Genie for Hire

by Neil Plakcy

  She shook her head and tried to smile. He transformed back into a butterfly, and zipped around Farishta in a tiny sparkle of light. Then he joined the swarm, which rose up as a mass and drifted away on the light breeze. Biff watched until he could no longer see them, then turned back to Farishta, who was cuddling the squirrel in her arms.

  Jimmy came over to them. “Wasn’t that your ‘business associate’ I just saw?”

  “Syl? He was here but he had to go.”

  Jimmy looked at Biff but didn’t say anything for a couple of beats. “Yeah, right.”

  “I must…” Farishta began. The squirrel chirped and jumped from her arms to the ground. Then she fainted.

  32 – Looking for Laskin

  “Hold on there,” Jimmy said, reaching out for Farishta. He put his arm around her to keep her from sliding off the bench, and she opened her eyes. “You’re shaking. We’d better get you over to the EMTs.”

  “Give her to me,” Biff said. “I know what she needs.”

  “The EMTs are right over there, Biff.”

  Biff shook his head. “Trust me, they can’t help her.” He lifted Farishta in his arms, and she was as light and weak as she’d been at the bridge. “We’ll catch up with you later,” he said.

  He carried her down the riverbank, leaving Jimmy shaking his head. Raki followed uncertainly, as Biff walked to the Miami Circle, drawing his own power from the stones and from the proximity of the lamp in his backpack. He was still weak himself, but just being in that sacred place, and having his feet solidly planted on the ground, helped him.

  He continued across to the seawall protecting the land from the bay. When he reached the water’s edge he lowered Farishta to the ground, her legs dangling down over the concrete. Then he sat down next to her.

  She was woozy, her edges fading in and out. Biff knew she must have drained her power tremendously in trying to stop the freighter. He put his arm around her and she rested her head on his shoulder.

  “I am so tired, my Bivas,” she said, slurring her words. “I need my amulet.”

  “I know, my sweet,” he said. “But you’ll be better soon.”

  He kissed her cheek, then pushed her forward until her connection with the seawall was a tenuous as a butterfly’s wing.

  Then he let her go.

  The squirrel chittered as Farishta slid into the choppy water. For a moment Biff was worried that the waves would crash her up against the shore before she could recover, but she drifted out a few feet on her back, her hair swirling around her like a sea of eels. He sat on the ground, hoping he was right, drawing his own power back into him from the circle of stones.

  Farishta opened her eyes. “Ah, my Bivas,” she said. “Thank you.” Then she closed her eyes and faded below the surface of the water.

  He sat there until he felt strong enough to get up again. There was still the amulet to retrieve. He stood, picked up the squirrel, and walked back toward the flashing lights. The rodent chittered the whole way. “She’ll be all right,” Biff said, more to reassure himself than Raki. “Her element is water. It’ll recharge her.”

  The ambulances had left to take the injured to the hospital by the time Biff returned to the empty lot at the river’s edge. Several cop cars remained, along with the Medical Examiner’s van. He reached it as Laskin’s body was being lifted into the back. Something was wrong, though; the body did not have Laskin’s unique aroma of sweat, steroids and that expensive cologne. He sniffed more carefully—had his sense of smell been hurt by the fire? Or was Laskin’s odor overwhelmed by the smoke?

  “You’re back,” Jimmy said. “How’s Farishta?”

  “She’s recovering.” Raki hopped to the ground as Biff leaned in closer. “Are you sure that’s Laskin?” Biff asked Hector.

  “The face was badly burned, but he’s wearing the same jacket as when he got on the boat.”

  “Can I see?”

  “Biff…” Hector began, but Jimmy interrupted.

  “Let him take a look. Biff’s got a good sense of this kind of thing.”

  Hector nodded to the EMT, who pulled away the sheet covering the body. Despite the disfiguring burns on the face, the Marlins ball cap on the man’s head had emerged from the flames untouched.

  Biff didn’t bother with the burned face. He looked first at the neck—but there was no gold chain, and the dead man’s skin was smooth—not hairy like Laskin’s. The giveaway, though, was the lack of musculature. He felt a wave of remorse that an innocent man had died instead of Laskin.

  “It isn’t him,” Jimmy said, swallowing hard, before Biff could say anything. “I’ve had Laskin under surveillance for a while, and I can tell you he’s built like a brick shithouse. This guy hasn’t seen the inside of a gym in years.”

  “I agree with Jimmy,” Biff said. “Laskin pulled some kind of trick.”

  “He’s not on the boat,” Hector protested. “We did a thorough search.”

  Biff pointed to the red windbreaker. “No way the body could have been burned with the jacket still intact. Laskin must have dressed the dead body in his clothes.”

  “Comemierda!” Hector said. “Where could he go?”

  They looked out at the placid river. “Must have jumped off and swum somewhere,” Jimmy said. “But how could he have climbed up the seawall?”

  Biff knew that Laskin had bulked up much more after acquiring the amulet. He believed that with it around his neck, enveloping him in its power, Laskin could have not only survived the jump into the water, but been able to swim a great distance, perhaps to a place on the river without a seawall, but he didn’t say anything. “I’ll get a couple of uniforms out to search the area,” Jimmy said. “But it’s going to be hell to find traces of him in the dark, even with powerful lights. And he’s a moving target with a head start.”

  The darkness wouldn’t bother Biff—but the presence of a lot of police officers would get in the way of his ability to sniff out where Laskin had gone. He yawned, and used that as chance to slip away from Jimmy and get a head start on the search. “It’s been a long night,” he said. “I’m going to head home and get some sleep.”

  “Take care of Farishta,” Jimmy said.

  Hector stuck out his hand. “Thanks for your help tonight, Biff. Wish things had gone better, but at least we’ve shut down their operation for now.”

  Biff couldn’t leave Raki down by the river to fend for himself. He leaned down and picked up the squirrel, who gripped his tiny claws into Biff’s shoulder. As he walked back toward his car, he pulled the lamp from his backpack and held it cradled in his hands. Then he opened his third eye and using what remained of the lamp’s power, expanded his senses to track a wide circuit. He felt a vibration in the air, a weak signal from the amulet—but it was so vague he couldn’t track it.

  He focused instead on Laskin’s smell, sniffing the air. For a moment, as he recognized nothing, Biff felt he couldn’t go any farther. His reserves of energy had been depleted, his magic was almost gone, and his body stung where it had been splashed, despite the protection of the lamp. Farishta was gone and so was Syl.

  The lamp’s magic needed time to replenish. All he had was a squirrel for company. Only the thought of Farishta, who desperately needed to retrieve the amulet in order to remain in this world, gave him the motivation to continue. He caught a faint trace that led him under the Metrorail tracks and up to Fifth Street. Laskin was on the move—but where was he going? Was he looking for a car to steal?

  Laskin must have been agitated and sweated freely, because his scent got stronger as Biff moved farther south. Biff even noted residual traces of the amulet’s energy in the air. That was good; it meant he was getting closer.

  Though traffic passed, regulated by a light two blocks away, the street was deserted except for three teenagers leaning against the back wall of a bank building. Biff was overwhelmed for a moment by fatigue, and stumbled on a curb. Raki leapt off his shoulder, and Biff looked around for him to apologize—but the squirr
el had scurried away.

  The teens began to cross the parking lot toward him. He put the lamp back in his pack, stepped up to a palm tree, and clasped his hands around the rough bark, focusing on drawing energy from the elemental power of the earth.

  When he opened his eyes the three young men were in front of him. One was black, the other two Hispanic. “Have too much to drink, dude?” one of the Hispanics said, his voice menacing, carrying with it a hint of Latin America. Biff recognized the gang-related tattoos up and down his arm, the two tiny red teardrops tattooed beneath his eyes, supposed to signify the number of men he’d killed.

  The palm tree shook briefly, and one of the unripe coconuts fell—right onto the head of Mr. Teardrops. His mouth dropped open and his eyes looked dazed. Then he fell to the ground. Biff looked up to the top of the tree and saw Raki there.

  The other two gang-bangers both pulled knives and closed in on Biff. He said a silent thank you to Raki, then marshaled his energy enough to zap the other two teens into a temporary stupor. Both of them fell to the ground, the three boys a clump of arms, legs, T-shirts and nylon workout pants.

  Raki jumped back down to Biff’s shoulder, and they followed Laskin’s trail east, toward Brickell Avenue. At the corner stood what was probably one of the last pay phones in all Miami. The stand was covered in graffiti and the directory was long gone, but the phone still worked. Biff stood there with the receiver in his hand, inhaling Laskin’s scent. The man had been there, and not long before. It made sense that if he’d been in the water, his cell phone would have been ruined, and he’d need the pay phone.

  Biff tried *69, to bring up the last number dialed from the phone—but that feature didn’t work. He looked around, as traffic moved past on Brickell, many cars turning right to head inland. He began pacing in ever larger circles around the pay phone, looking for a hint of where Laskin might have gone. The problem was that Laskin’s scent was so strong at the phone that it radiated outward.

  At a palm tree a hundred feet away, Biff’s nose was assailed by the sharp, acid smell of urine. Not a dog’s or a cat’s, though; this smell was human, with the distinct tang of steroids. Laskin must have ducked behind a neatly groomed hibiscus hedge to take a leak.

  Biff wrinkled his nose—but Laskin’s trail picked up again, and Biff followed it two blocks south, feeling more like a tracking hound than a skilled genie. At Seventh Street, the trail turned inland again, and ahead of him glowed the lights of a late-night bodega selling lottery tickets and Cuban coffee.

  A twenty-foot tall banyan tree stood beside the bodega, its vertical roots looking like the cage around a dangerous animal. Biff approached carefully, as the magical residue the amulet had left behind in the air grew stronger. Was Laskin in the bodega?

  He heard the roar of a sports car’s engine, and slipped into the shelter of the banyan as a Mercedes sedan zoomed past him and pulled to a screeching stop in front of the bodega. The driver’s door swung open and Viktor Petrov got out and slammed it behind him.

  The air around him crackled with dark energy, a glowing aura that was blacker than midnight. He wore a black track suit with the Russian double eagle crest embroidered on the back, and his dark hair stood on end, giving him the look of a mad professor. He stood beside his car for a moment, scanning the area, the power radiating around him, then strode up to the bodega’s front door.

  33 – Recovering the Amulet

  Biff pulled the lamp from his backpack and cradled it in his hands. It glowed softly in the darkness, and its energy pulsed toward the bodega. It seemed to be drawing in the power Petrov had left in his wake, growing stronger from it.

  He realized that Laskin was just a puppet, with Petrov pulling his strings. At his boss’s direction, he had killed Sveta Pshkov and Kiril Ovetschkin, and probably the valet Usnavy. He had trafficked in stolen guns and most likely many other illegal activities, too.

  But at the same time, he had cared about Natasha Petrovna and been angry about her recruiting young girls for Sveta’s porn operation. Biff had even come to like him when they worked out together.

  Humans. Even after centuries among them, sometimes they still baffled him.

  Biff had seen that Petrov loved his daughter, and he couldn’t blame the man for exacting revenge on those who had taken advantage of her. But he had gone too far, and committed too many other crimes. It was time for Biff to deliver some justice, and retrieve Farishta’s amulet in the process. Even though he knew that once she recovered it, she might disappear again for years—or centuries.

  Feeling his strength returned, he put the lamp back in his pack, and slung it over his shoulder. He left Raki to climb a palm tree tilted at a forty-five degree angle and stalked across the street to the bodega.

  Though Biff could not create matter, he could manipulate it. He couldn’t magic a jail cell into existence by the side of the road and lock the two Russians inside so he had to work with what was available.

  First, to disable the getaway car. He pointed his index finger at the right front tire, opened his third eye, and marshaled the energy stored in the ground beneath his feet. With one sharp hiss after another, each of the four tires was punctured and deflated.

  The front door of the bodega opened, and Petrov strode out. Biff was slammed back against the banyan’s trunk by the force of the magical energy that emanated from the man, magnified a thousand fold from what Biff had seen before. In a flash, he understood. The fool must have damaged the nesting dolls in some way that released the demon from its confinement. The Div-e Sepid had taken over Petrov’s body, and Petrov’s anger with Laskin had caused the demon’s power to explode.

  Laskin followed Petrov out of the bodega, arguing and pleading in Russian. Petrov reached his car and noted the blown tires. His body swelled to twice his size and turned a bright red, glowing as if lit by an internal fire. The black track suit split and frayed around him. Wherever his skin was visible it was coated with a dark hair, as if he was a werewolf in mid-transition.

  Laskin cowered beside the bodega. Biff marshaled his energy, drawing from the earth below the banyan tree. He wrapped his hands around the lamp once more and pointed its spout toward Petrov. He focused everything he had into pulling the Div-e Sepid and its power into the lamp.

  But the ancient demon was too powerful. It had been contained inside those dolls for a long time, growing in strength, and Biff and his lamp were no match for it. He staggered backward as the demon repulsed him.

  Then, like an ancient Chinese firework, Petrov shot up into the night sky. But instead of exploding, he streaked away toward the glittering towers of downtown Miami.

  Though Biff had witnessed similar transformations in his centuries on earth, he was still awestruck. Laskin, on the other hand, had clearly never seen anything like Petrov’s escape. He stood beside the bodega, his body frozen with horror.

  Biff severed a dozen of the hanging tendrils of the banyan and manipulated them in sinuous ropes that curled across the parking lot and wrapped themselves around Igor Laskin’s body.

  The bodybuilder tried to protest, but too late. By the time he thought to raise his powerful arms in defense, the makeshift ropes had already bound his arms to his body. Then Biff emerged from the shadows.

  “Bill!” Laskin cried. “You must help me. There are evil things in the air tonight. I will pay you anything you want if you help me escape.”

  “There is something I want,” Biff said. He knew that Farishta’s amulet had to be relinquished voluntarily.

  “Anything!”

  “The coin you wear around your neck.”

  “Please! Take it. Take anything.”

  Biff felt the lamp rustling against his back, and he reached around and removed it from the pack. He held it toward Laskin, and it glowed with an internal fire similar to what had happened with Petrov.

  The lamp had been in Biff’s possession for centuries, and until then he had never seen it appear to have a mind of its own. It gave off a magnetic energy,
reaching through the charged air toward Laskin.

  The gold coin glowed dully, and Biff could feel it resisting the lamp’s pull. Slowly, though, the chain began to rise from the Russian’s neck. As Laskin stood motionless, gripped by terror, the coin scraped against his neck, struggling to remain in contact with his body against the forces that pulled it away.

  The coin was dragged over his lips, his nose, his eyebrows. Biff could feel the struggle between the lamp and the coin. It was clear that the amulet preferred a human host it could control.

  Laskin’s eyes were filled with panic. Too many strange things had happened to him for a human brain to process.

  The lamp and the amulet fought their battle to what seemed to Biff to be a standoff – the amulet plastered to Laskin’s forehead. He knew he had to help somehow. He concentrated on his love for Farishta. For a moment the chain hung suspended in the air above Laskin, the coin still pressed against his forehead. With a final jerk, the coin released its hold. In less than a second, it sped through the air toward Biff.

  He was almost as startled as Laskin. The coin hovered over the lamp’s spout for a fraction of a second, shimmering in golden light, then dissolved into sparkles and was sucked into the lamp through its spout.

  The lamp felt both lighter and heavier than usual, though it continued to glow with a dull, burnished light. He hoped that Farishta would be able to coax the amulet out of the lamp; he didn’t want the responsibility for it.

  As Biff and Laskin stood in the parking lot, both of them momentarily stunned by the amulet’s actions, the air was rent by a huge bolt of lightning, followed almost immediately by a deafening crack of thunder. Biff looked up at the sky and realized it was about to pour just as rain began to pelt down on them.

  Biff gritted his teeth as the water hit him—but he felt nothing, other than a pleasing sensation of spray. He couldn’t stop to think about it or how oddly the water rejuvenated him. It was cool and fresh and wiped away the residue of the Div-e Sepid’s evil energy.