Well, Ari was done playing.
She stopped alongside Jai to see the spot on the debris-littered floor where the qarin should be.
It now lay empty.
“Shit,” Jai muttered, his jaw clenching. “I’m go—”
“Be quiet,” Ari snapped, ignoring Jai’s raised eyebrows. The excuuuse me? look on his face would’ve been comical if she weren’t so annoyed. Give me a minute, she tried to explain less tersely.
Ari closed her eyes. Back when she and Uncle Red had been on somewhat more stable ground, he’d told her that even without her abilities as the seal, she was a powerful jinn. Her mother, Sala, had been an old and potent ifrit, and her father was the White King, one of the most powerful jinn in existence. If jinn were socialites, she’d be a Kardashian of Mount Qaf, the jinn realm. Red had insinuated that it meant she hadn’t even tapped into the full scope of her abilities yet. Jai was trying to get her there with training. They’d been on a few hunts together where she’d discovered more and more about herself. It was time to unravel more, though. She’d seen her uncle sense jinn located in another state, for Christ’s sake. Surely, she could find this jackass of a doppelgänger so she and Jai could do the unsavory task they’d come to do and get the hell out.
Ari focused. She felt the movement of the debris as it shifted against the soft breeze blowing in from an open window. She felt the air to her left dance sideways as Jai moved the tiniest bit; her senses latched onto his magic. She let the richness of his signature overwhelm her. Jai’s pull was unlike any other jinn she’d ever felt. A full-blood and extremely strong guardian ginnaye, Jai’s magic pulsed out in deep, throbbing waves. But unlike many, his had an all-encompassing, rich warmth that came from his natural protective instincts. He would either use that powerful energy to wrap you in its safety, or use it to destroy you.
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.