Squatting there beside the bag, she took a deep breath. She knew in every fiber of her being that in saving Lucian, she was also betraying him. She swallowed, trying to push the bile that threatened, and uttered the imitari spell. As the scent of her magic intensified, rainbow smoke shimmered and swirled in the depths of the bag. Within a moment, an exact copy of Jinx’s lamp appeared. She stared at it. It was perfect with small, blue flowers sparkling on the shining, white porcelain. A gentle warmth radiated out from it. Lucian would never, ever, know the difference.
Jinx stood up, battling a sudden cramp in her calf. The woman and her now pacified toddler were still there.
Jinx straightened her back and stared down her nose at the woman, daring her to say something.
The woman’s gaze was hard. She looked toward the open bag and the fake lamp dwelling in its depths. A long, awkward moment crawled painfully past. Eventually, Eloise spoke. “I’ll take that up to Silenus in a moment. Let me just put Bubby to bed.” She looked lovingly at her sleepy child.
A pang of loss, so fierce it nearly crippled her, struck through Jinx’s breast. Would she ever look at a child like that?
Jinx inclined her head gently. Eloise turned, her child soothed and relaxed in her arms. Jinx took a deep breath. Holding her real lamp securely in her hands, she did the only thing she could. She went back to Kuala Lumpur.
* * * *
Lucian felt great when he woke up. He focused his eyes and examined the ceiling above him. It was cream-colored with a brass and teak fan whirring lazily from it. The humid air was thick. The rich scent of tropical civilization filled with rotting fruit, fried food, and spice assailed him.
Where am I? Certainly not Kuala Lumpur. The sounds of noisy chatter and the clip-clopping shuffle of pedestrian traffic drifted through the open window. Hailing lightly on the breeze was the unmistakable scent of pure magic.
“Jinx?” Lucian called and rolled his head to the right. He was in a small, romantically-decorated room. A vase of orchids sat on an ornately carved dresser near the closed door. The orchids, a veritable riot of pink and white, spilled from the vase and cascaded over the carvings, which Lucian now realized were carvings of satyrs.
“Jinx?” he called more insistently. Raising his hand to wipe his eyes, he found crusty, dried blood covering his face. “What?”
Lucian frowned and tried to recall the day’s events. His mind was as blank as an unpainted wall. He couldn’t remember anything at all.
Feeling a swoop of vertigo, Lucian spun his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. “Jinx, where are you?” he growled, smothering a hot coil of unease with the anger that she wasn’t immediately present.
“Oh, you’re awake,” a sultry female called from behind the door. “How wonderful.” The voice didn’t hold the broad stretch of Jinx’s Australian accent. Lucian felt his heart sink.
“Where is Jinx?” he asked and watched warily as the door opened a crack.
A woman entered. She was dressed in something like a white toga, and her long hair was piled artistically high on her head. She was pretty for an older woman. Soft creases crinkled her eyes and cheeks as she smiled to greet him. Lucian realized he must look a fright. Her warm welcome was suspicious. “Where is Jinx?” he asked, again.
The woman tilted her head and considered his question. “Your genie? She will be back soon, I’m sure.”
“Where am I, and who are you?” He tilted his head in arrogance and found comfort in the familiar gesture.
The woman’s eyes creased with a smile. She ignored his cool attitude. “You’re in the Free Zone, Kuching, at the satyr colony. I’m one of the colony’s maenads. My name is Megan.”
Lucian felt an involuntary stir of hunger. Maenads. They were the female followers of Dionysus, who lived and cavorted with the satyrs, donating pleasure to their god. Why on Earth had Jinx brought him here? To torment him further? Why had they left the swamp? Surely, they were safe there? Nothing made sense.
“Why am I covered in blood?” Lucian asked and staggered as he stood. “Why am I here?”
“Oh, this is Silenus’s colony. Silenus is our stag satyr. I believe you two are acquainted?”
Yes, he knew Silenus. They met and befriended one another years ago when Silenus was a member of a satyr colony in the Praha Free Zone. As friends, Lucian and Silenus had a lot in common. Both shared a healthy interest in the opposite sex, and Lucian’s genetic sex appeal made them instantly popular. After a few years cavorting in the Free Zone, however, Silenus struggled with issues of dominance within the satyr colony. It was obvious to Lucian and several of the Praha maenads that he was a stag in the making.
As his horns grew and curled, Silenus challenged the stag of the Praha Free Zone. There was a brutal battle for leadership, and Silenus lost. Unable to remain in the Praha colony, Silenus left and moved to Kuching to set up his own colony. Without Silenus’s questionable guidance, Lucian drifted and finally went to London where trouble quickly found him. It was not long after that he found himself in the clutches of the Family.
After that, contact between Silenus and Lucian became increasingly difficult. With time, their friendship was relegated to a distant memory.
Lucian rubbed his stubbly, bloodied chin. How did Jinx know to bring me here? With his mind so foggy, he couldn’t even remember telling her he had friends in the Free Zone, but clearly he must have.
“Silenus asked that I draw you a bath. Are you ready?”
Lucian nodded curtly. “When will Jinx be back?”
“She left about five hours ago. I imagine she will return soon.”
Five hours?
“Did she say where she had gone?”
Megan assessed him carefully. “I believe she mentioned to Silenus she had to return to Kuala Lumpur.”
What?
“Kuala Lumpur?” Lucian growled. “Where is my bag?”
She gestured to beneath the bed. “Under there.”
Quick as a flash, Lucian was into the bag. He rooted about furiously, throwing out wads of cash, jewels, and credit cards. The relief almost made him dizzy when finally he found the porcelain lamp. He gripped it and sighed heavily.
“Have you found what you needed?” Megan asked. She ran her fingers through the bangs falling across her forehead.
“Yes,” Lucian answered and held the lamp even tighter. Why Jinx had returned to Kuala Lumpur he had no idea–but he knew she must have had a good reason. “Why was I unconscious? Does Silenus know what the illness was?”
Megan shook her head. “I believe you would have to ask your genie. You were near death when she left. No doubt she did something to heal you. Nothing our healer attempted had any effect.”
The coil of unease permanently sitting in his guts swelled a little. She wouldn’t—-she couldn’t have—made a deal with that bomoh to heal me, could she? He glanced down at the lamp in his hands for reassurance. So long as he had this, the greasy bomoh couldn’t claim her. For a moment, he considered calling her to him. One whisper in the wind would do it, but he didn’t. He would wait for her return. Then, he would yell at her for being so bloody stupid.
“So, are you ready for that bath?” Megan asked with a twinkle in her eye before turning and sauntering from the room.
“Sure.” Lucian frowned and carefully averted his lingering gaze from the curves of her rear as she sashayed down the stairs before him.
* * * *
They kept her waiting for hours. Jinx dozed, ate, and waited in the bomoh’s subterranean room. It had been cleared and cleaned since she last destroyed it. She chewed her fingernails down to the skin. A strange, zombie-like person visited once and told her to “make herself comfortable”.
“Comfortable?” Jinx muttered to herself. “When I’m handing my lamp over to the enemy?” She suspected that the escape
d djinn had probably wrecked havoc on the markets above, and the bomoh was likely to be in strife. The thought made her want to laugh. She quickly sobered when she realized the bomoh would probably meter out his revenge upon her sometime in the near future.
A chill scuttled through her as she stared at the pulsing lamp in her hands. It wasn’t too late to back out, she reminded herself. She couldn’t, however, and had no doubt Lucian’s life rested in the lamp as much as her own.
“Ahhh,” the toad-like bomoh oozed as he waddled down the stairs. He peeled his orange shroud from his face and mopped the shining rivulets of perspiration away. “You’re back.” He smiled broadly.
“Tell the Pater Rex to stop. He’s killing Lucian,” Jinx growled, hating the desperation that showed in her voice as clearly as neon yellow.
“He did, the moment you arrived,” the bomoh said. He pulled a new, small, shiny bottle from the folds of the orange cloth and placed the recaptured djinn on the new shelf. He chuckled mirthlessly. “What a mess you made, Miss Jinx. What a mess.” He gestured with his fat hand and stared at her with his small eyes. “You’ll pay for it, darling. Oh, how you’ll pay.” His fat lips stretched into an impossibly broad smile at the thought.
Jinx held her revulsion in check. “Do we have a deal? The Pater Rex will stop trying to kill Lucian through the pledge if I give the lamp to you?”
“Where is my pelesit?” the bomoh asked sharply. He stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders backward.
Jinx felt her chest contract tightly. “I don’t know.” She played dumb. “It usually is everywhere I go. Maybe it’s tired. Lord knows I am.”
The bomoh’s mouth curled into a snarl to reveal sharp, gray, hideous teeth. Jinx stepped backward but before she could defend herself, a sudden crack of magic split the silence. Air whooshed from her lungs as his magic smacked her by surprise and sent her body reeling. She crashed into the bookshelf opposite with an agonizing crunch then groaned and slumped to the floor. This is too much! Her lamp flew from her hand and rolled across the shiny floor, toward the orange bomoh. Jinx tried to summon it back, but the bomoh had learned his lesson; within a second, the lamp disappeared altogether.
“I...want...my...pelesit,” he yelled, widening his horrible, tiny eyes to show red-veined, white surrounds.
“I don’t know where it is,” Jinx groaned and hauled herself to stand.
“Tell me,” the bomoh roared and again, with reflexes like a black mamba, slammed another smack of magic into Jinx’s chest. The heat and force of it tore her shirt apart and burned her skin like acid. She cried out and, with a hurried groan, conjured a protective shield of power. “Tell me,” he screamed, again. Jinx cringed behind her screen, sensing another strike. “Do you think you can hide from me here? Do you think I don’t learn? How stupid do you think I am?” His voice was painfully high and loud. The bomoh let loose another hit of magic. It sliced through Jinx’s shield with the precision of an obsidian blade and hit her face. Her cheek was suddenly aflame as his sweet, cloying magic burned and bubbled her skin. She screamed and clutched her face, unable to react to anything but the pain.
“Stop,” the Pater Rex said in a low, rumbling voice. The scent of mandarin blossom cleared the sweet candy floss of the bomoh’s magic. “What is the meaning of this?” he bellowed. “Mister Bomoh, what are you doing? She has given the lamp. Let her return to Lucian to give him the last wish.”
“My pelesit,” the bomoh cried, shaking with rage. “She’s killed her.”
“I did not,” Jinx growled, clutching her burned cheek with her hand.
“Your pelesit will return, Mister Bomoh. Her kind always has and always will,” the Pater Rex said reasonably, but his cherubic face convulsed as he struggled for control. “If Jinx would be so kind as to tell where she last saw the pelesit, perhaps that may help alleviate your worries.” He looked at Jinx and nodded encouragingly, though an odd spasm rippled across his face.
If there was one thing Jinx was not going to do, it was harm the magic of the swamp by telling the bomoh anything about it.
“I last saw it…er…her, in the forest in Sarawak.”
“She lies,” the bomoh shrieked. He sent another smack of magic hurtling toward Jinx’s weakened smoke shield.
“No,” the Pater Rex yelled angrily and sent a dispersal spell to shatter the bomoh’s attack. “Come now, calm yourself.”
Jinx stared at him through her smoke. He seemed so reasonable. Was it possible that he was worse than the bomoh? Who was the lesser evil here?
The bomoh pouted mulishly and stared darkly at Jinx.
“So be it. Genie, I suggest you go now and give that son-of-a-demon his last wish. Then, you’re mine.”
Jinx noticed the Pater Rex flinch and convulse slightly. She stared at him helplessly. Tiny and harmless looking, she suddenly found herself wishing he found them before they ever met the bomoh.
“You have twenty-four hours to return Lucian to me,” the Pater Rex rumbled and turned to leave.
What? Bewilderment staggered her. “Wait. I’m not giving Lucian back to you. I’ve given the lamp back. Now, you must release Lucian from the pledge.”
The gnome’s face turned cruel and ticked compulsively. “Must? I think not, genie. Alas, you didn’t give the lamp to me at all but to Mister Bomoh here. As you have rightly stated, I cannot guarantee his cooperation; however, there is one universal truth that has not changed. I want Lucian, and I shall have him.”
“I brought back the lamp,” Jinx wailed.
“So you keep saying.” The gnome’s tone dripped with parent-like condescension.
“What will you do if I don’t return him to you?” Jinx whispered weakly, already knowing the answer.
“I will unfortunately have to kill him. If I cannot have him, no one will.”
Jinx felt frustrated tears prickle her eyes. She gnawed at her lip again, trying to ignore the pain of her injuries and focus on a line of defense. Nothing at all came to mind. She was no master strategist and had never been good at chess. Subterfuge and conspiracies were completely beyond her. She had no idea what to do.
The Pater Rex coughed and stole a glance at the bomoh, who still seethed beside him. When he looked back to Jinx, his expression deepened. “Let me say this; despite everything, I am not an unreasonable gnome. Death is a very unnecessary repercussion in my experience. I am giving you twenty-four hours to get him to take the wish. It is ample time, I believe. After the wish has been given, you will return to Mister Bomoh, give me Lucian’s whereabouts, and I shall collect him.” He shrugged dismissively and looked again at the bomoh. “Now, Mister Bomoh. There is much we need to discuss.”
Jinx hovered uncertainly, torn and uncertain. She couldn’t leave her lamp here now—not when the Pater Rex was going to hurt Lucian, again. She felt sick. She fell for this trap as stupidly, eagerly, and idealistically as a pensioner falls for a Nigerian e-mail scam. She wanted to smash her head against something hard at her own foolishness.
“Miss Jinx, kindly take your leave,” the Pater Rex rumbled then uttered something under his breath. Jinx staggered. Sweet, mandarin-scented magic clouded her as she found herself hurtling through time and space as the Pater Rex sent her directly back to Lucian’s side, where she landed with an enormous splash.
Chapter Eleven
Lucian loved the decadence of satyr bathing. A massive bath, more like a swimming pool, was heated warmly as the suggestive scents of sandalwood and aromatic oils carried through the humid air. He glanced over at Jinx’s lamp and felt somewhat reassured, but uncertainty nagged at the back of his mind. She hadn’t asked him, and he hadn’t given her permission. How had she left? What exactly had happened?
Silenus generously supplied him with Megan the maenad, and she seemed rather keen. Lucian knew having sex with a maenad under the protection of Dionysus inhibited his
incubi powers, so she had nothing to fear from his demonic heritage. He and Silenus often shared maenads in the past, but Lucian’s attraction to Megan’s rounded, blonde curves was fleeting and shallow.
Megan had gently washed him. Her hands were tender and exploring as they soaped his chest, fingering the lines of his muscles. He hadn’t slept with a woman for months and suffered. Demon spawn gained power from sex. Without it, Lucian was less powerful than ever. In denying himself Jinx, and any other woman since he met her, he denied himself power.
Megan was willing, and though he gained little power from her, the temptation to sate his lust made his mind mist and his loins throb. Long-denied desire surged through his body as the soap bubbles slithered down his chest and caught in the coarse bush of hair surrounding his manhood.
“May I?” Megan asked, sinking her body low into the water. Her ample breasts bobbed in the balmy heat, and he felt himself stir, again. She could pleasure him greatly; a well-versed maenad was an incredible lover. What did it matter if he indulged a little? Silenus didn’t care, and all the gods knew he was in sore need of release. Days of watching Jinx’s honed, little body and soft, sensuous mouth made him maddeningly hard time and time, again. He felt weak after his sudden illness. He knew sex would revive him better than any elixir or spell. If Megan was willing and effectively protected by her god, what was the harm? Jinx would never need to know...
Lucian moaned as Megan wrapped her warm, soapy hand around the swelling head of his staff and took one hot slide to the root.
Gods, it was good. He felt Megan’s desire for him, and it made him feel powerful and strong. Lucian groaned again, throwing his head back and biting his lip. Suddenly, an image of Jinx with wide, dark, and trusting eyes flittered through his mind. “Fuck,” he hissed. “Megan...” he moaned as she slipped her hand up and down his shaft with increasing speed and force.
“Ah...Megan, stop,” he cried. He gripped his hands on hers to pull her away. “I can’t do this.”
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