Master of None

by Sonya Bateman

  Then again, so did the djinn.

  “All right,” I said. “How’d they stop them last time?”

  Ian shook his head as if he didn’t want to tell me. “With the Morai playing at gods and other clans inciting . . . certain incidents of massive destruction among humans, the Council sent the combined forces of several clans here to bring every djinn back. They then forbade the use of tethers to travel between realms. Except, of course, for certain members of the noble clans who were permitted under the guise of research.” The contempt he infused the last word with suggested that they meant research in the same way Victor Frankenstein meant to cure death.

  I frowned. “But they’re here now. Did they just decide to ignore the whole forbidden thing, or what?”

  “No. Without the backing of the Council, it is nearly impossible to move between realms. The creation of a tether involves air magic, a strength of the Bahari. The Morai use fire magic. They can perform the binding spell for a tether, but it is temporary, and should the spell break down while a djinn is still in this realm, that djinn dies.”

  Now things really didn’t make sense. “So how’d they do it?”

  Ian’s jaw clenched. “The Council banished them here.”

  “What the hell? Why would they do that, after they pulled them out for fucking everything up?”

  “Because of the clan wars.”

  “Clan wars,” I repeated. “Do I even want to know?”

  Something that looked a lot like pain flashed in his eyes. “The Morai felt they had been humiliated by the Council when they were forcibly removed from this realm. At the time, they could not retaliate, but they spent centuries preparing for revenge. They practiced inbreeding to produce more offspring. They trained every member of their clan, male and female, from birth as soldiers. They developed and perfected powerful spells intended to cripple and to kill. And they planned a massive assault on the noble clans.”

  Patient bastards. But with the djinn’s ridiculously long life spans, maybe centuries wasn’t such a long time. “I take it they lost.”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Ian lowered his arms, and his hands clenched hard enough to whiten his knuckles. “They were defeated but not without great losses to . . . other clans.”

  I hated to ask, but I had to. “What other clans?”

  For a moment, Ian didn’t answer. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. “Geographically, my clan, the Dehbei, was nearest to the Morai. We did not trust them and frequently sent spies to ensure that they would not attempt to conquer our village, as they had others. We learned of their plans to attack the nobles mere days before they intended to mobilize.” A muscle jumped along his jaw. “The Dehbei leader, Omari-el, insisted that we warn the Council. Twenty of us set out immediately for the palace.”

  “When you say us, did that include you?”

  “Yes. I was among them, as was Omari-el.” He looked at me, and his eyes blazed with anguish. “The Morai also had spies. When they discovered we had gone to warn the nobles, they . . .” His breath hitched. “They diverted to our village on their way to the central lands. They slaughtered everyone there. Male, female, child. And then burned what remained to the ground.”

  “Jesus, Ian. I . . .” No wonder he hated them so much. “I’m sorry.”

  He made a weak, dismissive gesture. “Our party did reach the palace first. Some of the Council, Kemosiri in particular, refused to believe us. The word of barbarians meant little to those bloated and pampered louts. Only when another noble clan, the Kelimei, reported seeing the army of Morai did they decide to prepare. It was nearly not enough. Both sides suffered heavy casualties.” He shifted on the bed, and his shoulders slumped. “But they were defeated, and those Morai who survived were sealed inside tethers and sent here.”

  “Well, that was fucking brilliant of them.” My forgotten cigarette had burned out. I dropped it into the ice bucket and fired up a fresh one. “They didn’t want the dangerous clan over there, so they dropped them on a world full of defenseless humans. Remind me to thank Kemosiri. Preferably by breaking something important, like his skull.”

  “It was a terrible decision. However, the tethers were supposed to have remained sealed. I will not excuse the actions of the Council, but if it were not for the greed of humans, the insatiable lust for power, the Morai would not have been unleashed.”

  “Come on, Ian. You really expect me to believe humans somehow let a bunch of djinn out of their tethers? We don’t do magic. Well, I guess I do, sort of, but . . . hold on.” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of this before. “How many descendants are running around here?”

  Ian gave a bitter laugh. “Descendants did not release the Morai. It is a complicated process that requires a great deal of power. Not so simple as rubbing a lamp.” He smirked. “There was magic here, long ago. Earth magic. And there were human sorcerers who had learned to wield it. They released the first of the Morai and attempted to enslave them, to use them as familiars. They failed.”

  “Uh-huh. Like Merlin and shit.”

  “Merlin, though that was not his true name. Nicolas Flamel. Rasputin, the last great sorcerer. A few others. But once a handful of Morai had been loosed, they no longer needed the human mages. They developed ways to free their kin themselves, mostly through blood spells. They formed human cults and demanded mass sacrifices. Eventually, your world forgot its own magic, but it no longer mattered. The Morai had already gained a hold. And they have been growing in strength since.”

  I shook my head. I’d always known the world was a messed-up place, but this was beyond bizarre. Twilight Zone stuff. I couldn’t exactly refuse to accept it, because I’d seen plenty of evidence—but that didn’t mean I had to like it. “So basically,” I said, “you came here to save the world. Right?”

  All of the exhaustion vanished from him and left pure rage. “I am here because of Kemosiri,” he said through gritted teeth. “When the worm finally realized we spoke the truth about the Morai coming to attack the Council, coward that he is, he panicked. The Bahari fancy themselves scholars, while the Dehbei are warriors. Omari-el would have given our assistance anyway. But Kemosiri deemed it necessary to force us into his service.” He paused and shuddered with fury. “He cast a powerful enchantment on Omari-el. A curse, called the ham’tari. It is a truth spell that binds the bearer to a promise, on pain of death. And the promise he extracted was the complete destruction of the Morai at the hands of the Dehbei.”

  “My God,” I said. “What an utter dick.”

  Ian nodded in terse agreement. “Omari-el was killed during the battle. The Morai general, Lenka, murdered him when Omari-el attempted to negotiate for Kemosiri’s life. However, the great Council leader still held us to the terms of the ham’tari. Only twelve Dehbei survived the clan wars, and when the djinn learned that the Morai had escaped their tethers in this realm, Kemosiri had us banished here to finish the task he could not. He did deign to send a small contingent of Bahari to assist us. All of them young and inexperienced. Shamil and Taregan were among them.”

  I remembered Shamil. The battered shell Trevor kept chained in his basement. “Who’s Taregan?”

  “He was a friend, once. He and I had a . . . parting of ways.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what happened and got interrupted by a Gestapo-style pounding on the door of the hotel room.

  My gut told me that whoever was out there wasn’t the smoking police.

  CHAPTER 17

  I needed a weapon. I grabbed Ian’s tether first, but a gut feeling told me that was a bad idea. So I did something even worse—I handed it back to him.

  He accepted it with a doubtful expression, as if he suspected treachery. No time to explain that I did, too. “You should disappear,” I whispered.

  Ian nodded and vanished.

  The knocking repeated. I crept toward the door with one hand in my pocket, closing around the knife formerly known as Pope’s. A look through the peephole revealed a blue-clad mote
l employee bearing a clipboard. Early thirties, brown hair and blue eyes. The name stitched on his shirt was George.

  I didn’t trust him. He lacked that certain minimum-wage-isn’t-enough-to-put-up-with-this-shit vibe most third-rate-motel staff put out.

  He knocked again. “Mr. Davis?” He used the name I’d given at the front desk to check in. “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir. We need your signature for the deposit agreement.”

  That almost sounded credible. I hadn’t signed anything when we got here. Maybe he was just an employee—they probably weren’t used to people paying in cash.

  But I still wasn’t going to open the door.

  I kept my grip on the knife and moved back, hoping he’d go away. There was a longer pause, then more knocking. “Mr. Davis?”

  Just when I’d decided to say something brilliant, like I’d go to the office and sign the damn thing later, the door emitted the distinctive electronic bleat that said it’d just been unlocked. It opened fast, and the guy strode in brandishing his clipboard at me.

  I almost laughed—until I saw the muzzle of a gun under the board.

  Crud. Another smart thug. He stood less than five feet from me, and he’d already closed the door behind him. No way I could pull the knife before I got shot. I settled for glaring at him and hoping Ian could come up with a brilliant idea. Preferably one that didn’t involve me bleeding.

  “Hands out, please,” he said.

  I complied with a frown and tried to figure out what kind of thug said please.

  He tossed the clipboard in my direction. Like an idiot, I grabbed it out of the air. Maybe I could use it as a shield if he fired on me. It might slow a bullet down by half a second.

  “I take it your name isn’t George,” I said, deliberately not looking in the direction Ian should be. Do something, damn it.

  “No. It’s Quaid. And you’re a hard man to find, Mr. Donatti.” He reached behind his back and produced a set of handcuffs. “You do know why I’m here, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. Trevor’s too good to come after me himself. You know, I thought he’d be running out of thugs by now.”

  His confusion lasted only an instant. “Maybe you should be grateful I found you before these thugs,” he said calmly. “I’m collecting you for theft. You’ll probably be safer in jail.”

  Shit. If he was a cop, he would’ve flashed a badge by now. And he’d said collect, not arrest. That left exactly one possibility. “You’re a bounty hunter.”

  “Actually, I prefer the term ‘bail enforcement agent,’ though technically you’re not a skip. There’s a fairly large personal reward being offered for you by the rightful owner of a copper dagger, which is currently in your possession.” Quaid flicked open a cuff one-handed. “I don’t suppose you’re going to come quietly.”

  I decided to skip the small talk and smashed the clipboard down on his gun hand.

  The gun thumped to the floor. I shoved Quaid hard and kicked the weapon away. By the time I realized the bounty hunter hadn’t moved much, he’d found a new weapon—handcuffs that doubled as brass knuckles. His metal-enhanced fist felt like a wrecking ball when it rammed my gut. I dropped, gasping, and tried to scuttle back.

  That was when the pepper spray hit my chest.

  I didn’t scream. Couldn’t breathe enough to get sound out. I had time to wonder why he hadn’t gone for my eyes before I realized it didn’t matter. My face was on fire, and the tears streaming from my eyes weren’t putting it out. Burning mucus streamed from my nose. I would’ve been disgusted if it hadn’t hurt so much.

  Something—probably a foot—pushed me flat on the floor. A hand grabbed my wrist and forced my arm back.

  “Release him.” The voice wasn’t Quaid’s.

  To his credit, the bounty hunter didn’t react strongly to what must have been the startling sight of Ian materializing out of nothing. He did, however, release me.

  “Took you long enough,” I panted. Righting myself proved difficult, but I managed to gain my feet. Fuzzy shapes swam before my eyes. I swiped a palm under my nose and cringed. “Can you cuff him to something?” My voice wheezed from my swollen throat. I hoped I’d articulated enough for him to understand. I heard footsteps, then clanks and clicks.

  “You’re only delaying the inevitable,” Quaid said, still as calm as a hot bath. “I’ll find you again. It would be much simpler for you to just give up now. I’ll go easier on you than your thugs or the police.”

  I shook my head and blinked a few times. My eyes refused to stop tearing, but my vision cleared a little. Now the smudges had different colors. Ian had chained the bounty hunter to the headboard of the first bed in the room. He sat on the floor, watching both of us with an expression that suggested he actually expected me to take him seriously. It creeped me out.

  “Sorry, Quaid,” I said. “I’m really busy right now. You’ll just have to bust me later, okay?”

  He nodded once. “I’ll take you up on that, Mr. Donatti.”

  I turned toward a blurred, Ian-shaped smudge and wished for a tissue. “Let’s get out of here. Where’s the door?”

  Ian grabbed my arm and pulled me outside. The door closed. “Why did you not tell me about this man?” he said.

  “I thought he’d make a fun surprise,” I snapped. “Christ, Ian, I’ve never seen him before in my life. Why’d you wait so long to stop him?”

  “You seemed to have things under control.”

  “Right. Before or after he pulled the gun?” I took a few steps and walked straight into a light pole that jumped in front of me. “Crud.” I rubbed my forehead. “Who put that thing there?”

  Something resembling a laugh escaped Ian. “You look terrible.”

  “Thanks.” I sidestepped the pole and headed for a big dark blur I assumed was the parking lot. A click sounded behind me. I spun around and fell against Ian. He grabbed me but didn’t let go.

  Quaid stood on the sidewalk just outside the room, frowning at us. He’d retrieved the gun. Crud. Why hadn’t I thought to tell Ian to get his keys? I almost said something before I realized we were probably invisible. Assuming this was the same deal as the wolf, I figured we’d be all right if I kept my big mouth shut.

  Still, the bounty hunter seemed to be looking right at us. Quaid stood motionless in front of the door. His nostrils flared a few times, almost as though he was smelling for us, like a dog. He glanced to both sides, moved forward, and raised his gun.

  I couldn’t tell whether he had a bead on us. And I didn’t want to find out.

  Ian tensed and jumped, hauling me into the air like an arcade crane machine extracting a stuffed prize. Oh, good. And me without my barf bag. I indulged in a few seconds of hating him for flying off like this, but the bullet that passed just under my feet changed my mind.

  This time, we didn’t make it far. Ian wobbled through the air, no more than twenty feet above the ground. He brought us down in a patch of woods within sight of the hotel and let go considerably sooner than I expected.

  Falling five feet wouldn’t have hurt so much if I’d known it was coming. My face wasn’t designed for shock absorption. Ian saved himself from a stern lecture by crashing down next to me in what looked like a more uncomfortable position, mostly because of the broken stump he bounced off before coming to rest in a crooked heap.

  I moaned. Ian didn’t.

  I scrambled up, moved to him, and tried to check for visible damage. Not that I had much in the way of visibility. No blood was apparent, but he’d taken on that Charlie Chaplin pallor again. I crouched and said, “Hey. Do you need, uh, contact or something?”

  He opened his eyes. “I cannot amplify . . . what is not there.” He sounded as if he’d run the Boston Marathon.

  “What?” I rocked back and stared at him. “You mean you don’t have any mojo? Why?”

  Ian shifted an arm and pushed himself into a seated sprawl. “Sustaining a portal between realms requires a massive amount of power. I have just done it twice.”

/>   “How do you get it back?”

  “Time.”

  Perfect. The one thing we definitely didn’t have. “Okay. Did that guy see us back there? I mean, we were invisible, right?”

  “Yes. And I do not think he could actually see us. He seemed to be tracking with other senses. Or perhaps he is simply lucky.”

  “Great.” At once, Quaid had moved out of fringe worry territory and approached full-blown threat. I shifted until I could almost see the motel. The blurring had more or less eased, and now everything resembled a double-exposed photo taken with too much flash. A figure that had to be Quaid approached our spit of trees. He moved slowly. Ambled, really. As if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “We need to get out of here,” I said. “Can you walk?”

  “Probably.”

  “Well, that’s encouraging.” I offered a hand, but he ignored it and stood on his own.

  The last thing I wanted was to move around, but hiding out here would be like trying to get lost in a post office lobby. “We need wheels,” I announced.

  Ian gave me a doubtful look. “Your woman’s van will be recognized. We cannot risk it.”

  “I know. We’re gonna have to boost a car.”

  “You want to steal one?”

  “Yeah. Like, now.”

  “Fine.” Ian sighed. “Does it not bother you to steal from other people?”

  “Look, we don’t have time for an ethics lecture.” I shoved him in the opposite direction from the hotel. “I’m a thief. It’s what I do. Besides, I’d never steal from somebody who couldn’t afford it.”

  “How admirable of you.”

  “That’s me. A modern-day Robin Hood. Come on.”

  We set off south, toward the smell of money and away from Quaid, sticking to the fringe of woods. The usual little prickle from my conscience had become a full-blown chafing, thanks to Ian’s reprimand. Stealing had never bothered me before.

  I decided to hate him for a while. It made me feel better.