Driving back to my apartment for a shower, I review the situation again, this time isolating the biggest problem: Hassan.
After a shower, I sit down with my cell phone and my laptop and do some research. One phone call leads to two, which leads to four, which leads to a Google search and a printed set of directions to a particular address in Chicago.
I’m in detective mode; the lover, the worried protector, he’s buried for now, set aside to make way for the relentless hunter.
A buddy in the FBI emails me a file containing a few pages of basic profile information, a couple photographs, and a list of crimes Hassan al-Jabiri is thought to be connected to. It’s extensive: drug deals, murders, assault and battery, breaking and entering, rape, money laundering, kidnapping, assault on a police officer, bribery of a public official…the list goes on, and my stomach rebels against the idea of Leila ever being touched by the man these files portray.
The file is marked “Do not apprehend” in bold letters; a small-time badge from Detroit has no business going after a guy like Hassan, the warning implies. But the fact that Rob even sent the file means he knows I won’t listen, and that I might as well know what I’m getting into.
If Rob only knew.
A few more searches turn up another name: Ibrahim Najafi. There’s significantly less information on him, but what there is reveals a shrewd and cunning businessman, successful and well respected. There are suspicions of illicit dealings on the side, but nothing concrete.
I eventually close the laptop, roll up a few changes of clothes and stuff them in a backpack, then put my personal firearm at the small of my back and swing into my car.
It’s time to pay a visit to one Ibrahim Najafi.
Chapter 14: Sitting in the Ashes
Leila
After Carson leaves to hit the gym and change, I dress for a run and strap my iPod to my arm, enjoying the slight soreness in certain places on my body, smiling at the memory of how I got to be that sore. Running cools my head, gets my thoughts pushing through the fog of day-to-day life. It helps me think. Now, sex-sated and love-saturated and knowing Carson is coming back to me soon, I run with the wind, a bit careless in the way I let it blow me along, letting it fade my edges into invisibility. It’s a brilliant, sunny day and I finally feel alive, finally feel like something might be going right.
I make some decisions while I run:
I’ll go back to Chicago, talk to Father, and tell him I simply will not marry Hassan. There has to be another way. Father has to have some back door to all this mess he’s gotten himself into.
And if not…I’ll face Hassan, come what may.
I take a long, scalding-hot shower when I get back, and I daydream again, wishing Carson were in here with me. I feel insatiable, now that I’ve had a taste of him.
When I get out of the shower and dry off, though, something in my apartment feels…off. I wrap myself in my towel, suddenly sure of what I’ll find when I emerge from the bathroom.
I open the door and steam billows out past me. My skin tightens, my heart thunders in my chest, and my fists curl, the magic pooled and ready, and the winds skirling around me, tossing my loose wet hair against my cheeks.
Hassan is sitting on the edge of my bed, a pillow in his hand. He looks at me, eyes flickering fire.
“Who was here, Leila?” he demands. “Who was in your bed?”
He stands up, tosses the pillow aside. His other hand is at his side, and I see a black pistol gripped in his fist.
“Who have you been fucking, you whore?” His voice is a hiss, low and deadly.
He lifts the pistol and points it at me, and suddenly he’s in front of me, gripping my hair in one hand, the cold metal mouth pressed to my cheekbone. Fear is not rushing through me as it should be. I’m angry. Furious. Full of venom and rage. I don’t answer him, clutching the towel tightly to my chest.
I send a current of magic up from my belly and spread it between my body and his in a thin, hard skin of armor. I hesitate for a beat, watching his eyes, the orbs of flame dead and cold and lifeless despite the fire. I move between one heartbeat and the next, ripping myself from his grasp, tearing my hair from his fist and ignoring the agony as it’s ripped out at the roots. I whip my fist around, using a ball of wind to accelerate my blow, turning my hand into a hammer. His face is bashed to the side, blood spurting from his nose, a tooth cracking free and spittle flying. I try to knock the gun aside, but he’s already recovered and back-pedaling, the gun still in his hand. Fear begins to eat at me, but I deny it.
“Bitch,” he says, dabbing at his nose, prodding the gap where his tooth had been. “You’ll regret that.”
I don’t answer; he doesn’t deserve a response. I spit in his face, and when he flinches in shock I lash out with my foot, catching him in the balls. He doubles over in agony, and I feel a thrill of satisfaction. I don’t wait for him to recover, though, backing away until I bump into my bed.
He lifts a palm and shoots a spear of flame at me, wrapping around me and setting my clothes, my hair, and my skin alight. Behind me, the bed ignites. I summon the wind and drape it over me like a cloak, dousing the flames but not the pain of seared flesh. I can’t stop the shriek of rage and agony, but I accompany it with a hurled tornado like a spear, pushing him back, and then turn it into a vortex, sucking in the lamp and my keys and books and my laptop, all bashing at him, smacking him, smashing into him. He curses and flails, howls his frustration, then shakes himself and clenches his fists. Flames ignite on his body, eating his form until he is a man carved out of fire, and he stalks through the winds and debris toward me, his pistol dropped to the ground, forgotten. I back up, wanting space between me and those hungry flames.
I push the winds at him, a steady gale that impedes his progress but only builds the fire of his form higher. He darts aside, out of the current of wind and rushes me, bashes into me and sends me flying. I crash headfirst into the wall, seeing stars, dizzy and limp. I struggle to my feet, but he’s there in front of me, a man again, smirking, pistol in his fist, muzzle a cold ‘O’ on my forehead.
I wonder, almost idly, if he’s going to kill me. I’d like to think he won’t, because I know he wants me, wants my body, wants control of my clan, which he can’t have if I’m dead. I stare into his eyes, and I can see him thinking all this too, and eventually his desire overcomes his raging jealousy, and he lowers the gun, not all the way but enough for me to know he’s calmed down slightly.
That’s all I need.
I summon all my rage, all my magic, and all my wind into a single coiled serpent and strike him with it, snake-fast. He is hurled through the window in an explosion of plaster and wood and glass. He lands on his back, rolls several times and comes to a stop. I can tell he’s hurt and shocked, but not injured. He gets to his feet, brushes himself off, and approaches the gaping hole where the window used to be. He doesn’t say anything, but his anger is still simmering.
He turns and leaves, pulling a cell phone from a pocket, cursing at what must be a cracked screen. He taps the screen a few times and puts the phone to his ear. He balls a fist, crouches, and then lunges forward, stabbing his free hand like spear. His hand vanishes up to the forearm, and a blue glow appears where his hand seems to be thrust into midair. He twists his wrist, grasps some invisible edge and jerks sideways, wrenching apart the fabric of reality to reveal the posh trappings of a downtown Chicago loft apartment overlooking Lake Michigan. The vision lasts for a moment, then Hassan steps through the gap, talking on the phone, and then everything closes up behind him.
There are a pair of men standing in the parking lot about fifty feet away, gap-jawed. That’s why the djinn are on edge and about to start a war, because Hassan pulls stunts like that in front of witnesses. Reckless, impetuous, selfish fool.
I turn away from the gaping jagged hole where my window used to be, assessing the damage to my apartment. It’s extensive. The walls are burnt and studded with wind-tossed debris and charred by flames,
the carpet is burnt to a crisp, the door to my bathroom is torn from its hinges and lies half in the tub. Somehow, though, the bed is what sends me into hysterics. It’s totally torched. Just…gone. My bed is my refuge, it always has been. It’s one of things that I did as a girl, a teenager, and now as an adult: when I’m upset I throw myself onto my bed, and I’ll scream into the pillow, or cry into it, or just lie there and let my emotions run through me until I’m exhausted.
I’m beyond upset, now. I’ve had so many conflicting emotions blazing through me in the last twenty-four hours, from hopelessness and anger to…god…such pleasure and love, to this moment with the pain and terror and anger. Now I can’t even lie in bed and think about it and work through it because my bed is a pile of ashes.
For the second time in two days I collapse into a ball and sob.
And then, of course, my phone rings. I can’t find it for the longest time and it stops ringing only to start up again, and I finally find it buried in the soot and ashes of my bed. I fish it out of the char and blow it off. I’m covered in soot now, blackened from head to toe, bleeding, emotionally limp, but when I glance at the screen and see that it’s my Aunt Talia, I know I can’t ignore the call. I haven’t spoken to my aunt in a long time, not since moving here. She’s holding the party line on this subject, so if she’s calling me I know it’s important.
Her voice is shaking, tremulous and low. “Leila? It’s your father…he’s…you have to come home, quick. Please.” She hangs up before I can answer, and I toss the phone aside, my mind running through all the possible horrors that could have befallen my father.
I’m an imaginative girl, and my brain comes up with some grisly things, most of them involving Hassan in some way.
I jerk my keys free from the wall where they’re embedded, snag my purse off the floor near the front door, and run to my car. I don’t pack a bag, don’t leave a note, I just aim my car for I-94 and head for Chicago as fast I can. I’m two hours out of Detroit when I realize my phone isn’t in my purse, it’s still in my bedroom somewhere.
Carson will be back at my apartment at some point, and he’ll find the ruin left in the wake of my fight with Hassan…the blood on the carpet, mine and his, and the burnt bed, the broken window. He’ll assume the worst, and he’ll call and text, and I don’t even know what I could say to him, what he could do to help me.
But my father…I can’t just turn around now, not halfway to Chicago. I don’t know what I should do, so I just keep driving.
Chapter 15: The Old Ways
Carson
I decide to surprise Leila before heading down to Chicago, but I have no idea what kind of flowers she likes, which only serves to reinforce the fact that we’ve only known each other a short time. I honestly can’t remember how long exactly it’s been, because now, when I try to remember my life without her, I just….can’t. But I am painfully aware that there are a million little things I don’t know about her. For some reason roses don’t seem right, which is odd since all women like roses, don’t they? That’s what I’d always thought, but for some nebulous, unidentifiable reason, I just don’t think the standard dozen red roses are the right choice for this girl, for this situation.
I stand in front of the glass walk-in refrigerator at the florist, staring at the overwhelming assortment of flowers and arrangements. There are so many, all so different. There are roses, daisies, lilies—isn’t that what those big white ones are?—and then there’re the arrangements of flowers whose names I’ll never know all placed in vases of all sizes and shapes, ranging in cost from fifteen bucks to several hundred.
I sigh and glance around the empty shop, wincing at the awful smooth jazz emanating from the ceiling. There’s not one “may I help you” person in sight, and I’ve been standing here for at least ten minutes trying to make a decision, but nothing seems to stand out.
Finally, an older woman with short gray hair comes out of a back room, wrapping a bunch of flowers in crinkly cellophane, unaware of me until I clear my throat.
She jumps, putting a hand to her ample chest. “Oh, goodness, sweetheart, you scared the liver out of me. I’m sorry; I must not have heard you come in. May I help you?”
“Yeah, I’m looking for flowers for my…girlfriend…” I’m not entirely sure if that’s the right word for Leila.
“Well, roses are always a good choice,” the woman says, pointing at a glass vase with a dozen crimson roses.
I shake my head. “Nah, that’s not quite what I’m looking for. I don’t know what I am looking for, I just know roses aren’t it.”
She comes around the counter and stands next to me, smelling of old coffee and roses. “Well, what kind of flowers does she like?”
I grin sheepishly. “I don’t know, to be honest. I haven’t been dating her that long, and we’ve never talked about her favorite kind of flowers.”
The woman nods sagely. “Well, that’s not the kind of thing that just ‘comes up’, you know. You have to actually ask her at some point. But, anyway. How about a nice arrangement? These would look pretty in any woman’s home.” She gestures at the most expensive arrangement in the display case.
“No, those aren’t right either.” I shake my head and shrug. “I’m just going in circles. I don’t know why this is so hard.”
“Well, what’s the occasion?”
The woman starts every sentence with “well,” I’m noticing, and it’s driving me crazy. “No special occasion. Just because.”
“Oh, well…some nice Gerbera daisies are always good for ‘just because’ occasions.”
I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep back a snarky comment if she says “well” one more time. “That’s those big red, yellow, and orange ones in the front, right? Those are fine. Six, please.”
By the time she wraps them, charges me, and sends me out the door, the woman has said ‘well’ at least four more times.
The flowers are nice though.
I find myself wondering what Leila’s doing. I texted her to say that I’m on the way, but I haven’t gotten a response. We haven’t done a lot of text message communication yet, so I’m not sure if she’s the kind of person to respond right away or an hour later.
I set the flowers on the passenger seat, hoping the motion of the car won’t send them to the floor and crush them. God, this whole buying-flowers thing is stressful. No wonder I’ve never bothered before.
I’m a mile or two away from Leila’s apartment when I start feeling uneasy. It’s a slight thing, at first, just a fluttering in my gut, and a tingling of my instincts. But as I draw closer, the fluttering turns to a churning, and by the time I’m pulling into her parking lot and see the flashing lights and milling crowd of firemen and patrolmen, I know I’ll find them coming in and out of Leila’s apartment.
I step under the caution tape, flashing my badge. I’m not on duty, but these guys don’t know that. Sure enough, the crowd is centered around Leila’s apartment. There’s a hole in her wall, as if something or someone crashed through it, and the interior is completely demolished, the various responders looking thoroughly perplexed. It looked like there was a tornado inside the apartment, but that obviously made no sense. There was also fire damage, the bed had been reduced to ashes, there were scorch marks on the walls and the carpeting…something odd and violent happened here, but no one could make sense of exactly what.
I have a pretty good idea of what happened, but I’m keeping my thoughts to myself—they wouldn’t believe me anyway.
I stand in Leila’s bedroom, trying to contain my fear and rage. Her car is gone, so I’ve got a feeling she left on her own. I’m about to leave too when I happen to glance at the floor: Leila’s cell phone is barely visible, hidden under a layer of ash and bricks, looking as if it has been kicked there by careless boots rather than buried when the wall had fallen. I kneel down and grab it while pretending to retie my shoe. It’s an old and tired ruse, but it works. Under normal circumstances I’d never remove evidence from a cr
ime scene, or potential crime scene, but these guys will get nowhere fast digging through the rubble, and I need to know where she went, when, and why.
I leave the apartment and get back into my car, sliding the unlock tab on Leila’s white iPhone, browsing through it and hoping for a clue as to where she might have gone. I see my own message to her—unread—and several old threatening messages from Hassan, which make my blood boil. I scroll back through the messages from Hassan: two weeks, Leila; Don’t forget, ten days, Leila. Ten days and you’re mine; I hope you’re ready, the wedding is less than a week away…
As I get to the more recent messages I see there’s at least one text from Hassan every day, some containing veiled threats and reminders as to what will happen to Leila’s family if she refuses to cooperate.
I hit the green phone icon, and see a phone call under the ‘recents’ tab: Talia; incoming calls; 10:40am; 45 seconds. Who is Talia? There’s no indication on the phone itself, and the phone call wasn’t long enough to have been a real conversation. But bad news could easily be delivered in forty-five seconds….
A knock on my window startles me into almost dropping the phone. I look up to see a tall, beautiful woman with thick black hair and dark eyes standing at the passenger window.
I turn the key enough to engage the battery so I can roll down the window. “Can I help you?”
“Are you Carson?” The woman’s voice is musical and accented. She seems familiar, somehow, her face jarring my memory.
“Yeah…do I know you?” I tilt my head and stare at her, trying to remember.
I’ve definitely seen her before; a memory flashes through my head: this same woman, but with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a skimpy cocktail waitress uniform…
“Yeah, you interviewed me about Miriam. I work at the MGM,” she says.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right.” I wrack my mind for her name. “You’re…Nadia, right?”
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