His despair was harder to take than his anger. Ari bowed her head to hide her sympathy, taking a minute. When she finally met his eyes, she replied, “Yes. Once you have her alone and off guard, you’ll telepath for me to come to you and together we’ll finish it.”
“Simple but effective,” Gilder murmured, drawing Ari’s attention. He nodded, watching her with careful and perceptive eyes. “It might work.”
The others murmured agreement and it suddenly occurred to Ari that they were standing around talking about killing their mother, and the only one who seemed to be affected by it was Asmodeus. She held her sigh inside, knowing despite her royal blood and her affection for Red and Glass, Ari would never understand the complicated minds of the jinn kings and their sultan.
Chapter
Seventeen
Even the Moon Needs Its Dark Side
The young Roe Guild Hunter’s pleas for mercy were becoming annoying. It was wasteful to torture him, and White, irritated by the whole display, walked away from Lilif’s marid as he continued his torment on the boy.
The Roe Guild had fled to numerous safe houses across the world, making it difficult to track down Michael, who was the one most likely harboring Charlie Creagh. White, of course, would rather separate himself from the torturing of one of the Guild, not particularly in the mood to have to deal with his brother Gilder’s retribution. He could be extremely vicious when the Guilds were interfered with. Not that he should be too concerned as he was, in fact, helping his brothers. Acting as a double agent as it were, though he was receiving no information from Red in return for the information he was feeding him. All that Red would tell him was that they had a plan to take care of Lilif. It seemed his brother still didn’t trust him. Despite it being more than a little annoying, White had to agree it was probably smart of him. There was nothing stopping Lilif from deciding to command White, after all, and if she did, he would reveal everything to her.
Passing the room filled with a family from the Roe Guild, White closed his eyes in disbelief at the carnage. When he opened them, he glared at the three marids standing guard, their clothes speckled with blood. “Who ordered you to kill these jinn?” Gilder was definitely going to take umbrage with this.
“I did.”
White whirled around and watched his mother approach down the safe house’s narrow hallway. It was a small apartment in Andalucía and they’d had to put up a sound enchantment so the very close neighbors wouldn’t hear the screams.
“Was that necessary?”
Lilif looked almost ashamed as she shrugged, and then quickly became annoyed that White had made her feel so. “I’m tidying up loose ends. Plus, if word gets back we’re killing off his Guild one by one, he might give up the boy.”
“The other boy, the one your marid is having too much fun with, doesn’t know anything.”
“Well, kill him.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “If you’ve suddenly grown softhearted on me, White, I suggest you find someone who does know something.”
The plan was for Asmodeus to wait for Lilif at White’s palace. A scout had told them that she spent some of her time there while the White King and her marids were in the Mortal Realm searching for Charlie. Lilif hadn’t moved her army from Azazil’s palace grounds, but they had grown quiet and were no longer exhausting themselves with a useless barrage of energy against the protection the kings had placed around it.
Ari waited in tense silence in the parlor with the jinn kings. Asmodeus had left hours ago and still, there’d been no telepathic shout to bring her to his side.
“Do you think he’s turned?” Shadow asked the room.
Azazil immediately gave a gentle shake of his head. “He would not betray me.”
His certainty did nothing to appease Ari’s nerves. If Asmodeus wouldn’t betray Azazil, then what the hell was taking so long?
“Maybe I should just go,” Ari murmured. “Make sure he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing.”
“I think that might be best,” Gilder agreed.
Ari waited for the go-ahead from Azazil, but none came.
Until two hours later and Asmodeus had still not called on her.
“Fine.” Azazil flicked a hand at her in a beleaguered gesture. “Go.”
Her head turned and her eyes met Red’s. With mirrored grim expressions, Ari gave him a small nod and then closed her eyes, thinking of the parlor in White’s palace where Lilif spent the most time. She heard the flickers of flame around her and then she was moving at the speed of light, her hair whipping around her until the hiss disappeared and her body stilled.
Her eyes flew open in time to watch Lilif fly across the room and smash against the back wall, a mirror shattering into pieces around her. She fell to the floor and raised a hand to slow the descent of glass raining upon her. As the shards descended, they melted into liquid, harmless.