Djinn (The adventures of Hanover and Singh Book 4)

by Chris Paton

  “And yet,” he said, “here I am.”

  Stepan pulled the trigger and blew the ushanka from Mishka's head as the Cossack landed after another jump. Mishka lifted his hands to his head, ran his fingers through his hair and roared with laughter.

  “I am rich,” he said and pumped his arms in the air.

  Stepan rested his chin on the stock of the rifle and closed his eyes. Images of Anna, before and after the sickness from the mines gripped her lungs, spooled through his mind. He erased the image of his wife with a brisk shake of his head and slung the rifle over his shoulder. He grasped the fork rest in his left hand, jerked it out of the ground and turned to march back to the table as the Cossacks scrabbled for their share of the money. Stepan reeled as Mishka, soaking wet from his crossing of the river, rushed past him to make a grab for his money.

  “Well done, Kapitan,” Ivan said as Stepan approached the table. “You have not lost your touch, I see.” Lena nodded her approval from the table as she slapped at the hands of the men trying to grab her share of the winnings.

  “I'm pleased I could amuse you and your men.”

  “They are just as much yours as mine now, Kapitan. I expect you to lead a small company of Cossacks. More will be arriving by the day and we need to practice.”

  “I'll teach the men as much as I can,” said Stepan. “But what I really want is to see Anna.”

  “Then you will be pleased to hear I have sent a man to make sure she meets us at the gates of the city,” Ivan said and puffed a cloud of smoke from his pipe.

  Stepan relaxed beneath Ivan's arm as the Cossack commander draped it across his shoulders. He led Stepan toward a hidden camp in the trees beyond the crates and boxes of ammunition. Ivan stopped at the fire pit in front of the tent and gestured for Stepan to sit on one of the upturned crates.

  “The summer light makes for late evenings, Kapitan. Let us rest and drink. We can tell war stories. And, tomorrow maybe, you will see your Anna,” Ivan said and winked. “Perhaps you want a good Cossack woman to keep you warm tonight, eh?”

  “No,” Stepan said and slid the rifle from his shoulder. He leaned it against the trunk of a tree close to the fire pit. “Just a drink.”

  “Yes, it is best.” Ivan ducked into the tent and returned with two bottles of cloudy spirits. “Made with water from the Laya River. It has kick. Better than anything you will ever find in Moscow. That is why I love my country,” he said and tossed a bottle to Stepan. “Everything north of Moscow and south of Murmansk.” Ivan sat down and removed his pipe from his mouth. He tamped the last twists of smouldering tobacco on the ground and placed his pipe on the crate next to him. He popped the cork from the bottle and raised it. “To Arkhangelsk,” he said and took a long pull of vodka.

  “To Arkhangelsk,” Stepan said and drank. He waited for the sting of raw spirits, coughed and took another long drink.

  “Slow down, Kapitan,” Ivan said and laughed. “We have the whole night.”

  “That is what I am afraid of.”

  “Tell me of this submersible before you are too drunk to speak,” Ivan said and moved to sit on the ground. He rested his back against the crate and Stepan did the same.

  “It is small,” Stepan said and paused as Lena walked through the trees and sat next to him by the fire pit. She took the bottle of vodka from his hands, took a long swig and then waited for him to take it. When Stepan took the bottle, Lena prepared a fire in the pit. “But manoeuvrable.”

  “Under the water?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you see?”

  Stepan took another pull of vodka, and smiled as the alcohol loosened his tongue and relaxed his muscles. It was a long ride, he mused.

  “There is a window in the command module and another in the very front of the submersible.”

  “How?” Ivan said and frowned. He looked at the bottle and compared the contents with the bottle Stepan drank from.

  “How what, Ivan?”

  Ivan farted and raised his bottle to his lips. Lena laughed and pulled a wooden box of matches from her pocket. The sling for her arm hung loose around her neck.

  “Breathe?” said Stepan. “How do you breathe underwater?”

  “In the submersible, da,” Ivan said and reclined to make himself more comfortable on the ground.

  “We burn a chlorate candle – a small one. It gives off oxygen as it burns and we pump that around the ship with fans. There is only one problem.”

  “What's that?” said Lena. She reached over the fire and pulled the bottle of vodka out of her father's arms. Ivan nodded his head and started to snore.

  “The candle burns at a very high temperature. It can destroy a ship if it is not insulated and strict protocol is observed.” Stepan lifted the bottle in his hand and pointed at Ivan with his middle finger. “I am not sure your father has the discipline for a submersible, Lena.”

  “My father is a true Cossack,” she said and lifted the bottle to her lips. She emptied it and tossed it toward the opening of the tent. “But he would make a lousy pirate, Kapitan Skuratov.”

  “And what about you, Lena?”

  “Me?” Lena said and crawled over to Stepan. With a wicked grin pasted upon her face, she gripped his jacket beneath the arms and straddled him. “I am a good Cossack,” she said and kissed Stepan on the forehead. “But I would be a most excellent pirate. When Vlad and I are together, we will sail under the water on many adventures.” Lena laughed and rolled off Stepan and onto the ground. She kicked at the fire and sent flames crackling and sparking in the light of the midnight sun. She held out her hand for the bottle and Stepan gave it to her. Lena lifted it to the light and swirled the last of the contents in a slow circle. “To the pirate life,” she said and finished the vodka.

  “To the pirate life,” Stepan said and smiled. He waved as Lena staggered to her feet and pointed at the tent. She pulled a pistol from inside her jacket and waved it at Stepan.

  “I sleep in there,” she said. “If you come in, I will shoot you.”

  “I am sure you would.”

  “Da, Kapitan. I will shoot any man that comes inside the tent. Unless...” she said and frowned.

  “Vladimir?”

  “Da, Vlad,” Lena said and brushed the hair from her face with the back of her hand. “If you see him, tell him I am in the tent.”

  “In the tent,” Stepan said and nodded.

  “Shh. Not so loud.” Lena pointed the pistol at her father and giggled. “My father is Ivan Timofeyevich.”

  “I know.”

  “He must not know about Vlad,” Lena said as she wobbled around the camp fire to place her hands around Ivan's ears. Stepan rolled to one side to move out of the line of fire of Lena's pistol. It was pointed straight at him.

  “I won't say a thing,” he said with a mock salute. “You have my word, Lena Timofeyevich.”

  “Da? Good,” she said and stood up straight. She fiddled the pistol into the fold of her jacket, picked her way around the crates and crashed through the tent door. Stepan smiled as he heard Lena curse on landing.

  “Goodnight,” he said but there was no answer.

  Stepan moved closer to the fire and crossed his arms beneath his head. It wasn't the first time he had slept outside on the brink of battle. But it was the first time he had slept around a camp fire in a Cossack camp. How times change, he mused and closed his eyes. The image of Anna returned. They were together in a forest outside of the city. The soft light of summer turned her brown hair gold with an aura of energy that captured the wood dust and made it shine like tiny stars between the trees. It was the day Stepan had asked Anna to marry him. He was due to leave the following day to lead a company of Imperial Russian Marines on a mission to kill or capture the Cossack rebel, Ivan Timofeyevich. Anna had said yes, on one condition.

  “Anything,” Stepan had said.

  “That when the mission is over, you will never fire a gun again.”

  “Never again. I promise.”


  But the mission, Stepan remembered, had become a war, and he had fought many months before returning to Anna and their new born son.

  “Nikolas,” Stepan said and opened his eyes. “Where are you now?”

  Stepan sat up and slowly pulled himself to his feet. He took a breath and walked over to the tree to retrieve the rifle. He slung it over his shoulder and picked up the empty bottles before making his way to the boxes of ammunition. The majority of the Cossacks slept on or near the table, but the few who were awake nodded at Stepan and helped him find powder for the rifle. Stepan searched among the pile of fork rests and found one to his liking. He walked down to the river and found a tree on the river bank. He placed the bottles on a branch of the tree and paced out one hundred paces. Two Cossacks carried a crate of empty bottles down the the river. They placed them on the branch next to Stepan's, before walking back up the bank and sitting on the ground to watch as Stepan zeroed in his rifle with shot after shot until the sun crept over the horizon with the dawn of a new day on the Great Southern Plain.

  Chapter 8

  The Hindu Kush

  Afghanistan

  July, 1851

  Hari cupped his fingers around the djinnlight in his hand as the lid beneath his feet began to oscillate around the lip of the pit. The mystic stretched his arms to keep his balance, but he realised it was but a question of a few seconds, perhaps less, before the djinni or djinn threw Hari into the air as they burst from their earthly prison.

  “Jump, Hari,” Jamie shouted from the ground beside the pit. The young Englishman grabbed the tattered remains of his trousers and took a step backwards.

  The lid exploded upward in a shower of stone shards that enveloped Hari as he was thrown clear of the pit and onto the ground. The djinnlight flickered within his hand and extinguished. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the coil of djinn that twisted out of the pit and into the dusky sky above the village. Hari counted three djinn as they writhed and revelled in their freedom. The villagers grabbed their children and scattered to the buildings for shelter.

  “This is not good,” said Najma as she walked to stand beside Hari.

  “Truly,” Hari said and pushed himself to his feet. “I have never seen the like.” The djinn twisted in loops fifty feet in the air above the village. Hari recalled a story he had once heard of a Shah that had kept an army of djinn, to defend his city from the advancing army of Alexander the Great. But, by the time Alexander's scouts had arrived within sight of the city, there was nothing left but the pulverised remains of buildings and a sky full of demons, as the scouts had described the djinn. Alexander left the main body of his army at a safe distance and rode with a small escort to see the djinn for himself. For one day and the following night the djinn, their master dead beneath the rubble of the minaret, tore each other apart in a frenzy of chaotic energy. On his return to his army, Alexander instructed his cartographers to erase the city from the map. The army moved on the very next day.

  “I did this,” Jamie said. He gripped the remains of his clothes in his hands and let them hang at his sides. He glanced at them at let them fall to the ground. Najma took a step to one side and focused on the djinn above them. She cranked the charging handle and began a series of slow, regular breaths.

  “Yes, British,” said Hari. “And now we must put the djinni back in the bottle. Or, in this case, the djinn back in the pit.”

  “How do we do that, Nightjar?” said Najma.

  Hari drew his kukri from the scabbard at his belt and tested the blade with the thumb of his left hand. He lowered it and studied the djinn. With the tip of the blade, Hari pointed at the slowest of the djinni. “Najma.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you see the one with the longest beard? There, to the left.”

  “Yes.”

  “He is yours. Try and draw him to the buildings. The charge in your copper bullets will distract him, and enough of them will weaken him.”

  “How many?” said Najma. She placed her hands around the leather bag of bullets hanging from her belt beside her knife.

  “I don't know.”

  “Fine,” she said and took a breath. “I will draw him to the building, over there.” She pointed with the tip of the lightning Jezail.

  “Good,” Hari said and nodded. “Good luck.”

  “To all of us,” said Najma and ran toward the buildings to the east of the pit.

  “That one is mine,” Hari said and pointed at the female djinni streaking across the village from the north to the south.

  “And what about me?” said Jamie. “You have yet to mention the largest of the three.” He looked up and shuddered at the sight of the djinni floating directly above the pit. “It looks like he is waiting for a command.”

  “He is. You opened the pit. You must command him.”

  “And if he doesn't listen?”

  “You must make him listen, British.”

  “Great,” Jamie said and brushed the dust from his hands. “Any suggestions?”

  “None,” said Hari. He pressed the fingers of his left hand into the whorls of the anti-djinn tattoo on his chest. “But experience has told me that he is unlikely to listen if you do not show him who is the master.”

  “Experience has shown you? You mean me, don't you?”

  Hari drew the ball of djinnlight into his hand and grinned. “Truly, British, you are perhaps not as stupid as you look.”

  “Just naked,” Jamie said and sighed. “Let's get this done.”

  Hari bowed his head briefly and then turned and ran to the south of the pit. Jamie lifted his arms and clapped his hands above his head.

  “Hey,” he said. “Djinni. I command you to return to the pit.”

  The djinni folded its great arms across the scarred muscles of its cavernous chest and bucked in the air. Smoke writhed in a twisted column from its abdomen as the djinni lowered its head to within a foot of Jamie's. The djinni's skin, a brilliant topaz blue, lit Jamie's face, forcing him to squint.

  “You command me?”

  “Yes,” said Jamie. “I released you. You are mine to command.”

  The djinni opened his arms and placed two hands, like the hinges of a citadel door, around Jamie's shoulders.

  “You wear the mark of the djinn,” said the djinni and pressed his face close to Jamie's chest.

  “Yes. I am djinn.”

  “Djinn should be free. We shall be free.” The djinni let go of Jamie and flew in circles above his head. “Come, brother. Be free.”

  “No. I cannot.”

  “You cannot?” The djinni slowed to a hover. “Then you will die.”

  The djinni twisted its forearms together and shaped its fists into a single hammer. It pulled back and slammed the hammer at Jamie's head.

  “No,” Jamie shouted and caught the djinni's fists in his orange-tipped hands. The djinnflame singed his body and Jamie's muscles swelled as his body grew. He gripped the djinni's hammer between his hands and swung the djinni at the ground, first to the left and then to the right of the pit. On the third strike, the djinni dissolved into smoke only to take shape again high above Jamie's head. With a roar it shot skyward and Jamie gave chase.

  Hari loosed the djinnlight at the female's chest, scoring a direct hit that punctured her left breast with tendrils of anti-djinn energy that dug into her body and spread through the fibres of her skin. The djinni screamed and writhed above Hari, thrashing the great tail beneath her body at her assailant. Hari pressed his fingers to his chest as he rolled beneath the djinni's tail. The djinni bunched into a tight ball and rushed at Hari with the speed and force of a steam train. Hari yelled as the djinni slammed into his body. The djinnlight smouldering in spirals around his chest burned in the djinni's body as it crushed Hari into the dust. It wailed as the djinnlight leaped from Hari's chest and burned upon her own like white phosphor. The brilliant sheen of her body dulled from a vivid sapphire green to a light brown, like Hari's own. She fell naked upon the ground, drawing ragged
breaths in the dust. Hari staggered to his feet, removed his robe and laid it over her body.

  “Rest now,” he whispered. “It is over.” Hari sheathed the kukri at his side and brushed the dust from his face. He scanned the distant buildings and spotted Najma standing astride two buildings, with a foot on each. He looked at the djinni at his feet and looked again as Najma fired her first copper-infused bullet at the djinni racing towards her.

  “Go,” said a man behind Hari. “We will see to the djinni.”

  “Do not kill her,” said Hari.

  “Kill her?” said the man. “I would not kill my own daughter. Go. Help your friend.”

  Hari nodded his thanks and ran towards Najma. He coughed though a cloud of dust as the djinni pummelled the building and roared in pain, one hand clutched to its breast. As the dust settled, Hari saw Najma running towards him, holding the Lightning Jezail in one hand as she rammed the second bullet into the barrel with the other.

  “Run,” she shouted as she reached Hari. “Go,” she said and pushed Hari with the butt of the Jezail.

  Hari whirled to find a spot from which to fight, pressed his hand to his chest and drew a ball of djinnlight into his hand. Najma cranked the charging handle, pulled the butt of the Jezail to her shoulder and rested her cheek upon the trophy-etched stock. The djinni shaped its right arm into a lance and twisted the fingers of its left hand into a crooked claw. It stalked towards Najma.

  Najma dropped to one knee, aimed, breathed and fired. The coils of copper twisted inside the lead bullet charged as it blasted through the rifled barrel, blistering with energy and puncturing the djinni's forehead with a shriek of static as it released its charge and burrowed into the djinni's skull. With both eyes fixed upon the djinni, Najma pressed her third bullet into the barrel, ripped the ramrod free of its holder and tamped the bullet firmly into place.