I sensed the rain before I reached the plaza. And for once, I was too spent to react much to the raw power that misted over the plaza’s brick floor. It still tingled, still spoke to me, but not so intensely as usual. Probably because I’d just spent much of my power and energy fighting with my partner.

Or maybe sex was the key?

I laughed out loud, garnering weird looks from the two darkling fae standing near the soda machine as I headed toward Solomon Street. Yeah. Just give yourself over to the O and all your problems will be solved.

I weaved my way through the chaos of Solomon Street on autopilot, lost in thought, my mind replaying events, thinking of all the things I should have done and should have said.

My steps slowed as I advanced on the Lion’s Den, Grigori Tennin’s base of operations. It occupied the long row of buildings at the dead-end street—a bar, strip club, and gaming house on two levels. I stopped in front of the door, squared my shoulders, and then opened the heavy wooden door while my other hand came to rest on my weapon.

A wave of humid, earth-scented air and jazz music hit me full on. My boots echoed over the planked floor; the old wood coupled with the heavy timber beams overhead gave the place a dark feel. Typical bar on Solomon Street, though. Steady business. Regulars, mostly jinn. Stripper on stage—this one jinn, undulating against a pole.

The jinn in the room only gave me a passing glance rather than the intent, almost violent regard they’d given me the last time I was here and reeking of a jinn sex-spell. The jinn warrior at the bar, however, fixed a harsh stare on me as he drew beer on tap for the two human males seated at the counter.

I made my way to the bar to the beat of sultry old jazz, which kept the place on a mellow keel, and gave the strippers something to writhe to. Two Pig-Pens—a male nymph and female siren—sat in the back corner. Black crafters. They’d given up their innate Elysian power for the dark power of Charbydon—a very complex ritual with very serious consequences. The thin, dark aura that surrounded them gave them their illustrious nickname.

“Detective,” the bartender said, laying both beefy hands flat on the old bar top, his shoulders hunching over and making him look like a water buffalo on steroids. All the jinn were massive, all with smooth skin that ranged from medium gray to dark pewter. Their violet irises ranged in hue, and the males were completely hairless, bald like this one. His arms were tattooed. He wore several rings on his fat fingers, and his earlobes were pierced several times. A typical jinn warrior.

“Your boss in?” I asked.

Jinn males were extremely chauvinistic to any females but their own, so I wasn’t surprised when he said, “He’s busy.”

“He’ll want to see me.” I turned my back to the jinn, the ultimate in disrespect, and leaned back against the counter, eyeing the jinn stripper on stage wearing nothing but a leopard G-string and deerskin boots. If I had sleek muscles like that, I could do some serious damage. She had to be at least six feet tall, with gunmetal skin and angular bone structure. When I glanced back over my shoulder and saw the bartender had yet to move, I added, “Or I can start asking everyone here for their papers. It’s up to you.”

The bartender muttered under his breath in Charbydon, but he went to the phone and made the call, returning a few moments later. “You can go down.”

Casually I swung around and smiled—the twisted smile I reserved for sarcasm and assholes—and then strode to the door that would lead me into what I liked to call the First Level of Hell.

Damp. Hot. The distinct scent of jinn—tar, and lots of it—assaulted my nose along with the heavy mix of wet dirt and wood smoke as I went down a long flight of wooden steps that led into the jinn’s subterranean village beneath Underground. The walls and chambers had been carved straight out of the bedrock beneath the city, supported by massive beams and arches. Long, vaulted corridors curved out of view, the main one leading into the vast central chamber where Tennin held court and the jinn gathered. Ventilation shafts pulled smoke from the rooms. Running water was fed in through pipes. Food was prepared on spits and in pots over open fires. To be in the tribe meant keeping to the old ways as much as possible. Only the jinn who were wanderers or rogues took more to mainstream society, but there weren’t many of those around.

A male guard met me at the base of the steps and then led me to the main corridor. Two months ago, Hank and I had made this same journey, passing open rooms where the jinn lived their daily lives, where I’d once seen them picking the petals off Bleeding Souls and tossing the bioluminescent centers into boiling pots—one of the steps to making ash. No honeysuckle-like smells this time, though.

As I stepped into the main chamber, I expected to find Tennin sitting at his dining table, dwarfing the female guards behind him. A few jinn warriors sat gathered around the large fire pit in the center of the room, but otherwise the chamber was empty.

One of Grigori’s personal female guards appeared from a small archway across the chamber. Not that he needed a guard. I’d learned firsthand that the tribal boss of a jinn tribe held absolute rule, and had the power to eliminate any tribe member with a simple thought. The guards were merely for show.

“This way,” she said, taking over, and then leading me back the way she’d come.

I followed her down another corridor, past several curtained rooms and wall torches that suggested this was a more personal area of the tribe’s abode. Beneath an archway, down another similar hall, and finally the guard stopped and pulled back a heavy multicolored curtain, ducking inside. The chamber was small, and thick with heat and humidity. A fire burned in a pit dug into the far wall.

Grigori Tennin lay facedown on a stone slab, his well-formed, intensely muscled backside completely bare, completely smooth and hairless just like his massive bald head. A human, mid-twenties if I had to guess, very petite and very pretty with chin-length red hair and pale skin that looked even paler next to his glistening, dark skin, massaged his enormous calf.

Tennin turned his head, resting the side of his face on his hands, the three gold hoops in his earlobe winking in the firelight. His violet eyes held a wealth of cunning. “Make an appointment next time, eh?” He sounded highly amused, though I couldn’t tell if he found his words funny, or the fact that I was here in his massage parlor funny. “Harder, Missy!” he barked as she moved to the back of a rock-hard thigh. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of her red face. “Good. Good. So, Charlie … Miss Detective … what you want this time? Shall we bargain again?”

I let loose a bitter laugh. “That second debt, the one where you beat the shit out of my ex-husband, we didn’t bargain on that,” I said tightly.

He rose onto one elbow. “Ah, but I did. When we bargained, I simply said I hadn’t decided yet on what the second debt would be. You agreed. Then, I made my decision. End of story, as they say. But he lives, eh? So all is good for you.” He put his head back down and closed his eyes.

“Yeah, if you call being stuck inside a body you can’t control living.”

One eye popped open, surprised, and then narrowed in a calculating way. “You don’t say?”

“Cut the bullshit, Tennin. We both know you’re not surprised. You want to tell me about the warehouses?”

“Which ones? I own many, you see.”

I sighed, wondering why I was even bothering. “You sent Ebelwyn into the warehouse. You knew what he’d find.”

“So what if I did? I own them, nothing more. You figure it out. You’re the detective, no?”

I wanted to hit him. Really, just whale on him until that smug look was off his face completely. “I’d like to speak to your Storyteller,” I said.