Fire Rose

by Jenny Schwartz

  Fire Rose

  Jenny Schwartz

  Double the romance as two couples tangled in a sorcerer’s magic race to save innocent souls from eternal slavery.

  In the mountains of Iran, a Persian dragon seduces a recently freed djinni, only to lose his heart; while an American ex-soldier is recruited by the woman he doesn’t dare love to rescue people forced into slavery.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Note From The Author

  Chapter One

  The old man pushed the ugly glass bottle into Ty’s hands.

  “Alright. Okay. Fine.” Ty gave up. He accepted the bottle. “Thank you.”

  The surrounding villagers beamed. The old man added a few more words of thanks, advice, weather commentary—who knew? Ty had a tin ear for languages. Usually pantomime was sufficient to meet his few needs. Up in the Iranian mountains, life was beautifully uncomplicated.

  Until now.

  One of the bodies on the ground groaned. A village matron hiked up her skirts and delivered a warning kick.

  Ty grinned. He suspected the two bandits would receive the justice they deserved. Rough justice. They had intended to rob the mountain village. Now the village was the richer by two rifles, a pistol, three knives, a small amount of money and a rusting car.

  A half-grown shepherd dog yipped in excitement and dashed at the other fallen bandit’s boot. When no one told it off, the pup growled and worried the boot. A young woman belatedly called it to heel. It went and sat beside her, panting happily.

  What sort of scum attacked a village of old men, women and children?

  When he’d heard a woman’s terrified scream, Ty couldn’t pass by. He’d shed his backpack and slipped closer, using the cover of pistachio trees and outbuildings, avoiding the goat tracks.

  Ten years in the army left their mark. He ghosted in, assessed the situation and took out the two bandits with a solid tree branch. Timing and the element of surprise were everything. His knife stayed in its ankle sheath.

  The problem now was avoiding the villagers’ overwhelming gratitude. Bread, cheese and a bag of dried apricots he could accept. The ugly glass bottle was a burden for a man hiking and determined to travel light.

  Still, he understood the nature of pride and a man’s need to pay his debts. For whatever reason, the village chief felt the bottle an appropriate reward for Ty’s actions.

  “Thanks.” Ty pulled his spare shirt from the backpack and wrapped it around the bottle.

  The old man nodded his approval. He shook Ty’s hand a final time and then Ty was finally free to depart. A few children followed him till the goat track turned uphill. Then they dashed back.

  He grinned. He might be a hero, but the excitement was with the punishment due to the two bandits. Children were bloodthirsty creatures.

  He whistled an old and obscene marching song. The bandit attack, abortive though it was, had stirred memories. Adrenaline, too. He pushed the pace. The extra weight of the glass bottle went unnoticed.

  The land had jagged edges. On the lower slopes pistachio and almond trees predominated, softening the starkness of the mountains. Cultivated fields surrounded the occasional small village. But as the trees gave way to low, tangled scrub and wind-scoured alpine plants, the question was how anything other than goats survived?

  But as Ty knew, where there was water, there was life.

  Water was the reason he was here. After a month trekking the mountains he could discern distant signs of streams and the ancient man-made canals called qanats. He recorded them, their source, their path, and his judgement on their volume. He knew how lucky he was, an American with permission to hike through Iran. He had his employment with the United Nations to thank for the permission. Even then, it had been grudgingly given.

  The goat trail he was following faded. It was one of the mysteries of life. What did the goats do? Climb this far and then decide, “my mistake”, turn around and go home?

  Ty slung his pack and stood, drinking from his water bottle and assessing the situation. He regretted the shade of the trees left behind. The higher you climbed, the less that could survive the harsh winter winds and the rockfalls that came when the snow melted.

  He kicked at a stone. It rattled down the slope, dislodging five more before stopping, trapped by a low-growing conifer. It was treacherous ground. Leaving the goat trails increased the risk of a fall and a broken ankle.

  His eyes narrowed against the glare of the late afternoon sun. There ought to be…yes. He recapped the water bottle. Familiarity with the landscape meant he recognized the lighter line of another trail.

  Overhead, a kestrel hovered. It had spotted prey.

  Ty waited, watching the bird’s hunting dive. Predators up here had to make the most of their chances. It made them efficient and ruthless, severely beautiful. A moment later the kestrel returned to the sky with a tiny creature in its talons. Dinner.

  Ty resettled his pack and hiked across to the new path. To his satisfaction, it was wider and clearer than the one that had petered out. With luck that meant humans as well as goats used it and there would be a shelter somewhere along it. His tented sleeping bag meant he could sleep out, but a rocky overhang would cut the night wind.

  His thighs took the strain of the final climb. His world narrowed to the path in front of him. Only when he reached the summit did he stop and lift his eyes from the trail.

  Damn but it was a great view. There was something about mountains that challenged and centered a man. The world fell away, leaving the stark reality of survival.

  The trail wound over the top of the mountain and twisted sharply.

  There was the rock overhang he’d hoped for. He strode down to it, digging his heels into the rocky ground. He set his pack down beside a charcoal-stained fire pit and untied the bundle of wood he’d collected on the lower slopes.

  Already the cold wind and lengthening shadows indicated the coming night.

  He stretched and rotated his shoulders. Having topped up his water bottles at the village well, he had water enough for the night and morning, but his ears caught the familiar murmur of a mountain stream. Time enough to find and record it in the morning.

  The wind dropped and in the momentary stillness he smelled the fresh herbal scent of the plant crushed beneath his boots. He shifted to bare ground instinctively. The scent of thyme brought memories of his grandmother’s garden. Odd how the mind insisted on making connections even in strange environments.

  His grandmother had never travelled further than a hundred miles from home, but she’d raised two sons and a daughter, eight grandchildren and earned the respect of her neighbors. He wondered if his cousins had the same sense of security in knowing Gran was there in her small house, following the pattern of years. She’d be preparing the vegetable garden for sowing, and gossiping with her next door neighbor, Miss Ella.

  Ordinary life. Would it be worth the price, the renunciation of the freedom of the wilderness around him, to be able to fit into ordinary life?

  Ridiculous. He’d walked away from that life years ago. Joined the army. Got an education. Experienced things he couldn’t bring back to his Gran’s quiet garden.

  “Be satisfied you’ve worked out your own kind of peace.” He set up camp, moving briskly. The fire caught, the orange flames licking and crackling over the mix of pine and pistachio branches. He snapped a large branch in three and fed it to the flames, before unpacking his bag.

  The freeze-dried rations stayed at the bottom of the pack. They were his
emergency supplies. He had an onion, a couple of carrots, salt and spices, plus the remainder of a haunch of goat he’d bought at a village yesterday. He whistled as he cut off pieces of meat, dropping them into a pot, before adding the bone and other ingredients. He poured in a quarter of the contents of his second water bottle and set the pot at the edge of the fire. Rough and ready cooking.

  He toasted the remaining bread and cheese from the village, burning his fingers on the melting cheese.

  The stew simmered.

  He leaned back against his pack, one knee hooked up. Beyond the fire, the night was dark. There was no moon, only the brilliance of stars in a sky free of city lights and pollution. The wind and fire were soothing background noises. The soft dislodgement of a stone brought his head around. But the small shadow was only a fleeing nocturnal animal, probably a fox by its movement.

  He hooked the stew pot towards him, ate and sighed with the satisfaction of a full stomach and an empty landscape. Not a soul in sight.

  Dinner done, dishes dealt with, he cradled a tin mug of tea in one hand and fished out the glass bottle from his pack with the other.

  It fit snugly in his hand, surprisingly heavy for its size. It was ancient glass, too. Somehow, holding it, you could feel the age. How had it arrived in such a remote village and survived?

  He turned it carefully, watching the fire call out other colors. Greens and blues and deep wine reds. It was as mesmerizing as looking into the heart of the flames. Patterns and dreams. The glass bottle warmed in his hand.

  Iran was a land of ancient civilizations. As a result, antiquities popped up in strange places. But awareness of the bottle’s age meant he couldn’t in conscience go with his first plan and simply set it aside at a pride-saving distance from the village. There were too many goats and other inquisitive animals that might break it.

  “Damn.” Despite himself, he’d acquired a souvenir.

  He put down his mug of tea. If he was going to carry the bottle, he wanted to know what if anything was inside. Contraband alcohol would be appreciated. He grinned. But he didn’t want to explain it to police or guards.

  The stopper was smooth, rounded glass. He gripped the bottle firmly and pulled.

  There was a faint pop then the sweet rose scent of Turkish delight. Smoke issued from the bottle.

  Ty dropped it, reaching for his knife even as he scrambled to put his back to the safety of the rock overhang. If this was a trick—

  The smoke from the bottle solidified. A turquoise tasseled cushion bobbed beside the bottle, a couple of feet off the ground. A woman sat cross-legged on the cushion, a book balanced on her knee and a pencil tucked behind her ear. Her dark hair was caught up in a messy knot and she wore a filmy robe completely inappropriate for the cold night. She also seemed to bring with her, her own light source.

  Ty could see her frown clearly.

  “My mistake,” she said. “I thought you’d discard the bottle.”

  She stood. The cushion and book disappeared. Her clothes altered in a blink from summer robe to jeans and a thick sweater. She even added boots.

  He put his hand to his forehead, thinking of fever. His skin was cool. The knife in his other hand was reassuringly familiar; not the same knife he’d had in the army, but the same type. Well-balanced. Real.

  “If I’d thought you’d keep my bottle, I’d have prepared for this encounter. On the other hand, I have all night to convince you of the truth of what you see.” The woman sat down by the fire and the light she’d brought with her gradually faded. She gave a hum of pleasure. “I haven’t sat by a campfire in years.”

  If she was real—but she couldn’t be!—she seemed genuinely unafraid of him, his size and his knife.

  She picked up three pinecones, pinecones that had no place on the bare mountaintop, and added them to the fire. She tilted her head, watching the sparks shoot up. The firelight showed a young, heart-breakingly beautiful face.

  “Heavenly stars.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Laila. Would you like a coffee, Ty?”

  His survival instincts kicked that she knew his name. But what could she do to him? A hallucination couldn’t hurt him. And she had to be an hallucination. English-speaking young women didn’t appear from nowhere in the Iranian mountains. Besides, he would have heard her approach.

  His hallucination didn’t wait for an answer, but held out her hand and as the gesture extended, a cup appeared. It smelled of coffee and cardamom.

  A full sensory hallucination?

  Tempted, intrigued and challenged, Ty accepted the cup. The porcelain burnt his fingers, shockingly real, completely incongruous on the mountaintop. Proof that he wasn’t hallucinating?

  Laila sipped her coffee and gazed into the fire. “I am a djinni, Tyrone Elliott.”

  “I don’t believe you.” He sipped the coffee. It tasted real. “I don’t believe any of this.”

  The ancient glass bottle had rolled into the shadows. He stooped and picked it up, unbroken.

  “May I?” Laila stretched out her hand.

  Ty relinquished the bottle, a small part of his brain waiting to hear it smash to the ground. A hallucination couldn’t hold a bottle.

  Laila smiled at the bottle, watching the flames play over the glass. “To think I live in here. The world is an amazing place.”

  Panic was an unfamiliar emotion. Ty stamped on it and replaced it with anger. “Have you drugged me? Did the villagers? Is this some sort of trick?” He glanced around, but the empty landscape mocked his fears of attack and theft.

  “You insult those good people. They were truly grateful for your assistance. As am I on their behalf. It was kind of you to take up a fight not your own.”

  “This has to be a trick. You can’t be here.” Anger faded. “Maybe I am sick?”

  “You’re not listening to me,” Laila said sharply. “Sit down. The terms of my curse mean I don’t have to convince you that I exist. I could keep your three wishes from you. But you were kind to my villagers and for that, for once, I have a master who deserves good fortune. So believe me, Ty. I am a djinni. I can grant your wishes. You may ask for anything you want.”

  She sighed as he stayed stubbornly on his feet, poised to defend himself.

  “Very well. Proof.”

  The mountain vanished. Times Square settled around them, choking with people, fumes and noise. A typical afternoon in New York.

  “Hey, lady. Get outta my way.” A busy courier shifted the box in his arms. Short and fat, he could barely see over it.

  Laila snatched up a newspaper, dropping money. She thrust it at Ty and whisked them back to the mountain, back to the soft crackle of the campfire and the cool solitude.

  The paper rustled as his hand clenched. The coffee cup had vanished, but his knife remained. The paper had today’s date.

  He sheathed the knife and sat down slowly.

  Laila handed him another cup of coffee.

  “You’re real,” he said on a thread of belief.

  “I am. The world is stranger than you can imagine, Ty.”

  “But how?” He looked at the paper. It was real. Impossible. Undeniable.

  “You own my bottle. You opened it. That gives you three wishes that I must grant.”

  He shook his head. “Wishing is for fools.”

  “Nonetheless…” She smiled.

  He didn’t appreciate the invitation to play the fool. “Why are you offering me three wishes?”

  “It is a condition of the curse that binds me to my bottle.”

  “A curse?” Curses were something his gran believed in. But she also believed the power of God could break them. “Who cursed you?”

  “King Solomon.” The humor lurking in her eyes and curving her mouth faded. She looked sad.

  For Ty, hazy Sunday School memories stirred. “Solomon was a good guy.”

  “At times.” She shrugged. “At other times…power tempted him. Like all sorcerers, he grew to resent his limits.
” She picked up a stick and poked the fire, sending sparks flying up.

  “What happened?” Ty drew up one knee and rested his coffee cup on it.

  Laila dropped the stick in the fire.

  “One day Solomon decided he would prove himself the most powerful man in the world. It was just after the Queen of Sheba kicked him out of her bed. His ego had taken a hit, so like most men, he looked around for a way to show he was cock of the biggest dunghill.”

  Ty choked. He put the coffee cup down carefully. It automatically refilled.

  “Gossip in the marketplace ranged between Solomon’s romantic failure and the treachery of djinn mischief in the desert. Solomon’s palace officials were given orders to play up the djinn stories. Suddenly djinn were accused of everything—sandstorms, adulterous wives, sour wine, camel kicks. Then Solomon said he’d work great magic and control the djinn.”

  “Who were the djinn? I mean, what are you?”

  “People. Spirits. Have you heard of Lilith? She was Adam’s first wife. She found him boring. To be fair, he said she was wanton. Whatever the truth of the matter, Lilith went looking for excitement. She got involved with demons and had seventy seven children.”

  “Seventy seven? Holy shit.”

  “The seventy seven children are the djinn, my half-brothers and sisters. Like demons—and angels—we are spirits but can also take human form.”

  “Which form do you prefer?”

  “Human.” Laila smiled. “Djinn are very nearly human. We enjoy humanity’s pleasures—or we did.”

  “Solomon, right. What did he do?”

  “None of us believed he could actually control us, so we didn’t pay attention. We should have. He took a month to prepare his magic.” She added more pinecones to the fire. The wind spun the sparks out into the night.

  “Solomon mixed his blood with the dirt of the earth and bound us to glass bottles. More than that, he bound us to serve humanity. Whoever possesses our bottle has three wishes. All they have to do is undo the seal. Which you did.”

  “Are you offering me three wishes?”