Treading softly so whoever was at the door wouldn’t hear his footsteps, Charlie crossed the room and looked through the peephole. He frowned. No one. A sense of unease rippled over him as he gripped the door knob and began to ease the motel room door open, his magic bubbling at his fingertips. Like he’d been hit with a gale force gust of wind, Charlie staggered back as a streak of color tore past him and into the room. He whirled around, dazed, his eyes widening on the tal, skinny woman who stood beside Falon. She was plain-looking with red hair, pale skin and… yelow eyes. Yelow eyes?
“Looking for me?” she smirked and just as Charlie registered that this was the Labartu, that this was Akasha, she had Falon’s head between her hands.
CRACK.
Falon’s delicate neck snapped, the life abandoning her body as it crumpled uselessly, empty, souless to the floor. Unreality washed over Charlie as he stared at the place his dead girlfriend’s body had been discarded.
He fought a sudden rush of vomit, gagging as he reached for a wal to lean against.
“Now that’s two people you’l want to exact revenge from me for, little boy.”
Breathing hard, Charlie pushed himself back off the wal to face her, his hand dipping into his pocket with a mind of its own, considering his own mind was numb with shock. Akasha was too fast. The wind of her departure blew him back again and Charlie stood befuddled for a moment, Falon’s body lying at the edge of his vision, taunting him to look.
Instead he curled his fingers around the emerald. Find her, he whispered inwardly, his rage quiet but inextinguishable. Find her. The flames of the Peripatos engulfed him and Charlie closed his eyes, preparing himself for a slaughter.
28 - And They Say a Wealth of Emeralds Won’t Change You…
Ari watched as Michael Roe comforted his sobbing wife while Falon’s Uncle Gerard and Jacob Balendine arranged Falon’s body into a wooden crate lined with
blankets. They’d Cloak it as they removed her from the motel, using the one piece of emerald The Roe Guild kept in their safe.
Jai’s hand lay on Ari’s shoulder, offering her quiet comfort, but she was numb. Falon’s body looked so tiny and that cute face that had been so ful of character was pale and slack. Empty. She was no longer in there.
It was too much.
Too much death to deal with al at once. Too much aching loss.
“Charlie didn’t do this,” Trey announced to the room as he snapped his cel shut. “Glass confirmed that Akasha was sent here by Azazil. She must have kiled…” his eyes grew narrow with fury at the sight of Falon’s body. “…She kiled Falon and she took Charlie. Or Charlie took off after her.”
Caroline’s sobs grew quieter but Ari’s own grief only intensified as she watched Gerard wipe a tear away from his cheek as the lid on the crate shut his niece in. It seemed impossible to believe that Falon would never talk to her again. That they would never exchange playful barbs and insults, or just hang out…. Theirs had been an open, honest kind of friendship. One Ari had truly appreciated.
She had lost the one girlfriend who realy knew and understood her…
… And worse… Charlie had lost her too.
She couldn’t imagine what he was going through right now. What he was thinking. How he was reacting.
“He realy cared about her,” she whispered almost to herself. “They were together. Together, together. God,” she choked, “He must be going nuts.” Turning to Jai, Ari was demanding, determined. “We have to find him. We have to stop him.”
“If you find him,” Michael’s flat voice drew everyone’s attention. “If you stop him, he’s out of The Guild and no longer under the Roe’s protection. His bitter need for revenge has gotten my daughter murdered.”
Ari blanched, even in that moment, feeling like she needed to defend Charlie somehow. Falon had known what she was doing when she came after Charlie. Falon
had cared about him. She was just trying to protect him. Charlie would never have wanted anything to happen to her.
“Michael…” she didn’t realy know how to respond.
“He’s out, Ari. That’s final. I understand if that means you’re out too.”
The truth was she couldn’t answer that right now. The thought of leaving Charlie defenseless when he needed her seemed unthinkable. But for now, it wasn’t what mattered. What mattered, Ari realized, as she took in the pure agony on Michael’s face, was that the Roes needed to grieve in private, and they were al intruding.
“I understand.” This might be the last time she saw them. Charlie was her best friend, although it may not have seemed like it lately. They were bonded by years of friendship, and he needed her just as the Roes needed one another. “We better go.” Ari tugged on Jai and Trey’s arms.
“If there’s anything we can do,” Jai suddenly spoke up, his voice grave and strong, the kind of guy who could be believed when he said he’d take care of something.
“Michael… please let me know.”
Caroline was deaf to everything but her own loss, but Michael heard and he gave Jai a grateful nod before curling his wife deeper into his arms.
Outside the motel, standing in the badly-lit parking lot, Ari finaly felt like she could breathe again. “This is unreal,” she mumbled, trying to shake off the deep sadness that was making her shiver to the very depth of her bones. Later, she could curl up in Jai’s arms and cry until there was nothing left, but not right now.
Glancing with renewed determination between Jai and Trey, Ari tried to mask her fragility. “How can we pick up Charlie and the Labartu’s trail?”
Trey’s cel pinged and he flipped it open, his eyes scanning the message with satisfaction. “Sometimes it’s like a god listening in,” he murmured with a smirk. “We don’t need to.” He looked up at them, the smirk replaced by something grimmer. “Glass. He says Akasha has fled to Sydney Marone Middle School here in Alief. It’s a new school, stil under construction.”
Ari’s mouth dropped open, her eyes on Trey’s cel. “Should Glass be doing that? I thought Azazil wanted him out of it.”
“Technicaly, the Sultan said that Red should stay out of it. Plus, it’s not like he’s physicaly helping.”
“Jinn and there technicalities,” Ari grumbled. Then she frowned, a new thought occurring to her. “I thought you and Glass disliked one another?”
Trey was utterly beautiful as he grinned at her; his exotic grey eyes were wicked beneath their dark lashes. “Oh we definitely have our moments.”
Bemused by his enigmatic comments when it came to The Glass King, Ari shrugged him off. She turned to her boyfriend. He stil looked so tired, and concern for him flooded her. She wanted him out of this. He hadn’t fuly recovered his strength yet. “I’m going with Trey. I want you to stay with the Roes.”
“Oh, so it’s okay for me to die?” Trey cracked. “I’m touched. Realy.”
Ari glared at his inappropriate humor only to find her glower faltering under Jai’s.
“There is no way in hel I’m letting you do this alone.”
He was using that voice. Ari heaved a sigh, knowing he wouldn’t budge on it. “Fine. I’l meet you guys there.” Al three of them looked around to make sure no one watched as they melted back into the shadows behind three cars. Assured they had some privacy, they let the Cloak shroud them from visibility and then each of them caled on the Peripatos to take them to a sorcerer who desperately needed some sense driled into him.
The Labartu was playing with him.
Charlie’s head was bleeding from where she’d thrown him against some scaffolding outside of the school as he arrived. A middle school, he thought distastefuly.
Fitting, for someone who liked to destroy little kids. Akasha was the worst kind of bad guy, Charlie sneered as he tread carefuly and slowly down a halway. A bad guy who was a bad guy for going after children? They were the lowest, vile, dregs found on the scum of the earth.
Even bad guys hated those kinds of bad guys.
Charlie stopped, his ears pricking up at the sound of Akasha’s boot buckles clanking softly. The sound echoed from every direction, deliberately confusing Charlie.
This was the sixth time she’d played that trick.
“You’re a coward!” he caled out, sounding far more calm and together than he felt.
The footsteps stopped.
Then started again, leading him this time in the one direction. A hole in the wal with doors piled near, waiting to be hung, led Charlie into a huge room. Checking out the counter at the opposite end and the large, shalow hatch that stretched the length of the counter, Charlie would have to guess this was the cafeteria.
Akasha was nowhere in sight.
The eerie quiet alowed his ears to give reign to his imagination. It wasn’t her he heard as he spun slowly around, his eyes drinking in every shadow. It was Falon’s laughter, her wicked chuckle echoing inside his head, the images of her, the smel of her, the sound… it al started to become confused with his memories of Mike.
Falon was gone.
Just like Mike, she was just a memory now too.
Charlie grew stil, his face crumpling with pain as an icy anger bled into his veins. Letting out a roar of grief, he wrapped his hand around the emerald stil hidden in his pocket.
What did he have left to lose? Right?
He flinched back, raising an arm to protect his eyes against the blinding light that lit up the darkness as someone approached from the Peripatos. Or someones—plural. His chest tightened as the spots across his eyes faded and he found himself facing Ari, Jai and Trey.
“Charlie.” Ari rushed at him and a voice far back in his head pleaded with him to let her wrap her arms around him and save him. The other voice, the one in control, shook that weakness off, and whatever Ari saw in his expression made her stop.
“Charlie, you don’t want to do this,” she pleaded.
At his silence, her eyes widened as though she’d just thought of something.
Absentmindedly Charlie wondered how anyone could be so beautiful.
“I can.” Ari nodded franticaly. “Yeah. I can do this for you. I won’t be tried. I’m a ful-blood.”
Surprise squeezed his heart. “You’d kil her for me?”
She nodded again, grasping anxiously at the idea. “She kiled Mike. She kiled Falon. I can do this.”
The sight of her always made him catch his breath a little. He’d felt guilty, the whole time he was with Falon, that the sight of Ari walking into a room could stil make the hair on the back of his neck rise. For a moment, the warmth in her gaze broke through the haze around him and he felt like the Charlie he’d been before al this monstrous crap had happened. His eyes filed with tears as he drank her in. Those strange but beautiful eyes that couldn’t hide how good she was. He had lost Mike and Falon, but he stil had Ari. And God, he stil loved her so much. He loved her husky laugh and her quick quips, her loyalty, her ability to listen to any idiot’s problems with patience and sincerity.
Charlie realized with a dawning sad acceptance that he loved how pure she was. So much had happened to her, so much had been stolen from her—people that she loved—and yet somehow she hadn’t let it poison her. Ari would never understand revenge. Justice, yes. But not revenge.