by Devin Hanson
“That took some guts, planting your phone like that,” Ethan said quietly.
“Desperation, not guts,” I corrected him softly. “Guts is going in first.” I tilted my head toward the open loading dock.
Ethan unholstered his pistol and nodded. “Touché. You can stay out here if you want.”
“Screw you.”
The shirt covered his face, but I saw his eyes wrinkle in a grin. “Maybe later.”
Ethan vaulted up onto the loading dock easily and ghosted forward, his feet making hardly any noise. He reached the doorway and checked the corners before jerking his head at me. Without waiting for me, he raised his pistol to a grip close to his chest and moved out of sight.
Chapter Eleven
I clambered up after him, feeling out of place. Ethan knew what he was doing. I was just as likely to get in the way as be of any assistance. If David was being held by humans, I would have stayed in the car and let Ethan do the rescue on his own. But these were djinn holding him, and as limited as my knowledge was, I still knew more than Ethan did.
The inside of the loading dock looked like a warehouse. Steel shelving held more crates. A forklift was in a corner. It was only a very small part of the sound stage, though, maybe fifteen feet deep. A closed double-door led deeper into the sound stage.
David had to be further inside. I walked softly up to the doors to Ethan’s side. He held up a hand, cautioning me, and pressed his ear against the door. Now that I wasn’t walking, I felt it through the soles of my feet. A slight, rhythmic vibration, growing stronger.
The marid! I grabbed Ethan’s sleeve and tugged him away from the door and deeper into the warehouse. I pulled him down behind a crate a few rows over and dropped to the floor a moment before the double doors swung open.
I saw the marid’s legs through the gap above the crate, and his knees flexed as he ducked through the doorway. He rumbled something in the same language I had recorded on my phone, then stomped off toward the van.
“Bodybuilder?” Ethan whispered to me, his eyes wide.
I touched my finger to my helmet and shook my head. After a few seconds, Eric followed the marid outside and I heard the van rumble as it started up. We waited in silence until the gate rattled open and the van left.
It occurred to me that we had forgotten to check to see if David had still been inside the van.
“Come on,” Ethan whispered. “Two left, right?”
I shrugged and nodded. There wasn’t anything we could do about the van now.
Ethan crept out from behind the shelving and went to the doors. I followed on his heels and slipped through the door after him. I caught the door as it swung shut and eased it closed silently.
The main sound stage was around eighty feet square, with a high, vaulted ceiling. Sound-deadening foam stalactites dangled from wires. An elaborate steel catwalk system held up lights that illuminated the main stage. A hand trolley supporting a counter-weighted camera boom blocked my view of the stage.
I heard Elaida’s voice and edged around the trolley, trying to get her into sight. The stage had been set up for a sitcom or something, with a few three-walled “rooms” elaborately decorated and furnished to represent the focal points for the script.
David was sitting in a chair, his wrists cuffed to the armrests and a few turns of rope around his chest. An IV bag hung on a tree behind him, dripping into a needle in his arm. The bag held some kind of dark liquid, but I was too far away to make out what it was. His head lolled and his eyes were unfocused, but he muttered a response to Elaida’s questions in a voice too soft for me to hear.
Elaida and dent-face stood over him. Dent-face had his arms crossed, with his chin down. At some point, he had changed back into his suit. His body language suggested he was thinking, but his back was to me so I couldn’t see his face. Elaida was much more animated, pacing back and forth, her heels clicking on the stage floor.
Ethan raised his pistol to shoulder height and stepped out into the open. I started reaching out to him, then drew back behind the cover of the trolley when he said loudly, “Okay, that’s enough.”
Elaida spun to face him, her face drawn into a rictus snarl. She spat something in a language I didn’t understand and raised one hand toward Ethan, her fingers crooked into claws.
“Stop!” Ethan snapped. “Raise your hands up behind your heads. Both of you! I’m not having a fantastic day, and if you try and make it any worse, I’ll just shoot you.”
Dent-face shared a look with Elaida, and then complied. “You’re making a mistake, brother,” he said. His English was accented, but clear enough.
“I don’t think so,” Ethan said grimly. “Take that needle out of his arm. Slowly.”
“No.” Dent-face smiled amiably. “I won’t.”
Ethan swung his pistol around to cover him. “I’ll only ask nicely one more time.”
“You’ll have to shoot me, then,” dent-face retorted.
Without warning, Ethan dropped his aim down and to the left, and shot the couch behind dent-face twice. The reports sounded flat from all the sound-deadening around the stage. Flecks of couch stuffing puffed up and drifted in the bright stage lights. Dent-face flinched and Ethan shifted to center his sights on the man’s face. “The next one goes between your eyes. That bandage will make a nice target. I won’t miss, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”
I could see dent-face’s resolve waver. Then Elaida stepped forward between Ethan and the other man. “Whoever you are, you have no idea what you’re getting involved in.”
“I have a very good idea, actually. I won’t hesitate to shoot a woman, either. You have five seconds to comply with my order.”
Elaida dropped her hands. “I doubt that.” Her right hand raised, fingers crooked. “Adormi.”
Ethan’s pistol dropped from suddenly nerveless fingers and he sagged to the ground with a soft sigh.
“Blestemul zeilor,” dent-face muttered. He dropped his hands. “How the hell did he get in here?”
“How should I know? Get his gun,” Elaida said tightly. Her face was hard-focused in concentration, the tendons in her hand standing proud with the force of her claw gesture. “I can’t hold him forever.”
Ah, shit! I stared at Elaida in shock. I knew some of the houri had power. They were the source of the witch legends throughout history, but most of the bloodlines with the latent ability had been hunted down over the thousands of years after the Old Testament identified them as targets of persecution. Most of those who survived had either learned to keep their power hidden or had only token ability.
Dent-face hurried over to Ethan and kicked the gun away. It skittered off into the gloom and I heard it hit a crate to my left. Elaida relaxed her hand and Ethan’s peaceful snores broke into a confused gasp. Ethan started scrambling to his feet and dent-face snapped a punch into the side of Ethan’s head.
Ethan collapsed to the ground and groaned. Dent-face shook his hand out. “We sent Marcel away too early.”
“Stop complaining, Frederick,” Elaida groaned. She rubbed at her hand, massaging the muscles in her palm and wrist. “Just get him tied up.”
“Whatever. Toss me that extension cord.”
Frederick knelt down over Ethan and hauled his hands around to the small of his back. Elaida had turned back to face David. Neither of them was paying attention, neither suspected Ethan hadn’t been alone.
I stepped out from behind the trolley and crept up on Frederick from behind.
“Yo.”
He looked up, surprise then shocked recognition on his face. I was already swinging my foot and connected hard with the point of his chin. His teeth clacked together and his head snapped back. He sprawled on his side, his limbs scrabbling about weakly as he clung to consciousness. I kicked him again and he stopped moving.
Elaida spun around. She saw me standing over Frederick and her hand reached out toward me, her fingers curling into a claw. “Cazna,” she growled.
Pain flo
oded through me, agony blinding in its intensity. I doubled over and fell to my knees, screaming. It felt like my bones were splitting, like my nails were being torn from my fingers, like spikes were being driven into my molars. I curled in on myself reflexively, anything to protect myself from this unimaginable pain.
Gradually I became aware the pain had stopped. I rolled over and saw Elaida on one knee, her face twisted in pain, desperately trying to rub the cramp from her hand.
“Stand up, child!”
I groaned and found my way to hands and knees. I wasn’t sure if my mother’s voice had only been inside my head or if she had manifested again and was mocking me from the shadows.
Elaida saw me moving and reached her right hand out toward me again, her face a mask of pain and concentration. I lurched up into a staggering dash and closed the distance to Elaida before she could finish forming whatever spell she was working on. I crashed into her and we both went tumbling to the ground at David’s feet.
She clawed at me, but I hardly felt her nails through my leather riding jacket. I hinged up at the waist and head butted her. I heard my helmet crunch into her mouth and a spatter of blood and saliva smeared across my visor. Elaida rolled away, keening and clutching at her face.
I got unsteadily to my feet and pulled the needle from David’s arm, then picked up the IV tree and went to stand over Elaida. She looked up at me as I raised the tree, then I rammed the heavy, cast-iron base into her face. Elaida went limp and I let the IV tree clatter to the ground after her.
“God damn it!” I groaned. My hands were shaking. Memory of the pain lingered, making me sick to my stomach. My cheeks were wet with tears and I sagged to my knees. I wanted to curl up and cry myself unconscious, but the urgency of the situation forced me back to my feet.
David’s head was still lolling. I could see his mouth working, but he wasn’t up to forming coherent sentences yet. He could wait. I dropped down off the stage and knelt down by Ethan.
“Ethan!” I cried and shook his shoulders. “Wake up!” I slapped his cheek a few times until he groaned and caught my wrist.
“Alex, what… what happened?”
“Later, Ethan. We need to get David out of here!”
I helped pull Ethan to his feet and he looked around the sound stage, taking in the slumped form of Elaida next to David, the IV tree laying over her shoulders. “You did this?”
“I got lucky,” I shrugged. “But we have to hurry. I don’t fancy our chances if either of them wakes up.”
Ethan rubbed the side of his head and winced. “Right.” He took a step and tripped over Frederick. Ethan barely caught his balance and glared at me, daring me to comment.
Under usual conditions I would have gleefully ribbed him for the next couple minutes, but this time I barely noticed it happen. I had much greater worries.
David was looking at me when I reached his side, and he seemed to be mentally alert, if still not in full control of his body. Ethan produced a wickedly curved folding knife and went to work on David’s bonds. I caught David when Ethan cut his arms free and he sagged forward. I half-expected David’s dead weight to be too much to support, but either he was lighter than I remembered or some of that demonic strength from my mother had lingered.
Ethan cut his feet free and I pulled David upright, with one arm slung over my shoulders.
“You got him?”
I grunted a strained affirmative.
“Do you know where my gun is?”
I jerked my head toward where I had heard it skittering when Frederick had kicked it away, then concentrated on getting David off the platform and pointed toward the exit. I had David down to the ground level when Ethan made a pleased noise and snatched up his pistol.
He hurried to my side, and I shook my head. “I got David. You make sure nobody else is going to jump us.”
Ethan nodded uncertainly then jogged forward to the door. He hauled it open and stepped through, gun at the ready.
“Come on, David,” I muttered. “We’re almost out of here.”
Getting out of the sound stage was easy after that. The man-door next to the lot gate opened from the inside without a key, and Ethan helped support David’s weight once we were out on the street. We got David into the back seat of Ethan’s car and I climbed in after, squirming over David’s lap to reach the far seat.
I was still getting turned around when Ethan peeled away from the curb, and moments later we merged with the traffic on Santa Monica. Rush hour traffic clogged the city’s arteries and slowed our speed to a crawl, but I finally felt safe once more. There was no way anyone could chase us down unless they had a helicopter. I took my helmet off with a sigh of relief and tossed it forward into the passenger seat.
“Alexandra,” David mumbled.
I turned to him, shrugging out of the shoulder strap of my seat belt so I could face him fully. “Hey, there you are. Take it easy. You’re safe now.” I found his hands with my own and returned his painfully tight squeeze.
“Ilyena,” he said. “What happened to her?”
“Ah…” I looked at Ethan for guidance and he shrugged.
“I saw her fall. Is she all right?”
“She was alive the last time I saw her,” I assured him. “She… ah… was stabbed. The paramedics were with her.”
That seemed to shock David out of his stupor. “The paramedics?!”
“It was either that or let her bleed out on the sidewalk,” I said irritably.
“No, you don’t understand. She…” David’s eyes sawed around and fixed on the back of Ethan’s head. “Mr. Bishop is driving?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Caradoc. You’re safe now,” Ethan called back.
“Bwchia. We must go to the hospital now!”
“Yeah, that’s actually a good idea. You need to get looked at,” Ethan said. “Who knows what they were pumping into you.”
“No.” David squeezed my hands again urgently. “Ilyena, she is hinn. The doctors, they will not understand.”
Oh. Shit. Hinn were djinn like the marid and houri but were even less human than their counterparts. They were animalistic, from what I understood, and had the ability to shift into their animal forms. I was a little surprised I hadn’t seen the signs when I was face to face with her. I guess that’s what stress will do to you.
“Okay.” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to think. “We need to get you safe, then we can worry about Ilyena. Ethan, get us to David’s hotel.”
“But, the hospital—”
“Just do it!”
There was nothing we could do about Ilyena. I just hoped she was able to hang onto consciousness. If she lost control and started shifting… well. If we were lucky she would stay human until we could get to her.
Ethan muttered something, but when we got to the freeway, he turned south. Traffic was perversely light and we made rapid time to Ethan’s hotel.
“Ethan, after you drop us off, you’ll have to go check on Ilyena. She should be at the Good Samaritan Hospital on Sixth Street.”
He gave me a long look in the rearview mirror, then turned his eyes forward again. “I don’t like this, Alex.” He sighed. “There are too many secrets here.”
“If you wish to terminate your employment with me, I would understand,” David said.
Ethan grimaced. “It’s not that. Shit. Yes, it is. I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s going on, Mr. Caradoc. I don’t want to take your money and run. I’ll refund you your advance, minus my services rendered.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Bishop. Your services to date are well worth the fee I paid you. I just ask that you assist me with this last request. I would tend to it myself, but I am somewhat indisposed.”
Ethan sighed. “Fine. I can do that, but I can’t help you after that without more information.”
“That is acceptable. If you change your mind, we can renegotiate terms.” David leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Whatever Elaida
had put in that IV seemed to be wearing off slowly. The wan color in his cheeks was starting to come back to his usual healthy tan.
It didn’t take much longer for us to reach David’s hotel, and Ethan pulled into the parking garage where we could get out of the car with some privacy.
“What is the girl’s name?” Ethan asked as he pulled into a parking spot.
“Ilyena Demivich,” David provided, and described her briefly.
I got out of the car and moved to help David, but he was getting out under his own power. He straightened and grimaced, but he stood without wavering.
“Do you need help getting upstairs?” Ethan asked.
“I think we can manage,” I said.
Ethan frowned at me. “Alex…”
“Just go, all right? We can talk later.”
He slammed the car into reverse and pulled away, his face troubled.
“Mr. Bishop doesn’t seem to be doing very well,” David observed, looking after Ethan.
“He’s sick or something. He had just gotten out of the doctor’s office when I called him for help.”
David started limping toward the elevators. “It occurs to me that I have yet to thank you for your timely arrival. How could you have possibly found me so quickly?”
I told him the story as we made our way up to his suite. I had been day-dreaming about getting David alone again and having my way with him, and now that we were in his suite I couldn’t help but feel let down that he clearly wasn’t up to another tumble.
“Who is Ilyena?” I asked once he had made his way to a couch.
“An associate of mine.” David leaned back against the armrest and swung his legs up onto the couch.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met a hinn,” I said. They were common enough in Europe and further east, but not many ended up coming to America. “Do you want something to eat? Or drink? Or I could order room service?”
“Water, if you would,” David said. “Ilyena is strong-willed. It is likely Mr. Bishop will find her unremarkable.”