Oracle's Moon (Elder Races #4)(86)

Even though Brandon’s property wasn’t marked with so much as a mailbox, Khalil finally located it. A long gravel drive led back through a tangle of old-growth forest. The day had turned into a bright afternoon, and a fierce humid heat lay heavily across the land like a dense fog. He traveled through the forest carefully, all his senses wide open for sparks of Power that could be traps.

He found plenty of them. The land was layered with traps overlaid on traps. There were so many magical and physical traps, he stopped trying to gain information by slipping through the forest. Instead he soared over the land until he spotted a small cluster of buildings well away from the road. A large vegetable garden bordered the buildings, along with a chicken coop.

He drifted down as gently as a snowflake, spreading his presence so thin, almost nobody would have been able to sense him. Nobody except for his extraordinary Grace.

There were three older, rusted vehicles near the buildings, but none of them looked like they were in drivable condition. The main building was the house. He slipped close and listened, but he didn’t hear anyone stirring. It appeared Brandon was not at home. As he circled the house, he glanced in the windows at a cluttered interior. One room had several brightly colored signs stacked against the wall and piles of posters and buttons on a table, all with the American flag rippling in the background. Some signs had the slogan: THE HUMANIST PARTY. Others read: JAYDON GUTHRIE FOR HEAD OF THE WITCHES.

A couple of large dogs napped on a covered porch. He took care not to disturb them, in case someone was actually in the house where he could not see them. Some dogs and certain other animals were very sensitive to a Djinn’s presence.

He slipped away and scouted out the other buildings. One was an unused barn with a roof that was falling in. Another was a toolshed filled with a variety of implements and machines, and an aluminum ladder lying on the ground against one outside wall. Even that building had wards glowing on it. Brandon cared for his possessions. The only building that didn’t have wards or other sparks of Power was the rotting barn.

Khalil twisted in a circle, his attention sharpening. The barn really was the only building without sparks of Power glowing on it somewhere. Was there nothing in the building that Brandon wanted to protect?

Khalil really had no reason to go looking in the barn except for his terminal case of Djinn curiosity. He slid inside through a gap in the wooden wall. The interior was deeply shadowed. Cobwebs floated in the air. The bones of yet another vehicle sat inside. The metal lines of its body were heavy and rounded. It had no engine, wheels or seats. Thick dust coated the vehicle and the barn’s pitted floor, along with mice droppings.

A wooden ladder with broken rungs led to a loft. He floated up, intending to exit the barn through the hole in one corner of the roof.

That was when he discovered the loft wasn’t dusty or empty.

He whipped toward it. The repairs to the loft floor had not been visible from below. Fresh planks of wood covered the old floor in places. A new workbench was pushed against one wall made of wood planks as raw as the repairs to the floor. There was also a stool and battery-operated lantern, but that was as close as it came to any resemblance to Therese’s work area.

This workbench was littered with a variety of hand-tools, a blowtorch, wires and other bits of knobby, oddly shaped metal. Nothing felt magical. Khalil materialized in front of the bench. Frowning, he picked up a length of thin, flexible pipe and turned it over in his hands.

How did the human get into the loft in the first place? He saw no point of entry for an embodied creature unless it had wings. To one side of the loft, there was an opening in the wall, covered with a large wooden flap, but that looked as dilapidated and unused as most of the rest of the barn. The only other point of entry was a filth-streaked window.

He walked over to look closer and discovered fresh scratch marks on the sill. Looking out the smudged pane, he could see one end of the nearby toolshed. A corner of the aluminum ladder was just visible.

He returned to the bench. To say that he was not mechanically minded would probably be one of the biggest understatements anyone could make in a year.

Something had been constructed. Or perhaps something was going to be constructed. But what? He didn’t have a clue.

And why go to all this trouble to hide it?

Eighteen

When Khalil disappeared, Grace wobbled her way to the upstairs bathroom. She felt like a drunken sailor.

Gods, what he had done to her.

Every private place on her body felt hypersensitive, and her inner thigh muscles quivered. She touched a dusky area on the side of her breast. It was a suck bruise. She thought of him working her everywhere, and intense arousal pulsed through her. It was followed immediately by a forceful wave of emotion. She covered her eyes.

I did not know I needed grace until I met you, he had said.

I’m turning into some weird hybrid creature, she thought, like that crazy homicidal chick from Species. And Khalil Bane of My Existence told me that he needed me. Today’s forecast calls for free steaks and flying pigs.

Probably all it means is that Djinn males can get caught up in the moment just like human males do. I shouldn’t make too much of it. But I did learn that he likes sex. He likes it a whole lot. We haven’t enjoyed it in a leisurely fashion yet, but he did devote all of his attention to it.

And I already crave it and him.

She tried to lasso the part of her brain that had decided gibbering was a good thing to do before coffee on a Sunday morning. She didn’t have much luck, as she slid into the bathtub, washed her hair and soaped herself all over.