Scarlett Undercover

by Jennifer Latham

He studied me with bottomless eyes, then laughed, loud and full.

  “Come with me, child. And welcome to my home.”

  He didn’t have to ask twice.

  16

  I followed Manny behind the chancel and down a narrow spiral staircase. The smell of spices and meat hit me, as unexpected in the musty old church as jugglers at a funeral. At the bottom we walked through a plain wooden door that opened like Alice’s looking glass into a room spanning the whole basement of the church. Clusters of furniture and folding screens divided the place into living areas decorated like something out of a design magazine. All four walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Platters of lamb, spiced green beans, vermicelli rice, tabbouleh, hummus, pita, and chocolate-covered dates were laid out on a long wooden table next to the kitchen. It was more food than I’d seen in one place since Ummi died. Three places were set.

  “You shouldn’t have,” I said. “Especially since I didn’t know you were going to.”

  Manny motioned for me to sit. “I apologize for the abrupt nature of your invitation. Asim possesses a number of remarkable qualities, but tact has never numbered among them.”

  The meal thing had me off my game. Food was for guests. Ummi had raised me knowing that guests were to be fed, honored, then fed some more. They were supposed to bring a gift, too.

  “I’d have brought something if I’d known,” I said.

  “You came. That is enough.” Manny bowed his head.

  “You didn’t seem to think so the other day,” I said.

  “I didn’t expect you the other day. Perhaps this afternoon we’ll both be more… in tune with each other.” He smiled.

  A drawer slammed shut at the back of the room and the rag lady stepped out from behind a four-panel silk screen. Only she wasn’t in rags anymore.

  From the halo of raven-black hair pinned up with silver combs to the slender arms and legs peeking out from her silver-embroidered kimono, everything about her was gorgeous. Her smooth skin shone against the apartment’s rich fabrics; her seashell-pink nails matched the natural blush on her high cheekbones.

  You could have knocked me over with a sneeze.

  Then one of her toes caught on the curved leg of a chair, and she let loose a banshee shriek.

  “Shite!” She dropped into the chair. Yanked her foot up to inspect the damage. “You and all this abominable, heavy furniture!” she raged. “There are only two of us! Why in Hades do we have so many chairs?”

  “Nuala, dear,” Manny said calmly, “we should eat.”

  “I’ll be lucky if the fekkin’ nail doesn’t come off!” she groused.

  “Scarlett, you’ll have to forgive my wife.” Manny got up to pull out her chair. “I’m afraid she takes the hot-tempered Irish stereotype rather seriously.”

  That earned him a dirty look and a string of curses from Nuala that would have made the drug slingers out front blush. It was just the kick in the crotch I needed to help me remember this wasn’t a social call. I was there on business.

  “Look,” I said, “I appreciate dinner and a date as much as the next girl, but that’s not why I accepted your invitation. I came because I think you might be able to help me bail out a grade-schooler who’s in trouble up to her eyeballs, and because your pal Asim stole something from me that he can’t keep. So if you don’t mind, let’s skip the formalities and start talking for real.”

  Manny looked wounded. Nuala cracked a Cheshire grin and chuckled. “You’ve got a bloody cheek on you, girl!”

  For just a second, Manny’s expression was enough to make the guilty little Muslim kid inside me duke it out with the pushy detective. The detective won.

  “Give me back my bottle, answer a few questions, and I’ll get out of your hair and let you get back to”—I looked around the room, at the mismatched pair of them—“whatever it is you do.”

  “Ask what you will,” Manny said. Nuala settled in, ready for the show to start.

  I put everything on the table at once, no punches pulled.

  “Who are you, what do you know about my father, and what can you tell me about the Shubaak, King Solomon’s ring, and the Children of Iblis?”

  Manny shook his head. “So sure of yourself,” he said quietly. “So sure and so impatient.”

  I pushed my chair back and stood up. “Where’s my abbi’s bottle?”

  He sighed. Closed his eyes. “Please,” he said, opening them slowly. “Sit.”

  I did, but hard enough to let him know I wasn’t happy about it.

  “Are you sure you want to hear?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer, just glared.

  “Very well, then.”

  He gave Nuala a nervous glance. She arched a cryptic eyebrow. He started talking.

  “I’ll begin with the ring. As the legends say, it was a powerful seal that gave Solomon dominion over weather and beasts. Humankind and jinnkind, as well.”

  “What about his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines?” Nuala snarked. “What effect did the ring have on them?”

  Manny smiled patiently, but his eyes gave nothing away.

  “To continue,” he said, “the ring was given to Solomon by Nathan the Prophet as Solomon’s father, King David, lay dying. It was adorned with an interlocking design that resembled the one you saw on the door of your young friend’s brother, and on Decker’s chest, as well.”

  He paused, making sure I’d kept up. I had.

  “Solomon was intelligent and respected the inner spark—the divinity—in every living creature. The ring magnified those qualities.”

  “Sure. Right up until he died and it disappeared,” I said, thinking back to Dr. Sawalha’s article about the Shubaak.

  Manny suddenly looked tired.

  “The ring did not disappear. It was taken, along with the Shubaak, by Solomon’s most beloved wife, known to us only as Pharaoh’s daughter. She entrusted the ring to her firstborn son, and the Shubaak to her second-born—a daughter. Both were charged with the safekeeping of those objects, and both made a covenant to pass that duty on to their heirs.”

  “And you know this because…?” I said.

  “I know this because I am an heir of Solomon. I broke the family covenant. I grew careless and began wearing the ring openly.”

  He paused. Took a jagged breath.

  “Forty-three years ago a pickpocket stole the ring from my finger on a crowded Las Almas street. And I would very much like it back.”

  Nuala handed Manny a goblet of water. Manny gulped it down like he’d just come in from the desert. “Dearest,” Nuala said, “we’ve discussed this so many times. You have to forgive yourself in order for us to move on and recover the ring.”

  Manny sighed. “You’re right, my love.” He reached for the pitcher, filled the glass up again.

  “So your name,” I said, feeling a little bad for the guy. “Manny. Short for Suleyman. Solomon. I get it.”

  “Clever girl,” Manny said. “What else have you deduced?”

  “Enough to keep me going, not enough to brag about. One thing that’s driving me nuts is what makes the ring and the Shubaak worth dying over. Are they really that special?”

  Nuala snuck a sideways glance at Manny.

  “I suppose that depends on who you talk to,” he said.

  “Well, at the moment, I’m talking to you. What do you think?”

  Manny rested his forearms on the table. “I’d like you to tell me what you know of jinn.”

  I shrugged. “The basics, I guess. Allah made them from smokeless fire, like he made angels from light and humans from clay. That’s what the Quran says, at least.”

  “Exactly.” Manny set his glass down. “In Islamic theology, jinn live and die in a realm beyond human perception and are rarely, if ever, seen by us. But according to some accounts—call them myths or folklore—jinn were once able to travel between our worlds through portals, called Shubaak. Just like humans, jinn could be good, bad, or somewhere in between. The proble
m was, their ability to manipulate the laws of physics in this realm made them extremely powerful. Immortal, even. Thanks to his ring, Solomon managed to control that power and maintain a fragile peace for many years. Right up until Iblis declared war against humankind.”

  “The Children of Iblis,” I whispered.

  “That’s right,” Manny said. “As I’m sure you know, Iblis was the jinn who refused Allah’s command to bow down before Adam, peace be upon him. Iblis believed mankind was inferior to the jinn, having been created later, and from clay rather than fire. After he fell from grace with Allah, Iblis convinced other weak-minded and wicked jinn to join with him in his war. Together, they were called the Children of Iblis, and they grew extremely influential during Solomon’s reign. In fact, were it not for Solomon’s ability to hold them in check, humans would have been enslaved by jinn thousands of years ago. And slaves we would still be today.”

  “Okay, so where does the Shubaak come in?” I asked, thinking back to Dr. Sawalha’s paper.

  “We’ll get to that momentarily,” Manny said. “For as Solomon grew older, Iblis and his followers devised a plan to steal the ring. A small group of jinn loyal to Solomon learned of Iblis’s plan, and told their king. It was then that Solomon realized no human would ever be truly safe as long as jinn were allowed to remain in this realm, practicing what amounted to magic. So he issued a decree that all jinn were to return to their own world by sunrise the next day, or remain trapped here, stripped of their powers and immortality, forever.”

  I dropped my chin into my hands. “The ring let him turn them into humans?”

  “Effectively, yes. Now, at that time, there were four Shubaak, four portals to the jinn realm, in existence. When sunrise came, Solomon destroyed three of them, saving the last for fear of destroying completely a passage willed by Allah. Then he used the ring’s magic to strip all powers from those jinn who had ignored his warning, trapping them on this side forever. And where their eyes had once been the color of pure gold, Solomon took all but the trace of it you see around the irises of the jinn’s descendants today.”

  I looked at Nuala. “You have those eyes. So do Asim and Decker and the two women following me around town like bad credit.”

  “Of course they do,” Manny said. “They are descended from the Children of Iblis. Some, like Asim and Nuala, wear the reminder of their ancestor’s rebellion like a scar. Others consider it a call to arms, and believe that finding Solomon’s ring will restore their rightful powers. The Children of Iblis have convinced their followers that if they gain possession of the ring and the Shubaak King Solomon chose not to destroy, they will be able to reopen the passage between human and jinn realms, and bring forth jinn armies to enslave humanity. In short, to the Children of Iblis, the rebellion that began three thousand years ago is still very much alive.”

  “So,” I said, putting my doubts on hold, “there are certain genetically linked… individuals with gold-ringed eyes running around Las Almas, calling themselves the Children of Iblis, looking for a ring and a bottle they think will give them magical powers and let them take over the world.”

  Manny nodded.

  “And magical or not, any artifact from King Solomon’s reign definitely would be worth a fortune and a half,” I went on. “Add in the fact that these individuals believe they’re actually jinn, and that makes them dangerous for real.”

  “Precisely,” Manny said. “They are very, very dangerous.”

  All the things I’d learned from Sam and Emmet were starting to fit together like double-sided puzzle pieces. There really was a cult out there—a cult of batshit crazy, funky-eyed nut jobs convinced they were genies poised to take over the world. To make things worse, they were brainwashing high school kids, getting them to help hunt down Solomon’s ring and the Shubaak and do God knew what else. Gemma had been right: her brother was in trouble. Serious, messed-up trouble.

  I pressed the inside corners of my eyes. Took a deep breath.

  “So Asim’s like them, only he’s on our side?”

  Manny was watching me gravely. “Correct.”

  “And Decker’s his son.”

  “Yes.”

  “Asim said he knew my abbi.” I spoke carefully, taking care not to mince a single word. “How?”

  “Your abbi was a descendant of King Solomon and Pharaoh’s daughter. That made him an Abd al-Malik. A Servant of the King, like me.”

  My hand went to my backpack. One Thousand and One Nights was inside, Abd al-Malik inscription and all. Even under a layer of nylon, the physical reminder of my father was a comfort.

  “Then you and Abbi are related?” I asked.

  “Distantly. As are you and I. But where my family line traces its roots to Solomon’s son, yours and your father’s goes back to his daughter.”

  “And Abbi was guarding the Shubaak, just like Solomon’s daughter?”

  Manny gave me a tired smile. “The Shubaak and two of the three decoys created by King Solomon to replace those destroyed and confound the Children of Iblis. And now that you know all of this, it falls to you to assume your family’s duty.”

  “Come again?”

  “You were your father’s chosen, Scarlett. He knew you were the new Abd al-Malik from the moment you entered the world, silent as dawn, with your eyes wide open. You have never shied away from life, my dear. Your sister is the healer. You are the warrior.”

  “Did you tell Delilah I’m this Abd al-Malik thing so she’d get off my back last night?” I was flailing, trying to find some kind of toehold against the avalanche coming down on me.

  “She has always known. I only reminded her.”

  “Well, thanks for that, I guess.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He was so earnest I almost smiled. Then I remembered Asim and didn’t. “You know the Shubaak Asim stole from me is a fake, right?” I said.

  Manny’s face fell. He stood up, walked to a desk against the wall, and pulled the bottle from our curio cabinet out of a bottom drawer. “I suspected as much, but had hoped to be wrong.” He sat back down and handed it to me. “You’re positive this is not the true Shubaak?”

  “Abbi told us it was just an old souvenir,” I said. “He kept it out in the open in our apartment.”

  “Then it could not possibly be,” Manny said.

  “So you’re telling me bottles weren’t genie prisons like in the stories?”

  “The stories are wrong on that count. Shubaak were, as I have said, portals.”

  I rubbed my thumb across the bottle’s lid. A lot of Manny’s story was still sinking in.

  He leaned toward me.

  “Scarlett?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’m quite certain the Children of Iblis killed your abbi in the process of stealing what they believed to be the real Shubaak.”

  Nuala shifted in her seat. It was all I could do to breathe.

  “Scarlett?”

  I didn’t move.

  “Was the real Shubaak with him the night he died?” Manny asked. “Or was it a decoy?”

  We were heading down a path I’d never even known was there. It was too much. Too fast. Too everything.

  And then, suddenly, it wasn’t. Time slowed, and my mind cleared.

  “You know,” I said, the lie slipping off my tongue like truth. “I haven’t got a clue.”

  17

  Walking home from Calamus was a terrible idea, so that was exactly what I did. The stoop boys outside the church made kissing sounds and rude suggestions as I passed by. The dog trotted behind me. I didn’t care. I knew why my father was dead.

  The cancer that stole Ummi was easy to understand, easy to hate. But zealots had killed Abbi, and that was different. Hating them came easy as breathing. Understanding them was a whole lot tougher. And the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to understand. Maybe blame had been the anchor I’d needed all these years. With someone to go after, I wouldn’t have to forget. Or forgive.

  Halfway h
ome, the dog was still behind me.

  “Beat it,” I said.

  She sat, letting me build enough of a lead to think she’d listened. Next thing I knew, she was back again.

  “Seriously?”

  She cocked her head. Scratched her belly with a back paw.

  “Whatever.”

  She yawned.

  I turned and started walking again, going over everything Manny had said. On one level, it all made sense. Stolen antiques, cults, crazies loose on the streets of Las Almas—those were the kinds of things private detectives got. Dreamed of, even. But genies and magic rings? They might have been fun to read about, or watch onscreen in a dark movie theater, but you didn’t let them into real life. You didn’t believe in them.

  The wind took on an ugly bite. I pulled my jacket tighter, walked faster. The closer I got to my neighborhood, the more the sidewalks filled up with people. Compared with Third and Doyle, this was a living, breathing place. The hum of it all flushed out some of my chill. It was good. It just wasn’t enough.

  I needed Decker.

  So I headed to the Rubicon. Found it dark inside and locked up tight behind its metal security grate.

  Monday. Dammit.

  Delilah never opened the place on Mondays. Sometimes Deck came in to take deliveries and get a jump on prep work, though. Please be here, I pleaded silently, heading down the building’s side alley. Please, please, please.

  Latches clicked. The back door swung open while I was still pounding on it. And there stood Decker, looking all kinds of wonderful.

  “I was hoping you’d show,” he said. “C’mon in.”

  The kitchen was warm and damp and smelled like home.

  “Stock for matzo ball soup.” He motioned toward a pot big enough to stew a whole flock of chickens.

  I fell into him, wrapped my arms around him, and held tight.

  “Hey.…” His body tensed, then softened and closed around me. I felt his breath against my skin. Pressed my cheek into the curve where his neck met his shoulder. His pulse steadied mine. Slowly, the blood in my veins defrosted and started to flow.

  We stayed there, not moving, not speaking, pots simmering around us. It was perfect. I’d needed perfect.