He gave me his sexy ringmaster’s leer as he approached, those pale eyes sweeping over my body. His interest was all part of the show, though—Charlie was both gay and taken.
The clapping slowed as Charlie grabbed my arm, jerking me around and toward him. For a split second we were nose-to-nose, me on my tiptoes and him bending over me. Then his arm wrapped around my waist, pulling my hips against his and arching my back. I melted against him, my hands slipping inside the lapels of his coat to lie against his chilly skin. We stayed in that classic pose for a second, Charlie’s lean frame looming above me—the alpha male subduing his exotic female. I let my Fire flare just enough to swirl my hair, its sinuous weight mimicking the natural movements of the snake I still wore on my head.
On cue, Charlie whipped me around so I faced the audience. He stepped behind me, his hands moving to my headdress. He undid the strap beneath my chin, lifting the heavy snake’s head off me. He set it by my feet, reaching for the belt at my waist.
The audience, having fallen silent when Charlie first grabbed me, began to clap with Trey, who’d initiated a slow beat from behind the bar.
The clapping sped up as Charlie’s hand reached for the knot of the belt, undoing it with theatrical slowness. On cue, my next song began. “Hey, Miss Kiss, let us dance,” echoed out of the speakers as Charlie whipped my skirt off, leaving me clad in a coin-covered G-string. The audience was on its feet, clapping as Purgatory’s ringmaster grabbed my serpent head and, wielding my skirt like a bullfighter’s cape, plunged offstage.
It stayed on its feet for the second half of my act, a traditional burlesque number to which I gave only the slightest belly dance flair. I was already pretty nude, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t tease. And tease I did.
In fact, I got so deep into the dance I went ahead and let my Fire flare again, its dark shadow swooping around me like a doppelgänger, its preternatural heat caressing my skin like a familiar lover.
I would miss my Fire when my curse was lifted.
As the song ended I let the black flames fall around me like a cloak. My hands went behind my back, finding the knot that held on my bra. Then I let the dark swath of my Fire peel away, letting the coin bra fall with it and leaving me clad only in my coin G-string and a pair of pasties in the shape of genie lamps. The audience hooted as my Fire dissipated and my arms fell to my sides, leaving my mostly bare flesh sweating in the hot lights of the stage. Charlie came out again, leading me stage left, where I made a deep curtsy, peeping up at the audience provocatively through my lashes. I repeated the movement stage right, and then finally center.
Straightening from my final bow, I caught a glimpse of a man sitting toward the back, his silver eyes opened wide.
And glowing like fucking headlamps in the dark.
Magi, chimed my brain, unhelpfully.
I pulled sharply away, startling Charlie, who dropped my hand. A smart move on his part, because I was already running.
Panties a-jangling.
Trip hissed at me as I leaped over her and Trap. The twin spider wraiths were currently conjoined at the waist, their legs splaying around them as they prepared for their act.
I didn’t respond, since I was in fully panicked fleeing mode. Trip and Trap, after all, couldn’t help me. Neither could Trey, or Big Bertha, or Charlie, or any of my other friends. Not unless they ripped that fucking Magi’s tongue out before he could speak. For Magi he certainly was, his eyes Flaring to my Fire.
I heard crashing behind me as Trap cried out, “No humans backstage!”
The Magi ignored the spider wraiths, his footsteps closing in behind me. But he hadn’t Called yet, and I used my Fire to propel me forward, pushing me toward Purgatory’s stage entrance and the street. There I could hopefully put enough distance between me and the Magi for Pittsburgh’s steel-stained environment to help me hide.
The cool spring air hit all my bare skin like a slap as I plunged into the night, cutting right down the alley. It was a wide, empty East Liberty alley, giving me plenty of room to run. But the guy chasing me was fast, and his hand managed to catch my elbow, twirling me around to face his glowing eyes. He stared at me in wonder for a split second and I thought I might just have time to kick him in the balls before he could speak.
But it was too late.
“Hatenach farat a si.” I See you, he said, in a language older than humanity. Older than time. A language of smoke and fire; a language of magic. The language of the being that made me what I am today, which had the power to make me a slave.
Fuck if I was ever going to be a slave again.
With a harsh cry I launched myself at the man, skimming off the surface of the magical Node beneath the city to shift my nails into long, wicked talons. A look of surprise twisted his features, but he had good reflexes. He threw himself out of my way with a neat somersault that had him back on his feet, his fists raised as he balanced on the balls of his feet—the stance of an experienced boxer.
I lunged at him again, calling my Fire to flame around me. I hoped to intimidate him even if a jinni’s black flames wouldn’t burn a Magi. His eyes grew even wider at the sight, but he didn’t budge. So I slashed at him again with my talons, but he got under my guard and I overextended badly, cursing my inability to use my strongest weapon even as I fell.
I landed hard on the ground, my breath knocked out of my lungs. He kicked away my hands and jumped on top of me. Concentrating on the words, he opened his mouth to speak. Before he could get out the rest of the spell, I struck upward with both my hands bent, the heels of my palms striking him in the chin.
His eyes, already glowing in reaction to my presence, Flared brighter in the darkness, causing my anger to blaze with them.
“Magi,” I hissed, and I hit him again. This time he caught my wrists, his hands like vises. Now that he had me on the ground, his bigger size gave him the advantage.
At least for those few seconds.
It was his turn to hiss as suddenly, instead of being a tiny Jasmine-stripper look-alike, I blossomed into obesity. My fat hips knocked his thighs open, pushing him off balance. I heaved myself over, morphing into a taller, more muscular version of me as I did so. Unable to tap the Deep Magic unless Bound, I couldn’t get that much bigger, but it made the fight a little more fair.
“Why don’t you take on someone your own size?” I growled as I dove for him.
In retrospect, I should have taken the fight slower. I was just so pissed and so panicked. I hadn’t heard anyone with those eyes speak that language in a century—not since I’d escaped Europe for the New World, and found refuge in steel-soaked Pittsburgh, where only Immunda could survive. Recognizing a true, Initiated Magi, my crazy inner she-bear emerged, gibbering about never being taken alive. If I had any thought at all it was that my sense of self-preservation would give me an edge. I was fighting for my life, after all, while this guy was just a jerk trying to Bind a jinni.
Unfortunately he didn’t fight like a jerk; he fought like a cornered wolverine. He fought as if he were the one who’d be enslaved if he lost this match. He fought like his life depended on it. Which, considering I was intent on killing him, I guess it did.
He fought better than me.
I was hitting him, hard, but I’d lost my talons shifting to a bigger size. Being unBound meant I was far less powerful, even with my unusual access to all of Pittsburgh’s corrupted magic swirling at my feet. And now that I was unarmed, he wasn’t hitting back, just using his big body to deflect the majority of my blows. Until I overextended a kick.
His own booted foot lashed out, knocking my leg out from under me. I was on the ground again and this time he didn’t underestimate my abilities.
He pinned me down with all his weight, his knees pressing painfully into my thighs and his chest blanketing mine, his hands holding down my wrists. His face was inches from mine, but his features were entirely obscured by the bright glow of his Flaring eyes.
Not me, my brain howled. Not when I’m so c
lose to being free. I started to shift again in a last, desperate attempt. But before I could change, he’d spoken.
It was the second part of the spell that was the real bitch. And I was too late to stop him.
“Te vash anuk a si,” he chanted over and over. I Call you. His pronunciation grew more confident with every repetition. The harsh sibilance of the language of the jinn reached toward me, wrapping around my soul. I cried out, but the spell blanketed me, muting my powers. I stopped mid-shift, my power whoomping out, leaving me beneath him in my own small form.
My wide brown eyes stared up at him, begging him silently to stop, not to say the last bit. The bit that made me his; that made me do his bidding; that made me a slave until he either let me go or died.
He spoke the words.
“Hatenoi faroush a mi.” I Bind you.
And just like that, I was caught. Bound to a human. Again.
There were no lights or sounds or other magical occurrences, but we both felt it. I was his. He stared at me with eyes gone wide with shock, his Flare fading as his magic accepted my acquiescence.
He was my Master.
“Göt,” I muttered. Then I switched to English, so he’d understand.
“Asshole.”
Chapter Three
Charlie’s dagger ground to a halt inches from the Magi’s face, caught in a black tendril of my Fire.
“It’s too late,” I told my friend, but he didn’t listen. He pulled another knife from inside his ringmaster’s jacket and let it fly.
I caught it, too, letting it drop to the ground with a clatter. But he just reached into his pocket of Sideways and grabbed another. I caught that one before it found my new Master’s throat.
We could play this game forever, as Charlie had an infinite number of knives stashed Sideways.
The rest of my friends piled out onto the brick alleyway and, loyally, they all attacked. A deadly wisp shot at the Magi, courtesy of Yulia, which my Fire snared.
It also caught the twin nets that Trip and Trap shot out of the spinnerets located near the bases of their spines. The spider wraiths had turned as one, their midsections still joined by a thin veil of skin that was separating to let them run free. Trip kept spinning, leaping up onto the neighboring building and shimmying toward the sky. Trap did the same on Purgatory’s rough brick. When they had enough height, they turned as if on cue to drop out of the sky like creepy missiles trained on their target.
Both bounced off the dome of black Fire with which I automatically shielded the Magi.
It was Big Bertha who intervened, although she didn’t look happy about it. Half human and half troll, she towered above all of us, her enormously muscled frame clad in her usual dark suit, huge breasts straining at the buttons of her blouse. Like all troll women, she wore her beard long, framing her surprisingly delicate features.
“Stop it!” she roared.
Everyone stopped. Bertha rarely had to roar, given her size. So when she did, people listened.
“You’re too late. She’s Bound,” the troll explained, using her Patient Bouncer voice.
Yulia, being Yulia, acted like she hadn’t heard and shot a series of wisps at the Magi that my jinni caught. Charlie reached for another knife.
With a sigh Bertha snagged her boss around the midsection, pinning his arms to his sides. “She has to protect him, sir. You’re just wearing her out.”
Trip and Trap looked at each other and skittered into the shadows, undoubtedly planning a new form of attack.
Bertha looked at me. “Get him out of here,” she said. “They’re not going to listen.”
I nodded gratefully to her, turning to collect my new Master. The Magi who’d Bound me was standing there, staring ahead of him, eyes round as a tarsier’s. In the dim light of the streetlamp, I could see he was a large man—tall and well muscled, dressed in raw denim jeans, wide cuffs light against his solid black boots. He wore a T-shirt under a thick flannel shirt cut in that slim-fitting hipster interpretation of Western gear. In the hollow of his throat I could see a tattoo—an anchor.
“Nice ink,” I told him. “Now run.”
When he only blinked at me, I grabbed his arm and dragged him toward my scruffy black El Camino, throwing up a huge wall of my Fire to protect our progress.
As I threw my new Master into the passenger seat I used a spark of magic to start the car, since the keys were still in my purse in the dressing room, and another spout of black Fire carried me up and over the car to my own side. As I dove in to drive away I heard my friends shouting and Bertha, above the din, using her outside voice to remind them, over and over, that it was too late. They couldn’t do anything.
I was Bound.
Pittsburgh is made up of a series of tiny neighborhoods, and Purgatory, right on the main strip of East Liberty, was only a few minutes away from where I lived in Highland Park. But it felt like the drive took forever.
Not least because we didn’t say a word to each other. Knowing Magi, he wouldn’t deign to speak to me except to command me to do something. Why he hadn’t commanded anything yet was confusing, but my jinni was determined to get him to safety. And my jinni didn’t take no for an answer.
While I drove, I kept one eye on my new Master. He peered out the windows with large, unseeing eyes as the buildings went from glass-and-concrete shop fronts to the small row houses at the edge of East Liberty, and then to the much larger houses of once-affluent Highland Park.
The pack of werewolves that lived on the corner of Highland and Stanton gave me the bird or howled as I drove by, but I didn’t stop for my usual bourbon and chitchat. Not least because they’d probably try to snack on the Magi.
My jinni breathed a sigh of relief when we pulled up to the former carriage house I shared with Yulia, but I still had to get us inside. Black flames cloaked us as we hustled out of my old El Camino.
“Where are we?” the Magi asked as I unlocked the bright-purple door that led up to our apartment. He stood on my stoop, peering about, until I grabbed his wrist to pull him inside.
“My house,” I said, shutting the door firmly behind him. “Unless you have somewhere you need to be?”
He shook his head, and I realized I knew absolutely nothing about my new Master. But that didn’t matter; we were still far from safe. I knew my friends wouldn’t listen to Bertha, even if they knew she was right. They’d bust down the door in about two minutes if I didn’t work fast.
I led him up the stairs and through the interior door that led into our actual apartment. I pushed him through, slamming the door behind us, and immediately put my hands on its frame in order to reset the wards that protected our home. Unsure of exactly what would happen when I reached for Pittsburgh’s Deep Magic, since I’d not been Bound here before and had no idea how the Node would react to my intrusion, I homed in on Yulia’s magical signature and reached for the ley line beneath us.
I gasped as my newly Bound power surged with Pittsburgh’s potent, steel-stained magic. My knees buckled and strong hands caught my elbow, keeping me standing. Apparently I would have no more trouble using the Deep stuff while Bound than I had had skimming off it while unBound.
A point in favor of my mostly human, if cursed, genetic makeup, I guessed.
“What’s wrong?” My Master sounded genuinely worried, despite the fact that he’d just Bound me. I also had to answer his question, even though I’d rather have punched him in the goolies.
“The magic’s a lot stronger now that I’m Bound…,” I managed to get out between panting breaths.
The Magi’s grip on my elbow tightened, his other hand clamping around my waist. I went ahead and leaned against him as I shut my eyes and followed the rabbit down its hole, trying desperately to adjust to the amount of juice flowing through me even as I reached for what I’d need for the wards.
“Lyla?” From a distance I heard the Magi’s voice. For a second I wondered how he knew my name, then I remembered he’d seen me dance.
“Talk
to me,” he said. “You’re scaring me.”
Forced by the magic of his request, I heard myself respond. Despite the fact that I was locked in a desperate battle, my voice was calm, matter-of-fact.
“It’s being Bound,” I explained, wondering who was in charge at moments like this. A corner of my brain reserved for jinni duties? The magic of all jinn, itself, that flowed through us? Whatever it was, it talked real nice, although I wished it would shut up.
“When jinn are unBound, our powers are limited. When we are Bound, we have access to the Deep Magic.”
“But what are you doing?” he asked. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m changing the wards on our door. They’re magical locks. I don’t want Yulia trying to kill you in your sleep.” In truth, I’d love it if Yulia killed my new Master in his sleep. But the jinni in me wouldn’t let that happen and I didn’t want to have her up all night guarding him when we could both be sleeping.
“And it’s difficult?” he asked. I wished I could tell him to shut up, but that wasn’t how our relationship worked.
“It’s just that I haven’t had this much power in a while. It’s like having something really big suddenly thrust inside of me…” The Magi’s grip on my hip tightened and I suddenly remembered I was wearing only my burlesque costume. I’d stopped having much body shame after about the fifth century of my existence on this planet, and the supernaturals I now lived with were all equally louche, so that didn’t bother me at all. But Magi, despite their abilities with jinn, were still human, with human mores.
So maybe I shouldn’t talk about thrusting.
“It’s also Pittsburgh,” I said, changing subjects. “This city’s magic is… funky…” My voice trailed off as I finally wrestled back control of my magical channels. I kept them open just enough to suck in a strong draught of steel-tainted magic, which I knew I’d regret later even as I funneled it at the wards.
Jinn and Juice Page 2
