Beyond Your Touch (24 page)

I slouched down onto the bench next to Lotli. Her face looked different; her eyelids smudged gold, her lips unearthly dark crimson. Still, my muscles relaxed and I breathed easier. She was fine, just like Chase. Maybe this plan was going to work after all.

My chest tightened. Or maybe not. If Jaquith hadn't guessed who Chase and the flutist were before, he now knew for sure. What if he wasn't as trustworthy as I thought?

I looked back in time to see Jaquith heading up a set of stairs and onto the stage, and another wave of relief hit me. If this were a trap designed to catch all of us at one time, it seemed as though the guards would have rushed us by now.

Chase perched on the other side of Lotli and leaned toward me. “You were limping. What the hell did that bastard do to you?”

It took me a heartbeat to get what he meant. I straightened up my hunched back. “Nothing. No one hurt me. That guy—the eunuch who brought me here—his name is Jaquith. Your half brother?” I said it hesitantly, watching his face closely.

Chase's mouth gaped. “What?” His head snapped toward where Jaquith had now blended in with a group of eunuchs standing behind Malphic's table.

“I'm pretty sure he wasn't lying,” I said. “He looked like you and Malphic. . . .”

Afraid my whispers might quickly begin to look suspicious, I gave him and Lotli an abbreviated version of my encounter with Mother and Malphic, and how I met Jaquith, and his plan for Mother's escape. When I was finished, I shot another glance at the stage. I could see Mother now and the other women gathered at a table behind Malphic's. A trickle of sweat worked its way down my spine. Guards, a dozen of them plus the burn-faced spy, stood right behind Mother's table. I lowered my voice even further. “Jaquith said we should wait until after Lotli's performance, but I don't see why we can't get Mother and leave now.”

Chase shook his head. “It's too late for that. Lotli's leaving at this point would be seen as a refusal to perform, a direct insult to Malphic. We'd be grabbed before we could reach the tunnel and dragged in front of him to be punished.” He reached across Lotli and rested a reassuring hand on my leg. “Jaquith is right. Seeing this through is the safest way.”

The slow thud of drums sounded. Chase grew silent, and so did everyone else in the arena. But I could still sense the throbbing energy of the crowd behind us, a tidal wave held back, waiting to break loose.

A stocky woman in a flowing robe swished out from the ringside seats and strolled onto the center platform, along with a group of men carrying stringed instruments I'd never seen before. After a dramatic pause, the flames around the platform brightened and she began to sing.

It was a strange vibrating sound that reminded me of a Mongolian throat singer. The instruments joined in, fast and wild, a weird melody of groaning and crying. The singer's voice picked up speed, thumping and pulsating through the air until it wormed its way into my veins and bones.

Lotli's quivering hand gripped mine. “We can't do this,” she said. “They are amazing.”

“So are you,” I whispered close to her ear. But, as magical as her flute music was, she was just a single performer, not an entire professional troupe.

The singer finished off her performance with an avalanche of throaty gurgles, the musicians quieted, then the fire surrounding the center platform faded.

Instantly, torches flared to life around the farthest platform. A man with a willowy body, painted black and red and dressed in nothing except ragged dark tights, prowled out from the ringside seats and onto that stage. He began to dance, slowly circling the edge of the platform, his fingers snapping in time with his steps, bells around his ankles jangling. Another identical dancer joined him, then another. I sat transfixed, watching and listening until—

They opened their mouths freakishly wide and began to mewl: a high-pitched sound, like a lost cat or wind clawing under a doorway. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled and I shuddered.

Lotli released my hand and sat bolt upright. The mewling rose higher as the dancers began to circle faster. Arms outspread, they started to whirl. Another and another dancer joined in, spinning at a dizzying pace, their fingertips and hair transforming into flame, their bodies and legs becoming fire, until only circles of black-and-red flame dipped and spun in time with the strange mewling. Suddenly the mewling stopped. The flames sputtered low and distorted into the shape of a dozen dancers bowing toward Malphic.

Someone passed a wine bottle down from behind us. Although my mouth was dry from fear and thirst, I passed the drink on to Lotli, who handed it to Chase. He nodded approvingly and passed it on to someone else. As another show began, this time in front of us, a platter of ribs came my way. I resisted again and passed it on. But when the platter got to Chase, he set it on his lap.

I reached over Lotli and flicked his thigh with my fingers. “What are you doing?” I whispered when he glanced my way.

“Don't worry. I'll be fine,” he said sharply.

But, as he turned back to the platter and began gnawing meat off the ribs with uncontained lust and tossing the bones on the ground, neither his words nor the fact that he'd grown up eating this food lessened my worry. We needed to get Lotli's show over with, get Mother, and get out of here before something happened, something terrifying and irreversible.

Hours passed, the fear pounding inside me, growing stronger with each fleeting second. Shape-shifters swirled out of thin air, morphing into whirlwinds and hooded snakes. More wine bottles passed our way. The smoke became thicker and the aurora's light dulled, as the moon made its way across the sky. The audience shouted, jeered, and screamed. Behind us someone puked. Someone at Malphic's table passed out. The guards broke up a fight in the grandstand. Mother got up and left for a while. Chase told me to relax, that she'd be back, that it probably had to do with her inability to stay solid for very long. She returned a short time later, her anxious eyes darting to me as she walked behind Malphic to her seat.

Lotli shifted away from me and I looked to see what was going on. She was leaned in close to Chase, whispering in his ear. His arm went around her shoulder and a vicious stab of jealousy hit me. He whispered something back to her and a left-out feeling boiled inside me. I scowled at them. I should have been the one sitting next to Chase, the one getting his hugs and sharing his secrets. Not her.

I squeezed my eyes shut, shoving the poisonous thoughts away.
This is not the time to let pettiness steal your brain, Annie,
I chided myself.
He's just comforting her. It's normal, understandable.

Lotli swiveled toward me. “It's almost
our
turn,” she said, her voice trembling.

My shame deepened, transforming into concern and empathy. I gave her a hug. “Don't worry. They'll love you,” I said. But something that she'd just said niggled at my mind or maybe it was how she'd said those words. I shook my head and shrugged off the uncomfortable feeling.
No more pettiness
.
It will all be over soon.

On the farthest platform, the wail of a bagpipe began, followed by the heartbeat of drums. Chase closed his eyes and rocked in time with the music, every muscle in his body joining in. Lotli blew out loud breaths and stared straight ahead, her chin rising as she focused into the distance.

My pulse quickened with the music's gathering energy, and that niggling feeling returned, a fierce uncomfortable twinge in my chest, building ever stronger. What was it that Lotli had said? It seemed important that I remember.

Goose bumps chilled me as Lotli rose to her feet. This was it. She was next. There was no turning back now. But soon we'd be out of here. Soon we'd be leaving. And none too soon—time had gone by faster than I thought and the moon was behind us now. Sunrise had to be closing in. We had to get out of here before that happened or the oil would wear off and Lotli and I would turn ethereal right here in the arena. If that happened, they'd know we were humans for sure, and that would be worse than bad.

The platform in front of us flared to life, stark and white, surrounded by low blue flames. Wrapped tight in a cocoon of veils, Lotli flowed forward until she stood at its center. Only then did I realize that Chase was already there, crouched, his head bowed, so he was nearly invisible under the fire's dancing light.

Horror-stuck, I gripped the edge of the bench.
Our turn,
that's what she'd said, her tongue wrapping around the word
our,
enunciating it with a certain pleasure, different from her normal
we
and
us
bullshit.

My fingernails dug into the bench. What the hell was going on? What the hell was Chase thinking? If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought he'd already lost his mind.

He lifted his scarf-covered face, a marked and battle-ready warrior frozen motionless, waiting for some unseen battle. Thankfully, the black smudge still shadowed his eyes, hiding his identity, at least for now.

Lotli raised her flute to her lips. Her first note trembled in the massive arena, a tiny whistle sounding on a mountaintop, the echo of a distant dream. One note slowly melted into the next, and a deep, hollow sound built underneath that, a song reminiscent of the one she'd played in Moonhill's library, but reshaped to fit this realm.

The entire arena—Malphic's table, the grandstand—everyone sat transfixed as she held each note before moving on to the next. Genies, shadows, half genies . . . all of them, even the yarn and charms dangling from her flute barely moved, shimmering like aspen leaves waiting for the wind to rise.

She slid her fingers along the length of her instrument, then her music cut loose, rising and curling, a rush of warmth, a blast of cold, flooding the arena as she swirled across the platform. Her veils flew away from her body, fluttering to the floor. Now only dressed in the barest of tops and sheerest skirts, she swayed with the music encircling Chase, her feet tip-tapping, heel to toe, heel to toe. Her fingers caressed the flute. Her lips glistened. The music moaned, pleaded. It trilled like a thousand different birds at once. A hummingbird flying above the ocean's waves. A black egret in its gloomy swamp. A wood thrush. A stork.

The steady beat of Chase's fist against his thigh joined the tip-tap of her feet. I'd almost forgotten that he was still in the middle of the platform, but now my stomach was on fire with fear as her body snaked and slithered in front of him.

Like a marionette, he rose to his feet in time with her music, one muscle and then another coming to life, turning fluid. His scimitar glistened as he drew it. Granted, Chase and I had never been dancing, but I'd never thought him capable of such grace, such flowing movements. He was a ballet dancer, a shaman of the battlefield.

Horror shot through me. A man on the cusp of change.
On the cusp of change,
the words echoed in my head.

The rhythm of Lotli's flute increased, like when she'd opened the veil, fast and staccato. He slashed golden arcs in the air, his feet thumping a rhythmic pulse, the marks on his arms shimmering, glowing brighter and brighter blue as she twirled closer and closer to him, her finger stroking the length of the flute, touching the yarn, her lips moving against the ancient bone.

His scimitar was gone now, vanished into thin air. She swayed toward him, rocking and thrusting her hips. He mirrored her movements, erotic gyrations increasing. They drew to within inches of each other. Her hipbones rubbed his, his responded. My face went hot from embarrassment, but at the same time it was totally surreal, as if I'd stumbled onto the set of a triple-X movie and didn't recognize the actors.

Malphic and all the men at his table half rose from their chairs, their hands on the table as they leaned forward, eager for what was going to happen next.

In a flash, my senses returned, the surreal feeling vanishing. I bolted to my feet, fury roaring through me. I clenched my hands and ground my teeth, betrayal, humiliation, and horror all raging inside me. My body shook from their power, as Chase crouched before her, looking at her with lust-filled eyes. Her hips swept his face, slowly shimmying. His hands slid up her thighs, clutching her butt.

A sour taste filled my mouth as her head lolled back, her flute piping an ecstatic trill. She ground her crotch against his mouth.

Anger rang in my ears. I ripped off the egg pendant. Friends my ass.

Fuck her. Fuck everything about her. I slammed the necklace to the ground.

The egg exploded like a grenade, white light blazing out from it. I threw my hands up to cover my eyes. Orange flashes. Red flashes. A tsunami of cold air surged across the arena, followed by a wave of blistering heat.

A writhing sensation swept over me, every hair standing on edge. My body felt weightless as if my bones were made of feathers. My ears echoed with the roar of the crowd behind me. I wheeled toward Lotli. She was no longer solid. She was a ghost standing center stage, as ethereal as I was. But it wasn't sunrise yet. Oh crap! The egg. Breaking it had affected the oil.

“Humans!” someone shrieked.

CHAPTER 28

 

—Woven into the moon carpet

 

 

I
n a flash, the oil once again took effect, the weight slamming back into my body as I jolted from ethereal to solid.

Chase had Lotli by the arm, pulling her off the platform. He glanced toward me. “Run, Annie! The tunnel. Get to it.”

He took off with Lotli, speeding toward the tunnel's dark mouth. I caught up with them a second later.

“Guards!” Malphic's voice rang out behind us. There was the swish of swords leaving scabbards, but we were already in the tunnel, sprinting as fast as we could toward the intersection. Only one goal drummed in my head:
Escape. Get out. Run.

Jaquith was waiting for us at the intersection, but not Mother.

We skittered to a stop. “Brother,” Chase said, giving Jaquith a quick embrace, “it's been a long time.”

“Too long. Now get out of here.” Jaquith waved us to the right. “I'll send the guards the other way. Don't worry about Susan. I'll bring her to the spire. Stay strong. Stay proud. Stay free,” he shouted as we raced off.

The tunnel stretched ahead of us. We ran, hard and fast, until we reached the tapestry with the stars and moon on it. I slid to a stop. “Jaquith told me this leads to the spire. I know you didn't want to use them, but—” The memory of Lotli grinding her hips against Chase's face flashed in front of my eyes and a shockwave of emotions hit me head-on. My throat squeezed. Tears flooded my eyes. “Why, Chase? What the hell was going on up there?”

Chase pulled a Bowie knife from his waistline and shoved it into my grip. “Take this. For backup. I'm going to help Jaquith get your mother.”

My hand took the knife, but my brain didn't register a word he said. “Didn't you hear me?” I raged. “What were you and Lotli doing?”

“It's this place.” Lotli's voice trembled. “The aftereffects. We didn't mean—”

Chase cut her off. “Annie, I want you to take Lotli and go. I know what I told you about the carpets. But do it.” He took me by both shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “We'll talk about this later. Lotli's right. It wasn't me—or her. I love you,” he said.

The shock of those words and strength of his grip brought me back to my senses. Suddenly, I was aware of the knife in my hand and what he'd said when he gave it to me. “No, Chase,” I shrieked, terror ricocheting through me. “You can't go back there! Let Jaquith get Mother.”

“Remember”—his eyes bore into mine—“you promised to leave if I asked you to. Now go. Wait for us on the balcony. Ten minutes. No more. It won't be long before guards figure out what's happening.” His worried gaze lingered on my face. But something darker and wilder moved beneath that expression, something unfamiliar, raw and feral, almost hungry. I wanted desperately to keep him talking, to find out what was going on inside him and make damn sure it wasn't a part of the change. I wanted to know more about the dance, too. Was it planned? Was it Lotli's fault things spun out of control? But there was no time for questions about feelings or magic, not without endangering us all. He loved me—and I had promised.

“Chase, don't go. Stay with us,” Lotli whimpered.

“Take care of yourself,” I said to him.

Chase nodded and took off back down the tunnel.

Lotli latched ahold of my sleeve, tugging me toward the carpet. I held back, watching Chase fade into the distance before I relented and let her pull me into the carpet's center.

Entering it was like stepping into a waterfall of static shocks. Pressure sang in my ears. A musty smell plugged my nostrils and flavored my tongue. When we stepped out, it was into total darkness.

Shifting the knife into my other hand, I pulled out my flashlight and turned it on.

We stood in a big linen closet, piled high with rolled carpets, and shelves crammed with sheer curtains and tasseled pillows. I fanned the flashlight beam over all four walls, scanning the carpets that hung on each of them. It was weird how sharp my mind felt, alive with renewed energy. I suspected it was from Chase saying he loved me.
He loved me
. He really did. And he'd said it out loud in front of Lotli.

I studied the carpets again, dread building inside me: Blue. Purple. Red. Silver. “Jaquith told me to take the carpet with the gold wasps,” I said to Lotli. “Do you see it?”

“Gold? There aren't any gold ones!” she shrieked.

Jaquith's voice rang in my ears. “
Be careful. I once took a carpet with green butterflies on it instead of red ones and ended up down in the berserker quarters
.” Green. Red. Gold. An art dealer had once told me about a collector who couldn't tell green from red. But the man's color blindness had extended beyond that. What appeared to be golden to him was in fact red.

“We'll take the red one,” I said, striding to it.

Lotli shrank back. “No. We can't. What if you are wrong?”

“I'm not. Jaquith's colorblind. At least, I think he is.”

I shone the flashlight at her.

The color had leached from her face and tears streaked the gold eye shadow down her cheeks. She dragged her fingers through her hair, her voice bordering on hysteria. “We need to go back,” she wailed. “We can't leave Chase. He didn't mean to hurt you. We didn't. It's . . . The aftereffect. The wine. This place. Our head.” She gripped her skull and groaned, “You shouldn't have broken the egg.”

I shoved the knife into my strap, next to my little dagger. It seemed like when we'd arrived in the realm, she'd gotten over the magic's aftereffect faster than this. I hadn't noticed her drink any wine, but that could explain what was going on.

Before I could change my mind or she could guess what I was up to, I lunged forward, grabbed her, and threw both of us through the carpet.
Please, let me be right. Just this once.

We stumbled out onto the narrow landing, exactly where we needed to be.

“Wait a second,” I said.

Sliding the flashlight into my pocket, I retrieved a bag of salt. While she shivered and stared at me like a woman possessed, I sprinkled the salt across the floor beneath the bottom of the carpet. Chase, Mother, and even Jaquith would be able to get through, but it would prevent full-blooded genies from passing.

Once I finished doing that, I used the other bag of salt to draw a line across the top of the staircase. It wouldn't keep us safe for long, but it might buy us a few minutes.

I glanced at Lotli, rocking back and forth like she'd totally lost her mind. I nibbled my bottom lip. If she was still capable of playing the flute, we could escape as soon as Chase and Mother got here. If she couldn't play, we still could leave at sunrise when the oil wore off. She or I or Mother could cloak Chase to get him through, unless Malphic cast a new warding spell and sealed the veil.

“Come on.” I led Lotli to the balcony and settled down in the shadow of the horse statue. With the aurora fading and the moon setting, that end of the balcony was darker than before. But streaks of pink-and-gray daylight stretched along the horizon. Sunrise wasn't far away, not at all.

The pulse of drums drifted up from the arena. I crept to the balustrades and peered over. I'd expected to find the arena nearly empty, what with Malphic and all the guards and warriors having left to hunt us down. But the grandstand was still packed, and so were Malphic's and Mother's tables.

Fear paralyzed me. Slowly, I let my gaze drop to the middle of the arena. Three fighters. On the center platform. My pulse jumped. Three fighters. Why was my gut screaming that one of them was Chase?

No. I shook my head. It wasn't him. What I was seeing was a normal, scheduled fight. Intruders or not, Malphic wouldn't have wanted to disappoint his guests; the festival had simply gone on as usual. However, I wasn't foolish enough to believe there weren't guards still searching for us.

I glanced over my shoulder. “Lotli?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

I did a double take. Her voice sounded normal. She wasn't pale or staring like a madwoman. The fresh air must have driven off the last of the magic's aftereffect or the wine or whatever had affected her. Lotli appeared totally okay, thank Hecate—or whoever.

“We are sorry about everything,” she said. A flush tinged her cheeks and she bowed her head. “We are so embarrassed.”

I blinked at her, my shoulders weighed down by the power of her regret. And my mind went back to a few moments ago: her eyes streaked with tears, her voice bordering on panic. And further back, to before the dance: Chase devouring the ribs with uncontained lust and tossing the bones on the ground. That wasn't like him, not at all. The dance wormed its way into my head. The truth was, even though a large part of me believed Lotli wanted to have sex with Chase, I couldn't believe she had wanted to do it in front of an arena full of frenzied genies. Besides, I was far from guilt-free when it came to abnormal behavior. My rage and jealousy had been totally out of control in the arena. I'd felt like killing Lotli and probably would have stabbed Chase a couple of times if the dance had gone on one second longer. And I hadn't drunk the wine or eaten the meat, or worked flute-magic for that matter. It was this place. Its energy had brought out the worst in all of us.

“I'm sorry too,” I said. “You gave me that pendant out of friendship. It was wrong of me to break it, a stupid thing to do. I was jealous beyond reason. But honestly, I had no idea it would affect the oil that way.”

“We understand. This place . . . It is too much,” she whispered.

I hugged myself, tucking my hands under my armpits. The danger she was in right now really wasn't fair. We were here to rescue
my
mother. Chase had freely made his choice to come. But she was here because Kate was putting money in Zea's bank account. What we'd done to her was wrong.

She held up her hand to silence me. “Do you hear something?”

I sucked in a breath. Voices filtered up from lower down in the spire. Oh shit. Guards. It was only a matter of time before they searched this level and spotted us.

That was the answer. Adrenaline rushed back into my blood. Maybe Zea had sent Lotli here, but I could get her out. Make up for endangering her life.

“How long do you need to play to open the veil?” I asked.

“Not long since the wards are already broken, only a minute or so.”

I snagged her arm, pulling her up. “We need to leave now. Once we're safely on the other side, you can start playing again to reopen the veil, every few minutes until sunrise or until Chase and Mother get up here and come through.”

Her eyes brightened. “You are right. We can open it no matter which side we are on.”

In a second, we were back inside the spire, standing on the landing. Lotli raced behind the curtain and into the niche. Flute in hand, she turned toward the spot where we'd come through.

I peered over the stairwell. Way down, I could see guards hurtling upward from the floors below. The clank of weapons and the rumble of their heels quickly grew louder, like a cyclone drawing near.

“Start now,” I called to Lotli, “but wait until I say it's time before you step through.”

The flute's eerie song began, drowning out the guards' footfalls. The air vibrated. There was a ripping sound. A blast of cold air smacked the back of my head.

The guards were one floor below now, charging up the stairs. To make my plan work, I needed to wait long enough for them to catch a glimpse of the veil closing. Just enough to convince them that everyone had escaped.

I flew to the curtain and pulled it to one side. “Go, on the count of three,” I shouted at Lotli. “One. Two.” I took a deep breath. “Three!”

She stepped into the crackling gap and out of the djinn realm—and I turned in the opposite direction and dove back through the carpet. She deserved to get away. It was only right. But no way in hell was I leaving, not without Mother—and Chase.