Oracle's Moon

19

A supernova blasted toward Grace. The sense of oncoming destruction blocked out everything else. She huddled around Max, trying to cover him with her body.

Later she would find out that her property was the epicenter of an earthquake that registered 5.8 on the Richter scale. She never even felt it. Nearby streetlamps warped and bent like they were sticks made of soft wax, trees fell, the cavern caved in and her car was thrown to the street, where the pavement buckled. Luckily, the surrounding area was not as developed as more urban areas and damage was minimal, although a roof and part of a stone wall collapsed at a nearby cemetery. And it was luck, not intention: that was how out of control Khalil had been.

Instead of destruction, what she felt was a gentle black smoke that swirled around the yard, blanketing her and the kids. It blocked out all the heat and noise. At the same time Khalil covered the burning house with Power. The fire died with an eerie suddenness.

Grace gripped Max in one arm and glanced around, dazed, as she tried to scoot awkwardly toward Chloe, hampered by having only one free hand and her goddamn useless knee.

Strong arms lifted her and Max. She blinked as Khalil formed around them. His expression was stark and shaken. Her gaze lowered to his moving lips. She made out his words. “Stop. I’ve got you.”

“Chloe,” she said. She couldn’t hear herself speak, and the only way she could control her dizziness was by tilting her head. She tried to say Chloe’s name again. With both her and Max in his arms, Khalil spun toward the swimming pool.

He froze, staring.

A Djinn was wrapped around a sobbing Chloe, the presence so gossamer thin she was transparent. It was Phaedra. When Grace called Khalil, she must have pulled both connections by accident.

Max’s body was rigid and shaking in her arms. She turned her attention to him. He was still screaming with such lusty energy his face was a darkened red.

She decided right then and there that screaming was awesome. Screaming meant you were alive. If you had the strength to scream, hopefully you had the strength to recover. But still.

“We need a doctor,” she said to Khalil.

He looked at her again, a sparkling crisis in his eyes, while his jaw flexed.

She was making sound when she talked, wasn’t she? She put more force into the next words. “A pediatrician. Tell them it’s an emergency.”

His Power flared. A strange Djinn appeared. Khalil said something in a sharp whip of a voice that she heard as if from a distance. After one wide-eyed glance around, the Djinn nodded and whisked away.

Oh, good. That meant a doctor would be coming. She looked at Max again. He wasn’t bleeding. That had to be good too. She had no idea what to do for him. There were classes for that sort of thing, what were they called? Whatever they were, she should take some. Her head was pounding, her ears hurt, and her skin and knee felt like they were on fire.

Then Khalil knelt, and Chloe was there, still sobbing and wrapped in towel, and he simply enfolded them all. Grace leaned against him while she wrapped her arms around the children, and Khalil put his face in her hair. She thought he and Phaedra said things to each other, but she wasn’t sure, because it was such a strain to focus on anything, so she just concentrated on holding those poor, scared babies.

Black clouds like smoke filled her head, or maybe it was the dark sea. This time the vision came to her so softly, it was as if she fell into a dream.

She was surrounded with people.

Petra touched her hand and looked at her with such gratitude. Thank you for looking after them.

Of course, Grace said. What else would I do?

Gram smiled proudly and said, I knew you would figure it out.

Then a strange, angry man told her, Check the insurance again. I would never fall asleep at the wheel.

Grace stared. She recognized him from photographs in the newspaper. He was the independent trucker who crossed the meridian line and caused the head-on collision. But that’s what I was told.

It’s a lie.

The trucker faded back into the sea, and suddenly the world snapped back into place. Khalil knelt in front of her. He cupped her face, handling her with a tense care that was in sharp contrast to the banked violence of emotion in his elegant face. She startled badly when she realized the kids were no longer on her lap. She grabbed his wrists.

He shook one of his hands free to hold a vial up to her mouth. She watched his lips as he said, “Drink it.”

She could feel the magic in the vial even in her dizzy confusion. It was a “cure-all” healing potion, expensive and rare. When she opened her mouth to ask where the kids went and how he had gotten the potion, he tilted the precious contents of the vial between her open lips, and she had no choice but to swallow.

An intense golden glow filled her body and drove back the dark sea. The Power from the potion pulsed in her skin, her knee and her head. Khalil wrapped an arm around her shoulders and nudged the rim of another vial between her lips. “Drink another one,” he said.

By that time her dizziness had lessened, and she heard him for real. She didn’t waste time on asking how he had gotten them or how much they cost. Instead she drank, and that time the Power in the potion blew away the clouds in her head. She said, “The kids.”

“Right over there.”

She looked where Khalil pointed. Somehow the backyard had filled up with people. Max was lying on a stretcher, attended by a man and a woman, EMT equipment on the ground nearby. Chloe sat on another stretcher, wrapped in a blanket. She was being examined by another man. Four Djinn stood nearby, watching the EMTs alertly.

Power swirled behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. At least two other Djinn were in the blackened wreckage that had been the back of the house, although they weren’t in physical form. As she turned back to face Khalil she caught sight of a seventh Djinn, who wore the form of a muscular ebony-skinned male. He stared fixedly at her.

Whatever was up with that particular Djinn, it was definitely not her problem. She had enough on her plate at the moment, thank you. She turned away from the puzzle. As she focused on Khalil again, he said, “The kids are all right.”

“Are you sure?”

His jaw was clenched, diamond eyes filled with radiant wetness. She put a hand to his face, and he snatched her to him so tightly she grunted. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “You’re all going to be all right. But gods damn, you almost weren’t. Gods damn, I saw my daughter. I talked to Phaedra. She said you healed her.”

“I didn’t heal her. I just showed her who she used to be.” She leaned against him, resting her head on his chest. “She made the choice, and—I don’t know what else to call it—she repatterned or realigned herself. I didn’t mean to call her when I called for you. I just couldn’t tell what I was doing. My head was all fucked up.”

“The EMT said you had a concussion, and Max probably did too.” Khalil ran a finger lightly down the bare skin of her arm, and his mouth twisted in a quick sharp spasm. “And first-degree burns. A pediatrician is with him now.”

Grace glanced gratefully over at the people working to help the children. She said, “Phaedra looked so threadbare after she changed, I was really worried about her. She said she needed to rest. Is she still here?”

“As soon as other help came, she left. She needs time, maybe a lot of time, and nourishment, and I don’t think she can ever be quite the same as she was. But her essence is true again, not warped. She made a connection with you, and she answered it.” He glared. “You were supposed to call me if she showed up again.”

“I remembered,” she told him, truthfully enough. “I just got busy.”

“We will talk of that later.” He bowed over her. She could feel what a maelstrom he was of out-of-control emotion, pain, a terror that was too slow to fade, and a twisted up, overwhelmed sense of wonder. He could barely hold on to his physical form. “Do you realize what a miracle you are? You scared me so much this time.”

A glowing drop of liquid streaked down and landed on her dirty T-shirt where it lay like a shining jewel for a moment before it was soaked into the material. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She touched the small damp spot wonderingly. It still had a tiny spark of his Power that slowly faded. “I didn’t mean to.”

Someone approached; it was the woman who had been examining Max. She knelt beside Grace with a smile. “I’m Dr. Lopez. You’re looking better.”

“I’m feeling better, thanks,” Grace said.

“I scanned you when you were a little out of it earlier. You’ve strained your knee, but I don’t think you’ve done any further lasting damage. Wear your brace for a couple of weeks and baby that knee. Hot and cold compresses, and ibuprofen. I’m sure you know the drill. Be sure to see your orthopedic surgeon if it gives you any trouble.”

“I will.” Grace twisted around to look at the kids. One EMT rubbed Max’s stomach, talking soothingly while the baby sucked his thumb. The other EMT smiled at Chloe, who was showing him the toys in her bucket. “How are they?”

“They’re doing really well,” Dr. Lopez said. “Chloe had a shock, and she’s still shaken. I don’t see or sense any evidence of injury. Max had a couple of healing potions like you did, and he’s calmer and feeling better. The pink to his skin is gone, and his concussive symptoms have disappeared. I don’t sense any further injury when I scan him, no pressure or swelling in his head or spine. If you would feel better, we can admit him to keep an eye on him overnight, but to be quite honest, I don’t think it’s necessary.”

“Who are you and where are you from?” Grace asked. She glanced at Khalil. He looked focused and suddenly calm.

The doctor’s direct gaze was friendly and understanding. “I work at the Children’s Hospital in Boston.”

“She teaches at the Harvard Medical School,” Khalil said. “We wanted to get the best.”

Like pancakes from the Russian Tea Room? Grace gripped Khalil’s forearm. “And the EMTs?”

“They’re from the Children’s Hospital in Boston too.” Dr. Lopez did not quite smile, but she looked like she might want to. “Our trauma unit does not often see several Djinn appear to demand medical care for two human children.”

“Try never,” said one of the EMTs from behind the doctor. He had walked over hand in hand with Chloe.

Dr. Lopez said, “They volunteered to come.”

Chloe flung herself at Grace and Khalil. She wailed, “Our house broke!”

“I know, sweetie.” Grace snatched her close, and Khalil’s arms closed over them both tightly, while Grace kissed and rocked Chloe. So fragile, so precious. A spasm of shaking rattled Grace.

Gram, I don’t deserve your pride, she thought, because even with the dream and all the ghosts yelling at me, I almost didn’t figure it out.

“Do you think you could give me some big-girl help?” she said in Chloe’s hair.

Chloe said timidly, “I dunno. It might be too big for me.”

Oh, ouch. Grace’s throat closed up, and for a few moments she couldn’t talk. She felt torn in two.

Khalil put a hand to her back. I’m right here. Tell me what you need.

Her two pieces aligned, and she grew calm and clearheaded. She said to him, The children need to be with someone they feel safe with tonight, and it can’t be me because I have things I need to do. Normally that would mean Katherine, except right now I want them out of Kentucky altogether.

Why is that? Khalil asked. He looked sharp, and for the first time since she had met him, truly predatory.

She met his gaze. Because the trucker that caused the car accident in the spring didn’t fall asleep at the wheel.

Arrangements for the children happened much quicker than she thought they could. Two of the Djinn took Dr. Lopez, the EMTs and their equipment back to Boston. Khalil sent a third spearing into the air to find Katherine and John and explain what had happened, and what was needed from them. Grace hated for Katherine to find out everything that had happened that way, but she needed to focus all her attention on the children. The fourth Djinn made travel arrangements for a suite to be made available for Katherine, John, their children, and Chloe and Max at the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston, in the heart of the Demonkind demesne.

That caused Grace to pause as she tried to figure out how to finance the trip for all six. The check from Carling and Rune hadn’t cleared the bank, and she didn’t have a credit card. While she knew Katherine and John would do anything to help, she certainly couldn’t expect them to foot the hotel bill. Sitting with her back against a shade tree while cuddling Chloe on her lap, she brought the question of financing up with Khalil.

Khalil held the exhausted baby against his shoulder. He paced slowly, so he didn’t wake Max up. He had chosen, of all things, to wear jeans and a T-shirt again. The outfit brought to mind their date, which seemed like it had happened ages ago, except now the clothes looked shockingly exotic against his more inhuman physical form. He held his energy under such tight control, it made Grace’s bones ache just to look at him.

Max wasn’t aware of any of that. The baby had begun to snore. He sounded like a squeaky toy. Khalil put his cheek against Max’s head, rubbing his small back.

“Do not trouble yourself in the slightest over paying for the trip,” Khalil told Grace quietly. “It will all be taken care of.”

Grace jerked as suddenly the ebony-skinned Djinn appeared and knelt beside her, diamond eyes intent. The strange Djinn said, “I will pay for all of it.”

If anything, Khalil grew even quieter, yet this time a thread of steel ran through his voice. “Now is not the time, Ebrahim.”

“I understand,” the other Djinn said, just as quietly, while pain flared in his expression. “Just know I will pay for everything.” He looked into Grace’s eyes and whispered, “Anything you need.”

“Thank you?” Grace kissed Chloe’s temple and tilted her head sideways to see the little girl’s face. Chloe was sleepy but still awake, and sucking her thumb. Grace said to the Djinn in a gentle, perky voice, “You need to back up and give us some space now. Actually, if you really want to help, you could get the children something to eat since our kitchen blew up.” Grace murmured to Chloe, “Are you hungry?” Chloe nodded. “What would you like to eat?”

Chloe slipped her thumb out of her mouth. “Cheese.”

Ebrahim looked at Max.

Khalil said promptly, “Similac formula. Not the powder. Ready to feed bottles with nipples. A package of Pampers disposable diapers, a dozen jars of stage two baby food—get a variety of things, and remember, he loves applesauce—and a small spoon, some baby wipes, and a diaper bag. A soft stuffed toy suitable for a nine-month-old and a cotton blanket. That should meet his immediate needs.”

Grace stared at Khalil, her mouth open. If she hadn’t fallen in love with him already, that would have done it. Twice.

Ebrahim’s intensity had splintered into confusion. Khalil told him, “Ask a store attendant to help you pick it all out. And hurry.”

The other Djinn dematerialized and blew away. Grace asked, He was a bit intense. What was that all about?

Khalil told her, His mate is damaged. He saw Phaedra and heard us talking. He is hoping you can help his mate. I didn’t remember that when I called on him to pay his debt.

She pushed the heel of one hand against her temple. Oh, criminy. I can’t promise anything to anyone. Khalil, what I did was a fluke. Honestly, Phaedra did most of the work.

He squatted in front of her. Max looked so tiny nestled against his chest. I know. And now really isn’t the time. But when the time does come, would you at least be willing to try—for him or any of the others? He gripped her shoulder. No matter how you answer, I will support your decision.

And if she hadn’t already fallen in love with him, that would have made the third time today. Of course I’ll try, she said. I couldn’t say no.

He looked into her eyes, took her hand and pressed his lips to her fingers. Indeed.

Just then the two Djinn that had been exploring the house assumed physical forms and walked toward them. They wore the shapes of identical women, tall, blonde and strong looking. Grace looked at them with her mind’s eye. Their presences were almost an exact carbon copy of each other; they really were twins. Khalil’s expression darkened as they came near, his face hard. He asked, “What have you discovered?”

“We have shut off the gas,” said one of them. “There is nothing magical in the ruins.”

“And the cause?”

The other twin held out her hand. In her palm was a piece of damaged metal. “We think it was this piece of the stove. It is part of the gas regulation and ignition process called a flame failure device. It appears quite faulty.”

Grace said, “We used that stove hundreds of times, and it worked perfectly.”

Khalil looked at Grace. “This was the first time you used the stove since yesterday’s work day, wasn’t it, when you had so many people over?”

“Yes.” She went a little numb.

The twins looked at each other. One of them asked, “Did you leave the house for any length of time?”

Twelve people, not including Olivia, who knew each other well. They looked her in the eye and ate her food and mowed her lawn. Did twelve people do this?

She nodded and whispered, “For about forty-five minutes.”

Khalil’s rage flared red-hot against Grace’s senses. His face was vicious. “Brandon Miller has metal devices like this in a hidden workshop. Along with tools with which to alter them.”

Chloe knuckled her eyes. “Did our lunch break the house?”

Grace’s arms tightened. She shook her head at the others, silently warning them to stop the conversation, as she said, “It seems so, baby girl.”

The Djinn returned from their various errands. The first to arrive were the two who had gone to Boston. Then came the one who made the travel arrangements. Ebrahim was the fourth, laden with packages. He had the new diaper bag, stuffed with everything Khalil had requested, and a large plastic shopping bag filled with three different kinds of cheese, crackers, juice, pudding, fruit and animal cookies. Grace opened packages of food so Chloe could nibble, and she ate too, mechanically, because she needed the fuel.

The messenger to Katherine and John was the last one to return. The Djinn wore the form of a reed-thin girl with a gleaming fall of chocolate-colored hair.

“They are coming,” she said, her voice as light and airy as a flute. “Katherine told me to tell you, of course they will come. She is shocked and saddened and extremely angry.”

Khalil said, “Make sure they arrive safely.”

“Yes.” She vanished again, and two of the others went with her.

Khalil spread out the new cotton blanket beside Grace and Chloe, and he eased the sleeping Max onto it. Then he went with the rest of the Djinn to look at the house. He returned soon with her knee brace, the hated cane, and Chloe’s Lalaloopsy doll.

“They will see what is salvageable of your possessions, and if possible, they will work on repairs,” he said to Grace, his voice softer than ever, for Chloe had fallen asleep too. He set Chloe’s doll on the blanket beside Max and knelt to help Grace buckle the brace into place.

“They must be in a lot of debt to you if they’re still working to cancel it out,” Grace said.

“None of the Djinn owe me anything anymore,” Khalil said. “Now they’re working for you.”

Her eyes rounded. “No pressure, right?” she muttered. “That’s a hell of a burden of hope they’re piling on my shoulders.”

“I have been talking to them. I promise you, nobody will expect anything more than you can give.” He brushed at her face lightly with the tips of his fingers, eyes burning. Then he leaned forward to kiss her with tautly controlled passion. His hand dropped to circle the base of her throat. I think this time you scared the immortality out of me.

I’m sorry, she said again.

He leaned his forehead against hers, and he said in her head so softly she barely heard him, Grace, you almost died. I don’t want to know what that’s like.

She didn’t need to say that she was going to die sooner or later while he wasn’t, because the fact hung over their heads like the sword of Damocles that dangled by a single hair. She stayed silent and stroked his face, her eyes closed, and absorbed the hot comfort of his presence.

But because the Oracle’s moon could be a freaky bitch too, it didn’t care if there were only so many epiphanies a girl could take at a time. The endless day wasn’t done with her yet, as the dark sea took her again, the riptide filled with beginnings and endings, all potential futures and the past.

This time the vision that took her was sharp as a blade’s edge, and she saw that the real sword hanging over their head was not her mortality, but something else entirely. Image upon image of possible futures bombarded her. She flinched back with a gasp.

Khalil grabbed her shoulders. His touch snapped her back into the here and now. He studied her with a sharp concern. “What’s wrong? You’ve gone completely white.”

She stared at him, heart pounding, then her expression turned grim. “No,” she said. “One thing at a time. Right now we’ve got enough on our plate.”

“Gracie,” he said between his teeth.

Gods, she loved it when he called her that, with his perfect blend of exasperation and tenderness. She put the knowledge of the vision behind her for the moment and opened her eyes wide at him. “I don’t recall when I said I would tell you every little thing that went on inside my head. I sure don’t remember you bargaining for it.”

He looked infuriated and unpredictable and actually a little evil, and there it was; she tumbled head over heels in love with him for the fourth time that day. She thought she would really love to spend whatever time she had in this life, tumbling head over heels every time she looked into his eyes and fell into forever. Always loving, always falling.

“I will get it out of you,” he growled, so very softly over the heads of the tired, sleeping babies.

“Wow, you really can’t stand a secret, can you? Are you going to spend Christmas with us? Teasing you about presents is going to be a blast.”

He let go of her, slapped his hands on the tree trunk on either side of her head and leaned over her. He looked fierce, like he might explode, except she could feel his emotions in truth. Sparring with each other had become a game they both loved to play. All of his real rage was directed elsewhere. “You are such an impudent and disrespectful human.”

“Indeed, that is what you are wont to call me.” She grinned at him. “See what I did there?”

One corner of his sexy mouth twitched. She stroked her presence along his, aligning with him softly.

His hands slipped on the tree trunk. He sank a fist into her hair and just held her, looking into her eyes with a steady promise. Her home might be in ruins, her life forever changed, and the sword might fall and cut them, but right in that moment, she had never felt so alive.

He let his fingers loosen and stroked down the back of her neck as he turned his head. Then she heard voices. Katherine, John, their kids and the Djinn escort had arrived to take Chloe and Max safely away to Houston. Khalil gathered Chloe off Grace’s lap. Using the cane, Grace levered herself to her feet.

Katherine had clearly been crying, and John, who had loved Petra and Niko too, was grieving and enraged all over again. They stared in grim, shocked silence at the ruined back of the house. When they collected the sleepy kids, they did so with a special tenderness. As John and Khalil carried the children to their minivan, Katherine squeezed Grace’s hand so hard it hurt. “John told his boss he had a family emergency, and it’s true. Don’t worry about the kids, all right?”

“I won’t.” Grace squeezed her hand in return.

The older woman’s eyes glittered. “Get their killers. Get all of them.”

“I promise you, we will.”

She walked around the house with Katherine and gave her a fierce hug good-bye. Then she stood beside Khalil and watched them drive away with the last of her family and with four Djinn as invisible guards.

That was when Khalil released his iron grip on his temper, and his rage whipped the air in a vicious whirlwind.

He turned to her, his face stern and deadly, and she knew what would happen if he sent his renegade angel’s voice ringing through the sky in a call to war. She had seen it in the vision as one of the possible futures. It would bring the sword down on them.

He had so very many connections. His call would be answered. Djinn would appear like meteorites that slammed into the ground to became tall, shining figures. Tens of Djinn, then scores, then hundreds. Their numbers would be dotted with a few rare figures that shone with a radiance that was especially piercing. She had recognized one of them.

Soren, the Elder tribunal Councillor for the Demonkind and a first-generation Djinn.

That would be the beginning of the end for her and Khalil. Soren would slash the fragile hair from which the sword hung. And the sword would fall and slice them apart. If they were to have a chance at any time together, Khalil couldn’t send out that call.

His Power compressed in readiness. She grabbed his arm. “No! You mustn’t. Khalil, please don’t.”

He looked down at her, his expression hard, as the wind howled around them. “Tell me one reason why I should not.”

She projected all the urgency and conviction she could into her voice, because she could tell his attention was already slipping away from her.

“Because if you do that, we may never see each other again after today.”