Still at the threshold, Jake felt overwhelming sadness at the scene. The idea of waiting out one's final days while watching sitcoms felt like a disqualification of everything that came before. Final days should be spectacular, wild things full of joy and rage and hysterics, not a television comedy scripted to the canned laughter of an audience that was never really there.
Before Marta crossed into the room, Jake grabbed her by the elbow. She looked at him curiously.
"I can't help you," he said.
"Vincent promised you would."
"I know, but you don't understand the... " His mind conjured up the word “danger,” but his mouth refused to say it. He tried “risk,” but his mouth wouldn't form that word either. So he settled for, "... circumstances."
"I don't care about the circumstances."
Jake wanted to tell the woman she was guaranteeing her own death if he was unable to track down her daughter before her husband died, but the thoughts caused him physical pain. He was unable to hold them in his mind or say them out loud. Innately, he understood why. It was a new rule to go with his curse, or at least one he hadn't known about before—he couldn't warn a wisher of the risk they undertook.
"There must be something else you want," Jake said. "Something else Hector may want?"
"No." Marta gently released her elbow from Jake's grip. "Layla was everything to us. When she left, it was devastating." She bit back tears and again clutched at her silver cross, rubbing it with her thumb. "Her father's cancer, it was in remission until... "
The quickening sensed this woman's deepening commitment to her wish. It erupted joyfully in Jake's belly and chest, sending heat throughout his body.
Marta looked down at Jake's trembling hands and then up at his face. "It's not for you to decide, is it?"
"I decide."
"But something guides you?" She moved the cross from her neck toward Jake. It halted at the end of its chain. "Maybe someone?"
Jake looked down at the silver cross shining in the overhead fluorescent lights. He shook his head. "I don't think it's him."
"Not enough do," Marta said. She grabbed Jake's hand and led him into the room. Once they reached Hector's bedside, she placed a hand on Hector's calf, on top of clean sheets, and said something to him. Jake couldn't read her words.
Hector's eyes fluttered open, locking on Marta for a moment and then moving to Jake. Jake smiled at the man and then turned so he could read Marta's lips.
"Remember I told you," Marta said, "I would get someone who can help us find Layla?" She gestured toward Jake. "Meet Jacob."
"Hello, Hector," Jake said.
Hector took his time registering Jake, eventually nodding.
A housefly lifted off the edge of the bed and zipped toward the window across the room, landing on the white blinds. Jake had only recently learned, firsthand, of a full-on djinni’s ability to appear as an animal to human beings. It made him suspicious of any creature that seemed out of place. This room was too clean, and the building too well-looked-after, for a random housefly to be buzzing about. The fly could be Jake's father, or maybe a member of the Ancient Assembly—Chavez, Aleksei, or Natasha—watching over him for a reason he would likely never know.
Jake returned his eyes to Marta's lips, catching her in half-sentence.
"-but he'll find her. We'll be with our girl again."
Jake wanted to tell Hector Flores that he wouldn't be able to find his daughter and bring her to him, that he wouldn't be able to grant Marta's wish and save her life, and that they needed to rethink what they should be doing with the last days of the poor man's existence. But he couldn't. It wasn't a rule that stopped him, or the effect of the quickening. It was the look on Hector’s face when Marta told him he would be with his daughter again. Though he’d looked positively dead before, he now seemed full of hope.
"I need a place to start," Jake said to Hector. "Marta tells me you were the last to see Layla?"
Hector nodded.
"Did she give any indication of where she may be going?"
Hector looked at his wife. From lips that barely moved, Jake read, "Marta, please."
Marta Flores left the room, pulling the door closed behind her.
Jake watched the fly from the corner of his eye. It lifted off the drapes and flew over to land on the lamp next to Hector’s bed. It raised one of its front legs, seeming to wave at Jake.
Suddenly Jake could hear the canned laughter coming from the television. He could hear the breathing of the oxygen machine, the bleeping of the vital stats monitor, and Hector Flores's voice, frail and weak.
"Do you have a family, Jacob?"
Lori Nelson and Frankie Jenkins came to Jake's mind. All three of them at the river. They'd had a shore lunch together before giving Motown's ashes to the water. He hadn’t seen either of them in a few days, but the overwhelming feeling from within was yes, he had a family.
"Grab my wallet," Hector said. "It's there on the table."
Jake picked up the man's leather trifold, thick with bills, receipts, and photos, and handed it to him.
Hector sifted through it until he produced a picture of a girl in her late teens. She was looking away from the lens, annoyed but wearing a playful smile. Beautiful eyes, just like her mother's. "My Layla. She was taken away from us."
"By whom?"
"Not whom," Hector said, "but what. Marta doesn't know, you understand? She shouldn't know. Promise me you won't tell her."
"I promise."
Hector pressed Layla's photo into Jake's hands. "Our Layla got into alcohol and... " Hector shook his head. "... drugs. The last time I saw her, she was on the bathroom floor of a motel room with a needle in her arm. Her heart was so weak. I got her cleaned up and told her we'd find help, but she didn't want help." He looked away from Jake, stared at the window. "I told her she couldn't come home until she was no longer a disgrace to her mother. Those were my final words to my daughter."
The fly lifted off the lamp and flew over to the doorframe. Jake could hear its buzzing wings.
"I need to change those final words," Hector said. He turned to Jake. "You can help me with that?"
Jake didn't hear Hector's last sentence. His ability to hear stopped after “change those final words.” He'd read the rest from the dying man's lips. The canned laughter went silent and the sounds of the breathing machine and vital stats monitor disappeared as the fly slipped through the space in the doorjamb.
"This motel where you found her," Jake said. "What was it called?"
"The Darton. It's on Seven Mile."
UNGRANTED: Chapter 3
The pieces of bone were difficult to dig out.
Brian Singer—the infamous Detroit hitman known as The Sparrow—sat near the sink in his studio apartment overlooking the Detroit River, scrubbing the titanium band of his Breitling Navitimer watch with a toothbrush. The room was spartan; nothing more than a bed, chair, dresser, stereo system, and closet full of the finest clothes and shoes. A wooden jewelry box sat on the dresser, the nightly resting place for the watch David Jonas had given Brian after successfully completing his first hit. Singer was never without it. At the moment, flecks of Bobby Dallas's skull were stuck in the gaps of the bracelet band, along with some blood and flesh. He used a toothpick to remove as many of the big pieces as he could and then scrubbed with the toothbrush until the titanium was clean.
Now shining and dry, the watch returned to its cradle.
The Sparrow opened the music app on his phone. He connected via Bluetooth to his stereo system and started a playlist called After.
The first song was “Brush on Silk” from the Memoirs of a Geisha soundtrack. It featured the Japanese koto, a stringed instrument with a distinctive sound.
Singer closed his eyes as the music emerged from the speakers surrounding him. The notes worked like so many hypodermic needles piercing his body—not injecting, as such needles were meant to do, but sucking. Drawing out the poison of any feeling, the knowledge of h
is deeds. Extracting and carrying away. His skin tingled with each plucked string. Now came the drums and percussion, digging in and scooping. The flute was a scalpel, cutting at him the way a butcher trims unwanted tallow.
The Sparrow was born Brian Matthew Singer to Pamela and Timothy Singer of Detroit, Michigan—formerly of Provo, Utah. The couple had moved to Michigan so Dad could pursue a job in the auto industry. They purchased their home, sight unseen, based on its proximity to the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit where Timothy had landed a job. The couple thought they were getting the deal of a lifetime on a house so close to work, not understanding how depressed and terrifying their new neighborhood would be. The initial shock alone had produced most of Dad's gray hairs. In less than two years, he suffered a stress-related stroke and Mom moved back to Utah. As far as Brian knew, the two were still married, but the only parent in Brian's picture for many years now was Dad, who was bedridden most of the time. The stroke knocked much of the sense from his brain and all of the steel from his spine.
Young Brian quit school and claimed the streets of Detroit as his new home. He started out simply standing on the corner down the block, watching the prostitutes and drug dealers move through their daily routines. In a disconcerting way, it reminded him of his days back in Utah when he'd sit in the backyard of the family home and watch squirrels foraging and stashing away food. Up into trees and down again, around the yard on the wooden fence railings, making sudden stops to scan their surroundings. There was the occasional scuffle and chase, though it never ended in bloodshed.
The same couldn't be said of Detroit's Core City.
The ladies of the street thought Brian was cute. They teased him, flashed him, and generally made him feel uncomfortable. The men were suspicious of him at first, and violent with him soon after.
Three days into Brian's street vigil, a Cadillac he'd seen around the neighborhood finally pulled up to the curb in front of him. The passenger window rolled down. From inside, a man said, "Get off my block, kid."
Brian ignored the man. He didn't move.
The man got out of the car and approached Brian, picking up a broken piece of curb. "I said, get off my block, kid."
Brian still didn't move. Instead, he took the concrete to the back of the head and bled into the gutter.
He returned home some hours later, still bleeding, his vision blurry. Dad didn't ask what happened. He just stitched up his boy as best he could before setting his eyes back on the television.
The next day, Brian Singer was back on the corner when the same Cadillac pulled up.
"Get off my block, kid."
This time Brian ducked the concrete but took a fist to the face. No need for more stitches, but he'd had to lie still for a few hours until his bedroom stopped spinning.
The next day he was back on the corner with a fat lip and a black eye to go with the stitches on the back of his head.
Again, the Caddie pulled up. "Get off my block, kid."
Brian didn't move.
"Okay, then make yourself useful, you stubborn little bastard."
Through the passenger side window, Singer was handed a package with instructions to take it two blocks down and put it in the mailbox of a yellow house. He was to knock on the door and then beat it.
Brian did exactly as he was told. He came home that day with no new injuries, but ten dollars for a job well done.
The next day the Cadillac pulled up and the window rolled down.
"You're ordinary, kid. Don't you get that?"
Brian shrugged.
"You don't agree that you're completely ordinary?"
"Nothing wrong with being ordinary."
"See the bird right there?" The man inside the car, David Jonas, pointed to a sparrow on an overhead wire. "Now look down the way." He pointed farther down the wire, where a dozen more sparrows huddled together. "They're all the same, right? That makes them ordinary. But this one here, this one sitting by himself... why do you think he keeps away from the rest?"
Again, Brian shrugged.
"Because he's looking for something better. He knows he's ordinary, but he's not going to let it stop him. He's either going to starve or thrive. You ever heard of the golden handcuffs, kid?"
Brian shook his head.
"Well, let me tell you something for free. You'd rather wear a stainless steel pair than a golden pair, every time."
Singer nodded.
"Get in the car."
Now, Singer's playlist moved on to “End Credits” from the Braveheart soundtrack. The bagpipes pounded and squeezed his body until he was nearly breathless and numb. The day he got into David Jonas's car was the last day he stood on a Detroit street corner and the first day he moved into his studio apartment overlooking the river. He was sixteen years old. Anyone who opposed or threatened Jonas during the last ten years eventually met with The Sparrow, and soon after, their maker.
The music stopped when Singer's phone rang. The Sparrow connected the call and put the phone to his ear.
"Where are we?" Jonas said.
"Dallas is dead."
"Can I assume you've located her?"
"No."
A pause.
"He loved her," The Sparrow added.
"That's cute. You'll move on Martelli next?"
"Yes. Nicholas Martelli."
"Does he love her, too?"
"I don't know."
"Make sure Martelli sings."
"Mr. Jonas?"
"What is it?"
"He'll know I'm coming."
"They always know you're coming, kid."
Jonas disconnected the call.
Music returned to The Sparrow's studio apartment. Braveheart. The pipes. Most people believed they were listening to Scottish bagpipes when they heard the soundtrack. Few knew they were actually Irish Uilleann pipes. Less harsh on the ear, and preferred in quieter, more contemplative moments. The Scottish pipes were played for war.
The song built to a climax and then dropped off, ending with a solo piper holding a single note until the bag was fully exhausted.
Singer tapped his smartphone screen to stop the next song before it started. He hung his head, face in his palms. He was as empty as a glass bottle. Any more music and his flesh may crack.
He silently removed his clothing, hanging up his suit and belt, smoothing out his tie, and situating his shoes just so. He threw his underwear into the hamper and stood naked in front of the plate glass separating him from the night, from the river below, and from the lights of Canada blinking in the distance.
The man in the reflection was familiar. Setting aside the short hair and the tattoo covering the scar that piece of concrete curb had given him, Brian would swear he was looking at a young version of his father.
He'd have to go see the old man soon.
Singer slipped beneath his cheap sheets and lay his head on a bedraggled pillow, then closed his eyes and thought of absolutely nothing.
UNGRANTED: Chapter 4
It was two minutes to midnight when Jake pulled up to Lori Nelson's Regency-style apartment building. He hadn't seen her since Motown's water burial. After saying goodbye to Frankie and his mother, he and Lori drove back to Detroit in a silence heavier than Jake's usual.
For years, things had moved glacially slow between Jake and Lori, and then so much happened so fast in the days leading up to Motown's death. Too fast for her, it seemed. He had sensed her backing away during that drive home. He could practically see her inability to commit overwhelming her.
He'd chosen to give her some space, a few days to let the heat die down. But now his need for her increased as the quickening grew, intensifying each feeling, each emotion. His body overheated and his hands shook. He parked his truck and sent her a text.
I know it's late, but I'm out front.
Three little dots appeared below his message, indicating she was replying. Instead of staring at the screen, Jake looked up at his horizon, red and vaporous in the distance. It was stil
l at least a thousand miles out, but closing rapidly. Five or six days without granting a wish and he'd be up against it. Literally. That was how it worked. Keep granting wishes or the strange lasso in the sky closes in toward the ancient water pitcher Jake kept in his apartment. If the loop got too small, he'd be stuck, unable to move, maybe crushed.
He wasn't too keen on testing the limits.
Jake checked his phone. The three dots were still pulsating. He looked at Lori's front window. The lights were out and the shades drawn, but her yellow Labrador Retriever, Russ, had appeared between the drapes and the glass, his wet nose smashed against the pane. Jake smiled. He and Russ had always been on uneven terms. Russ only recently allowed Jake into his personal space without bearing his teeth. He was a pound rescue with an unknown past, maybe a violent one.
The dog reminded Jake of the one Motown used to talk about—a mixed breed his parents had rescued on a whim one day.
"The damn thing must have been beaten something bad before we got it," Motown said. "He'd snarl and go after any guy wearing a baseball hat, trying to kill him. You couldn't go near the mutt for a while afterward. Mom said he was crazy, but I say he was just pretty well pissed off at any asshole that looked like the asshole that used to beat him. Maybe the dude was a Tigers fan."
The dogs may or may not have had a violent past, but Lori certainly did. Jake had found her squatting in his tattoo shop after her latest boyfriend had beaten her. She'd fled and was on the streets a couple days before breaking into his shop. Jake helped her back on her feet by granting her wish to start over.
If only he knew then what he knew now.
Wishes—just like everything else in the world, natural or supernatural—came at a cost. Once a djinni grants a person's first wish, the wisher loses an ability and the djinni receives it. The djinn call these abilities their “gifts.” Jake believed this was how, throughout history, they became regarded as powerful beings. As they grant more wishes, djinn gain more gifts, and one day they possess so much power they can snap their fingers and poof, magic. Meanwhile, the wishers in their wake are left wondering why they can no longer whistle or jump or do math.
The Stonefly Series, Book 1 Page 28
