Miriam glanced behind her to see Ben standing on his tiptoes, scanning the crowd. He saw her, and set out after her, shoving people aside, spilling drinks and earning hateful looks. Her dress made her stand out, she realized, the silver in stark contrast to the street clothes of the rest of the crowd. She’d hoped the bustle of people milling around her would be a hindrance to Ben, but it was just as much a problem to her as it was to him.
Ben was closing in, his suit coat buttoned now, concealing the weapon, but she could still see the butt distorting the line of his jacket. A rush of panic shot through her; she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t use the gun, even here. He was striding with bullish purpose through the crowd, eyes fixed on her, rage burning, jealousy and hurt and confusion stamped on his face. He hated her now, and he wouldn’t stop until he had her. God knows what he would do if he caught her.
Miriam turned back to glance back at Ben, and in the process ran smack into a huge, sweating, pear-shaped man in overalls, dragging an oxygen tank with cannulae inserted in his nose, a pumpkin-round face covered in a thick beard that hung over his broad chest. Beady brown eyes glanced down at her, and he spoke in a gasping voice so deep it made her bones rattle. “You in trouble, little miss?”
She saw Ben a few feet away, shook her head, and pushed past the man. She heard him stop Ben, heard the man grunt in surprise as Ben shoved him to the side. It was enough of a distraction to let Miriam get farther ahead, and that enraged Ben even more. There was a clear area ahead of Miriam, a break in the crowd; she broke into a run, not caring about the stares she drew. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, flowing in brown waves behind her as she ran. She wanted to glance behind her to see if she was getting any farther away, but she was afraid of running into someone again and losing her momentum.
Miriam realized she had no idea of where she was going. She was running blindly, trying to get away from Ben. The casino was mammoth and expansive and maze-like, row after row of slot machines all lined up and marching off into the distance. Panic blinded her from seeing any directional signs. She passed by a darkened lounge with blue low-lights, people swilling booze from highballs, oblivious to her plight. She rounded a corner, glancing back as she did so to see Ben less than ten feet away, striding confidently, his hand on the pocket of his suit coat, holding the pistol, a smirk on his lips, a hungry smile offsetting the glittering anger in his eyes. He saw her glance at him, and his grin widened. He curled a finger at her, beckoning. She shook her head in denial automatically, not meaning to respond.
She slammed into yet another body, this time a smaller, softer one. Miriam was suddenly doused in drinks. She saw an attractive, Arabic-looking girl about her own age standing there in shock and outrage, an empty tray in one hand and a pile of foaming beer bottles on the ground, her skimpy black waitress uniform soaked.
The waitress was wearing a bodice that did little but prop her breasts up, and an apron that covered her thighs, and black tights, but little else. Miriam wasn’t sure she was actually wearing a skirt at all, just a shirt and the apron. Despite the fear gripping her, Miriam felt a strange kinship to the woman, a connection she couldn’t explain, a kind of familiarity, even though Miriam was sure she’d never seen her before in her life. The waitress was a little taller than Miriam, beautiful in an exotic way.
“Do I know you?” the waitress asked, curiosity written plain on her face.
The waitress reached up and touched Miriam’s forehead with the tip of her index finger, and Miriam felt a bolt of electricity rush through her, felt her magic respond to the girl’s touch, reaching out for the similar magic floating in a silvery tendril toward her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ben stalking after her, the pistol in his hand now, held against his leg. Slipping on the spilled beer, Miriam stumbled into a run, bounced off another man, barely hearing his yells of surprise.
A bank of doors appeared in the distance, and Miriam headed for them, Ben hot on her heels now. Miriam shoved an overweight older black woman out of the way and slammed into the door, felt it bounce off her as she careened into a wall. She was in the back area of the casino, an employee’s-only section of white walls, white linoleum floors, and white drop-tile ceilings, clean, too-bright hallways startlingly silent after the clanging bustle of the casino.
Alone now, Miriam sprinted flat-out, her feet slapping loud, her breathing ragged. She heard the doors behind her bang open, followed by fragments of casino noise and shouts of “you can’t go in there!” as Ben continued to pursue her. He had the gun out now, and he lifted it to point it at her, still walking with long strides after her, not running, not hurrying. Miriam heard her own panting breath mix with whimpers, smelled the pungent aroma of Pine-Sol from the freshly mopped floor. The hallway ended at a T-junction, and Miriam crashed into the wall and turned left, choosing arbitrarily, hurtled around another corner and another, each time at random, hoping to lose him. She heard Ben’s feet pounding now as he ran to catch up; she heard the unmistakable ratcheting click of the pistol safety being pulled back and released.
She saw an exit sign bathing the hallway red and reflecting off the floor, and Miriam bolted through it to emerge into the low gray darkness of a parking garage, cars scattered between yellow lines, ramps leading up and down. Miriam headed for the downward ramp, hoping it would lead her outside. The door banged open behind her again, and she knew Ben had found her. At least she was alone out here. If Ben caught her, she’d use her powers. She might destroy a few cars, but no one would die.
No one besides Ben, that is.
Lower and lower into the garage she ran, fewer and fewer cars down here. By the time Miriam realized she’d trapped herself, Ben was already blocking the up-ramp, pistol out and held against his leg. He also stood by the only stairwell. Behind him was a concrete wall, blank and damp; a battered green Cadillac sat a few feet to her right, and beyond that was the dead end at the very bottom of the parking garage.
“Nowhere else to run, Miriam.” Ben was gliding toward her like a lion stepping with careful paws through tall grass toward an unsuspecting gazelle.
His eyes betrayed him, as they so often did. He was hungry for her, fingers curling at his pants leg as if around her body, as if clutching her throat. Miriam backed away from him, grasping for the magic within her. Terror made her fumble, made the fire sputter. She was desperate, reaching for it, only to find it elusive now that she finally truly needed it. Ben was within arm’s reach, and Miriam ran, only to feel his fingers close around her arm and yank her toward him.
“Ben, don’t,” she pleaded. She knew it was futile, but she pled with him anyway. “I’m sorry, Ben, I’m sorry….”
Ben didn’t answer. He shoved her backward, sticking his foot behind her leg so she tripped backward to the ground, bashing her head against the concrete floor. She saw stars spinning above her, felt warmth spread out beneath her head. There was a dull glimmering spark of heat in her gut, and she struggled to remain conscious, reached for the guttering fleck of magic, felt it recede, buried by pain and drowned by terror. She wanted to scream with frustration, but the sound remained trapped in her throat in a hard lump, choking her. Her vision was wavering, spinning. Ben was straddling her, a black folding knife in his hands; the blade was between her breasts and slicing down her belly, ripping open her dress. Ben cut the dress off her arms and wadded it in his hand, pocketing the knife.
“I’m glad you ran, Miriam,” Ben said. “You made this all a lot easier, and a lot more fun.” Miriam thrashed and kicked and bucked, but Ben just laughed and rode it out, seeming to enjoy the fight. There was no Ben left in his eyes, only madness now, only desire and hate and anger.
“I figured something out, Miri,” he said in a conversational tone. “The phone, the car, Rachel? That was all you. You made that happen somehow. I don’t think you meant to, but you did. So I was thinking about it, trying to figure out how it had happened. Then you went all Human Torch on me, and it started to make sense.”
Ben continued, “Once I got my head around the fact that I really did see you turn to flame, it was easier to think about how you made that other stuff happen. I was thinking about some stories I heard when I was deployed. Our translator had all these crazy stories about what he called ‘djinn,’ and the way he described them…it’s you, Miriam. But what if you don’t grant wishes, like, I just ask you for what I want, and you make it come true? What if maybe somehow you make what I want deep down come true? Like, the magic just works on its own. So then I kept thinking. When did those things happen? While we were having sex. Something about sex makes the magic happen, which is really fuckin’ cool, you know? Ha, that was punny. So anyway. Here we are, and of course, you’ve got to do this the hard way, which is just like you. We could’ve done this all nice and comfortable up in the hotel room. You could’ve just…let go of all that other bullshit and realized that you belong with me.”
“No, she doesn’t,” came a voice from behind them, just a few feet away. Jack. “Get off her, Ben.”
Miriam tried to scream a warning: Jack didn’t see the pistol. He didn’t see Ben smile slowly, as if he’d been hoping Jack would show up. He didn’t see Ben shift his weight, turn his head slightly to get Jack into his line of vision.
Jack might not have seen what Miriam saw, but he wasn’t stupid. He lunged with sudden speed, throwing himself at Ben. Miriam watched it all as though in slow motion as Ben twisted, absorbed Jack’s hurtling weight. Ben toppled away from Miriam to roll across the ground. Jack disentangled himself from Ben and scrambled to his feet, planted a kick into Ben’s face and then another. Ben rolled away, and Jack followed him, fists first.
A pair of explosions filled the parking garage, the shots missing Jack as he threw himself to the side. Jack stood up and charged yet again; Ben fired twice more. This time, Jack gasped in surprise and stumbled backward, tripped, and fell to the ground. Miriam heard someone screaming, then realized it was her. Jack lay on his back, twin blossoms of blood spreading on his chest, froth bubbling at his lips as he struggled for breath.
Chapter 17
Carson
The present
The crime scene had been cleaned up and the garage reopened weeks ago, so the location itself offered no new clues up to Carson. He stood there anyway, looking at it again, with Miriam and the case as a whole in mind.
He pictured Ben bringing Miriam to the casino, perhaps as an attempt to woo her back. This was his turf, his territory. He knew people here. A buddy of Ben’s from the Corps was a dealer at a blackjack table. The buddy hadn’t exactly been forthcoming, wanting to protect his friend. The connection itself was enough: Ben would be comfortable here. His friend might be able to pull some strings, get people to ignore anything unusual, like a terrified girl running through the casino. There was a waitress whom Carson had interviewed before coming down here, a waitress who had left work by the time the body was discovered and reported, and thus had been unavailable for questioning at the time.
Nadira Nasri, a cocktail waitress on the casino floor, had seen Miriam, she said. Miriam had actually knocked into her and spilled a tray of drinks. She’d seen Ben, too, or rather, she’d seen a tall, angry-looking guy following Miriam, and had heard people screaming that he had a gun. That was all she knew, Nadira had claimed.
Maybe things had gotten…tense. If Miriam had tried to leave and Ben had chased her, they’d end up in the casino, almost by default. Carson prowled the casino, trying to think like a fleeing, terrified girl. The casino was huge and sprawling, the exits distant and not clearly marked. It was designed to keep you in. The confusion and chaos was intentional: no windows, no clocks, no evidence of passing time, no obvious exits. It was clever, almost diabolical, really. And if you were a scared girl, you’d have no way to know where to go.
Then he’d seen the bay of employee-only doors in the distance, and that had seemed an obvious choice. Doors meant escape; doors meant away. So he went through the doors, flashing his badge to employees protesting his presence. White hallways like an illusion stretching out in a further maze, silent after the chaos…Carson found himself disoriented, so he could only imagine how frantic and confused Miriam must have been. One random turn after another, and then suddenly he was in the parking garage. If she had gone left instead of right, maybe there would have been a different outcome. One direction would have led her to a break room, or a cleaning supply room, whereas she’d ended up cornered in the garage, where something truly unusual had taken place, a sequence of events that was still a mystery to Carson.
He had a clear picture of how events had led to the parking garage. He’d looked at the security tapes again, and had finally found a single, brief image of Miriam pushing through the crowd, obviously terrified, chased by Ben. The cameras had caught them in the casino and the back hallways, and entering the parking garage, but that was it. No footage of Ben’s death. So how had Ben died? What had caused the fire? Had Miriam done it?
And again the question: Where the hell was Miriam?
* * *
Back at his desk, Carson stared at the casings, trying to piece the rest of the story together. The body had been burned, which meant it was likely that someone else had been shot. But there were no burn marks, no scorch marks, not even where the body had fallen, which suggested that the fire wasn’t natural. If Miriam was able to…what? Manipulate fire somehow? That would explain the mysterious nature of the burned body. Maybe she had torched him somehow in self-defense. Maybe she had been shot in the process and run, or been found? But then, none of the hospitals had reported any gunshot victims that fit Miriam’s description.
He had a pretty good idea of the people involved and the sequence of events, but it still left him stuck in the same place he’d been at the start: a charred skeleton, a missing girl who might or might not have been responsible for the burned body, a missing girl who might or might not be alive.
At his desk, Carson sat staring at the file. He had to solve this case. He had to know if Miriam had killed Ben, and how.
He hoped Miriam was still alive to tell him.
Author’s Note
Domestic abuse features heavily in this story, and it is a subject that has affected me personally—there is a reason the hero in this story is named Jack.
I could fill this note with statistics on domestic abuse, I could give my own story, I could do many things. Instead, what I will say is that I chose to write this story because abuse is something that affects people all over the world, from every ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic background. It is a real and tragic problem, and it deserves attention. I’ve received criticism regarding Miriam before, people saying she’s weak for sticking with Ben for so long despite the abuse. But that, sadly, is a reality. You start to think you have no other choice. You start to think you’ve earned it, you deserve it, that no one can help you. That there is no escape. That every man will treat you the same way.
I escaped. It took a lot of courage, but I did it. And I found a man who, like the Jack in this story, treats me with the love and affection that I deserve.
That I DESERVE.
Do you hear that? If you’ve experienced anything like what I did, you know how hard that can be to believe. And if you know anyone who is in the middle of such trauma, you know how impossible it can be to convince them of it.
There is always another option. No one has the right to treat you or anyone you know with cruelty, with emotional or physical violence. Seek help.
There are any number of websites dedicated to the topic, but here are a couple to get you started.
http://www.womenhelpingwomen.org/what-is-abuse/domestic-violence/
http://www.thehotline.org/
http://abuseintervention.org/help/friend-family/
; Continue reading for a sneak preview of
Djinn and Tonic
By
Jasinda Wilder
Coming Soon
Djinn and Tonic
Chapter 1: A Breath of Wind
Detective Carson Hale wasn’t sure how he ended up at the Old Shillelagh again, a highball of gin and tonic in hand, watching replays of the Tigers beating the Rockies. He had left the station after work, but hadn’t felt like going home.
He was watching the TV screen, but not really seeing the action. It was more of a distraction than anything. He was trying not to think about the case. Or, as Carson thought of it in his own mind, The Case. It was one he’d not forget any time soon. Miriam al-Mansur remained stuck in his head somehow. It wasn’t like he was attracted to her in a sexual way. She was beautiful, sure, but it just wasn’t there for him, and she was with Jack Byrne, anyway. No, there was something else about her that kept her on Carson’s mind, and he knew perfectly well what it was.
How could he just…let it all go? Just write off the murder of a man as…what?
It wasn’t self-defense; Miriam had admitted that much herself. At least, partially. She had been defending Jack. Or, more accurately, exacting revenge because he’d shot Jack. Two bullets to the chest, she’d said. But you didn’t survive that kind of injury, you just didn’t. A sucking chest wound was, by all accounts, one of the most painful ways to die, next to being shot in the gut, and Miriam had had both wounds…and survived.
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