by Aiden Bates
“Few hours,” I said.
“And Amy? Is she cooperating?”
“She is,” I reported. “Uh… she got an eyeful. But she was really helpful. Put the fire out.”
“What was her reaction?” he asked. “Will she be demanding more money, or will she be paying us for the show?”
I shook my head, smiling. “You’re full of them today. Tell Nix I’ll check in when we meet Amy’s contact in Loup City. Find anything about the book?”
“Nothing,” Mikhail breathed. “You will be the third person to know, however; after myself and Nix.”
Mikhail was a mixed bag. Deadpan one moment, weirdly literal the next. “Okay. Love you guys. Talk later.”
“Be careful, please,” Mikhail said.
We hung up, and I hung by the car checking our route while Daniel and Amy wrapped up this stage of their conversation. When they came back to the car, Daniel seemed to be in a better mood. The three of us had made a conscious but unspoken decision to pretend that what Amy had seen simply didn’t happen. It was easier that way, and we still had something of a drive to finish.
Once we were in the car and on the way, Daniel cracked a soda, chugged it, and opened another without discrimination. Maybe he didn’t have a favorite, or maybe it didn’t matter. I made a mental note to find out, though, at some point.
As I pulled back onto the highway I felt warmth on my leg, and looked down to see that while he propped his chin on his hand and looked out the window, his other hand rested lightly on my thigh.
My chest warmed, and I let my hand fall casually onto his, half expecting him to pull away.
Instead, his fingers curled around mine, and squeezed.
“Up there,” Amy said, pointing through the windshield four and a half hours later. “The brick house with the scrub-brush looking bushes out front. That’s Laleh’s place.”
I rolled down the street of the pretty nice neighborhood toward the driveway. It was a reasonable hour to drop in on someone this time, at least.
“You really think she can help me?” Daniel asked, glancing back at Amy where she leaned forward between the two front seats.
Amy cleared her throat. “Well… yes, I do. But, now that we’re here, I should probably break the news.”
My heart sank. “Fuck. Of course. What?”
She sat back and watched me in the rearview mirror, one eyebrow quirking up. “Well, you’ve got a djinn problem. So, the best answer is to find someone who knows a whole lot about that kind of problem, right?”
“Okay,” Daniel muttered. “So that means…?”
“Laleh is an old friend of mine,” Amy said. “We go way back, I’ve known her for decades. She knows a lot about this kind of thing. Because she’s a djinn herself. Marid, not Shaitan—very different family, very different beliefs and morals—”
I slammed the brakes. Amy lurched forward but caught herself, and I thrust a hand out to keep Daniel from falling forward even though he had a seatbelt on. I glared at Amy in the mirror. “You took us to a djinn? What the hell, Amy? No djinn helps anyone for free, and it’s never money they want!”
She put her hands up. “I know. Which is why my rate for your boss, or leader, or whoever, was so high. You won’t have to trade a favor. She already owes me one. I do take cash for help and I can’t spend a favor on bills. Like I said, she’s Marid.”
I groaned, and looked to Daniel. It was his future, his fate on the line. “It’s your call, ba—uh, Daniel.”
The corner of his lip barely tugged at my near slip. I still wasn’t sure where exactly we stood. I knew where I stood, but especially with Amy riding around with us, we just hadn’t talked about it. But he grew serious as he considered it. At length, he raked his fingers through his hair and swept it behind his ears. “If she can help, maybe it doesn’t matter what she asks in return,” he said. “Maybe she’ll do the favor for Amy, maybe she’ll ask something in return. It’s not like I have a lot to trade, but as long as it isn’t my life or something, it’s an upgrade, right?”
I didn’t know as much about djinn as I would have liked to going into this, but there were a few things that everyone knew. They didn’t grant wishes, for a start, though that was still commonly believed. They did, however, exchange favors. Sometimes you knew the price going in, sometimes you didn’t, and either way it was normally steep.
Or, all of that was just stereotypes. After all, half the world was certain that dragons hoarded gold under their weyrs. “Maybe,” I admitted. “Maybe you’ll be in deeper. Really think about it.”
Daniel nodded. “I did. I have—not very long, obviously, but… I don’t feel like I have a lot of choices. And not a lot of prospects if I don’t make a choice.”
I leaned my head against the headrest and tried to calm myself. It was hard not to feel like Amy had tricked us into coming up here, and a paranoid part of me did wonder if the favor she was trading was one she owed, rather than one she was owed.
But she’d made her point clear. She was a mercenary, basically. Cash talked, and Nix was paying her a great deal of it. “You fuck us,” I warned her, “and you know what I’m likely to do. Right?”
Her cool expression didn’t waver as she met my eyes in the mirror. “It’s just not practical for me to fuck you. Trust me or don’t, trust Laleh or don’t, but at least give me the credit of lasting this long on my own by being pragmatic.”
“Let’s meet her,” Daniel urged. “It’s the least we can do, we came this far.”
Fair enough. I grumbled quietly to myself about never having the full picture lately as I pulled forward, and turned into Laleh’s driveway.
We got out in a quiet, somber fashion and approached the door of a quaint little brick bungalow that did not look at all like the lavish kind of palace that all djinn supposedly preferred. There were herbs growing in the gardens along the edge of the house, shaded and guarded by bushes that looked like they belonged in a desert. It gave the whole place a warm kind of scent, as if there was something cooking nearby.
I took the lead, and knocked on the door with Daniel behind Amy and me. One of those medallions hung from the top of the door, made of brass—a hand with what looked like two thumbs and an eye in the middle. Warding off evil, if I recalled. Seemed like an odd thing to hang on the door of a djinn’s house.
Not that djinn were any more inherently evil than anyone else. I wasn’t entirely ignorant. But beings like them, who were infused with magic in a way no other living beings were, shifter or not, just unsettled most people, myself included. Mages trained in magic. Fae cultivated it. Some shifters, like the dreamspeakers of wolf packs or the spiritwalkers among the bears, and others, were born with some particular talent that they dedicated their lives to either mastering or dealing with. Even dragons supposedly had an ancient tradition of magic that was either long lost or only practiced in secret by a handful of those who remembered the way.
Djinn just were magic, though. That gave them power.
And while they weren’t any more inherently monstrous than the rest of us, they weren’t inherently kinder than the rest of us, either.
The door opened, and a tall woman with a cascade of straight black hair that fell to her waist like a waterfall of blue-tinged sable took a step back from the door to examine first me, then Amy, and then Daniel. Her lips, painted a bright shade of red, widened just slightly into a pleasant smile. “I trust the drive up was… eventful? I expected you hours ago.”
“Had a pit stop,” Amy said. “Hello, Laleh.”
“Hello, Amelia,” Laleh said, with a lot more affection than I expected. “You’re looking as beautiful as ever. I’m glad you came. Come in, all of you. I suspect you have a great deal of story to tell, carrying around something as old and dangerous as that.”
Daniel swallowed and when I glanced back at him, his hand lay protectively on his bag. “Uh…?”
Laleh stepped back to let us in. “You have questions. I have at least a few answers. Come. I’v
e made tea.”
Well. At least there was tea.
14
Daniel
“So,” Laleh said lightly when she brought tea to the frankly stunning sitting room at the back of her house, “let us start with your entanglement with one of my Shaitan cousins. How did you come to be the target of one of them?”
I held the warm little cup with both hands, which had gone clammy the moment she seemed to realize what I carried with me. That she didn’t want to know about that first seemed deceptively relieving. “I got involved with this group,” I said softly. “The leader, Ivan Baranov, had this policy about commitment. When I finally decided to work with him, and the rest of them, in the hope that maybe one day I’d be able to fix my magic, I, ah… I agreed to let him take a sliver of my soul. He said it was so that we would all be connected, always. That if something happened to one of us, he’d be able to find us and bring us back. Then he died. Which we didn’t think was that big a deal, but then he didn’t return and… for a while we just carried on without him. We believed it was just a matter of time.”
Laleh gave a soft, thoughtful sound, her keen eyes impassive as she pursed her lips. “So, this bit of soul was given to the djinn who pursues you. You betrayed your… congregation?”
“More like a cult,” I said. “But, yeah. I mean I didn’t intend to. There was an accident. My magic—I glitched, and some of them died. The ones that were supposed to be watching over me, making sure that I completed my work for Ivan. I… panicked. And by then, I didn’t feel right about being there. So I ran. And I’ve been running ever since. The first time the djinn came for me was three years ago.”
She lifted one of those perfect dark eyebrows slowly. “Three years. Shaitan are relentless, and clever, and very powerful. How did you evade this one for so long?”
I cleared my throat and let one of my hands drift to my bag and the book. “I picked up a few tricks. Learned. Did what I could, and kept moving.”
“Remarkable,” she breathed. And then she got around to the matter that I somehow knew she was far more interested in. “You can read the book, then?”
I shrugged. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“The book isn’t the thing we’re here about,” Rez pointed out, his tone only barely managing to be polite even if his words really weren’t.
Laleh didn’t seem to notice. “On the contrary,” she mused. “It is not Daniel that this djinn truly seeks. It is the book, most assuredly. He simply possesses it. I believe that the book is precisely what you are here about, my friend. Even if my arts could break the connection that my cousin possesses, they will not simply stop pursuing the book. It is of immeasurable value. No one with any awareness of that value would ever stop seeking it.”
“You know what it is?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Rez interjected. “We need to know if you can do something about the djinn or not. And if you can, then you need to do that so that we have at least a chance of getting Daniel somewhere safe.”
“Rez,” I muttered. “I do need answers, too.”
His jaw clenched. “And what keeps her from coming after it next?”
Laleh cleared her throat delicately and set her cup down, folding her hands in her lap. Her nails were beautifully decorated, like the rest of her and this place. From the outside, it looked plain enough—definitely cute, but not lavish. Inside, everything was crimson, gold, and indigo, highlighted with an array of brass and copper artifacts and decorations. She regarded Rez with cool patience. “I do not wish to entangle myself with such a thing,” she said calmly, despite Rez’s rudeness. “If my knowledge is accurate—and, it normally is—then Daniel is the current reader of the book. It would have no use for me, even if it were to open itself to my interest. It is a fickle thing, which chooses wisely who it will reveal its secrets to. It seems that it has chosen Daniel. Therefore, even should I desire such, it would be of little use to me except as a rather inconvenient paper weight that would attract far more trouble than I care to manage.”
“What is it?” I asked. “Do you know?”
Laleh looked away briefly, considering. “If you were offered a choice between saving yourself from my cousin, and learning the truth of this artifact, which would you choose?”
Rez growled. “That is not the deal.”
She ignored him, her dark eyes focused on me, that eyebrow quirked.
My palms were damp already, and under her gaze, my heart sped up a little. I had a feeling she would know if I lied. The book tugged at me, or maybe it was my imagination. I glanced at Rez, and hated that he would hear what I would choose, if she was really offering. “I… I would want to know.”
Rez looked like I betrayed him. He shook his head, stood. “I have to—where’s your restroom?”
Laleh gave him a long, serene look before she gestured dismissively to the back of the room. “Down the hallway, on the right. Second door.”
Rez gave me a last, pained look before he stalked off.
Amy spread her hands. “Well. This is fun.”
I licked my lips. “I know that I have a pressing issue. But I’ve been reading this book for ten years, and I just… after all that time, I want to know what I’m reading. And why. Why did it choose me? Do you know?”
Laleh shook her head, a sympathetic smile on her red lips. “I wish that I had all of the answers. Sadly, I have only a few. I will not ask that you choose. While it is not my way to give anything for free, you answered honestly; and it is possible that there is some benefit to us all if you are more aware of what you are dealing with.”
That didn’t exactly ease my worry. “So… you can tell me what it is?”
She gave a long sigh that I thought was possibly to steady her own nerves. “Let us first deal with your lesser problem. Should the solution be ineffective, it would be better for all if you remained ignorant of the book’s purpose and origin.”
That didn’t ease any worries, either. “All right. So, what do we do about that? About the djinn?”
Laleh turned her eyes on Amy. “The price of my assistance is the favor that you have long held over me. Is the barter agreed? This is the favor that you wish me to pay?”
“Depends,” Amy said softly. “Once we’re square, will you reconsider my offer?”
Offer? I watched the two of them, and saw something flicker across both of their faces. Laleh’s eyes narrowed somewhat, but the corners of her lips twitched in the slight smile that she seemed to have mastered as a tool of mystery. It made me think she knew something secret that no one else could have guessed. Probably, she did. “Perhaps. But I will not make you a promise, Amelia.”
Amy seemed stung by that. What offer had she made? Whatever it was, she seemed willing to risk it. “Well, I’ll take a ‘maybe’ over a ‘no’. If you can help him, then yeah—this is the favor.”
Laleh inclined her head, then turned to me. “Then perhaps it is ideal that you have some idea what to expect.”
Rez stared at me. “Absolutely not. There’s another way, she’s trying to take advantage of you. She’ll be after the book, and she wants to make sure that she can find you just like the other one can.”
I understood his worries. I had shared them until Laleh explained the procedure and the magic to me. “She’s not,” I promised. “She’ll prepare a… like a talisman, and I’ll keep it on me. Rez, if I don’t at least try this, I don’t have other options. What am I supposed to do? Run forever?”
He paced the back deck of Laleh’s house, which was set with all manner of herbs, flowers, and hanging vines that made it look exotic, like we had stepped out of Nebraska and into some tropical paradise. I didn’t sense any magic, but then that wasn’t really my strong suit. But I didn’t see how it could be so beautiful without at least a little intervention. Rez didn’t even seem to notice. “We can set a trap,” he said. “We’ll lure it out in the open, level the playing field a little. I hurt it before, which means I can kill it, I just nee
d the opportunity. If I could get it into the sky, I could chase it down and make sure it dies.”
“Or,” I said with waning patience, “you’d get up there and it would pull some new trick, and then you’d be dead and I’d be alone and…”
I had to swallow the rest of it.
Rez froze for a second, maybe surprised at my admission, even if I hadn’t said it directly. For a long moment we just watched one another.
“If you can take a piece of someone’s soul,” he said, “then to me that says that a soul is a finite thing. There’s only so much of it to go around. What happens if you whittle off a piece at a time, until there’s nothing left?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” I admitted. I didn’t seem like we were going to have The Conversation. Which was fine by me. “Why not ask your necromancer friend? He might know. All I know, though, is that whatever the answer to it is, I have to do this.”
“Do you trust Laleh?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Rez, I don’t trust anyone. Almost. I didn’t before, anyway.”
“That’s changed?” he wondered hopefully. “Do you trust me?”
I sighed. Never mind. Conversation it was.
With reluctance, I went to one of the few empty spots on the railing of the deck and leaned against it. I shifted my bag and the book around to my front and folded my arms, considering him. “If I say yes,” I said softly, “it only means that I trust you. Not anything else.”
“All right,” he said, coming closer. “But I… I said some things, before.”
I nodded. “Yeah. You did.”
He reached for my hand, and I unfolded my arms to put one of my hands in his. He held it, his thumb playing over mine. “If I said that I meant them, would that… how would you feel?”
