It made me wonder if the theory that jinns came from an unknown realm was true because my dagger worked on creatures from Faela as well.
I glanced down at my bloody stomach and grimaced. If I didn’t get out of here now, that crazed jinn was going to make me its next victim. I was a hunter, sure, but I was still magicless—in the magic user sense, anyway—so fighting against a creature like that was… impossible.
Saying a prayer for the human I couldn’t save, I got to my feet and stumbled away. Luckily, the jinn was… bathing in its victim’s blood right now, so I had a window to escape. And a window to beat myself up over losing that innocent human to that evil creature.
If I couldn’t beat it, how were regular humans supposed to? I couldn’t leave that creature out on the loose. I couldn’t let it kill again. But I couldn’t stop it alone.
Once I’d stumbled to my car and drove a few miles away from that thing, I pulled out my phone and dialed my handler’s number, putting it on speaker.
“Grim?” Jasmyn asked.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“What’s the matter? You hurt?”
“Yeah… my mark was a jinn.”
“Oh shit, Grim, I didn’t know. There were only reports of a man murdering humans, but there wasn’t a description. How did you get out of there alive?”
“I barely did, but it was… playin’ in a human’s blood. I couldn’t save the human, and—”
“Of course you couldn’t save him! That was a jinn! Their magic isn’t like anything we understand, and they’re powerful. There’s no way to get in close to them, not without magic.”
“But I can’t let it kill more innocents.”
She sighed. “You’re right, but we need someone with magic to beat that thing.”
“What are you sayin’?”
“That there aren’t enough hunters in the city to take a jinn on without some magical backup.”
I paused before groaning. “Do ya have someone in mind?”
“No, but let’s talk after you get here. I’ll use a healing spell I bought to fix you right up.”
“Most witch magic doesn’t work on me,” I reminded her.
“This spell is meant to heal, not harm. It’ll work.”
I sighed. “Alright. Thanks, Jasmyn. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”
“See you then.”
I hated when Jasmyn was right, but I was relieved the healing spell worked on me because I didn’t have time to wait for my wound to heal. Plus, I hated seeing Rasha’s face when I came home hurt. After Jasmyn healed me, I changed out of my bloody clothes and into fresh ones I had in my truck, I sighed. Jasmyn didn’t have any good, reliable contacts she trusted to help with the jinn job, and since I didn’t make friends with magic users, I only knew of one other person that could possibly help me.
And I really really didn’t want his help. But what choice did I have? Let the jinn kill innocent people or suck it up and deal?
I walked into the magic shop and found that same blue fae at the front counter. This time, I took my hood off to help ease his worry and hopefully seem a little more friendly.
The blue-haired fae stared at me as he straightened up and asked, “Can I help you with something?”
“Yes, actually. I need to speak to Basil Ellwood again.”
He stared at me before sighing. “It would be a lot easier if the two of you exchanged numbers.” He pulled out his phone.
“I’ll make sure to ask him the next time I see him.”
The fae’s lips quirked up into a half-smile as he dialed a number on his phone. “Why hello, pretty youngling.” He paused with amusement in his eyes. “Would you be a dear and come down to the shop? There’s a man here to see you.” Another pause, and the fae eyed me. “It’s that Grim fellow. Yes. Alright, see you soon.” He made a kissy noise into the phone—my eyebrows rose at that even as something I refused to acknowledge soured my stomach—before hanging up and staring at me. “Bas will be here in about fifteen minutes. Feel free to have a look around the store in the meantime.”
“Thank you,” I said as I backed away to look at a few items near the counter.
“Nik, Del finished the batch of shield talismans,” a deep voice said before a hulking man even bigger than me walked out of the back room carrying a box. He stopped short at the sight of me and narrowed his eyes.
The fae—Nik, I assumed—put his hand on the big man’s arm and said, “Thank you, darling. This man is waiting for Basil.”
The big man nodded and said, “No funny business or you’ll be sorry.”
I lifted my gloved hands up. “I’m not here to start trouble. Just need Basil’s help with somethin’.”
He nodded, then pressed a kiss to the fae’s lips before he carried the box past me to a shelf and began unloading it. The fae smiled after him for a moment, and I examined the big man. It took me a long moment to figure out what type of creature he was, but that was likely because I’d never met a half-werewolf, half-cyclops before. Cyclops were a rare breed to begin with, and there weren’t many half-cyclops anywhere—especially ones with two eyes. A were-cyclops was unheard of. It wouldn’t surprise me if that man was the only one in existence.
I began perusing the aisles, surprised to see how many protective charms, spells, and tonics there were. It made me curious if they really worked, but I’d been hearing great things about this store for years. Everyone that shopped here always told me their talismans and everything worked wonders. I believed them, but I didn’t trust witches enough to buy anything and try it out myself. They probably had hidden agendas or secret spells in their products, so I wouldn’t risk it.
“Hey, sweetheart,” a very tiny witch said as he walked out from the back and wrapped his arms around the fae’s waist. “Are you ready for your lunch break?”
The fae pressed his lips to the witch’s with a grin. “In a few minutes, sweetness. Bas is on his way to meet this… man.”
The tiny witch turned his silver eyes on me and asked, “How do you know my brother?”
I blinked at that. Brother? They looked nothing alike with this man’s short blond hair and tiny stature—even smaller than Basil. It took me a second to recover from the shock of that and answered, “We met at… work a few times.”
The witch narrowed his eyes at me, but nodded, although I could tell he didn’t believe me. But he looked over at the were-cyclops and asked, “Is there enough, Gray? I was going to make some more tomorrow.”
“There’s plenty, little imp. We can probably wait until next week to work on more,” the big guy replied before walking past me again and going behind the counter to give the little witch a kiss on the lips, too. It surprised me at first before I realized all three of them were in a relationship together. Having multiple partners was more common in the magical world than the human, so it still shocked me at times, but when they smiled at each other, I could tell they cared about one another. So whatever. You do you and all that. As long as no one was harming another, I didn’t care who you were with.