A Risky Proposition Read Free

trigger.
    “Miss, step away from the djinn.” 
    I had the distant thought that the stranger’s tenor brogue sounded Irish.  He stared at me expectantly, impatience tightening his features when I didn’t immediately obey his command.  My brain finally kicked into gear as I realized that, despite my attraction to Balthus, I didn’t know him well enough to stand between him and a bullet.  The thought eased my guilt as I began to inch away from him, my mind registering distractedly that the stranger had called him…the djinn? 
    I didn’t get far before Balthus’ grip tightened painfully on my shoulders. 
    “Stay where you are Sydney,” he commanded.  His cultured voice belied the unpleasant manner in which he held me.  “She is mine, by right.”  He glared at the other man.
    I stiffened, not liking the sound of that at all.  “Um, I’m not sure what’s going on here,” I began, raking Balthus with an indignant glare, “but I really wish the two of you would just…”
    “SHUT UP!” growled the man with the gun.  “Not one more word if you value your pathetic life at all!”
    My mouth snapped shut at his vehemence.  “Ow!”  I gasped as Balthus’ fingers dug deeper into my shoulders, my own fingers scrabbling helplessly against his in an attempt to pry them out of the indentions I was sure they were making in my skin.  It felt as if they were beginning to burn brands into my flesh.  My panicked gaze flew to the man in front of us as his voice rang out with authority. 
    “Balthus of King Moab’s tribe of the Ifrit djinn, in the name of Impellier, I sentence you to imprisonment for crimes against the Realm.  In the name of Impellier, I summon you into containment until such time as the Realm sees fit to free you.”  He broke into the lilting syllables of a strange foreign language, his words taking on the tone of a well-practiced chant. 
    Not that I understood much of what he’d said in English.
    But I did notice that, as the man continued speaking, Balthus’ grip on me weakened.  I took the opportunity to duck away from him and scramble back into the corner between the wall and the railing of the balcony, as far away from the both of them as I could get without taking a dive off the tenth storey. 
    The bizarre, chanting man blocked the escape I longed for—back inside the penthouse and into the elevator, down and away from this stupid, over-priced hotel full of assholes. 
    This whole night had been a mistake.
    “She is mine by right!” Balthus insisted, a note of pleading breaking through his demand.
    His words might have galled me more, if I hadn’t been so damned scared, and if my brain hadn’t started to register the fact that Balthus seemed to be…fading.  His legs were going smoky and transparent, and the phenomenon was spreading slowly up his body.  I blinked as my obviously damaged mind tried to convince me that the Balthus-smoke was drifting toward the barrel of the gun that the other man was pointing at him. 
    No.  Not a gun, I realized.  It was an old-fashioned, metal oil lamp.  I couldn’t do anything but stare—it was either that, or pass out.  Come to think of it, unconsciousness might have been preferable, but I’d never been the type of girl to swoon.
    “Sparrow, she’s mine!”  Balthus let out a thin, petulant wail, the smoky remains of his upper body drifting toward the opening in the lamp’s spout and disappearing, as if he was being sucked into it by a vacuum.
    “Shut it, Balthus,” the man replied, sounding irritated.  “You know damn well that if she’d completed the contract, you’d have already claimed her.”
    And with that, Balthus’ smoky head vanished, and he was gone.  I felt a mad giggle rise up into my throat as I watched the last of him get sucked into the narrow metal spout.  My eyes rose disbelievingly to the stranger’s face. He was gazing intently at the lamp, making a complicated hand gesture over it and whispering a