“Right, because djinn are related to werewolves.”

  He was teasing, but I didn’t know if he knew how right he was. There were theories that werewolves descended from a species of djinn that could shape-shift or possess animals, but I wasn't getting into that now. He slipped the ring onto his pinky, and motioned for me to lead the way.

  “Thank you,” I said dryly.

  Even though I was leading, he didn’t stay far behind. I said nothing about it until we got closer to the building. When we reached the rotting wooden door, I motioned for him to get behind me. Only when he took a few big steps back did I pound my fist against the door. It wasn’t necessary, since it was technically city property, but it seemed best to give Miraj the courtesy of a head’s up if he was in here. I touched my Evil Eye pendant. It was warm from my skin, but not unnaturally so. That was a good sign.

  “This is the Toronto Police. If anybody is in here, please open the door!” I called.

  I thought I heard something on the other side, but it could have just as easily been my imagination or cats rather than a djinni. I took a deep breath and repeated myself in Arabic. There was more scurrying, though still no real response. I looked back only long enough to meet Rowan’s eyes and nodded.

  Heat snaked through my skin, weaving its way up the side of my ribs. The purple glow lit up my skin as it travelled to my left hand, leaving my right free to grab my gun if I needed it. I didn’t think I would need it, though. Rowan had my back.

  “Last warning! Open the door!”

  When I still received no response, I leaned back on my left leg and drove my right heel into the door with as much force as I could. I got the door to splinter open before Rowan tried to do it instead.

  “Remind me not to piss you off,” Rowan muttered.

  “Don’t piss me off. Is anybody in here?” I called.

  A sound like rustling papers came from my right. My head snapped in the direction, but I didn’t see anything.

  “You smell that?” Rowan said. “Smells like a barbecue.”

  I did not smell barbecue. All I smelled was mold and animals. We might have missed him. Still, I didn’t lower my guard. I’d left my purse in the trunk of Rowan’s car, but I’d tucked my compact mirror into my back pocket.

  “You had better not be checking your makeup right now.”

  “I use my phone for that. It has a good camera.”

  I walked deeper into the warehouse, using the mirror to look behind me. The only thing there was Rowan rolling his eyes.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  “Smoke.”

  There was a brief pause before he said, “Shit.”

  I glanced into the compact to see if it was, ‘Shit, I found the djinni,’ or, ’Shit, djinn are made of smoke.’ It seemed to be the latter. More and more, this was feeling like a bad idea. Even with our bulletproof vests, even with my barriers and Rowan's silver bullets, this felt like a bad idea. What were we doing here without backup?

  “Talk to me, Arshad.”

  His voice was stern. Could he see I was getting nervous?

  “Hey, Arshad. What do you call a can opener that doesn't work? A can't opener.”

  I snorted and rolled my eyes. That wasn't funny, it was just bad. But it was enough to get me out of my own head. I'd faced down dangerous suspects before. Just because I'd never faced down a djinni before didn't make this a new situation.

  “Do you still smell barbecue?” I asked.

  “Yeah. It's pretty strong now.”

  He was right. Even I could smell it, and I had a terrible sense of smell. It was a byproduct of the nose job I’d had. Yes, I was that vain and shallow. Sue me. I was much happier with my nose the way it was now, thank you, even if it came at the cost of my sense of smell. Nothing came free, after all. The balance of the universe had to be maintained, even if it was with something as simple as a nose job.

  The smell was a familiar one. It wasn’t quite the smell of a barbeque. It was more like a campfire. Panic spiked my heart rate at the thought that Miraj was setting fire to the building with us in it, but it wasn’t quite strong enough to suggest that. Besides, we would smell the paint on the sides of the walls burning if that were the case. Instead, the smoke was tinted with what almost smelled like cardamom.

  Miraj wasn’t burning the warehouse down. The reality might have been much worse.

  I tilted the mirror to look behind Rowan, and caught a pair of gold irises in the reflection. Miraj was standing no more than five feet away from Rowan. I took a breath and in that breath, I absorbed as many details as I could. The sunken eyes, the hollow cheekbones, the unkempt hair.

  The knife.

  I whirled around, reaching out to pull Rowan forward with the hand not forming a barrier.

  I wasn’t fast enough. The knife came down. Somebody screamed. It might have been me. Blood spurted into the air, and Rowan hit the ground.

  Chapter Eleven

  I had never been happier that my barriers were reflexive than I was in that moment. Without having to think about it, a layer of glittering purple rose from beneath my skin to wrap around my arm. It wasn’t fast enough to completely block the knife, but it protected me from the worst of it. Still, the cut stung and bled far more than I would have liked it to. I told myself it wasn’t as bad as it looked. I’d cut myself worse shaving my legs. If I got it cleaned and stitched fast enough, it might not even leave a scar.

  Though I hadn’t intended to throw Rowan to the concrete floor, it had the intended result of getting him out of Miraj’s reach. He rolled away from my feet and disappeared behind me. The pained grunt suggested something was at least bruised. I hoped he hadn’t dislocated anything in the landing. Not only would he be pissed, he might not be able to hold his own if it came to a full fight.

  I knew how to fight. That didn’t mean I wanted to. Or that I was particularly good at it. It was a disadvantage of relying on my barriers, I knew that. It just hadn’t been much of a problem until now.

  Miraj swung at me with the knife. I ducked out of the way. Without my focus to keep it up, the half-formed barrier disappeared. Too late, I realized I should have knocked Miraj's hand back and driven my fist into his ribs. After this, I would sign up for a kickboxing class.

  Right now wasn’t the time to change my behaviour or instincts. Instead, I focused on the burning script making its way through my body. Sure, I could protect myself by sheer reflexes, but I couldn’t protect Rowan with it. At least he was upright by now. I would have preferred it if he weren’t aiming his gun at Miraj. That was two suspects in as many days that he’d aimed at. I really hoped he wasn’t trigger-happy. If I put up a barrier and he started shooting, he was more likely to hurt one of us than Miraj.

  “Don’t shoot,” I warned, turning my head toward Rowan so he knew I was talking to him. It should have been obvious, given that he was the only one with a gun, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Then, I looked back at Miraj. “We aren’t here to hurt you.”

  Miraj’s eyes narrowed. They still had a panicked, frantic look to them. He held the knife up again in a jerky motion. I noticed for the first time the iron cuff around his wrist. Having worn iron cuffs myself plenty of times when visiting inmates in prison, the sight of it made me sick. It wouldn’t be enough to completely stop his powers, but it would be enough to dampen them enough to bind and control him.

  I took a step forward and held out the hand that wasn’t holding the barrier. By now, it was about three feet in diameter and more than thick enough to block the knife.

  “Do you speak English?” I asked in my native tongue.

  His eyes widened, and he took a step back away from me.

  “You speak Arabic.”

  The few words he spoke were in the overly formal Classical Arabic. I resisted the urge to wince. If that was all he spoke, this would be even harder than I thought. I tried to convert my thoughts, but I couldn’t do it. I could only hope he would understand me in plain Lebanese.

  I nodded. “We can help you.”

  I motioned to the cuff on his wrist. His head snapped down in the same direction. It was almost like he’d forgotten it was there.

  “Arshad,” Rowan said in a low warning.

  I took another step forward. Miraj wasn't any different from the storm witch. He was afraid and not in full control of himself. If I could get him to trust me enough to relax, we could all get out of this with no more injuries than the still-bleeding cut to my arm. Miraj stepped closer to me, but there was something aggressive about it that made me pause.

  “What do you wish for?” he asked.

  It sounded like a question, but it wasn’t one. It was a command.

  What did I want? I wanted a lot of things. I wanted the wars overseas to end. I wanted people in power to stop taking advantage of it. Whoever had bound Miraj, I wanted them to pay. All the murderers, all the rapists, all the thieves, I wanted them to pay. Companies who stole their employees’ retirements from them. Parents who abandoned their children. All the cruelty, all the injustice, I wanted it to end.

  I wanted to stop waking up from nightmares. I wanted the pit of my stomach to stop making me nauseous every time I ate. I wanted Ariadne to love me as much as I loved her.

  There were so many things I wanted, and the man who could make it happen was standing only a few feet away from me. It would be so easy to just ask for it. To let him do what he could to fix everything, consequences be damned.

  So, so easy.

  The silver ring on my index knuckle burned to counter the power rattling beneath his words. I clenched my teeth together and shook my head to keep myself from speaking. It was true, he had the power to alter reality as much as he wanted so long as it fit within the universe’s laws, but nothing was that easy. With the cuff on his wrist, he needed an external influence to take his power from. He was trying to use me to get that power. I wasn’t going to give it to him.

  I raced through any tricks I had. Anything I said could backfire. Even if I told him I wanted him to surrender, there were likely a hundred ways that could go and I couldn’t risk any of them. So I said nothing, instead motioning for the knife.

  “What do you wish for?” he repeated, emphasizing the last two words more strongly this time.

  The force of it made my teeth ache. I could do it. I could ask for anything. I could end this right here, right now, with only the right words.

  He wasn’t going to come easily. I realized that now. But I could still take him down without resorting to Rowan putting a bullet in him. If I could get close enough to hit him with my rings, it might disorient him long enough for me to knock him out.

  “Arshad,” Rowan snapped.

  I winced as Miraj’s gold eyes flickered to him. His head tipped in a way that suggested he hadn’t quite realized that Rowan was even there. I’d hoped he’d forgotten about him. I’d hoped Rowan could call for that back-up we were so sorely missing without Miraj noticing. Obviously, neither of those were going to happen.

  There wouldn't be a happy ending here. I knew it in my gut. I had to stop pretending otherwise.

  “What do you wish for?” Miraj asked again, this time looking at Rowan.

  I hated to turn my back to Miraj, but I had no choice. Even though the words were still in Arabic, which I was fairly certain Rowan didn’t speak, the power behind them was all that mattered. I twisted to see a glassy look in Rowan’s eyes. His lips parted.

  “I… I want…”

  “Rowan! Rowan, say nothing!”

  He swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut. The gun trembled in his hands.

  This was bad. This was so many levels of bad. The ring I’d given Rowan shone with a faint glow as it worked to counter the command. It might have been enough to delay the effects of Miraj’s magic, but I doubted it would be enough to hold it off for much longer. Even I was struggling.

  “Rowan, fight it. Whatever he can give you, it won’t be worth it. I promise you it won’t.”

  I whirled around to face Miraj again. This time, I held up both hands. The barrier spread from one to the other, forming a wall between us. His gold eyes sparked with anger. I had to act quick.

  “I know they forced you to act against your will. Somebody hurt you, but I can help you. I have a friend, a djinni like you, who can help.”

  I didn't know if Raisa could help him. She might have had enough pull to have him sent back to his home country, wherever that was, but I couldn’t say that with any certainty. As for what would happen after that, I had no idea. I couldn’t promise anything, couldn’t guarantee anything. Still, I had to try. I had to try, because who knew what Rowan wanted? What would someone like him want? More importantly, how could it backfire?

  If I didn’t get Miraj to back off, it would backfire. Of that, I had no doubt. I suspected whatever Rowan wanted would have a body count much larger than the one we already had on our hands.

  Miraj still held the knife in his hands. If I could get to it… My arm was still bleeding. If cocooned myself in a barrier, it would slow me down way too much to be practical. I still had Rowan behind me to think about. If I went for Miraj, would Rowan just shoot him to be sure he wouldn’t stab me anywhere fatal?

  “I know you didn’t mean to kill anybody,” I added quickly. “I know you didn’t wish for it. I know you still don’t wish for it. Put the knife down. We can work together to fix this.”

  “You do not know what I wish for!” he shouted.

  There was pain in his voice. Despite my attempt to keep my emotions in check, it travelled right to my heart.

  He had a knife. Rowan had a gun. I had a gun too. Maybe I could shoot Miraj in the leg. It should have been enough to incapacitate him. If he got medical attention fast enough, he might not even end up with any lingering effects of silver poisoning.

  And then what?

  What happened next wasn’t my problem. It was a matter for the legal departments. He would either be tried in Canada or deported. Intentionally or otherwise, he had killed three people that I knew of. A good lawyer could make a case for coercion. None of this was my problem. I had become a cop instead of a lawyer to protect people on the ground and in this moment, people needed protection from Miraj. My own sympathies to him couldn't interfere with that.

  I thought it, but I didn’t believe it. There had to be a way to end this that didn’t end in blood. I had dealt with volatile suspects, suspects who’d acted in self-defence, suspects who were far more powerful than I was.

  I was running out of time. All Rowan had to do was ask for one thing, and we were done. Based on the muttered curses behind me, he was losing that battle.

  I had one shot at this.

  “What do you wish for?” I asked.

  Miraj stared at me like I’d just spontaneously combusted. He stepped back, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open. His hand clenched into a fist, tightening the knife. He tipped his head up to stare right at me. Despite the tension in his body, his eyes went calm. I saw his intention a moment before it happened. Regret sank through me like a weight.

  “Wait!”

  I was too late. For the second time today, I was too late.

  “I wish for freedom.”

  I’d known the moment I realized we were dealing with a djinni that this would end in blood. Dealings with djinni always did. Rowan wasn’t equipped to deal with them. I wasn’t either, but Rowan definitely wasn’t. Miraj wasn’t malicious. Djinni weren’t but nature. Above everything, they valued freedom. They would do anything to protect that. It was why Raisa and I had never worked out. I’d wanted to settle down, but that was too claustrophobic for her. A long-term, committed relationship made her feel trapped. So she’d ended things and gone back to Syria with barely more than a goodbye over drinks.

  If I couldn’t handle a djinni as a girlfriend, how could I ever have been so stupid as to believe I could handle one as a suspect?

  Miraj lunged with the knife aimed right at my throat. I held up the barrier, to protect both myself from the knife and him from the bullet. The bang of the gun rattled my eardrums. Less than a heartbeat later, silver struck the barrier. Referred pain bloomed across my shoulder from the impact. I lurched forward a little and cried out. A regular, copper-coated bullet might not have made it through the translucent wall, but the silver shattered it like cheap glass. I threw my hands up over my face. A few shards of the barrier cut through my skin before they disappeared.

  Rowan grabbed my arm and pulled it down. His mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the ringing in my ears.

  Are you okay? he seemed to be asking, again and again. He pressed his hand against one of the deeper cuts in my bicep. It should have hurt, but I was numb all over. I started to turn my head, but Rowan’s hand on my cheek stopped me. He was probably right to stop me from looking. Miraj’s blood spread over the concrete floor and pooled around my feet. That was more than enough.

  Chapter Twelve

  We didn’t say anything, either to each other or anyone else, until we spoke to our lawyers. I didn’t like it, but that was the policy.

  My lawyer was another ex of mine. Not an ex-girlfriend, but an ex-boyfriend. Ex-fiancé, actually. He was the last man I dated before I came to terms with the fact that I was gay. Likewise, I was the last woman he dated before he came to terms with the fact that he was gay. It had been a rough few months back then, but it had all worked out. He had married a very nice judge, and I’d gone through a short list of girlfriends before meeting Ariadne. We were still quite good friends. We met up for coffee when our schedules allowed it — once every three or four months — and laughed about that time we almost made the biggest mistake of our lives. Even though lawyers and cops were supposed to hate each other, I never minded seeing him in a professional setting.

  Still, it was always nicer when that professional setting didn’t involve him defending me.

  Defending cops from Internal Affairs investigations wasn’t something he often did. He specialized in contract law. And yet, here he was.

 

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