Free Women of the Otherworld 09.5 - Angelic by Kelley Armstrong

One
     
    Everyone needs a vacation now and then, and angels are no exception. It was a concept that seemed to elude the Fates. My annual stint as a celestial bounty hunter was supposed to end last week, but complications had arisen, as they so often did. Retrieving hell-doomed souls and hunting down unruly demi-demons isn’t a nine-to-five job.
     
    But now I was finally finished. Kristof didn’t know I was back yet, so I thought I’d get ready for our holiday trip and surprise him. I was looking in the mirror, making a few last-minute adjustments, when my house vanished and I found myself staring at a mosaic of a wedding, with lots of garlands, flowers and flowing robes. The bride began to turn, so slowly it seemed a trick of the light. Over her head, a dove’s wings moved, just a fraction. The mosaic of life—always changing, always the same. Deep.
     
    I turned and glowered into the white marble cavern that was the Fate’s throne room.
     
    “Hey!” I shouted. “I’m on vacation here!”
     
    The floor began to move, as slowly as that damned mosaic. Atop the dais, a middle-aged woman with long, graying blond hair pumped a spinning wheel, gathering the thread as it wove. I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to cut anyone’s life unnecessarily short. Anyway, she knew I was there. She paid me no heed, though, until she’d finished. Then she looked up, and gaped at my outfit—low-cut, laced white bodice, skin-tight calfskin breeches and knee-high boots.
     
    “It’s my vacation outfit,” I said. “We’re going to La Ceiba, so I have to look the part.”
     
    “La Ceiba?”
     
    “The pirate town. Kris likes playing pirate.” I paused. “Kris really likes—”
     
    “Enough.” The old Fate had appeared now, taking her sister’s place. She had wiry gray hair, a bent back and shriveled face made even uglier by her perpetual scowl. “Wherever you’re going, Eve, I hope that’s not part of your costume.”
     
    She pointed a wizened finger at the four-foot angel sword slung across my back.
     
    “Er, no. Of course not. That would be wrong and inappropriate.”
     
    She waited for me to correct the oversight. Damn. Once I disenchanted it, I couldn’t get it back until my next tour of duty. I pulled it off my back, the etched metal glowing, murmured a few words and it vanished, replaced by a boring—if more thematically correct—cutlass.
     
    “There,” I said. “Now, I’m sure you already know Trsiel and I finished the demi-demon contract. I’ve submitted my report. If there are any questions, he’d be happy to answer them. If that’s all, then, I’ll see you ladies in six months—”
     
    “We have another job for you.”
     
    I stared at her. She stared back.
     
    “You forgot to flip the calendar again, didn’t you?” I said. “I’m off-duty now. Technically, I was off-duty last week, too. Not that I’m complaining about the delay…”
     
    “You already did. Repeatedly.”
     
    The middle-aged Fate took over. “You’ll get your break. As soon as you do this last thing for us. A group of djinn have been tormenting people who summon them.”
     
    “Um, yeah, because that’s what djinn do. According to the ancient treaty of something-or-other, they’re allowed to toy with anyone who breaks the summoning contract. Screw them over and they’ll screw you back. Fair is fair.”
     
    The youngest appeared—a pretty little girl with bright blond hair, so tiny she had to stand on tiptoes to see me over the wheel. “Have some experience with that, Eve?”
     
    “With the summoning contract, sure. That’s what puts the dark in dark witch—we use whatever’s available, including djinn. But I was never stupid enough to break a contract.”
     
    “Neither were these people. They’re all supernaturals, too. Dark magic practitioners, like you, who know how to do such things safely .”
     
    I leaned on my cutlass. “Or so they think. That’s the problem, as I always told my