djinn wars 02 - taken by Christine Pope Page A

course Jace had been doing his utmost to convince me he was just another regular mortal, and therefore I hadn’t seen too many displays of his power.
    Dutchie whined, and I knew I had to take care of her before I went in to see Zahrias. The poor thing had been cooped up in the car all day and hadn’t complained once, but even she had her limits. The djinn leader would have to wait.
    “I’m going to walk Dutchie for a bit,” I told Evony, and she tilted her eyebrow at me.
    “Seriously? When Zahrias is waiting for you?”
    “Yeah, well, I kind of doubt Zahrias is going to come down here and clean the pee off the back seat if I make my poor dog wait any more.”
    Evony made a disgusted sound. “I’ll walk the dog. You go see Zahrias.”
    “I think he wants to talk to both of us.”
    “That wasn’t the impression I got.” During the drive, she’d unzipped her parka, but now she undid her seatbelt so she could close her coat back up again. “Those guys back there were talking to you . They didn’t even give me a second glance.”
    “Well — ” I hadn’t actually thought about it at the time, but it was true. They’d approached me, not Evony, which just seemed weird. After all, we were both Chosen who’d had our djinn companions kidnapped.
    She flapped a hand. “Just go. I’ll take care of Dutchie and then come inside. Hopefully, there’ll be someone around to show me where to crash.”
    I glanced back toward the building, to the place that looked like the registration area. It was hard to tell in the darkness and with the snow falling, but I thought I saw shapes moving inside, so it seemed as if there were people besides Zahrias around.
    “Okay,” I said at last. “I’ll come find you as soon as I’m done.”
    She nodded and opened her door so she could go around and coax Dutchie out of the back seat. Not that it was much of a problem; the dog bounded outside as soon as Evony stepped out of the way. Under normal circumstances, I would have smiled at Dutchie’s enthusiasm, but I found I wasn’t really in the mood to smile right then. Not with Zahrias waiting for me somewhere inside the adobe edifice only a few yards away.
    After tucking my scarf more tightly around my throat, I crossed the parking lot and entered the building. Almost at once, a pretty young woman with striking red hair came up to me. “Zahrias is this way,” she said, pointing down the hallway to her left.
    I nodded and began to follow her. Inside it was very warm, almost uncomfortably so. I pulled off my gloves and stuffed them in my pockets, then unzipped my coat and unwound the scarf I’d just tightened. As I walked, I pulled off the knitted cap I wore and ran my fingers through my hair as best I could, then wanted to shake my head at myself. Did it really matter what I looked like? I wasn’t here to impress anyone, least of all Zahrias.
    Despite that, I couldn’t help feeling a bit cowed by my surroundings. The place was very posh, in a high-end Southwest kind of way. Gleaming dark wood floors, with thickly plastered walls and dark-beamed ceilings overhead. Original oil paintings on the walls, and furniture that looked as if it had been crafted by local artisans.
    As we walked, I asked the young woman, who appeared to be around my age, “Are you Zahrias’ Chosen?”
    A blink, followed by a vigorous shake of her head and a laugh. “Oh, no. Zahrias doesn’t have a partner. My djinn is named Dani.” She smiled as she said his name, blue eyes lighting up a little. Clearly, she was very happy with whoever had selected her.
    I digested her reply for a moment. So Zahrias was overseeing all these djinn and their Chosen, and yet he’d decided to remain alone, for whatever reason. Well, in a way I supposed that was a good thing. At least my worries that he’d been frightening and intimidating some poor mortal girl appeared to have been unfounded.
    It was on the tip of my tongue to ask the young woman more questions — where had