He shot Luis a glance. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Luis was so perceptive. “Don’t worry about it.”
Bel lingered and glanced over her shoulder at them. Smoothly, Luis switched to telepathy. Does she know how you feel?
He sounded concerned. Graydon shook his head at the younger man.
It’s complicated, he said shortly. And how I feel is not the focal point right now.
Understood. Luis said aloud, “The living room is pretty crowded, but this was the best place we could think of to maintain privacy.”
Graydon followed Bel down the short hallway. The younger Wyr hadn’t exaggerated. Counting Luis, nine other people awaited them. A couple of opened bottles of wine sat on the coffee table, along with Diet Cokes, and several glasses.
Graydon took a quick sweep of the room. Claudia sat in a yoga position, cross-legged on the floor, her spine straight and posture relaxed. She looked like she could maintain the position all night if needed. Luis joined her, sprawling on the floor beside her.
Carling and Rune occupied one comfortable armchair. Rune lounged in the chair, while Carling perched on one arm and draped her shapely torso along the back, curling around his shoulders like a cat.
Slightly disconnected from the others, Constantine stood by the window. He leaned against the wall in a casual pose, arms crossed and one ankle kicked over the other. His posture was relaxed, but his sharp, curious gaze took in everything.
Julian sat at one end of the large couch, while Melly sat on the floor at his feet and leaned against his legs.
There was another couple present, which came as a surprise to Graydon. Bel responded to a flurry of greetings as Graydon frowned at the new, unexpected pair. A human woman sat at the other end of the couch. She was young, with pretty features and strawberry blond hair.
Graydon recognized her easily. She was Grace Andreas, the most recent in a long line of Oracles that led back to ancient Greece. Standing beside her, arms crossed, stood a tall, imperious-looking Djinn male with raven hair, white skin and diamondlike eyes.
He was Grace’s lover Khalil, a second-generation Djinn. Graydon’s mind clicked through a mental Rolodex, until he had placed the Djinn’s connections. The most important one stood out. Khalil’s father was Soren, the head of the Elder tribunal.
Rune had followed the direction of his gaze and said telepathically, You do know they work for us too, right?
I know, Graydon said. He didn’t like any surprises at this late point in the game. I just wasn’t expecting them.
Trust me, Rune told him. Khalil has valuable experience to bring to the discussion. And both Khalil and Grace are every bit as reliable as Claudia and Luis.
Graydon relaxed slightly. He had known Rune for as long as he had known any of the other sentinels. Rune had been Dragos’s First sentinel for centuries, before he met and mated with Carling. Graydon did trust the other gryphon—with his life, if necessary.
With several people’s lives, if it came to that.
Claudia nudged Luis, who rose to step into the kitchenette. Returning, he carried two dining chairs, which he placed opposite the couch. Murmuring a thanks, Bel sat.
Choosing to stand, Graydon reached for one of the Diet Cokes and popped the tab. He had a feeling the caffeine would come in handy.
“I guess that’s everybody,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”
By the window, Constantine stirred. “Now that we’re all here, why don’t you tell us what the hell is going on?”
Graydon took a deep pull from his Diet Coke before he answered. “Some of you already know, or at least, I’m pretty sure you must suspect,” he said. “We’re here to discuss how to kill a Djinn.”
The atmosphere in the room shifted, as if everyone had drawn in a collective breath.
“No shit?” said Constantine. The other sentinel coughed out a laugh. “Now things have gotten really fucking interesting.”
FOURTEEN
Khalil spoke. His voice was deep and pure, like a bell. “I want to be clear from the beginning about Grace’s and my involvement. We might attend this discussion, but I will not take part in a war against another Djinn again. Small children rely on me. Grace relies on me.”
Grace turned to look up at Khalil, and the expression of love on her face turned her into a luminous beauty. Khalil rested a large hand on her slim, tanned shoulder.
Out of the corner of Graydon’s eye, he noticed Constantine turning thoughtful. While Khalil held his Power in tight control, it was still evident in the nearly invisible shimmer surrounding his physical form that he held a great deal of it. If Khalil wouldn’t participate in any action against Malphas, it underscored just how dangerous an undertaking killing the Djinn was going to be.
“Khalil brings up a good point,” Graydon said, as he met the gaze of each person in the room. “Just because you’re here right now in this room doesn’t mean you’ve committed to doing anything—and going against this particular Djinn will be hard. He’s a first-generation pariah.” He paused a moment to let that sink in. “We have a lot of information to share. If anybody needs to see documentation, we’ve got it. Just remember, this is only a discussion, okay?”
“Let’s hear what you’ve got,” Julian said. He looked sharp and totally engaged. At his feet, Melly nodded to herself. Shifting, she reached up and back, and laced the fingers of one hand with his.
Graydon didn’t have to overhear any telepathic conversation they may have had. Her body language said it all—whatever Julian might choose to do, she would support him.
Graydon started talking. He used the kind of format that sentinels used in meetings.
Subject: Malphas, first generation pariah Djinn.
Issue: Trafficking and enslavement. Collusion, fraud. Suspected murder. Documented crimes against the Elder Races, along with crimes against humanity.
Danger leveclass="underline" Extreme.
After he had summarized, the silence in the room was so deep, he could hear each individual’s breathing. Then came the questions, and almost everybody had several.
With a nod to Luis and Claudia, Graydon gave the floor over to them, and instead of leading the conversation, he became an observer.
Khalil’s expression remained so studiously impassive, Graydon suspected he was cloaking strong emotion. The Djinn’s hand never left Grace’s shoulder. She had shifted so that she could lean against his hip.
Julian, Melly and Constantine had the most questions, while Rune asked a few and interspersed the conversation with his own observations.
Of the group, Carling and Bel remained silent. The quality of Carling’s stillness was entirely different from Khalil’s. She was like a river rock that had been worn smooth over time.
Bel’s attentiveness showed subtle engagement. The skin around her eyes tightened at some of the information, and her lips compressed, a quiet sign of inner turmoil.
He wanted to reach out and touch her, like so many of the couples who were present did with each other. Instead, he adopted a pose much like Constantine’s, leaning against a wall with arms crossed.
While he maintained a physical distance, he couldn’t stop himself from watching her profile. He felt like he could never get enough of simply looking at her and feeling a sense of her presence.
Eventually the questions over the details of the investigation slowed, and that was when the conversation turned challenging.
Graydon asked Carling, “You were a member of the Elder tribunal. What do you think of the case as we’ve presented it?”
She lifted a shoulder in a liquidly graceful movement. “It’s much more solid than many cases the tribunal approves. But the outcome of acting on this one will also be much more costly than many other cases. I believe you’ll get approval for taking some kind of action, but what this current tribunal will commit to doing itself is something I’m no longer qualified to answer.”