By the time Aladdin got around to fighting the evil magician and his annoying parrot, I’d forgotten all about the voice.
Chapter 3
I woke up earlier than I expected the next morning, considering I hadn’t actually gotten to sleep until after two. Once the company had departed, Ian and Akila went back to their apartment above the garage, and Cy was tucked into bed, Jazz and I finally got to enjoy a little alone time.
I’d been looking forward to sleeping in today. But after a few minutes of lying there with my eyes closed as the pleasant drowsiness drained away inch by inch, I groaned inwardly and got out of bed, careful not to wake Jazz. She was even less of a morning person than me.
I made my way to the attached bathroom in my boxers, shuffling off the remaining coils of sleep while I took my constitutional. When I stepped to the sink to wash my hands, I frowned as I realized I was still wearing the bracelet. Why the hell hadn’t I taken it off last night? At the least, it should’ve been uncomfortable to sleep in, but I never even noticed.
That was when I glanced at the mirror and saw a face that wasn’t my own.
“Jesus!” I took a startled step back, but the reflection didn’t move with me. It was an old Native American-looking man with dark eyes, silver-gray hair, and a lined, leathery face, wearing a plain blue long-sleeved shirt. A complete stranger to me. Behind him, instead of my bathroom, was a blank wood-panel wall.
His lips moved, but no sound came out.
“Uh, hello?” I said cautiously. This guy didn’t look like a djinn — they all had the same eyes as the animal they could shift into, even while they were in human form — but the mirror thing was a djinn trick. Any reflective surface, especially mirrors, could be used to communicate. Kind of like the djinn version of Facetime.
They could also be used as a bridge to step through into the place they were reflecting. In fact, a few years ago we’d had a bunch of evil djinn invade the house through a mirror and kidnap Akila, after they tried their best to kill Ian and me.
But the old man in the mirror didn’t seem like the home-invasion type. He was just sitting there, staring at me.
“Can you hear me?” I said as I waved a hand in front of the mirror, feeling stupid and possibly insane. If Ian were here, he’d already be trying to interrogate this guy. Or attack him.
The image’s mouth moved again. I strained to make something out and caught a faint whisper that matched his lip movements, the same words I thought I’d heard in the kitchen last night.
Focus through the stone.
A knock at the bathroom door startled me. “Hey, what’s going on?” Jazz called from the other side, half-asleep but well on her way to anxious. “I heard shouting.”
“Uh, I’m not sure. Hang on a second. I’m okay,” I added quickly, so she wouldn’t get more worried. I suspected I knew what was causing this, even if I had no idea what this was or why it was happening. I grabbed the bracelet and slipped it off my wrist.
The old man vanished, leaving just my reflection in the mirror.
“Holy shit,” I said softly.
“Gavyn?” Jazz banged on the door again. “What happened? And don’t tell me it’s nothing.”
I shook myself, went to the bathroom door and opened it to Jazz’s concerned and slightly cranky morning face. “I’m fine, honest,” I said. “It’s just that I found something a little weird. Okay, a lot weird.”
“What kind of weird?” she said as she narrowed her eyes. “Because this is too early for whatever it is.”
“Uh, I think I should probably show you.”
She frowned and stepped into the bathroom when I moved back. “Just don’t tell me that you have some kind of rash you want me to look at.”
“Nothing like that,” I said. “It’s … hard to explain. Just watch the mirror.”
She gave me a dubious look, but she turned toward the mirror as I stood in front of it and put the bracelet back on. When I did, the image of the old man instantly flickered across the surface.
Jazz gasped and grabbed my arm. “Who the hell is that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, looking slowly from the mirror to the bracelet. “But I think whoever he is, this belongs to him.”
“Can he hear us?” she whispered.
“Don’t think so. I mean, he hasn’t reacted to anything yet.”
I reached toward the mirror, intending to touch the surface and see if my hand went through, but Jazz grabbed my arm and pulled it away. “Don’t,” she said. “What if it’s a trap or something?”
It didn’t feel like a trap. But a feeling was all I had to go on, and that wouldn’t be good enough for Jazz. Not that I blamed her. She’d been here with Cyrus, who was three at the time, when that bunch of Morai came through the mirror and attacked us.
Jazz’s fingers dug into my wrist when the old man’s lips moved. “What’s he saying?”
“I think it’s ‘focus through the stone’,” I said, remembering the whisper in the kitchen that I probably should’ve told her about last night. But I’d really thought I was imagining it — until now. I must’ve reflected myself in the oven door or the toaster or something and not realized it. “Any chance you know what that means?”
She shook her head slowly. “Take that thing off,” she said, her gaze rooted to the mirror. “Please.”
I removed the bracelet. Jazz relaxed when the image of the old man vanished, and I put my arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “I’d better show this to Ian,” I said. “He might be able to make sense out of it.”
“Oh, Gavyn, do you have to?” She sighed and leaned against my chest. “He’ll probably want to do something. And he’ll end up dragging you into it.”
“Yeah, he probably will. But he won’t have to drag me into anything.” I waited until she looked up at me, and then smoothed her mussed hair gently from her face. “You heard what he said about this lost clan. They’re his cousins,” I said. “How could I not tell him about this, after what happened to the Dehbei?”
“I know,” she said on a shivery breath. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Reminding her that I was basically immortal wouldn’t help right now, especially since I knew what she really meant. There were worse things than dying. “Hey, we don’t even know what this is yet,” I said as I rubbed her back. “Maybe it’s, like, an ancient party favor or something.”
She giggled. “I doubt that,” she said, lifting an expression that was almost a genuine smile. “Well, go on and show Ian. I’m sure he’s awake at this ridiculous hour.”
“Thanks. And don’t worry.” I kissed her and slipped the bracelet back on, then headed out of the bathroom. “This probably won’t take long,” I said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, and I’ll even make breakfast if you want.”
My hand was on the bedroom door knob when Jazz called out, “Hey, Houdini.”
“Yeah?” I said, glancing over my shoulder at her.
She leaned in the doorway, fighting a smile. “Maybe you should put some clothes on before you go over there.”
I let go of the door like it was on fire and cleared my throat. “Er, good idea,” I said. “I’ll do that.”
The bathroom door closed on her laughter as I shuffled toward the closet.
Chapter 4
Ian and Akila lived in the in-law apartment above our garage — well, technically Jazz’s garage, since she owned the house. They were both up and around when I went over. I showed them the old man’s reflection, and at first they couldn’t figure out much more than me.
“This is not a bridge spell,” Akila said as I stood in front of the mirror in their living room. It showed the same thing as my bathroom mirror had: the man in the blue shirt mouthing four words, over and over. “It may be some form of illusion, though I do not believe it is a Bahari spell.”
Ian walked up to the glass and pressed a hand against it, the way I’d planned to before Jazz stopped me. The mirror was still solid.
“This man is not djinn,” he said warily, but without the contempt he reserved for most humans.
“Maybe he’s a scion?” I said.
“Perhaps.” Ian turned slowly toward me and looked from the bracelet, back to the mirror. “And you are certain he is saying ‘focus through the stone’?”
“Yeah, pretty sure. I actually heard it last night.”
He glared at me. “You knew of this last night, and you did not tell me?”
“Er. I didn’t know, exactly,” I said. “I just heard something strange. It didn’t make sense until now. Well, it still doesn’t make sense.”
“You should have told me immediately!”
“Gahiji-an, do not be such an ass,” Akila said sternly. “He has done nothing wrong.”
I flashed her a grin. “Thanks, Princess.”
“You are welcome.” She drifted closer, giving Ian a minor death glare, and then touched the wolf effigy on the bracelet. “Perhaps he is referring to this stone,” she said.
“You may be right, l’rohi,” Ian said with an obvious effort to gentle his tone. “Donatti, what exactly did you hear last night, and when?”
“While I was in the kitchen. You know, turning soda into beer,” I said. “I heard a whisper that said focus through the stone, but there was nobody there. And then it stopped, so I figured I was imagining things.”
“Did you hear it before, or after you used magic?”
“After. Right after,” I said slowly, understanding what he was getting at. “You think the magic activated this thing somehow.”
He nodded and held a hand out. “May I?”
“Go for it.” I took the bracelet off and handed it to him, frowning as I recalled how worried Jazz had been about all this. “Hey, Ian. You don’t think this is some kind of trap, do you?” I said. “Or maybe … oh, shit. What if it’s a tether?”
Ian stilled with his arm outstretched. “I had not considered that possibility.”
“Yeah, me neither.” Every djinn who came to the human realm after the wars, including Ian, was bound to a tether, an object that limited their power and made them both immortal and vulnerable. Destroy a tether, and you killed the djinn attached to it. But the upside was, at least in the human realm, tether destruction was the only thing that could kill a djinn.
Ian’s tether — which was also mine, after the soul bind — was buried out in the back yard, in a safe inside of a vault that was encased in cement and surrounded by warding spells. We weren’t taking any chances.
“Even if this is a tether, it should be fine,” Ian said after a minute. “I do not intend to cast any spells involving blood.”
“Okay. As long as you’re sure it won’t explode or anything,” I said.
I knew he wasn’t sure, of course. He had no idea what would happen if he screwed around with the artifact. But I also knew he’d damn well do it anyway. I just wanted my concerns noted for the record, so it wouldn’t be my fault if everything went to hell like it usually did.
Ian closed his fingers around the carved wolf, leaving the beaded circlet poking out of his fist. He stared intently at his hand, grunting with effort, and I could feel the magic he was pouring into the stone without half trying.
“My love,” Akila said warily, “perhaps you should not direct quite so much power into—”
She cut herself off with a gasp as brilliant white rays of light exploded from Ian’s fist. He opened his hand, and the light coalesced into a thick beam that shot straight toward the mirror, filling the surface with a silent explosion of glowing white.
The glow faded, and the old man’s reflection was back. Only this time there was a little more to the image, and he was a lot more animated. He sat in an upholstered armchair next to a small folding table that held a mug and a half-rolled, light brown something that was either parchment or hide. After a few seconds, he leaned forward and squinted as if he couldn’t quite make out what was in the mirror on his side.
I stepped in front of the reflection and waved a hand. “Can you hear me now?” I said.
“I am not certain that calling his attention is a good idea,” Ian muttered, staring at the bracelet still in his hand. He winced and staggered forward a step. “This spell is quite powerful.”
Akila moved fast, putting an arm around his waist. “Are you all right, my heart?” she said with slight alarm. “Shall I heal you?”
“I am fine. Merely drained,” he said. “But be cautious, thief. This magic is strong.”
If the old man saw or heard anything on our side, he didn’t react to it. He leaned forward, frowned, and tapped on the surface of the mirror. “I hope I did that right,” he said in a clear voice with a slightly nasal, singsong accent I couldn’t place. “Haven’t used the old tongue in damn near thirty years, but do the ancestors care about that? No, of course not. It’s all ‘don’t question the ancestors, message-boy, do your duty.’” He harrumphed, settled back in the chair and cleared his throat. “Greetings … damn it, what was I supposed to say? I just read it a minute ago.”
“Hey, uh, old man,” I said, taking another step toward the mirror. “We’re right here. Can’t you see us?”
The old man ignored me completely as he fished around in the chair, produced a pair of glasses and settled them on his face. He grabbed the rolled brown thing from the side table — hide, not parchment, from the heavy way it fell open — and muttered over it for a few minutes, tracing the surface with a gnarled finger.
“Okay, here we go,” he said as he looked up. “Greetings, my friends. This message is for the Dehbei prince Gahiji-an and his scion, the … ah, hell, I don’t know what this says. Mud puppy, maybe? Well, if I followed the instructions right, then you know who you are,” he finished with a chuckle.
Ian’s jaw unhinged, and I was pretty sure my expression looked about the same. I recovered first and shook my head. “Mud puppy? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Silence, thief,” Ian said. “Pay attention.”
“Fine,” I grumbled. “But I’m not a mud puppy.”
“Anyway,” the old man went on. “My name is Nohtaikhel. They call me Nate, but it doesn’t say that in the blasted ancient texts. I bet they don’t call you Gahiji-an, either.” He cackled. “On to business. The Annukhai clan has requested your help. It says … someone called Omari-el, I think, helped them a long time ago, so they hope you will help them now.” He peered at the hide again. “This says you’ll know what it means.”
“My father,” Ian rasped as the color drained from his features.
Akila shivered. “What did Omari-el do for them?”
“I have no idea.”
“All right, let me just make a long story short,” the old man said as he peeled off his glasses and set them on the side table. “The ancestors need to recast some kind of big spell, because the storm is getting worse. They seem to think you and your mud puppy have the power to do that. So they’re asking you to come up here to Alaska and give them a hand.” He paused and folded his hands in his lap. “You’ll have to find me, and I’ll show you how to get to them. I’m in Silvak. It’s a little outpost town about fifty miles northwest of Anatukvuk Pass. Just ask for me at the Igloolik Pit Stop. If I’m not there already, somebody will bring you to me. You got all that?”
He fell silent and stared straight ahead, waiting.
“Uh, I don’t know,” I replied, even though I was pretty sure the old man couldn’t actually hear me. This wasn’t a live transmission. It was some kind of magic recording. “Do you have all that, Ian?”
He shrugged. “More or less.”
Akila rolled her eyes slightly. “I have it,” she said. “Jazz was right about males and directions. The two of you are hopeless.”
The man in the mirror shifted in his chair. “I don’t think you can see this message twice, so let me just repeat that. Silvak, Alaska, fifty miles northwest of Anatukvuk Pass. Go to the Igloolik Pit Stop and ask for Nate,” he said. “Oh, and bring the bracelet with you
. You’ll need it.”
He said something in a language just close enough to djinn to make my head hurt trying to understand it, and then he vanished, leaving only the mirror.
For a minute I stood there gaping at my own reflection. When I turned away, Ian had a determined look that I recognized — and didn’t really like that much. “So, what are we going to do?” I said.
He flashed an irritated scowl. “Obviously, we are going to Alaska.”
“I knew you were going to say that,” I sighed. “Fine. I’d better go break the news and start packing.”
Jazz was going to be less than thrilled about this.
Chapter 5
When I relayed the old guy’s message to Jazz, she was surprisingly cool about me popping off to Alaska with Ian. She even helped me pack, though she frowned over my decision to bring a few handguns, extra ammo, and my lock pick set. She thought if I went prepared for trouble, then trouble would find me.
She probably should’ve known by now that trouble always found me, whether I was prepared for it or not.
We woke up Cy for an early breakfast, and then hung out in the living room waiting for Ian. Playing the bracelet message had taken a lot out of him, and he’d wanted to get back to full strength before we left. Because of the bottleneck created by the tethers, there was a limit to the amount of djinn magic anyone with a tether could use before they burned out. It usually took a few hours to recharge.
Earth magic didn’t have the same restrictions, at least for me. I could keep drawing on it until my body couldn’t take any more.
Jazz had her laptop out, and the three of us sat on the couch looking for info on Silvak, Alaska. Specifically, I wanted to find pictures of something there with a mirror, or a window, or any reflective surface big enough to walk through. Bridge spells only worked if you could envision the other side where you wanted to come out.
But there was no Silvak, Alaska, on Google Maps, and nothing that looked like a town anywhere northwest of Anatukvuk Pass. Just a lot of mountains and snow and wilderness.
Master of Elements Page 3
