I was not pleased with the dismissal and projected as much, but eased back when Seth winced. It was not my intent to melt the man’s brain with my displeasure. Instead, I turned my irritation back to the hot mess of an imp in front of me.
“Okay, Slick, why don’t you tell us how it is that you ended up like this, and please refrain from editorializing.”
“Alright, so…” he began, taking a deep breath. “It all started with being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being associated with the wrong nitwit of a nephew. See, for some reason, Ajhe, that’d be Ajhtyraeth, also known as the head honcho over in the realm, decided to banish Hubie here.”
“I know who Ajhe is and I am obviously aware of Bogie’s banishment,” I reminded him. “What happened to you?”
“Hey, you asked! I was just setting up the scene,” he shot back. “Any whos, Hubie was banished, which is all fine and dandy, but see, where the problematics happened were that I was trying to collect a debt at the time. Ajhe ain’t known for being a rational sort, so when he sees me hanging around, and sees me laughing at this yutz for getting his keister in hot water, he decides to banish me right along with this yo-yo.”
I glanced over at Bogie, expecting a protest, but to my surprise, he was nodding along in agreement.
“What? Except for the owing him money part, he ain’t tellin’ tales,” he said when he caught me looking at him. “Listen, ain’t no way my team got swept by a buncha nobodies like that without some kinda intervention. I ain’t paying a swindler.”
“I told you already, I ain’t had nothing to do with that other than knowing more about the game mechanicals than you does.”
“Okay, we’ll come back to that,” I said, heading off the inevitable argument. Demons were notorious gamblers and these two were no exception. “So you were banished from the realm. Unfairly, in your opinion, but I shall reserve judgment at the moment. So how did you end up as some… well, some… What the hell are you now, anyway?”
“He’s a genie,” Jem offered.
“Djinn,” Howie corrected.
“Huh?” Jem looked confused.
“Oh for the love of fine wine and finer women! I’m a djinn! A djinn, kid, not a djeenie. Girls is djeenies and even they don’t like that term no more what with the patriarchy-type implications and whatnot. Not that it matters, but it’s a little emasculating and I ain’t got much these days so…”
“Okay, I think you’ve made your point,” I cut in. “Now, how is it that you became a djinn? I don’t claim to be an expert demonologist, but I do know that imp to djinn is not a natural progression for either a promotion or demotion, so I would assume this was an intentional move. What I want to know is, why?”
“Oh, it’s possible. If you’re idiot enough,” Howie grumbled, shooting a withering glare at Bogie. “See, that’s where I made the mistake of listening to this bird brain. Seeing as I’ve now been ejected from the realm and I’m broke, I don’t have many options. I tell my helpful nephew here he’s gotta pay up. Well, he tells me he ain’t got no money, but that he’s got some back in the realm because of course he’s got money back in the realm! And I’m the king of Egypt! But I’m getting desperate. Being that he owes me quite a bit, I didn’t have no time to wait on him getting no job or whatnot. So we start brainstorming ways to get back home when this dunce comes up with the brilliant plan to backdoor the realm through an entrapment vessel.”
“I don’t understand,” said Seth. “I thought an entrapment vessel did just that. I mean, didn’t we just use a corpus vessel to destroy one of the more powerful spectrals? Please don’t tell me all we did was banish it back to the realm.”
“Yes and no…” I said slowly. I was more than a little surprised that Seth didn’t know much about the mechanics of entrapment vessels. For that matter, I was suddenly and very acutely aware of the fact that I’d never run across an entrapment Discordant in Blackbird despite the fact that this place was filled with the exact type of desperation and unfulfilled longing that they find irresistible. I had to wonder how much of that had to do with Myrna’s not so cryptic comments earlier and decided that Seth and I were in need of a good long talk.
“Vessels used in exorcisms are anchored in our realm, so the trapped demons don’t have anywhere to go once they’ve been trapped,” I explained. “An entrapment vessel is different in that it is basically a one way portal back to the realm of Chaos, but it can only be used by specific creatures. In a way, it’s a form of banishment and I’m afraid it’s fairly involved.”
I didn’t have time to get into all of the complexities of entrapment and banishment versus other vessels and I sure as hell wasn’t going to reveal how difficult entrapment Discordant were to kill in front of our guest. “When the vessel is opened, the person who opened it becomes the Discordant’s ‘master.’ Destroying the vessel has the same unfortunate result.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured that part out,” Jem said, looking a little green.
“Uh huh,” Howie said. “Except that bozo here conveniently forgot to disclose the technical and whatnot, so I had to find out the hard way that accepting the curse didn’t do diddly squat for lifting the banishment and all he was doing was stuffing me into my own private little hell. And I do mean little! I still don’t think my organs is back where they should be!”
“As far as I knew, you was gonna use the bottle to get back to the realm!” Bogie argued. “How was I supposed to know you was gonna get stuck in it?”
“Because you glued the stopper on, you yutz!”
“I was just following instructions! Djanice told me the only way the portal would open was if the bottle was sealed.”
Howie’s expression went from irritated to murderous.
“Djanice told you that? Djanice? So you just went and took the word of a bimbo who straight up tried to murder me when we broke up?”
“Well yeah,” Bogie shrugged. “It ain’t like I has a whole bunch of djinn buds and she was willing to help. Besidesways, you was the one two timing with her sister, so can you blame her? It’s like you always say; Better to be a blind man crossin’ the freeway than a foolish man crossin’ a woman.”
“Yeah but Djanice weren’t no woman!”
“All right, enough!” By that point, my headache was getting a headache. “I think we’ve heard enough about why you became a Djinn-imp, Djimp, whatever. What I want to know is how you did it and how do we sever the bond you have with Jem.”
“Bond?” Jem looked downright terrified now.
“You broke the bottle, kid. You’re my master until you make a mis- Er, that is… I ain’t sure how to break the bond.”
“I’m warning you,” I growled, letting Howie know I hadn’t missed his little slip-up. Not that it mattered, considering the fact that we all knew the typical fate of the unfortunates who find themselves under the spell of the djinn. Fortunately, Slick wasn’t truly a djinn. “What method did you use to borrow the djinn’s powers?”
“Borrow? What do you mean borrow?”
“I find it hard to believe that even someone of your mental ineptitude can be this dense,” I said with what little patience I had left. “What did you do to get yourself into this mess?”
“Well duh! I let some djerk of a djeenie think she pulled one over on me. She, undeservedly mind you, gets to walk free and now I’m bottle bait.”
“You can’t possibly be serious,” I said with a sinking sensation.
“Well, yeah. Uh… why?” Howie’s sudden nervousness made me realize he was even dumber than I thought and I didn’t think it was possible to have that little brain activity and still be considered functionally alive.
“There are dozens of ways to temporarily borrow djinn powers and you decided to go all in?”
“Well…uh…okay, now that you put it like that, it does sound a little silly.”
“A little silly? Try downright idiotic.” I was losing the last shred of my patience. “I don’t suppose you know where to find the cr
eature you let trick you?”
“Uh… yeah, see she went and skedaddled as soon as she was free from the bottle. Not that I can blame the broad, but I ain’t got high hopes for finding her ever again.”
“Well, then. As I see it, there’s just one other way to get rid of you.”
“What? You can’t be serious!”
“Try me,” I said, giving Howie a look that conveyed exactly how serious I was.
“But what did I ever do to you? Wait, do not answer that!”
“Consider my perspective,” I said with a dismissive shrug. “You’re a Discordant and I’m a Warrior. Allowing you to live is a violation of my orders.”
A silence fell over the bar as everyone, it seemed, was taken aback by my bluntness.
“Wow. Talk about being a bad ass!”
Nai’s equally blunt commentary broke the spell.
“Come on, Des. It ain’t like I can do much, what with the kid being one of you and all.” Howie’s protest nearly sounded genuine, but there was a devious note in his voice that he was either too inexperienced or too stupid to hide. Obviously, he had already figured out that Jem wasn’t an ordinary Guardian and planned to exploit the hell out of the kid’s generous nature.
And just as if he’d suddenly remembered said generous nature, Jem’s face lit up.
“Can I wish you never made that deal with the djinn?”
“Sorry kid, but I already told you I can’t go creating paradoxicals.”
“Oh yeah,” he said, deflating briefly. “What if I wished you were an imp?”
“Clever,” Howie said, “but no dice as I’m technically still an imp in djinn form.”
“Can I wish you into something else?” he asked, now getting frustrated.
“Eh, nothing I’d want to get stuck like.”
“What would happen if I wished you were free?”
“Ah geez, you’d do that for me?”
“Not so fast, Slick,” I growled as a collective gasp rose up from those who realized Jem’s folly. “Jem, you are very lucky you simply asked what would happen before making such a foolish wish. Had you done so, you’d find yourself trapped in a bottle while the imp went free.”
All of the color drained from Jem’s face.
“Oh.”
If I had a way of binding his magic, Howie would have found himself on a one-way trip to impotence town the moment he stepped foot in Blackbird. Unfortunately, his connection to Jem made him immune to my magic. Still, I wasn’t above the use of force if it came down to it and Howie was doing his best to give me an excuse to sock him one.
“Another manipulative move like that and you will find out how fast I can turn off my empathy,” I warned.
“Hey, don’t go blaming me now! It ain’t like I can help it!” Howie sputtered. “I’m a djinn now! A collector!”
“You are not making a very good case for your continued existence.”
“I’m trying!”
“You are going to have to be vigilant, Jem,” I warned. “Avoid expressing your desires, even internally. Do not use words like I want, I need, I wish, and so on. Do you understand?”
“I… uh, oh no.”
There was a fluctuation of magical energy as Jem did exactly what I had just told him not to do. In all fairness, I mentally kicked myself for not realizing that this would happen. It was basic psychology. Tell someone not to think about a pink elephant and that will be the first thing that comes to mind. From the embarrassment on Jem’s now red face, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what a teenage boy’s deepest desire was. Seconds later, there was another fluctuation and a plate of French fries from Louie’s appeared on the bar.
“Sorry,” Jem squeaked. “It’s not easy to not think about something.
“Well you’re going to have to do better than that,” I hissed, pushing the plate away as his sister reached for the fries. I didn’t know if eating conjured food had any consequence, but I was in no mood to find out either.
“I think what everyone needs right now is a time out,” Seth said suddenly. It was not unreasonable. It was now very late and we had all been through hell twice, but I wasn’t gullible enough to think that ‘sleeping on it’ was going to solve anything.
“Fair enough,” I said, adding in a low tone, “but you and I are going to have a long talk in the near future.”
Chapter 3
Trapped
“Forgive this meddling old fool, but I couldn’t quite help but to notice a slight change in your attitude as of late, Seth.”
“Oh? How is that?” I asked as soon as my stomach settled back into the correct place in my abdomen. I had tried to insist on driving, but Myrna was stubborn and took offense to the idea that the elderly were less than competent drivers. What scared me had nothing to do with her age. Myrna had been an insane driver ever since I’d met her several decades earlier.
“Well, if I may speak frankly, it seems as if Desmond’s arrival has caused a bit of… Well, I guess the best word for it would be posturing. I would hope you of all people would realize that the Warrior’s presence is in no way a slight to your ego.”
“No, it’s not Desmond’s presence, per se,” I said with a frown. I’d been trying to take measures to ensure that my actions did not reflect my inner conflict with the way others now viewed me, but clearly, I wasn’t succeeding. That Myrna had noticed a change in my behavior was telling and slightly embarrassing.
“If not Desmond, then what’s behind the insecurity, Seth?”
“It’s just that ever since I conjured the angel, everyone has been walking on eggshells around me,” I explained, wincing at the word insecurity. “Desmond, the coven, even Bogie. I have to say, earning the pity of a lesser demon has a way of delivering a blow to the ego. But it has nothing to do with Desmond’s physical… um… presence…” I trailed off, slightly uncomfortable under Myrna’s scrutiny and more than slightly terrified for our continued existence since her eyes were on me and not the road.
“Or perhaps you are allowing your ego to cloud your perception,” she said, turning back to the road at last. “Concern for your wellbeing might just be that. After all, your soul and Desmond’s are familiar. Why shouldn’t he care?”
“Fair point,” I said with an embarrassed smile and a sigh of relief as we pulled into the parking lot of Dogwood Lanes. “But I’m not made of glass, Myrna. Desmond, perhaps, has an excuse. After all, he had only known me for a few days before I conjured an angel and offered myself as a sacrifice, but the coven? They know me better than this and if they continue to act as though I’m going to break, Desmond is never going to think otherwise.”
“Oh Seth.” Myrna cut the engine and shook her head, giving me a scolding look. “You are letting your ego get in the way. The girls have always been overprotective of you.”
“Yes, but it has always been a mutual concern and somewhat in the background,” I countered. “At this point, I’d almost prefer Louise throwing herself at me again over the mother hen role she’s assumed.”
“A mother hen, eh?” Myrna pursed her lips. “Well I suppose if you’re going to act like a strutting rooster…”
“Fine. I’ll make a concerted effort to act less like a barnyard animal,” I promised as I got out of the car on jelly legs. “But just so you know, you’re doing a pretty good impression of a crow at the moment.”
Perhaps Myrna was right and Desmond’s concern stemmed from our history, but after the previous night’s argument, I wasn’t sure the reason mattered. Explaining to Desmond that Myrna and I had made a promise to one of our mystics was bad enough. Telling him that said oath prevented me from saying anything more until I had the mystic’s permission upset him enough to start an unwinnable argument. Despite whatever connection we supposedly had in our past, it was becoming hard to ignore the fact that our present was devolving from the trust we immediately shared to something even more strained than the cautious alliance that was typical of an Observer and a Warrior.
But my i
ssues with Desmond took a backseat to the more pressing matters of the moment. Myrna and I had to tread carefully at this point, both figuratively in how we presented our argument, and literally, because of the mind-melting magical energy that seemed to come from the building itself. The low hum of its power hit me before we’d done so much as leave the car. Even with my receptors practically muted, the magical energy that bombarded me was staggering. Eller Raglund was a powerful mystic and the number one reason I didn’t count bowling among my few hobbies.
But the obscene use of magical energy was not without merit. Given the downtrodden and hopeless nature of a crumbling town like Blackbird, the allure for entrapment and trickster Discordant was overwhelming and understandably so. Of the town’s fifty thousand or so residents, you would be hard pressed to find even one who is so satisfied with their lot in life that they would not jump at the opportunity to wish themselves into a more comfortable existence. And though they had no way of knowing it, every last resident of Blackbird had Eller Raglund to thank for the fact that their souls were not enslaved in the Chaos realm.
As the descendant of a powerful line of clerics, Eller was an expert trapper and singlehandedly kept Blackbird from being overrun by djinn or any other entrapment Discordant that might have wandered by. But he was also extremely antisocial and viewed his abilities as a curse, wanting nothing to do with the mystic community or Order in general. In many ways, he was right. Having inherited both the bowling alley and the great responsibility of keeping safe a population he felt no kinship to, Eller felt as if he was no freer than the creatures he trapped.
The bowling alley itself was likely held together by magic alone. The exterior was badly in need of a fresh coat of paint and the sign was so faded that most residents seemed to have simply inherited the knowledge of what the structure housed. Inside wasn’t much better. The threadbare carpet was worn down to concrete in some areas. Nearly every surface was chipped and scratched and most of the tables and chairs required a stack of coasters to keep from wobbling. The only part of the alley that received regular maintenance was the polished wooden lanes and the ancient pulley system that set the pins and retrieved the balls.
Rise of the Discordant: The Complete Five Book Series Page 38
