“Are you sure you are okay? That cut was horrible. I know you’re strong, but…”
“I’m fine,” I said, cutting him off. I knew I sounded rude, but there were bigger fish to fry.
Oz’s silver eyes met mine, big and guileless and shockingly, irritatingly kind. “I put you to bed. I hope you don’t mind. It’s just…”
Feeling my heart stutter, I raised an eyebrow at him.
“It’s just I used to do that for my dad, after a fight. He hated waking up all bloody, and there was so much blood… I figured I could get it out if I got your clothes into cold water fast enough. They’re soaking in your washing machine. Well, the jeans are. The shirt and the hoodie were pretty destroyed.”
I reached for a slice of cantaloupe, unsure of what to say. He’d stripped me, cleaned me up, and put my clothes to soak… because it was the right thing to do?
Sure.
“Well, thank you,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. “That was… kind.”
Oz ducked his head, his thick hair looking very red in the soft light of my kitchen. “I hope I wasn’t too forward… I just figured I’d already seen you in your costume. And you were getting blood everywhere. I had to Resolve the shit out of your sofa.”
When I realized I was shaking my head at him in obvious disbelief, I only just managed to stop.
“It’s fine,” I said, faintly. Because it was. He could have done pretty much anything he’d wanted to me last night, and I wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it. Not only had I been dead to the world, but I was Bound to him by every magical law in existence.
My new Master must play a mean long game, because his short game was already confusing the hell out of me.
“I’m going to have to go to work tonight,” I said. “And I need to talk to Charlie. And to Bertha.”
She wasn’t going to be happy her great-uncle was missing, but maybe she knew something we didn’t. Did trolls take vacations, for example?
“Hopefully her uncle wasn’t eaten. Maybe he just moved?” Ozan said, as if reading my thoughts.
“Hopefully,” I replied, with about as much confidence as I felt for that rosy scenario.
I went to get another Coke from the fridge, grabbing a plastic container of Giant Eagle chocolate chip cookies while I was at it. Ozan watched me skeptically as I gobbled a cookie, swigging it down with the Coke.
Unsure why I felt the need to defend myself, I still heard my own voice explaining. “Headache. Sugar helps.”
He raised an eyebrow, but I pointedly ignored him, reaching instead for my cell phone. Ozan, helpful Master that he was, must’ve put it on the little speaker I used as its charger.
I scrolled through my messages—a few from Charlie and Yulia, asking if I was okay, one from Bertha asking me to call her. I texted them all, telling everyone I was fine and I’d see them at Purgatory tonight. What had happened in the fodden-littered field, and the probable demise of Bertha’s great-uncle, wasn’t appropriate for a text.
But I did send a quick text to Loretta, to let her know the bugbear had been taken care of… by the field of fodden they’d now need to clear out. Luckily, fodden and slugs share a similar reaction to salt, so they are easy to kill if you knew they’re there. And if they don’t eat you before you can grab the Morton’s.
“What’s wrong?” Oz asked, and I realized I was frowning.
“Nothing. I just haven’t heard from my friend Aki. But he’s like that… I shouldn’t worry.”
“But you are worried,” Oz said. “Is it because of what happened at the park?”
I put my phone down, determined not to let my kitsune friend’s lack of a text bother me. “Aki wouldn’t be caught dead hiking, so he’s safe from those fodden. And he’s like this—he disappears all the time. It’s no biggie. He’ll pop back up.”
Oz raised an eyebrow at me, but my new Master didn’t say anything else till I’d polished off the rest of my cookie and another to boot.
“Your friends are very important to you,” he said, as I closed the package of cookies.
“Of course they are. They’re my friends.”
“They seem more like family.”
I smiled. “Talk about dysfunction junction. But yeah, you could say we’re family.”
“It’s weird, though, because you seem really alone. Like you think you’re alone, even though you’re obviously not.”
It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I just mean that there’s something about you. Like you don’t let things touch you.”
I raised the hem of my T-shirt just enough to show off the pink scar from last night. “I let plenty of things touch me.”
He grimaced. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Look,” I said, leaning forward. “The thing is, I know you think you’re a nice guy. You probably want to be a nice guy. But in this scenario, you’re my Master. We’re not buddies. We’re never going to be friends. You own me.”
His eyes widened a bit, and the creamy Irish skin he’d inherited from his daddy somehow managed to pale a few shades more.
“I already said I’d release you, the second we find Tamina. And I mean it.”
I took a deep breath, trying to keep my anger in check. Blowing up at him and making him mad, too, wouldn’t help my situation any.
“Besides,” he said, “yesterday proves I’m not just being a dick. We would have been fodden snacks if you hadn’t had your magic yesterday.”
My eyes narrowed, my temper boiling. The part of me that wasn’t completely immature knew that part of my anger stemmed from the fact that he was right, damn him. But there’s nothing like a “told you so” to make me Stabby McStabberson.
“If you hadn’t Bound me, then I wouldn’t have come on Loretta’s radar,” I said, mulishly.
Oz squared his wide shoulders, clearly not accepting my logic. “And if you hadn’t been Bound, that bugbear would still be running around eating people.”
That took me a second. “The Exterminators would have figured something out,” I said, eventually.
Oz knew he had me. “Bullshit. Or they wouldn’t have Called you, right? You were the only thing standing between that bugbear and all of those people, and you couldn’t have helped if you weren’t Bound.”
“But what about my curse?” I shouted, my voice admittedly petulant.
“I will free you,” he said, his eyes locking on mine. “I swear on my mother’s grave that I will free you the minute we find Tamina. And in the meantime, stop blaming me for keeping you Bound. It has saved our lives twice now.”
We both fell silent, him staring at me in challenge and me keeping my head ducked.
“It’s not that simple,” I said eventually, peering up through my bangs at him. “It’s just…”
“I get it,” Oz said. “At least as much as I can. I get that anywhere you are, everything you have can be taken from you. I get that you’ve lived like that for longer than I can imagine, and that you’ve probably had it happen to you—over, and over, and over. So I get why you feel like you’re alone and why you’re scared and why you don’t want to believe me.”
Tears prickled my eyes and I furiously blinked them away.
When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. He leaned forward, staring at me intently. “But that’s life, Lyla. Any life can be turned upside down, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Mine was, too. I went from living in one world that I knew and thought I could make better, to living in an entirely different one, overnight. Everything I took for granted is gone. And that is why I’m going to free you as soon as I can, and certainly before your curse is up.”
I blinked at him, feeling hollow. I hadn’t thought of it like that; hadn’t thought about him at all. Oz was just a Master to be outsmarted, not a man who’d gone through his own ordeal and might be different than I’d assumed.
“How are you so calm about everything?” I asked, giving him that.
“Life is what it is. A crapshoot.”
I shook my head. I was being lectured by a man who was a veritable infant compared to me.
And who was infinitely more wise, it seemed.
“So that’s it? You just accept that life sucks?” I wanted to deflate him a little bit; poke some holes in his Yoda mask.
“Nope. I wish I was that strong, but acceptance is hard. Instead I focus on the good stuff. Yeah, I’ve lost my old world. But this new one seems pretty cool. It’s definitely full of interesting people.”
I felt my cheeks heat, to my horror. Was I blushing?
“Yeah, well, we’re all interesting until we try to eat you.”
All I received from Oz was a raised eyebrow and I felt my face grow even hotter. Damn.
“Look, we’ve gotta go,” I said. “If you’re done Dear Abbying me?”
He smiled. “I’m done. If you’re done threatening to eat me.”
“I was not threatening to eat you,” I said, using my prim voice again. “And I thought you were just doing all of this so you could find Tamina, discharge your debt, and go back to normal?”
His silver eyes gazed into my brown. “I do. I think. But I’m beginning to realize that may not be feasible.”
“Another thing you’re okay with?”
He nodded, but the smile was gone. His eyes never wavered from mine. “Yes and no. I’m scared. But there are aspects of this world that I find more and more appealing.”
I had nothing to say to that.
“What should we do next?” he asked, breaking the silence for me.
I cleared my throat. “I need to tell everyone at Purgatory what happened. Talk to Bertha. I’m scheduled to perform tonight. Then we need to knuckle down. Start looking for your Tamina.”
“She’s not mine,” he said, gently. “But I would like to find her, when you’re finished doing what you need to do.”
He still wasn’t commanding me, damn him. He was the worst Master ever.
Chapter Twelve
Bertha’s big face, normally placid, was lined with grief. She was sitting bolt upright across from me at one of Purgatory’s small café tables. Charlie sat next to her, a hand on the shoulder of her black suit, and Oz sat next to me.
“Fodden?” she repeated, for about the tenth time.
“I know. I can’t believe it either,” I said.
“And not just one?”
“An infestation.” I looked at Charlie. “One that I hope the Exterminators take care of, before they realize humans are food, too.”
Normally creatures that only lived Sideways, fodden weren’t aware people were just as tasty a treat as the supernaturals upon which they normally feasted. But occasionally a rogue fodden somehow found itself on the human plane, and it never took it long to discover that the strange-smelling creatures in its new habitat made for yummy snacks.
“Are they aware of the situation?” asked Charlie.
“I texted Loretta earlier.”
My attention turned to Bertha when I heard her sniffle.
“Do you think Sid could have made it out?” I asked her, gently.
She shook her head. “Where would he go?”
I bowed my head, sharing in Bertha’s grief. I’d been hoping for a different answer, but I’d known the truth. A troll’s territory was everything to him; Sid would never have willingly left the place he’d been born.
“How could that many fodden have crossed the Bridge?” Bertha looked at Charlie, her long mustaches quivering along with the hand beneath mine. I’m not sure whether it was suppressed rage or grief or fear, or a combination of all three.
“They couldn’t have. At least, not on their own steam,” Charlie said. “They had to have been brought over.”
“Who the hell would do that?” I asked. “They’re useless.”
“Useless?” Oz asked. “One sliced you up pretty good.”
Charlie gave me a concerned look. “Are you all right now?”
“Yeah, all healed. Well, mostly healed.” I turned to Oz. “And what I meant by ‘useless’ is that fodden aren’t good for anything. They attack whatever they think is food, and they eat virtually anything. So you can’t use them for either defense or offense. And they’re super-invasive, so they can’t be contained. Most of Sideways is uninhabitable because of fodden, and the great Lords are said to have to go culling every few years or all of it would fall to the brutes.
“So nothing in its right mind would bring fodden over. It’d be like unleashing velociraptors to guard the house you have to live in, if velociraptors bred like rabbits.”
“And yet we’ve got an infestation in Frick Park,” Charlie said, his voice musing. “The bugbear and the fodden may be connected.”
“How? Fodden eat bugbears,” I said, thinking about the head with broken mandibles lying in Frick Park.
“Can I ask a question?” asked Oz. I’d known it was coming, had seen that now-familiar look of consternation creasing his forehead.
“Of course,” I said, while Charlie looked down his nose at my Master.
“How do you Call a bugbear? I mean, I know I can Call jinn, as a Magi…” He actually looked guilty when he said that, bless him. “But how can someone Call a bugbear?”
“Anything can be Called, son,” said Bertha, visibly pulling herself together. “You can be even Called, if someone has your blood and your true name.”
“My true name?” Oz’s face showed that unique combination of eager curiosity and trepidation with which he met everything we told him. Part of him very obviously loved this steep learning curve, even while the rest of him was continually braced for something terrifying.
“Yes. We all have a true name. But ‘name’ isn’t really accurate… it’s like a…” I looked at Charlie for help.
“Like a tone. A resonance. A vibration.”
I nodded. “Yes. Those. Remember when you first Saw me?”
“Of course,” he said, his eyes turning inward. “You glowed. You were beautiful, of course, and you had all that black Fire around you. But there was something else… it pulled at me.”
I ignored the “beautiful” bit just as I ignored Charlie’s twitching brows. “The pull you felt, that was the connection between a jinni and a Magi. You can See me, See my true name. And you can use that connection to Call me.”
“But you were standing in front of me.”
“You still Called,” I reminded him. “The second part of the spell you spoke. In this case, it didn’t pull me Sideways, but it did stopper my magic. And you’d do the same thing to Call a jinni from Sideways… you’d use your magic to seek for that magical resonance. Once you hooked into a jinni’s true name, you’d Call, pulling the jinni Sideways.”
“And that same thing can be done to anyone,” Charlie said, to Oz’s obvious horror.
“Anyone and anything. If,” I clarified, “you have the power. All Magi have innate, varying degrees of power over jinn. But something with a lot of power can Call virtually anything if they have what they need—usually a spell that homes in on a certain kind of creature’s magical signature and the Will to work it.”
“So something used a lot of power to Call over a bugbear and some fodden, assuming it was the same person, but from what you said they’re not very useful?” Oz asked, bringing our conversation back into focus.
I nodded. “That’s what makes no sense. Although whoever called it didn’t have to be that strong; if you know what you’re doing, bugbears are pretty quick to Call. And yet why?”
Charlie interrupted. “Maybe we should start with other questions. Like when?
”
“I talked to my uncle a few days ago. Maybe Monday?” Bertha said, her eyes glistening with suppressed tears but her voice remaining steady. “And we’ve not heard anything about humans disappearing, so the fodden couldn’t have been in that field for much more than twenty-four hours.”
“Which means enough of them had to come over all at once to infest that field that quickly,” Charlie said.
I met his colorless gaze. “Let’s go over the possibilities. Somebody could have Called the bugbear and the fodden specifically, although it makes no sense for anyone to want any fodden, let alone a metric fuck-ton of fodden. Or a bugbear, for that matter.”
“Sometimes bugbears are Called by creatures arrogant enough to think they will be able to control them. Maybe someone Called the bugbear, and the fodden were an accident,” Bertha said.
Hearing that inspired a third option, one that made me grimace. But Charlie beat me to it.
“Or someone was trying to Call something very, very big from Sideways, and both the fodden and the bugbear were accidents.” Charlie’s voice was deep and low, but his words were anything but comforting.
We three magical folks all peered at each other as goose bumps rose on my skin. Oz looked more confused than ever.
“But who would do that, and why?” he asked, his gaze shifting among our worried faces.
“We have no idea who, or why. That’s not the kind of thing that happens in Pittsburgh,” I said.
“Nobody here has that much power,” Bertha explained to Oz. “No pure supernaturals with any real magical capacity can touch the poisoned Node.”
“Except for Lyla, now that she’s Bound,” came Loretta’s voice from behind me.
I clutched my hand to my chest, my heart beating like it was imitating a death metal drum solo.
“We should tie a bell on her,” Oz said to me, making me snort.
“Loretta,” said Charlie, rising to his feet to greet our guest. “To what do we owe this honor?”
“We sent a team to take care of the fodden,” said the Exterminator. She turned to Bertha. “I’m very sorry about Sid. He was a good troll.”
Jinn and Juice Page 10
