Giving herself a slight shake, Ari pushed past Jai’s aura and felt through the dark memory of the house in her mind. She searched every corner, every nook, taking the stairs silently to the second floor.
There.
In the upstairs bathroom.
Ari took a deep breath, her stomach suddenly churning with her decision.
The truth was she’d been playing with the Qarin as much as he’d been playing with her. Trying to stall.
The two hunts she’d been on had served as training more than anything. Jinn who merely needed to be tagged and moved on from the towns where they were misbehaving.
This was different.
The Qarin doppelgänger was to be her first kill.
Jai wanted to do it. He didn’t want this weight on her shoulders.
But who was Ari kidding? She was the daughter of a Jinn king who was on a mission to release from imprisonment the most dangerous being in all the realms; she’d barely spoken to her one ally (Red) in weeks; her best friend was an enemy of the state; and there was a certain ancient Marid—who happened to be the Sultan’s lieutenant—who’d been paying little visits to her dreams lately.
She was going to end up killing someone sometime in self-defense.
It looked like today was the first day in a new world …
Her magic tingled in her hand until she felt the knurled grip of the F-S fighting knife she’d chosen from Michael’s weapon cabinet.
She heard Jai’s indrawn breath seconds before she used the Peripatos. The flames flickered around her as she appeared in the bathroom, her eyes meeting the Qarin’s in the mirror—his wide, Ari’s blank.
The blade of her knife sunk in and up through his back and into his chest, powered by Ari’s Jinn magic and strength. A stab to the heart. She’d trained to do this on dummies.
It felt different stabbing through flesh and muscle.
His eyes widened in horror, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
And then his body relaxed, slack,
tumbling to the floor like a puppet without a master.
The bloody knife fell from Ari’s hand, clattering to the tiled floor as she stared at the dead Jinn. She stood frozen for a moment, staring down at the body and the pool of blood gathering around it. She’d killed someone. Her stomach lurched.
Stumbling over his body, Ari grabbed for the sink, her hands braced on either side as the cold nausea climbed through her and she vomited the horror of what she’d done.
She felt his energy before she felt his hands brushing the loose strands of hair back from her face. “Baby,” he whispered hoarsely, his breath warm on her ear.
Ari turned the cold tap, fingers shaking, and though she barely felt its coolness, she dipped her mouth under and drank. Then she splashed water on her face and straightened, leaning back into Jai’s chest.
“I told you I’d do it. I’ve done it before. You didn’t need to.”
She gave a slight shake of her head, trying not to flinch as she felt the slice of the blade through the Qarin’s chest again. She’d been nervous about assassinating a bad guy. She’d just never realized that taking a life would affect her this much. She should have. “I’d have to do it eventually. I wanted to get it over with.”
Jai’s hands slid up her arms to curl around her biceps, holding her closer to him. “You did good.”
“Did I?” Ari asked.
He kissed her hair. “You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t feel this bad about it. Remember, he did a lot of terrible things to humans, Ari. Humiliating, horrifying, murderous things.”
She knew that. She knew she’d taken one less bad guy off the street. Ari just needed her guilty conscience to play catch-up. Wincing at the sink, Ari turned around in Jai’s arms, his hands falling to her hips to keep her close. “Don’t tell anyone I upchucked, okay?”
“No one would think less of you.”
“Still … don’t.” Michael and
Caroline might accept her but some of the other Guild Hunters were still wary.
She needed to prove herself to them. If they found out she’d vomited after her first kill … well … she didn’t know what they’d think.
“I won’t tell anyone,” Jai assured her, but the muscle in his jaw flexed. “You’ve got nothing to feel ashamed of.
Assassination isn’t in their job description, so most of them have no idea what it feels like to take a life. They have no right to judge you.”
No longer pissed off at him, Ari squeezed one of his hands gratefully. What Jai had said was true. The Guild Hunters were half-blood Jinn—half human, half Jinn, created by the Gilder King as a measure of balance against the evil Jinn. Guild Hunters could hunt and tag evil Jinn, but if they ever killed one, the Law Makers on Mount Qaf would know and would bring them to be tried. Unfairly, on Mount Qaf, it was a crime punishable by death for a half-breed to kill a full-blooded Jinn. It was also proclaimed that full-bloods weren’t allowed to kill one another either without facing trial, but Red had slipped that that wasn’t a law created by the Law Makers, and trials were only held every now and then to discourage infighting.
That meant Michael Roe, the leader of the Roe Guild of Hunters, had in his possession three full-blooded Jinn—Ari, Jai, and Jai’s best friend Trey. When Charlie went AWOL after killing Akasha (the Labartu who’d murdered his little brother), Ari decided joining the Guild with Jai and Trey was the best move forward. Michael decided he liked the idea of having Hunters in his Guild who could assassinate a bad guy for once. He’d also told them Charlie was a priority kill now that he was a wacko Sorcerer with a dangerous piece of Mount Qaf emerald powering his juice. To Ari’s everlasting relief, Charlie had gone underground these last two months and none of the Guilds could find him. She hoped he stayed there.
“You’re right.” Ari replied, her smile wan. “I did them a favor. Who gives a crap what they think?”
“Good.” Jai nodded, his expression hardening again. “Now let me clean up this guy, call the Guild to come take care of the human Sam Shepherd, and then we can get you home. How’s the rib?”
Ari looked down at the Qarin, her
stomach feeling a little steadier. “It’s healing. I’m … okay.”
To Ari’s relief, she and Jai were kept busy cleaning up the mess, handing human Sam Shepherd over to the rest of the Guild to brief him before sending him back into the human world. Then she and her boyfriend had to return to Michael’s to debrief him on the situation. Talking it out helped her deal with the immensity of what she’d done. Michael’s eyes grew fatherly and concerned when he learned Ari was the one who did the killing, and Ari wanted to ask what the hell he was playing at.