Master of None

by Sonya Bateman

  “Him?” Trevor stared at me. The icebergs flashed. “Why, Mr. Donatti. What blue eyes you have.”

  HE ET ME HEAR HIS PHONE CONVERSATION WITH THE THUGS.

  “Have you gotten to her van yet? All right. When you do, let her and the boy go, and follow her. Don’t alarm the lady. Remember, I want that body. If it’s not there, I’ll send others to look for it. I have a different job for you.” Trevor paused and sent a smile in my direction. “Wherever she ends up, I want a silent hit. Kill her, finish anyone else you find, and bring the boy back to me.”

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Trevor disconnected and pocketed his phone. “Well, Mr. Donatti, it seems we’re going to have company.”

  “Why?” I finally managed. “You have me. Why hurt them?”

  He grinned. It was an awful expression, full of bitterness. “Because I need that item you lost. You have no idea how much. But mostly, because I can. And I did warn you that being tortured wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.”

  “I’ll kill you, Trevor. Believe that.”

  He looked at me as if he was actually considering the possibility. “I believe you’re convinced that you will. You can’t, of course. But you do possess more fortitude than I gave you credit for, and that is saying something.” He crossed to the pegboard, scanned it. After a moment, he reached out and selected the smallest pair of needle-nose pliers, just three or four inches from tip to end. “If you’ll excuse me, I must prepare for our guest. Don’t worry, Mr. Donatti . . . I’ll let you see him first. I’ll let you see everything.”

  My mind emptied. I couldn’t threaten him, couldn’t insult him. Couldn’t even move, despite my body’s desperate desire to lunge, snap the rope, gouge the sick bastard’s eyes out.

  “You’re speechless?” Trevor approached me, Taser back in hand. “And I thought you’d never shut up.” He stopped and thumbed the trigger a few times. Sparks snapped from the prongs in the semidark, bright as fireflies. “Where would you like it this time?”

  He couldn’t bring me any lower, so I spat in his face. “Up your ass.”

  “Oh, that’s far too much trouble.”

  I had time to think that at least I’d wiped the smug smile from his face before he jammed the Taser into my stomach and held.

  For a long, long time.

  Seconds, maybe minutes. I couldn’t tell. Everything shut down—sight, sound, smell—everything but sensation. I could still feel. And what I felt was pure pain in every cell of my body. Was I breathing? I’d forgotten how to bring air into my lungs. Forgotten how to think. Mr. Donatti isn’t in right now. Please try your call again later.

  At last, I realized there was no new pain being generated. The source had been removed. It took my scrambled brain a few tries to recall the source. Trevor. In the basement. With a Taser.

  Trevor. Ordered a hit on Jazz. Going to torture and murder my son in front of me.

  I’ll kill you. I will. Kill you. Believe my ass.

  Something burned in my chest. My lungs. I needed oxygen. Lots, fast. Still blind and deaf, I heaved in air and gasped it out. Did it again. And again. Finally, my body took over the task, and I concentrated on regaining the rest of me.

  The vacuum of sight and sound became a humming white blur. The blur faded gradually and returned me to a muffled version of reality that didn’t include Trevor. Only me and the basement. I still hung in place, head down, legs bowed and limp beneath me. A few spots of fresh dark liquid adorned the floor. Blood? Tasers didn’t cut.

  Another drop burst into existence below. The consuming anguish eased, allowing me to feel more specific pain. My lip had resplit during the prolonged shock. Hence the blood. My shoulders screamed, and my wrists were on fire. Though I couldn’t lift my head, I knew blood streaked my arms, too. And despite the damage, I would live.

  Not something I looked forward to.

  A soft sound penetrated my muted hearing. For an instant, I thought it came from the alcove. It sounded again, a muffled scrape reminiscent of sandpaper on wood. The stairs. Another scrape, a light clicking, like the claws of an animal. Rats came to mind again. Weren’t they drawn by the scent of blood?

  Raising my head took tremendous effort. I tried to focus on the stairs. Didn’t see anything. Squeezed my eyes shut, opened them. Some of the blurriness dissipated. At last I caught a glimpse of rippling fur. The shape poured from the landing, refusing to pull itself together. I strained until my eyes watered and realized it was bigger than a rat. Much bigger. Maybe Trevor had sent one of his dogs down to guard me.

  The creature stood absolutely still, facing me. A long, low growl rumbled in its throat. It slunk toward me, hackles rising. When it reached the strongest pool of candlelight, I made out features that shocked me harder than the Taser.

  Not a dog. A wolf. A really big fucking wolf.

  No wolf had ever been that big. The thing was the size of a small pony. It stopped and stared at me. Round amber eyes ringed with black. Filled with an almost human awareness . . . and recognition.

  “Ian?”

  CHAPTER 9

  The wolf nodded.

  I stared at it. Wolves didn’t nod. This was a little harder to swallow than the car thing. I didn’t doubt that it was a wolf. I’d seen its teeth. All hundred or so of them. Only my sanity was in question here.

  The suspicion that I’d lost my mind shifted into certainty when the wolf started to glow.

  Within seconds, the animal became pure light in the shape of a wolf. The limbs thickened, the body stretched, the snout shortened. The light formed a man on hands and knees and faded to reveal Ian.

  The djinn stood quickly and held a finger to his lips.

  I laughed. “It doesn’t matter,” I told him, though a rasping whisper was the best I could manage. “He’s gotta have cameras down here somewhere.”

  “Be silent, thief. It is not Trevor I am concerned about.”

  “Well, I am,” I muttered, wondering briefly how he knew Trevor’s name. He must have heard me say it at some point. I turned my confusion to how in the hell he’d gotten here, uninjured, because there wasn’t a mark on him. Even his bullet-torn pants were whole again. The fact that he’d somehow retained his clothing baffled me. Shouldn’t he be naked?

  “Trevor is busy. And if you speak again before we get out of here, I will gag you. You will get us both killed.”

  He sounded serious. I decided to take his advice and shut up.

  Ian approached me and laid his hands over my wrists. I felt the ropes loosen, the knots seem to untie themselves. Bad idea, I thought frantically. I’m gonna . . .

  The ropes released. I dropped to the floor.

  Fall.

  Concrete wasn’t the softest landing pad. I groaned and curled inward, convinced that I’d broken something.

  “What is wrong with you?” Ian whispered. “Get up. You do not look that badly injured.”

  “Tasers don’t leave marks.” I panted. “Why can you talk?”

  “Not another word. If you—” He froze. A scuffling noise whispered from the dark alcove, stronger than the first one I’d heard. Something scraped, metal on stone. Someone coughed—not him and not me.

  “Gahiji-an?”

  The voice sounded like rocks in a tumbler, filtered through cotton. Horror painted Ian’s features. He produced his Zippo, fired it up, and stretched the lighter toward the recess. The flame shook at the end of his arm. He approached slowly, stopping when the light revealed enough of the figure in the darkness to make everything inside me twist the wrong way.

  A man. No, a breathing corpse. Suspended, practically crucified on a wooden frame. Chains around his ankles, his neck, his arms just above the elbows and at the wrists. Hairless, toothless, naked save for a filthy and bloodstained cloth tied around his waist. Scars and fresh cuts, scores of them, covered his body—all two to four inches long, in apparently random directions. And empty, blackened sockets where his eyes should have been.

  Trevor was more t
han insane. He was a monster passing himself off as human.

  “Shamil . . .” Ian’s voice broke. He stepped forward.

  “No,” Shamil whispered. “It is sealed.”

  Ian stopped and glanced back at me. I forced myself to move, get on my feet. With a better view of the horror show in the alcove, realization struck me dumb. The battered figure was tall and long-limbed, like Ian. Dark brown armband tattoos, similar to Ian’s, were still visible between the wounds. His eyes had probably been ringed with black before they’d been burned out.

  Another djinn. In Trevor’s basement.

  Shamil lifted a face streaked with grime and dried blood. The skin around his eye sockets twitched, as if he was trying desperately to see. “Free me. Please.”

  Ian flinched as though he’d been shot. “Your tether?” he said in thick tones.

  “The pendant.”

  Nodding once, Ian closed his eyes, opened them. “It will be done, brother.”

  “Thank you.” Shamil released a shuddering sigh and let his head fall.

  Ian turned away and snapped the lighter closed. A thousand questions begged for release from my tongue. I denied them a voice out of respect for the stricken djinn, and hoped Ian hadn’t used the term brother literally.

  “Head for the stairs,” Ian said. I started toward them and stopped when a distant click drifted across the room that sounded far too much like a door opening.

  Descending footsteps. Trevor.

  “I will need the wolf,” Ian whispered. “Climb onto my back. Hold tight, do not move, and do not make a sound. He will not see you.”

  Protests screamed through my mind. A glimmer of light behind me. A furry head butted the small of my back. My body moved despite my brain’s insistence that riding a wolf as if the damned thing was a horse with fangs constituted a Very Bad Idea—almost as bad as convincing myself that Trevor would somehow fail to notice that the guy he’d left strung up from the ceiling had escaped to mount a giant fucking wolf and amble off into the sunset. Well, sunrise by now, or close to it. I straddled the squat, muscular body and felt compelled to flatten myself along his back and clutch the scruff of his neck with both hands.

  Snug as a bug in a Venus flytrap.

  The moment my grip was secure, the Ian-wolf moved along the perimeter of the room, approaching the stairs. Trevor reached the basement when we still had several feet to go. The wolf froze and tensed beneath me. Panic dried my mouth and pushed needles through my chest. How in the hell could he not see us?

  Trevor moved across the room, away from us, toward the empty rope lying on the floor. He nudged it with a foot. His lack of a violent reaction to my absence sent spikes of fear to join my panic. Gavyn Donatti, the amazing human pincushion. Trevor turned in a slow circle, scanning the room. His gaze skated past us without pause. “You are still here, aren’t you?” he said softly. His voice seemed suddenly un-Trevor-like. “I feel you . . . Gahiji-an.”

  Tremors rippled the wolf’s body. It was all I could do to keep my teeth from chattering. Slowly, he crept toward the stairs. We progressed an inch, six inches, two feet. My lungs burned with the breath I held.

  “I suppose you haven’t told him.” Trevor performed another languid rotation. “No matter. You and your bastard offspring won’t survive much longer.” He pulled a knife and moved toward the alcove, a frozen grin splitting his face. “Would you like to hear your friend scream, Gahiji-an? I don’t know about you, but I find the sound pleasing.”

  The tremors became shudders, but the wolf still gained ground. I bit my tongue and tried not to dwell on what Trevor had said . . . especially the part about bastard offspring. Didn’t like the sound of that. Not at all.

  We reached the stairs and began the ascent before Trevor got to the chained djinn. Though we were spared witness, sounds followed us. Trevor muttering. Shamil flinging a curse, chasing it with hollow, crazed laughter that burrowed beneath my skin like undead ticks. The screams came just before we made the door.

  And the wolf ran.

  I MIGHT HAVE SCREAMED A LITTLE. MAYBE JUST A GRUNT. Couldn’t help it. Ian walking had been difficult enough. Ian running felt like holding the wing of a plane in flight under heavy turbulence. I knew I’d fall off, and that would be the end of whatever mojo kept Trevor from seeing me.

  The wolf growled low in his throat but didn’t slow the relentless pace. We streaked through Trevor’s house, bounding around corners and skirting loose carpets on smooth floors. The front door stood open. We shot through and cleared the porch steps in a single bone-jarring leap that forced me to tighten my grip. The wolf yelped once and tore around the corner of the house toward the lake.

  Outside, I smelled smoke.

  A glance behind us revealed the source. Just inside the gate stood a smoldering heap, shaped vaguely like a car. A few thugs with spent fire extinguishers milled around the wreckage. One had dragged a hose over and stood spraying down what was left. This must have been what Trevor was busy with. Fantastic. Now the bastard would blame me for blowing up his car, too.

  After all, Ian was my djinn—sort of—and somehow, Trevor had known.

  Wouldn’t think about that now. Wanted to be breathing when we got out of here, and if any of his thugs saw me, they’d provide me with some rather inconvenient ventilation holes. I had to concentrate on maintaining my grip.

  We’d covered half the distance between the house and the lake when I caught a dark shape streaking toward us from the direction of the gate. My heart rate ramped up from beat to vibrate. One of Trevor’s dogs had caught our scent. Oh, good. Dogs trusted their senses and would believe what their olfactories told them even without visual confirmation.

  If Trevor knew anything about the djinn, he probably counted on that.

  The wolf slowed and changed direction, heading for a small shed to the right. The dog followed, already barking a strident alert. We rounded the shed, skidded to a halt out of sight of the main house, and the wolf bucked me off.

  I hit the ground, rolled once. By the time I gained my feet, Ian stood in the wolf’s place. Still clothed. I’d have to ask him how he did that, if we lived long enough.

  He grabbed my wrist before I could spit anything out. “Silence.” He snarled the word, as if he hadn’t completely shaken the transformation yet.

  I didn’t argue. The fewer teeth marks I ended up with, the better.

  Like its master, the dog didn’t know the meaning of hesitation. A furry projectile launched at Ian and sank fangs into his shin. Ian reached down and stroked its head, crooning to the growling beast in the language he’d spoken with his wife, as though it was an overgrown puppy. The dog wrenched its massive jaws open, sat on its haunches, and looked up at the djinn with doggy joy. Its tongue lolled between teeth marbled with Ian’s blood.

  “Sleep,” Ian whispered. Obediently, the dog lowered itself to the ground, laid its head on folded paws, and closed its eyes.

  I was sufficiently impressed.

  Ian still held my wrist, and something about him seemed strange. I squinted at him. The edges of his body shimmered, like a car on the road under a blazing sun. A glance at my hand revealed the same flickering outline. I guessed this was what invisible looked like from the inside. Would’ve thought it was pretty cool, if I wasn’t worried about dying in the next five minutes.

  “Okay,” I whispered. “Now what?”

  Shouts and running feet sounded in the distance as the thugs headed our way to investigate the dog’s warning. Ian faced me, wearing the most disgusted expression he’d manufactured yet. “You will have to climb onto my back. Hold on. And for the love of the gods, do not strangle me, or I will drop you.”

  I goggled at him. “You planning to turn into a shark and swim the lake? Because I don’t think you can run faster than a bullet, especially carrying me around.”

  Ian turned away. He didn’t have to say Just do it. I did.

  For an instant, I felt like the world’s oldest annoying little brother. Giddyap, ho
rsie. Heat crept up my neck and singed my ears as I clung to his back, hands gripping his shoulders, legs locked around his waist. “Whatever you’re gonna do, do it fucking fast,” I mumbled near his ear.

  Ian spat something in his language. Probably a curse. He tensed, bent his knees, and jumped.

  And kept going up.

  In seconds, the ground lay a good hundred feet beneath us and still dwindling. I wanted to go back down and retrieve my stomach—and stay there. I’d almost prefer torture to being airborne, and an open-air djinn was far more terrifying than an enclosed plane. My eyes squeezed shut, and my teeth chattered like ice in a blender. “You’re f-flying,” I stuttered.

  “Yes. I cannot do it for long.”

  “Jazz!” I shouted. The wind snatched my words from me and whipped them away. I leaned in the direction of Ian’s ear, without opening my eyes. “Have to get to Jazz. Trevor ordered a hit on her.”

  “Your lady friend seems capable of handling herself. We have bigger problems.”

  “We’re going. Wyckoff Road, just outside Elmwood. Go!” The shouts tore from my throat, forcing me to gasp frigid air.

  “Idiot. Do you really think I know where this Elmwood is? I am not a human. And we are not—”

  “We’re going. I won’t let them kill her—and Trevor wants Cyrus!”

  “Who in the name of the gods is Cyrus?”

  “Her son. My son!”

  Ian lurched in midair. And dropped.

  I screamed.

  When we failed to hit the ground and splatter across the landscape, I wrenched one eye open. Ian hovered fifty feet above a stand of trees, stiff as cement. “Your son?” He choked the words out, half disbelief, half something else. Hope?

  “Yes. He’s my son. Jesus Jefferson Christ.” I gasped. “Don’t ever fucking do that again.”

  “Which way?”

  I looked down. Panic flooded my circuits. The ground swam, doubled, contracted. “Shit. Where the hell are we?”

  “Never mind. I can find him. Hold on.”

  How? I wanted to shout, but I couldn’t. We were moving again—fast. I’d have to trust him. I closed my eyes and prayed to the god of losing lottery tickets and dying Aunt Marias that we weren’t too late.