If that wasn’t honor than she didn’t know what was.

Ahnvil fell to his knees and vomited the instant they were out of Kamen’s streak.

“It’s like that the first few times,” Kamen said. He did not try and help the Gargoyle in any way, knowing any hand of friendship he held out would be immediately rebuffed.

Ahnvil pushed himself up to his feet, staggering a little as the world spun and then tried to right itself.

“Give it a minute,” Kamen advised.

“I doona have a minute,” he snapped. “Kat doesna have a minute. For all we know the sword is already at her neck.”

“We will find them when we find them. We will either be on time or we will be too late. You need to be prepared for both instances.”

“I doona need your bloody words of wisdom! Just take tae the air and help me find this place!”

“Since I don’t know what it looks like, we will go together. All right?”

What Kamen was thinking was that there was no way he was going to let the Gargoyle go off on his own. The minute he found the location they were looking for he would try to go in with all barrels blazing, with no thought to his own safety. His protective instincts were just that strong. Kamen had made him that way. What he found interesting was how deeply Ahnvil had allowed himself to fixate on this little Djynn half-breed. There was much more to it than the need to protect all who were in the house and under Jackson’s care. He had not missed the undercurrent of sexual energy the Gargoyle was expending toward the Djynn. Gargoyles were sexual by nature, but this went beyond mere lust.

But far be it from him to analyze this overmuch. He was there to help. He had no goals, looked for no respect or forgiveness via the task at hand. He would simply do what he had the skills to do and would leave everything to lie where it would. He was not asking for nor was he seeking forgiveness.

“Verra well,” Ahnvil said after obviously trying on and then discarding about a half-dozen mental arguments. He extended his wings and with two powerful steps of thickly muscled stone thighs he launched himself into the air. With ease, Kamen levitated into his wake.

Together they began to circle out, using Kat’s house as their center point.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Katrina waited until Panahasi left the room for what she deemed the final time that night. Daylight was soon approaching and for the first time she realized that the internal clock that told her was as much due to her Nightwalker blood as it was due to her years of dealing with an allergy to the sun. She had thought she had developed one because of the other when in fact it had already been there all along.

If she was going to do this she needed to do it now. She needed to get out and then, hopefully, run to the same place Ahnvil had run to. Her home. Hopefully she could get there before the sun came out and started to cook her flesh into boils and bubbles. She had not yet learned how to turn to smoke to protect herself and didn’t have the first idea of how to begin to try.

Mr. Cockney came down the corridor with her tray of food, which held the bowl of tomato soup she had mentally wished for in order to exercise her skill. She waited until he was just about to leave and close the door.

“I wish you would unlock the cuffs,” she said, holding up her wrists. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

“All right,” he said immediately. He pulled out a key and unlocked her cuffs. “It’s not like you can get one over on me, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she agreed with an innocent and winning smile. “And when you go, I wish you’d leave the door unlocked. I promise I won’t go anywhere.”

“Well, as long as you promise,” he said, closing the door shut and failing to lock it. She had realized it was easier to get someone to do something she wished for if she gave them a reason, a logical reason, for doing it.

She had a moment when she thought he would come to his senses … and then a moment when she wanted to wish him into locking himself up and dropping his drawers down around his ankles so his humiliation would be complete, but it would be hard to logic things like that out. When it came right down to it, it simply was not worth the risk.

She moved carefully out of the cell, wincing when the metal creaked. She had to get out of there as soon as possible. What if Cockney came to his senses and came back to lock her up? Wishes, she knew, could be mercurial things at best. Ahnvil had warned her to never make a wish to a Djynn, but she was a Djynn so did that count? And the more important question was, was this possibly because of the bracelet or was this something innate within her that she was only now learning to use?

No time. She had no time to worry about this. She had to run. Had to flee. And all the while she had to hold on to the bridge to the two power sources on her body in case she needed them.

She hurried into the corridor outside, inching and creeping down it several feet at a time. She tried to remember that as far as anyone knew she looked just like any other Bodywalker out there, but most of the ones here had been wearing saffron-colored tunics and robes, like some kind of demented Hare Krishna movement.

She made it all the way to the stairs before someone noticed her.

“Hey! What are you—?”

Panahasi. She came right around the corner and ran smack into Panahasi. It took him only one moment, a fraction of a second, for him to realize who she was and the significance to her being there, out in the open, unconfined.

There was nothing to describe what she was feeling in that moment except to say it was pure and utter panic. So when she intended to use her power to push him away, she got an entirely different response. A rush of power bolted out of her and directly into the center of his chest. Not outside of his chest, but dead center inside of his chest.

He exploded from the inside out.

Kat was doused with blood, bits of flesh and bone also flinging in her direction. But it was as though she were in some kind of bubble. Everything washed down around her, streaming to the floor as if it were sliding down off some bizarre sheet of protective glass.

She sat there, horrified, gasping for breath. Her panic was complete, freezing her in place.

Run. Run! Run!

Finally the screaming in her brain propelled her body into action. She ran. She didn’t stop. Didn’t look back, barely looked where she was going. All she knew was that she had to go up. She was in a basement and had to go up. She found the stairs easily. They were clearly marked by the old signage. As were the exit signs. She found the very first one and slammed her whole body into the door. She promptly was thrown back on her ass, the padlock and chains she’d not noticed holding true. She was starting to hear shouts of warning, the raising of the alarm and she knew she was going to fail. It was that knowledge that slammed the bridge to the Amulet into place and that fear that sent the power against the chains. Like Panahasi they exploded into shards of metal, the links falling free of the door. She ran at them again, this time using the bridge to help her push her way out. They flung open hard and she was dumped out into three feet of snow.