Dhi’b.  If you feel it necessary to deny me,
then I will simply go to work making my dinner.”

“You do that,” she growled, “and
you’re likely to lose an arm, djinni.”

His violet eyes danced when he
said, “Smell still carries from the half-realm, mon Dhi’b.”  His grin stretched
further.  “And I have been known to be a loud eater.”

She groaned at the idea of the
djinni taunting her with food from the half-realm.  “Fine,” she grunted. 
“Fine, you wre—”  She caught herself before she could insult him.  “Fine.  The
stomach.  May your
revered
ancestors eat great piles of
chocolate
as it rains down from beneath a camel’s tail.”

He grinned in obvious pleasure. 
“You’re learning to twist your words, mon Dhi’b.”  He almost sounded…proud.

“Just get on with violating me,
djinni,” she growled.  “I’m hungry enough to chew off your arm.”

The djinni raised both brows.  “‘Violate’
you, mon Dhi’b?  Is that your wish?”

Damn
the word-weaving
bastard!  Very carefully, she said, “Lay out our
bargain
in which you
touch
my
stomach
to your
satisfaction
, and seal it in
Law
so
that you can bring me a pile of
meat
before I sate my hunger on your
infuriating
skull
.”

‘Aqrab chuckled and surprised her
by moving closer, until his big body was only inches from hers, his heat
radiating outward like a furnace.  Kaashifah’s heart stopped as his big hand
came up and pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes.  “Someday, little wolf.” 
He tucked the strand behind her ear and smiled down at her.  “You will make
that wish.”

And, her gut told her with a
flutter, he wasn’t talking about her third wish.  In a moment of horrible,
sinful panic, Kaashifah wondered what it would be like to do just that, with
the djinni’s big, muscular body wrapped around her…

Gasping at the horribly graphic
image that followed, Kaashifah wrenched herself away from ‘Aqrab and
straightened coolly, with only her sweaty palms betraying the pounding of her
heart.  “Speak your bargain, djinni,” she growled.  “You’re wasting our time.”

‘Aqrab sighed and dropped his
hand.  “Very well.”  He sucked in a breath and his eyes began to glow as the
air around him began to swirl with the violet magic of the Fourth Realm.  In
that triple-toned thunder that made the very stone of the mountain beneath her
shake, he boomed, “I, Yad al-‘Aqrab, sand-singer of the Scorpion clan, firstborn
son of Bakr al-Shihab, eleventh djinni Lord of the Fourth Lands, hereby offer a
bargain to you, Kaashifah the Fury, Sister of the Sword, Warrior-Priestess of
Horus, Angel of Vengeance, and Blade of Morning:  Allow me to sate my curiosity
on your stomach, to my satisfaction, and I use the powers of the Fourth Lands
to bring you a meal fit for a king.  Do you accept?”

Kaashifah felt a wave of
uneasiness at his changes to the wording of their previous bargains.  “Why do
you say ‘sate my curiosity’?  And why ‘fit for a king?’  A king of what?”

The djinni’s face, still strained
with Law, broke into a grin.  “I am curious about your stomach, so long has it
been forbidden from me, mon Dhi’b.  And for the rest, you will have to trust
me.  Do you accept?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. 
“You realize this is the last bargain we ever make if you insert something
ridiculous like, ‘frog’ king in there, correct?  If I get a bag of
flies
,
‘Aqrab, these nightly entertainments end today.”

He shrugged, but his eyes were
sharp with waiting.

Kaashifah hesitated,
considering.  His bargain was a hundred times more
vague
this time, but
a djinni had the capability of twisting even the clearest, most
carefully-delineated wish into a pale antithesis of its original, and he had
been giving her exactly what she’d asked for, each night.  So precisely, in
fact, that, as ridiculous as it sounded, she realized she
had
begun to
trust him.  At least enough not to twist their nightly bargains.

Besides, what did she have to
lose?  Let him paw at her stomach a few minutes.  It would be a small price to
pay to keep from starving while being hunted by the Inquisition.  Glaring at
him, she gritted, “I accept.”

The djinni’s eyes widened with a
hint of surprise just before he stiffened and the magic of the Fourth Lands
rushed into the room, booming out, “As agreed, so decreed, the bargain has been
made.”  She felt him twine a cord around her soul, and then watched him
collapse, grinning and giggling like a fool, to his knees.

“You enjoy that much too much,”
she muttered. 

He tilted his head, beaming up at
her.  “Like I said, mon Dhi’b,” he said, grinning.  “Better than sex.”

Squirming under the thought of
delivering unto the djinni such pleasure, she reddened and turned away, trying
not to listen to his panting.

Eventually, she heard ‘Aqrab push
himself up from the floor.  “Any time you’re ready, mon Dhi’b,” he rumbled,
making her flinch.

Very reluctantly, she turned back
to him, her hands fisted on the hem of her sweater.  ‘Aqrab waited in a crouch,
hands on his knees, giving her an all-too-intelligent, brooding look, that,
humiliatingly, made part of her want to run screaming from the cave to launch
herself off the cliff beyond.

“Where would—”  Her voice
cracked, trailing off into a wheeze.  Swallowing, Kaashifah tried again. 
“Where would you have me?”

The djinni, still watching her
carefully, gestured to the floor in front of him in silence.

For some reason, held by the dark
purple of his eyes, it took all of Kaashifah’s self control to step up to the
djinni and, slowly, lower herself to a seated position on the stone beneath
him. 

“Lie down, mon Dhi’b,” he
whispered, above her, almost against her ear.

She found she couldn’t do it. 
Not with the djinni so close.  Not when she was to expose her belly to him. 
Already, her breath was coming too quickly, her hands trembling against the
fabric of her sweater, where they pinned it to her torso.  “I’m thinking,” she
managed in a whisper, as her body refused to cooperate, “we need to renegotiate
our bargain.  I can’t do this.”  She couldn’t even bring herself to look at
him, and she could feel the heat of his body through her side.

“The bargain is made,” ‘Aqrab
said softly.  He reached out and gently touched her shoulder.  Kaashifah
flinched as she felt the heat of his fingers through her sweater.  “On your
back, mon Dhi’b.  I can’t see your stomach with you hunched over it like that.”

Suddenly, she wondered if, by
‘sate my curiosity on your stomach,’ he meant ripping it out of her body and
examining it from all angles.  She’d heard worse things, from those who were
stupid enough to make bargains with djinn. 

Yes, she was definitely becoming
too complacent, she thought, but she forced herself to lie back anyway.  After
all, even without a
stomach
, a Fury had the power to wrench the djinni’s
head from his shoulders.

…if only the damn thing wouldn’t
grow back on a wave of fire a moment later.

On her back, she squeezed her
eyes shut so she didn’t have to see the djinni so close above her.  She felt his
hot hand gently touch her wrist.  “You need to lift your sweater for me to
begin my explorations, mon Dhi’b.”

She winced at ‘explorations,’ and
she actually heard a couple of the threads of her sweater’s hem snap under the
tightening of her fingers, when he slipped a big finger underneath.  “I will
lift it when I’m ready,” Kaashifah growled.  She was about to allow a man to
profane her
stomach
for a sack of
meat
, when one month ago, she
would have driven her knuckles into the bones of his throat for even suggesting
it.

Her
gloved
knuckles. 
There was so much about her that had changed…

“Mon Dhi’—”

“All
right
!” Kaashifah
cried.  “Fine.  Fine you miser—” she coughed, choking off the rest of her
insult.  “All right.”  She swallowed, hard, feeling the heat of him poised above
her, but afraid to look.  “Fine.”  She took a deep breath, biting her lip. 
“Just…fine.”  Her fingers constricted on the hem, straining the fabric further.