Why can’t we just head into the peripatos now?
Because our flames give us away and that’s just enough time for one coward to put a bullet in us.
Okay. Let’s go then.
“They’re gone!” The guy closest to the car called over his shoulder.
“They’re in the cloak!” one yelled back and Ari’s heart sunk as her eyes adjusted enough to see what he was dragging. A girl.
Shit. Jai cursed, seeing her too.
The guy stopped in front of the car’s headlights; the girl pressed against his body, a knife digging into her neck. She only looked about fifteen or sixteen. Her cheeks were pale with terror, her eyes wide and red from crying. Ari noted a tear in her shirt and felt her blood boil with rage. The ugly knot in her chest started forming, pulling away from her heart and morphing into that dark separateness that longed to do damage. “I think they’ll step right on out when they realize I plan to kill this girl if they don’t. A guardian like Jai Bitar won’t be able to walk away from an innocent in trouble. Right?” He grinned cockily, his eyes washing over the entire area with the thoroughness of a true predator. “All Master Dalí wants is the girl, Mr. Bitar. Hand her over and we let the little one go.”
Someone sounds like they’ve watched too many bad Hollywood action flicks, Ari laughed nervously, trying to cover up the fact that she was furious and scared to hear that Dalí knew exactly where she was.
Someone is a cocky bastard, Jai hissed back and Ari felt his anger pounding around her head.
A streak of fire blazed through the air toward the leader and his whole body stiffened, his eyes rolling back in his head as he collapsed to the ground with a sickening thud. The knife clattered to the ground and the girl yelped, tears streaming down her face as she shivered in her shorts and T-shirt, confused and scared.
Ari wasn’t sure she understood what was happening as the fire moved with a speed the human eye couldn’t keep up with. In under thirty seconds, every man was unconscious on the ground, their weapons unfired, discarded next to their bodies.
Jai?
Don’t come out of the cloak, he commanded harshly.
What the hell did you just do?
Krav Maga. A powerful blow to the back of the neck can render your opponent unconscious.
Ari gulped, not quite able to compute how powerful Jai was. She’d been all ready to fight and he’d come along and made these idiots look like… well… idiots. It suddenly occurred to Ari that if the harmal hadn’t incapacitated Jai that first time, he’d have taken out those men she and Charlie had labored to defeat.
Show off.
The girl? Ari asked.
I’ve already used telepathy to call my father for help. He’s sending in a team to clean this up. You and I need to get out of here.
Shouldn’t we wait until someone has her?
The girl slumped, falling to her knees in utter fear and disorientation. The sound of a car heading toward them drew Ari’s head up in panic.
It’s Rik. Trey’s dad. He’ll take care of this. Let’s go. Walk toward me so you’re behind the girl. The last thing she needs is to see us head into the peripatos.
Ari did as she was told, focusing what little energy she had left to travel by fire to the mansion.
Chapter
Seventeen
A MESSAGE NO ONE SEEMS TO GET
Dalí stewed over his own reticence. Perhaps he should have been in LA to oversee the attack. Would it have gone any better, or would he have been taken by the girl and her guardian? The chance that he didn’t get the harmal into her in time had stopped him from joining them. The thought of being commanded by the seal and having his will stolen from him terrified him as much as the thought of wielding that power over others excited him. The concoction was finally strong enough.
“Master Dalí, the girls are coming around from the effects of the harmal,” Dr. Cremer reported as Dalí stepped out of the elevator onto the lab floor. He eyed the girls strapped to leather exam chairs, scanning the belts that held them in place. When he’d left last night to find Ari, those belts had not been necessary.
Dalí frowned, masking his unease as he studied the two girls. In order to get the concoction right, Dalí had kidnapped jinn girls who lived in the mortal realm and were similar to Ari in height and build. Since Ari was stronger than these lesser jinn, he demanded the scientists experiment with harmal until it could be used as a paralytic. What he was doing was dangerous for many reasons. One, there weren't many jinn girls living in the US, at least not enough for missing girls to go unnoticed. And two… it ate at his conscience. Six of the girls had died. Dalí stared into the waxy complexion of one of the surviving girls and fought to remind himself why he was doing this. Ari and all the power she could offer him. His blood screamed at him with the need for that power. Flinching, Dalí turned his back on his victims, the smell of disinfectant nauseating him. Apparently, the girls had lost control of their body functions and the scientists had to clean up their waste and wash the girls, like caregivers. Ignoring a stab of guilt, Dalí looked down at Dr. Cremer, his expression cold. “I told you to inject them right away with another dose.”