Black Diamond Jinn (A Hot SF/Fantasy Novella) Excerpt #2

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Have sex, avert doom, save the world.

Black Diamond Jinn (A Hot SF/Fantasy Novella)

Copyright © 2012 by Mary Hughes

The Mayan Doom is real. Government witch Amaia Jones has the spreadsheet to prove it.

Amaia is a desk-bound research wizard, living uncomfortably in the shadow of her famous Venus-magic parents, when she discovers the world is ending. Tonight. But her bulldog of a boss not only refuses to believe her, he won’t give her the secret to calling the one force powerful enough to help—the jinn. Amaia turns to her mental guardian angel, Rafe, the darkly handsome presence who has comforted her since her parents died.

Rafe has a secret of his own. He’s a black diamond jinn, one of the deadliest and most powerful of his kind. He’s detected a ruthless enemy using blood sacrifice and stoking Y12 public panic in order to summon the nightmare gods. Rafe needs to get into the human realm to stop the Doom. But when Amaia finally calls him, she’s threatened by his scorching sensuality.

Amaia’s guardian angel is a stunning jinni and suddenly her job is way more complicated. Jinn are known for taking their pound of flesh in exchange for magical help, but the only flesh Rafe wants is hers, taut with delight. Venus magic is the very thing that drove a wedge between Amaia’s parents, but her alternatives are rapidly dwindling. With four hours to go on humanity’s darkest night, the only alternative to surrendering her flesh may be surrendering her life.

This title contains explicit sexual language and may not be suitable for all readers.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Black Diamond Jinn (A Hot SF/Fantasy Novella):

** Rafe **

Today was Rafe’s birthday. His human birthday, his three thousand nine hundredth…and some-odd. He’d lost track of the years but marked each anyway.

Trying to remember his humanity. There was a losing battle.

Around him swirled millions of stars, diamonds sparkling in the black velvet of space’s infinite night. The glittering dance of spangled dust and gas was a ballet that had lured many a jinni to stare upon its beauty forever.

Rafe had promised himself he’d never be one of them. That he’d never lose himself in the stars, never forget Earth’s people.

That he’d never be like his father.

But it was so long ago. The centuries had taken their toll. He stopped visiting except once each earth year, but even then the visit was rote, memory’s husk of an increasingly barren promise.

Until she was born.

She was so…human. Toddling into trouble, into scrapes and bruises, but always dusting herself off, laughing, and toddling on. Later she was running headlong into trouble but still always laughing, dusting off, moving.

Today he was strangely eager. Eager to scale down, to bend his eye toward the small dull rock of his birth. 

To see her.

He shifted focus. Well, imagine that. She was in trouble again.

The whole planet is in trouble. The voice shimmered from the depths of space, like a cell phone that had the stars as relay towers. Destruction threatens your home.

“Jibril.” Rafe bowed low at the voice. As old and vast as Rafe was, Jibril was greater by far. He’d sacrificed himself to save humanity and had passed to a plane so high he could no longer descend to the physical. Even maintaining his presence here on the ethereal was hard for him, like fitting a lion in a shoebox.

But Jibril was right. Humanity vibrated a sick, washed-out brown on the ethereal. Rafe frowned. “What’s wrong with them?”

I’m not sure. From here I can only see the sickness. The result.

“The cause must be on the physical plane. I’ll have to descend.”

How will you do that? A physical cause usually has a specific location. Unless you’re called by a physical being, you could end up anywhere.

“Then I’ll just have to make sure I’m called, won’t I?”

Bonus! Mayan Calendar extends beyond 2012? Read the stunning Mayan discovery at Cosmic Log.