Stone Chameleon (Ironhill Jinn #1) Read online

  Without spewing the blue streak of profanity that filled my mouth, I strode to him without breaking his gaze, snatched the device, and turned on my heel.

  His hand on my arm stopped the motion. A tug whirled me to face him again, and he cupped the right side of my throat, his thumb pressing against my pulse. Electricity jolted down my spine, as if he’d plugged himself into an unseen outlet in my flesh. His lips covered mine in a soul-searing kiss.

  Every part of me tingled. Heat radiated from my center, growing hotter, consuming me. My knees wobbled beneath me as he pulled back and opened his mouth the way a lion would do when using his olfactory gland to scent something.

  “Forgive me.” His speech slurred around his victorious grin. When I returned to myself enough to make a closer inspection of his mouth, I found the reason for his distorted speech. Tiny needle-like teeth appeared in front of his regular ones, giving him a jagged mouthful of barbs. “I just had to know.”

  My brow creased as I tumbled his words around in my head, making no more sense out of them than before. Red tinged my vision. I hauled my hand back intending to slap him silly, but connected with nothing but air as he vanished into a whirlwind and disappeared, leaving his clothes in a pile at my feet again.

  “Mr. Bassili! How dare you kiss me?” I shut up when something sliced the underside of my tongue. A swipe of my finger discovered the same needles had appeared in my mouth as in his.

  Mercy, what’s happening to me?

  I ran from the building, riding on sugar, drowning in questions without answers and a not-so-unpleasant humming in my belly. Dammit all to hell.

  Chapter Eight

  A jackhammer working on the back of my skull woke me. The instant one eye blinked open, Benny’s morning announcements began with a series of chirps and whistles right next to my ear.

  “Oy, you insufferable furball,” I mumbled. Apparently I’d slept past his breakfast time. Because of his persistence to be near me in the mornings, I’d built a ramp to the top of my bed so he could get up himself. Perhaps I needed to rethink that one.

  Sunlight fell in golden streamers across my white duvet from the window I’d failed to pull the drapes on before going to bed. The brightness didn’t help my cracking headache any. A crow cawed outside, the sharp sound grating against my eardrums. The stupid birds were incessant lately, often calling me awake before the sun crawled above the horizon. I pasted my palms over my eyes and rolled into the pillow. The motion raised my gorge enough I readied to run to the bathroom, but a few swallows and deep breaths settled me again.

  It took me a moment to remember what had happened after I’d drunk the spiked soda. With vague detail, I recalled conducting my own symphony in the bathroom of A & I Electronics, stumbling around like a wasted teenager, and chastising—someone. Who was I angry with? And why? Hadn’t Connor paid me the rest of what he owed? No, that wasn’t it. Someone else had been there.

  After Connor had driven me home, I’d worshipped at the porcelain altar before crashing like a dead woman. It always took me a while to recover after vomiting with such violence. Not that it happened often.

  A search of my memory turned up hazy pictures and muted sounds. Someone’s smooth tenor. A thumb stroking a wall in tantalizing circles. A kiss! When Mr. Bassili’s face popped into mind, I groaned again. The sudden tingling of my lips brought back more of the memory than I’d have liked. I touched my fingertips to them, shuddering under the lingering sensations, until I remembered the jagged teeth and checked for the extra ones I’d felt the night before.

  Nothing but my normal ones.

  Had it been an illusion from the sugar high? Of course it was. I couldn’t have suffered so many punctures in my gums without evidence of it, like tenderness or swelling. Maybe that was also why his touch and kiss had rendered me into boneless fool. Yes, it had to be because of the soda.

  I fisted fingers into the sheets and grumbled to myself as one question stacked on top of another. I cursed him under my breath. What was he? An elemental shape-shifter? Didn’t that describe me as well? I winced at the stupidity of that. He was not jinn.

  What would he do about his confirmation of my bloodline? Did he intend to blackmail me into going out with him? Hell would freeze over twice and open a ballet studio before that would happen. I’d rather have Isaac rip my throat out. At least it would be a quick demise. For reasons I couldn’t identify, I didn’t worry about Amun turning me in to the authorities. If that had been his intention, he’d have called Gerry by now. No, he intended to use it against me in some way.

  The more I awakened, the angrier I became over the evening’s events. What had Amun meant when he said he just had to know? That I was attracted to him? Was it that obvious how his touch had affected me?

  An incessant desire to tell the man how much I despised him almost took me to the phone, but I’d regained enough sense to know why I shouldn’t. Insisting he didn’t affect me would confirm to his self-centered mind that he did.

  Stumped on what his words meant, I considered the way he’d put his palm against my neck. It seemed ceremonial to me, like a secret handshake or a special greeting like many used by the plethora of races populating the world. Nothing from books or courses in college rang a bell on the subject.

  Dom could discover if Mr. Bassili belonged to a preternatural group, though I’d never met anyone who could blow away the way he did. Maybe Dr. Courian would know? I had to check on Harper anyway, so I’d knock two items off my to-do list with one trip.

  Although my most recent anger belonged to Mr. Bassili, the one I needed to worry about was Isaac. “Bring me a murderer, or I’ll take you in his place.” I needed to do it fast, or the vampire’s low supply of patience would run out.

  I’d return to the scene of the crimes—the first rule of investigation. Perhaps I’d find something Gerry had missed. Every instinct told me there had to be something.

  Holding my head steady between my palms, I crawled out of bed and stared at my digital clock on the bedside table: nine forty-seven. I hadn’t slept that late since my teenage years, and I had so much to do. “I’ll ring that smug Persian’s neck if he ever sticks it out again.”

  A few grunts helped me along to the kitchen. I fetched the orange juice from the fridge and poured myself a glass. The type of sugar fruit offered had no effect on me, thankfully, nor did small amounts of other sorts, only refined white sugar. Benny’s chatter followed me the entire way, his long hair acting like a self-propelled broom. I popped two Tylenol, downed the juice, grabbed a croissant from a bag on the counter left over from the previous day’s breakfast, and headed to the bathroom.

  I turned on the shower. Glorious steam filled the cozy room tiled with royal blue ceramics. My first glimpse at myself in the mirror caused me to gasp. I hadn’t bothered to take the tie out of my hair, and it looked like a shredded bird’s nest atop my head. Finding no energy to fuss with the tangle, I set my breakfast on the side of the tub, took my nail scissors from the drawer, snipped the tie out, and shook out my thick hair.

  The vampire!

  I froze, wracking my brain to recall if I’d called Isaac before going to bed. Somehow, between the vomiting and dizziness, I didn’t think I had. Probably for the best, considering my state last night. I caught my lip between my teeth and snatched the phone from the desk in the living room. Slipping my pajama pants down my hips, I hit speed dial number two to get the hive, listening to the rings.

  “What?” answered a woman with a sharp voice.

  “This is Lou Hudson. I need to leave an urgent message for Isaac. Can you please give me his voicemail?”

  He used to demand all message be given to him in person, but I’d convinced him that I was more likely to remember if I could call any time of the day instead of attempting to summon him during night-time hours. After a few instances where I’d been proven right, he’d caved and put a phone system in the hive. One of the bits of proof that led me to defend his ability to be reasoned with, not tha
t Harper seemed inclined to listen.

  “Whatever,” the woman said. A click sounded, and bad classical music came over the line. Charming woman. Isaac no doubt found amusement in insulting his callers. Served me right for pestering him about getting with the times, I supposed.

  Shuffling papers came before Isaac’s recording, which I imagined he’d rerecorded hundreds of times before it sounded menacing enough. Either that or he was just that good at it. “Leave a message at your own risk.” Dramatic pause. “I will find you.”

  I chuckled at the beep, making certain to clear my throat before it ended. “Isaac, it’s Lou. I was called into A & I Electronics because they found one of yours in their warehouse. Her name was Marina. She never hurt anyone, but she’s starving to death.”

  I sighed, needing to say something even though he wouldn’t listen. “I know I’m not your favorite person right now, but please, can you go easy on her? She took off, headed west from the facility. The surveillance cameras will show you if you have doubts. I’ll have my cell on me all day if you need anything more.”

  I didn’t feel the need to tell him I’d offered to take her to the reservation. Since the situation no longer existed, what he didn’t know wouldn’t kill me. Hopefully Marina had returned to the safety of the hive and slept for the day.

  I savored my croissant, then took a quick shower. Wrapped in a towel, I stood in the open doorway to my closet, not really seeing the clothes draped nearly on their hangers. It was too quiet, and I was the only interruption to the stillness. A sense of cold and emptiness fell over me, mirroring the lonely place life’s road had led me to. Isolation came along with being jinn in a world that hated my kind. Most of the time, it didn’t bother me. Without Mum around to lend me her ear, the day seemed impossibly long.

  In need of a connection, I dressed in black slacks, pearls, and a teal blouse, and drove to Mayvern Hospital on the south side of Ironhill. After researching every care facility in a hundred-mile radius, I’d settled on Mayvern because of the beautiful rural setting and the promise of individualized care. I stared up at life’s last pit stop for many, a white building surrounded by a grove of oaks and maples.

  Meticulously manicured grass spread out to the side and back of the building, decorated with zigzagging paths of stone that led from one luscious garden to the next. The front porch had been lined with flower boxes, spilling ivy and purple wave petunias over the sides. Behind them, several residents stared absently. Most of the patients were in wheelchairs, some shaking with palsy.

  To my relief, Mum wasn’t among them. I needed a little more mental preparation before facing her today. I exited the Focus, ascended the steps, and paused at the top. None of the residents spared me a glance, fixed on a mysterious point in the distance, as if waiting for a storm to appear on the horizon.

  My imagination conjured an image Mum had put into my head during my toddler years, when I’d asked what happens to us when we die. Lines from T.S. Elliot’s The Hollow Men had whispered from her lips, something about crossing with direct eyes to Death’s kingdom.

  Staring into me with haunted eyes, she’d said Death would explode from the air in a black chariot pulled by terrible black horses with red eyes blazing, sharp hooves stomping, and manes whipping. He’d come for the dying, as he did for my father. He’d come, without mercy. He’d come, pale hand extending from a black cloak to whisk away a soul to Death’s other kingdom.

  I didn’t know what I thought about all of it.

  Mum believed Heaven, Hell, and the afterlife were for simple-minded sheep. Since then, my logic leaned toward a flash into nothingness. A simple ceasing of existence. Was blinking out of reality better than a bitter, meaningless life? Were the fleeting moments of joy worth all the rest? Looking at the men and women on the porch, I thought maybe non-existence was better. Kinder. Easier.

  I didn’t blame them for waiting for Death to come, for showing no fear, only patient anticipation. Life was the cruelest of all manner of beasts. Although they had earned their ride in Death’s chariot, I might take it much sooner than they would. And if I was discovered, Mum would ride it with me for harboring an enemy of elf, fae, vampire, and humankind.

  Shaking off my melancholy, I stepped through the screen door into the lobby. Dark wood paneled the walls, and intricate moldings decorated every door and window. A crystal chandelier the size of a small Volkswagen dangled from the paneled ceiling, clinking in the breeze I’d let through the door. A brunette nurse with an athletic build stood from behind a high desk and smiled at me. Her dark blue scrubs brought out her ocean-deep eyes.

  “Ms. Hudson, it’s been a while. Nice to see you again.” Her nametag reminded me her name was Marion.

  Guilt turned my guts inside out. It had been too long of a while. “Hi, Marion. How’s Mum today?”

  “She’s had better, I’m afraid. She’s been quite agitated since breakfast.” Marion came around the desk, and another nurse took her place. “I’m due to give out medication on the third floor. Why don’t I take you up to her room?”

  I welcomed the distraction, however brief it might be. “That would be kind, thank you.”

  Most families found visiting difficult, because they couldn’t stomach a glimpse into their own futures. While I wasn’t immune to Mayvern, it wasn’t for fear I’d end up one of the zombies parked on the porch. For me, it would be a blessing if I’d lived long enough to grow old. Once I crossed the threshold into Mum’s room, I’d no longer be able to pretend she was still the woman I’d relied on for so long to keep me safe and loved despite her harsh ways, that she remained out in the world somewhere, waiting for me to come home to her.

  “Do you mind taking the stairs?” Marion’s sympathetic gaze held too much knowledge.

  “Not at all,” I said, giving an awkward chuckle. “I could use the exercise.” And a few more minutes to build my nerve.

  We ascended the oak staircase in silence. Upon reaching the third floor, Marion left me outside of room three-twenty-five, giving my arm a pat and offering another of those cheerful smiles, as if to say “Chin up, Lou”.

  I straightened my shoulders. Steeling myself for an emotional blow, I knocked on the door and waited for the woman within to destroy my illusions of her.

  “Come in,” Mum answered in her steely tone.

  A twist of the knob sent the door inward. I stepped through to find her sitting in a chair by the window, her needlepoint on her lap held taut by a wooden ring stretcher. The nurses thought helped her concentrate and to keep her episodes of anger and agitation to manageable doses. Perhaps I’d suggest Isaac take up the hobby.

  Her faded green eyes rolled up to regard me over top of her black glasses. “Who are you?” Her lips pursed. If not for the mesh of fine wrinkles on her face, she might have passed for early forty-something instead of her fifty-eight years.

  No matter how many times she asked me who I was, it never failed to skewer me in the heart. “My name’s Lou, Mrs. Hudson,” I said, careful not to call her Mum, because it upset her when I did.

  A piece of her golden copper hair slipped down from the neat bun someone had secured at the back of her head. She appeared as I always remembered her, well dressed in blue slacks with a sweater set in a lighter hue. Her nails were filed immaculately, and her silver and sapphire jewelry accentuated the outfit.

  “Lou, what an unusual name.” She set her glasses on the wooden table next to her. “That was my daughter’s name, what a coincidence. Are you here to do my hair?” A stranger stared back at me from within Mum’s body.

  I shut the door and crossed the beige carpet, fighting the hurt leeching all the joy out of my world. “Would you like me to brush it for you?” It used to be part of our daily ritual, brushing each other’s hair. Mum liked her rituals, maybe a little too much.

  She smiled and nodded, and another pang of loss shot through my heart. “That would be lovely. My daughter used to brush my hair every morning. She was so gentle, such a good girl.” Mum s
ighed and stared out the window. “I miss her.” Her illness had grounded her in a time when she still believed me to be eight years old.

  I blinked away the sting in my eyes as I retrieved her brush from the night stand. “I’m sure she misses you, too.”

  She tensed, but said nothing.

  After releasing her hair from the band securing it, I laid the half-copper, half-silvering tresses along her back and stroked the brush through the ends. For several minutes, I brushed her hair straight in silence, trying to pretend, just for a moment, everything was how it should be. That Mum was as sharp as she always was, as wise, as generous with advice as I needed her to be. That she was still my rock, my safe place to go when the world became too big for me, too overwhelming and too frightening.

  So many things I wanted to know about myself, and one left my tongue before I realized I shouldn’t say it. “How about your daughter’s father, Mrs. Hudson? Do you miss him, too?”

  She pushed herself up and strode across the room to the dresser there, fingering a string of pearls lying across the top. Behind those, her favorite books of poetry lined the wall. “I don’t speak of him, Lou whoever-you-are. And the woman who came to help me dress this morning already told me, so don’t lie. My daughter doesn’t miss me. She’s dead.”

  My lungs convulsed. “What do you mean she’s dead, Mum? Who told you that?”

  She glanced toward the bathroom and back to the door, a crease spreading across her brow. “She didn’t come through the door. She just appeared out of thin air beside the tub.”

  The brush dropped out of my hand. It had to have been a delusion, and although logic told me to leave it be, I couldn’t bear her thinking I was gone. “I’m right here. You used to call me Lou-Lou Bean and make me repeat the rules. ‘Never let them see your strangeness, Lou-Lou.’ You read me poems from those books every night before bed.”

  My breath hitched at her silence. “Why didn’t you at least tell me Father’s name? What he looked like? What you loved about him, because I remember how you used to cry in your room at night when I was little and thought I couldn’t hear you. I’m your daughter. I’m lost, and I need you.”