Broken

Prologue Santa Fe, New Mexico One year after the Dying The voice came to him in the darkness, just as it had for the past few weeks. He’d kept a careful count of every day, every agonizing twenty-four-hour span, drawing each one in a line of blood so he could never forget. Some people might have wanted to forget, but he held his captor’s wrongs close, kept them always in the forefront of his mind so that one day he’d be able to repay each of those wasted days in the blood of his enemies. They hadn’t wanted him to know how long he’d been held — the stinking djinn had taken away his watch, his belt, anything he might have found useful. Maybe that hadn’t been their idea at all, but a suggestion from one of the human turncoats they were shacked up with, since the selection of confiscated items seemed to indicate a familiarity with human technology. At any rate, his meals came at regular intervals, and he was allowed to go outside to get fresh air every once in a while, and those data points provided enough information that he had never lost count of the weary days. The last time his guard had taken him out to the sheltered street that backed up to the U.S. Marshals’ building, the breeze had felt brisker, the air cooler, and so he knew the year was winding down toward autumn, exactly in line with his calculations. Even so, he couldn’t exactly recall when the voice had started speaking to him. Not right away; he knew that much. He’d spent many nights in dead silence, alone with his thoughts, trying to figure out what he could have done differently, which traps he could have avoided so he wouldn’t end up here. The most obvious solution would have been to kill that troublemaking b***h, Jessica Monroe. If it hadn’t been for her scheming — aided and abetted by the djinn here in Santa Fe — Margolis would still have Miles Odekirk working for him, and Julia Innes would still be safely under his thumb. Julia. It had been so long since he’d been with a woman that the thought of any female flesh might have been enough to get him to stiffen…but she’d been the best. She hadn’t fought, but he still could sense the defiance in her cold silence as he pounded into her, taking her body for his own. The almost palpable waves of her hatred had been the ultimate turn-on. You can have her back, the voice said. When he first heard the voice, Margolis thought he was going crazy from the isolation. But he didn’t feel crazy…and besides, the voice said such reasonable things to him, things that made sense. Surely if he was crazy, he wouldn’t have manufactured such a logical companion for his solitude. I can? Margolis thought back at the voice. Even from the beginning, he’d realized he needed to refrain from speaking out loud. There was no chance of his escaping from this cell, not in this high-security vault under the U.S. Marshals’ building in Santa Fe, but that hadn’t kept the town’s inhabitants from keeping a guard on him night and day, just a few steps away from the door to the cramped chamber that now made up his world. Sometimes that guard was djinn, sometimes a well-armed human. Either way, he wasn’t getting out any time soon. Yes, the voice replied. Julia Innes will be delivered to you — along with anything else you desire — as long as you do exactly what I say. Margolis didn’t like taking orders — he’d been the one to give orders after the Dying took away all other established authority — but he figured obedience was a small price to pay for being free of this jail cell and having Julia once again. He inhaled deeply, recalling the sweet scent of her long, silky hair, the warm perfume of her flesh. Then he sat upright on his cot, blood seeming to thrum through his veins as he contemplated the prospect of freedom. A return to power, and Julia his. That was enough to give a man hope. Tell me what I have to do.