Djinnx'd (The Tamar Black Saga #1)

by Nicola Rhodes

  ‘I thought you’d gone.’

  ‘Gone? – gone where?’

  ‘Just gone, you know – for good.’

  ‘Don’t be silly – where could I go where you couldn’t find me? I can’t. I told you that, didn’t I? – All you have to do is call.’

  ‘But – but – the room,’ he gestured wildly around him, ‘and you took the bottle.’

  ‘No I didn’t – it’s there,’ she pointed under the bed. ‘And I always leave the room like this if I go out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you told me to.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘Yes, because of the landlord.’

  ‘Oh – yes.’

  She put her hands on her hips. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’

  ‘I – I – well,’ Denny faltered. ‘I thought you’d left me, and I felt so bad because – because I’ve let you down. I said I’d help you and I haven’t been – not lately anyway because I wasn’t sure and I thought you’d gone because of that. But I am sure now; I have to help you, because I said I would, and you need me to.’ He stopped finally, only because he had run out of breath.

  ‘Why weren’t you sure?’ Tamar had an uncomfortable knack of homing in points like this.

  ‘Because – it doesn’t matter now – I got distracted that’s all.’

  She sat down next to him and after a long time finally asked. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s like this. I was worried I guess; I mean you … you’re cruel sometimes and you can be vain. I mean I don’t believe for one second, that that’s what you really look like. And you’re a murderer, but – oh yes you are – but it doesn’t matter. None of it matters; I thought it did, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t change what I have to do. And – and I – well you – you’re important to me now I mean ...’

  ‘You and I, we can’t. I mean ...’

  ‘I know, and that doesn’t matter either. It doesn’t change anything. I want to do this; it’s the right thing – I think.’

  Naturally, after this embarrassing speech they avoided each other for a while.

  Denny did not even have the excuse of being drunk when he had made it.*

  *[All women know that if a man has had more than ten pints, then he is quite likely to ring her up at one in the morning or even turn up on her doorstep, spouting drivel about how wonderful she is and what a rat he is not to appreciate her. This is accepted as behaviour that comes under an amnesty agreement and is treated accordingly.]

  He was wishing that he had never made it at all and was even tempted to make it an official wish. Much more staring at the floor and muttering excuses about needing to go out for teabags, (they had quite a mountain of teabags now – it put a whole new spin on the phrase “pyramid teabag”) and he would do it, and to hell with the consequences.

  Apart from the mortification, it was business as usual – that is – total and utter bewilderment. They were (separately) cudgelling their brains fruitlessly on the second clue, pausing occasionally to scream in frustration (Denny) or to blow something up (Tamar) most notably Denny’s guitar. He had formed the irritating habit of picking out tuneless dirges on it to help him think, he said, and it was driving Tamar to distraction. It had been carbonised six times now, and Tamar only wished that it could stay that way; she had never liked it at the best of times. At least there had been no more attempts on her life, although she was beginning to miss them, any distraction would be welcome – even death – at this point. At least it would be a way out of what was becoming an impossible situation.

  Of course, all this could have been avoided if Denny had just wished Tamar free, but he did not because he did not know that he could and Tamar wasn’t about to tell him, because – (a) Rule seventeen prohibited it (but so what?) but mainly – (b) despite the fact that she was probably facing death, even being dead, she felt, was better than being mortal. No, she was not that desperate yet.

  They had tried the obvious solutions first – to get them out of the way and without much hope. But as Tamar said ‘If we don’t, it’s bound to be one of them.’

  A real pink parrot – a rare – or, let’s face it, unique breed. The nearest they could come up with was a flamingo – too many of these. An anagram produced a whole lot of nothing (try it if you have nothing better to do – Tamar and Denny wished they had not bothered). Then they tried phonetic variations, on the basis that they had misheard. This was not encouraging. They even wondered if it was the ill-advised moniker of some shadowy underworld Godfather like figure, but even if it were, they would be no further forward.

  ‘Does it have to be this particular sorceress?’ asked Denny eventually.

  ‘Well I suppose not. Why, do you know any? – Why didn’t you say? You get on the phone, and I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘Okay, okay, but there must be others out there, easier to find. I just feel like I’m in the middle of some cosmic game show. All things considered I’d rather be in Milton Keynes.’

  ‘Don’t ever say that,’ said Tamar in mock horror.

  ‘I was only kidding. I promise – on my life, never to go to Milton Keynes – even if it had the only source of oxygen left in the world.’ They both laughed, and weeks of constraint fell away from them.

  ‘Okay, seriously, though, you do have a point,’ said Tamar eventually. ‘I do feel like a pawn on a chessboard, as if the gods are laughing at us. Or they would be if there were any gods left.’

  ‘So, maybe we should start from scratch?’

  ‘I could. I have nothing but time. But you ... Besides, all sorcerers put up barriers. We’d probably just end up back where we are now, in the end.’

  ‘Okay, I give in – I’ll wish.’

  ‘Wish? Wish for what?’

  ‘For Askphrit of course; to be here. It’s only one wish it’ll be okay. Come on let’s cut to the chase.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive. I should have known it would come to this. I should never have tried to get around it.’

  ‘You want to do it now?’

  ‘No time like the present.’

  ‘Okay, then.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘Here goes nothing.’ They were both grinning.

  ‘I wish,’ he winked, ‘that Askphrit were here in this room right now.’

  They were caught unprepared as a huge, black faced, overdressed Djinn with a booming scary voice, entirely failed to materialise.

  ‘What went wrong?’ asked Denny after a while, and they had ascertained that he definitely was not coming. Tamar was floating cross-legged with her head in her hands, a bad habit when things went wrong. She was saying – over and over. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’

  ‘Tamar, TAMAR!’

  Since slapping or shaking her was out of the question, he just had to wait until she was calmer before he asked again. ‘What went wrong? Why didn’t it work?

  ‘It did work,’ she was laughing hysterically now.

  ‘No it didn’t.’

  ‘Yes it did. Oh, I should have known; I should have seen it. There’s always a catch.’ And she collapsed into a fit of maniacal giggling.

  ‘Tamar stop it, it’s not funny.’

  ‘Oh it is, it is,’ she gasped and then started to sob. ‘Oh Denny, don’t you get it? It’s me.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘I am,’ she said cryptically.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, I’m going out; I’ll come back when you feel like being sensible.’

  She looked up seriously. ‘Think about it,’ she said. Then suddenly the small denomination coin hit the floor.

  ‘Oh.’

  She nodded.

  ‘You mean ...?’

  She nodded again – like a nervous witch.

  ‘Okay, so how’s that then?’

  ‘The short version? I’m Askphrit now because I replaced him.’

 
Denny nodded. ‘I got that, but I didn’t ask for the Djinn, I asked for him by name, I was pretty specific.’

  ‘Yes, but look, I’m still me, but I’m also him – because I took his place. I filled the void that he left when he became – something else. All he had to do was change his name to become someone else entirely. He’s fallen out of the matrix, become an anomaly. He’s not Askphrit anymore because I am – in a way. He doesn’t exist at all anymore. Well I mean he does but ... do you understand? Anyway, I’m a fool because I should have known. I did know – sort of.’

  ‘So if we do find him, will the plan still work?’

  Tamar thought about it. ‘Yes,’ she pronounced eventually. ‘It’ll still work if we word it right. No, it’s finding the bugger that’ll be the problem.’

  ‘Is this sorceress still our best shot?’

  ‘Yes, unfortunately, but I might have another idea.’

  ‘What?’

  Tamar smiled. ‘You’ll see.’

  * * *

  Tamar was running for her life. Her heart ready to burst, sweat running down her whole body, terror threatening to engulf her. Behind her was a large building of some sort, glowering darkly against the skyline. The terror was coming from there; inside that building was some horror that she had to escape. She didn’t know what, and she didn’t know how she had got here, but coming here had been a tremendously bad idea. Why was she running? She could not remember; she only knew that if she stopped it would be bad. She made herself go on, forcing her legs to keep pumping. Don’t stop, don’t look back. Ahead was a barbed wire fence fizzing in the rain, if she could just get over it somehow, but it did not seem to be getting any nearer. ‘Please,’ she gasped desperately. ‘Please.’

  The dogs howled – it’s always dogs. Despite her terror, a little corner of Tamar’s mind wondered about this. I mean, she thought, why not lions or tigers or bears – Oh My! Or better still, a dragon. That could barbecue you from twenty feet away – no problem.

  Against all odds, she sped up. But they were gaining on her; she brushed the sopping wet hair out of her eyes, lost her rhythm and stumbled. ‘NO!’ she panicked. But it was not too late – not yet, she was up again, the dogs were brushing her heels snapping. They almost had her, but she was at the fence, her breathing was ragged, she was exhausted, almost spent. She reached for the fence and started to climb. The fence let out a pulse of electricity, which threw her off in a shower of sparks. She landed, stunned in the midst of the pack of baying dogs. They leapt as one at her throat; she could feel their hot stinking breath on her face. She screamed and woke up – still screaming.

  Half an hour later she was still shaking, not so much from the nightmare itself as from the fact that she had had it at all.

  ‘I though Djinn didn’t dream,’ Denny was disgruntled at being woken up at four am for a mere dream, and once he had ascertained that Tamar was not being torn limb from limb, thought that she was making a prodigious girly fuss.

  ‘W – we d – don’t,’ her teeth were chattering. ‘It was here – I felt it. Haven’t you noticed? Every time it shows up I become more ... more human – mortal I mean. I lose my powers, become more vulnerable – I can be hurt, you can touch me, and now … now I’m dreaming – dreaming for God’s sake.

  ‘Is it still here?’

  ‘No, you turn up, and it disappears. Why the hell is that? What is it?’

  ‘You’re asking me? What does it feel like?

  ‘Like … like a great black hole, a vast, sucking void pulling me into it, and a huge weight crushing me down. If it gets me, there’ll be nothing left.’

  ‘Sounds like life. You know – nobody gets out alive.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Nothing, sorry ignore me, I’m just tired.’

  ‘Go back to bed then, I’m all right now. I’ll stay up; I don’t really need to sleep. You do, and we have a big day tomorrow.’

  ‘You know, you still haven’t told me where we’re going.’

  ‘Ah, it’s a surprise, put it this way, even if it doesn’t turn anything up it’ll be fun. But not so much if you’re knackered, so go back to bed.’

  ‘It’s almost morning.’

  ‘GO!’

  ‘Oh all right. Another day off work, I’m going to get fired.’

  ~ Chapter Twelve ~

  ‘We’re in the park.’ So far, Denny was disappointed with his surprise. ‘The kid's park round the corner from where I live. Look – swings over there, a slide. What are we going to do? Ride the roundabout? See if getting dizzy gives us any inspiration, or no, I know, there’s a magic land at the top of the climbing frame.’ Denny was being a prat and he knew it. But Tamar, unusually, was taking it well.

  She smiled secretively. ‘Close,’ was all she said. She was squinting over the top of some feeble looking – well you had to call them trees because they were too big to be weeds and too small to be Triffids, and they were tastefully adorned with modern art – C Luvs P 4 ever, etc. These were sharing soil (and I use the word loosely) with the lesser-known beer can shrub and crisp packet plant.

  ‘What time is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Almost twelve – why?’

  ‘What time is it precisely?’

  ‘Eleven fifty eight – what is going on?’

  ‘Wait,’ they waited. Two minutes passed, and Tamar said. ‘Your watch must be wrong,’ she scanned the skyline. ‘Ah,’ then she stepped sideways and vanished.

  ‘What?’ said Denny. Her head reappeared as if she were looking round an invisible door. It looked creepy, hanging in space like that. A hand appeared. ‘Come on,’ she said, pulling him.

  Then he saw her, standing in front of the trees, only they were not the same trees. The view blended seamlessly with the surrounding parkland, but he could see that it was not the same place at all.

  ‘Hurry up.’

  He hurried as he stepped forward the traffic noise ceased and the sounds of playing kids faded away. He turned around quickly, but the park had vanished, and he was standing in a forest listening to the birdsong.

  Tamar was gleeful. ‘Well doubting doofus, what do you think now?’

  ‘Where the hell are we?’

  ‘It’s a sort of … pocket universe. They’re all over the place, if you know how to find them. You have to know where to look, and you can only get in at midday or midnight – or out. This is a magic forest – like it?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s … freaky. Hang on a minute though, are you telling me that there are places like this all over?’

  ‘Well, not as many as there used to be, they’re fading away. Some have been taken over by evil magic, but most are just gone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The world’s getting bigger,’ she said cryptically.

  Denny was about to ask for a better explanation, when he was distracted by a crowd of ludicrously funny looking creatures scurrying towards them.

  ‘What are those?’ he asked, staring in surprise and amusement.

  They looked, more than anything, like lumps of dough on short fat legs and with twinkling bright blue or green eyes.

  ‘Brownies,’ said Tamar contemptuously. ‘Don’t encourage them.

  ‘Sod off!’ she added as the Brownies started fawning around them, and she gave one of them a kick, which sent it flying. They were chattering excitedly, but it was impossible to work out what they were saying, since they were all talking so fast and all at once.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ Denny was mildly shocked at her viciousness. ‘They seem harmless enough.’

  ‘Oh they’re not dangerous, just annoying. Trust me, one civil word and we’ll never get rid of them. All I said was “hello” and I had four of them following me everywhere for seventeen years. They drove me round the bend. Be nasty, it’s the only language they understand.’

  Denny just stood there; he was prepared to ignore them, but not to kick them. It just seemed too c
ruel.

  The Brownies gave up eventually and disappeared into the undergrowth as suddenly as they had appeared, muttering crossly. Denny could not help laughing; they sounded like a speeded up tape of the Munchkins.

  Tamar dusted he hands together; she was dishevelled but composed. ‘Lunch?’ she said, snapping her fingers and providing the kind of picnic lunch usually only found in E. Nesbit novels.

  Denny was used to this by now, but a few minutes later he choked on his pork pie and pointed spluttering.

  ‘That’s a – that – there – it’s a – a unicorn!’

  Tamar was amused. ‘You live with me – a Djinn, no less – who, by the way, you didn’t seem at all surprised to meet, and you’re amazed by a flipping unicorn – in a magic forest. Humans – honestly!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Actually, unicorns are not magical or mythical creatures at all. They’re just a variety of horse – with a horn. Magical people always preferred them though – more style I suppose. They’re endangered now, like dragons – have been for thousands of years. That’s why they’re hidden in places like this. Humans used to cull them for the horns, they thought they had magical properties. ‘You’re a superstitious lot aren’t you?’

  ‘You can talk. You are a superstition. So, where are the sabre toothed tigers, the woolly mammoths?’

  ‘That’s prehistory, no magic back then.’

  ‘Okay, white rhinos, quagga, the dodo?’

  ‘We were too late for some of these species I admit,’ said a deep voice from behind them. ‘We did not see the danger until it was too late, and now our interference is no longer necessary. Humanity has learned much since the time of the unicorns. They take care of the animals themselves now.’

  Denny turned to face a tall, deep chested man who was, unlikely as it seems, wearing a deerskin and antlers (an ironic choice for a conservationist). He was square jawed and handsome with the obligatory cleft chin and rippling muscles and enough matted chest hair to carpet the Albert Hall. You could not imagine him in an Armani suit. He seemed to fill all the available space.

  Denny hated him on sight, and on principle. He radiated masculinity in a truly offensive manner. Denny did not want him anywhere near Tamar; he glanced at her, but she seemed supremely unaffected.

  ‘Hi Hank,’ she was saying.

  ‘Hank?’ said Denny incredulously. ‘And who or what is a Hank?’