Djinnx'd (The Tamar Black Saga #1)

by Nicola Rhodes

  ‘Okay what the hell. Who wants to live forever?’

  ‘Exactly – take it from me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.’

  ‘Okay then.’

  ‘Hold your breath – you don’t want to breathe in any smoke.’

  ‘I should think that’s going to be the least of my problems.’

  He drew in his breath, and they walked through.

  ~ Chapter Ten ~

  On the other side, it was hard to tell at first whether or not they had got anywhere at all. The smokiness lingered, Well, it was either that, or they were in a very smoky room. The silence was deafening.

  ‘Hello?’ Denny’s voice was deadened, like he was speaking into a pillow.

  A shape loomed out of the fug and revealed itself to be an old man of the type usually described as venerable.

  ‘Ah,’ he said with a twinkle, ‘victims.’

  This was not at all encouraging, but Tamar snapped. ‘Cut out the Wizard of Oz σκουπίδια,* nobody’s impressed – and get rid of all this smoke.’

  *[“rubbish” – and that is putting it politely]

  The old man sagged; he waved a hand and the smoke cleared. They could now see that they were in a bare room, rather like a police interview room. The old man sat on a single wooden chair in the middle of the floor. There were no doors.

  ‘No expense spared I see,’ commented Denny, caustically.’

  ‘You can’t blame me for trying to liven things up a bit,’ whined the old man. ‘Gets boring this job – bit of atmosphere impresses the suckers no end.’

  ‘But I can see that you’re no sucker,’ he added hastily, seeing Tamar’s face darken. ‘Now, what’s next? – lost the script. It’s been so long since anyone came.’

  ‘The clue perhaps,’ asked Denny.

  ‘Ah yes, but first – the warning.’

  ‘Stuff the warning,’ snapped Tamar, ‘and just get on with it.’

  ‘You don’t want the warning?’ asked the old man, surprised. ‘It’s good you know, very portentous.’

  ‘Pretentious you mean – No.’

  ‘Maybe we should ...’ Denny began.

  ‘They’re all the same,’ said Tamar. ‘Lots of mystic mumbo-jumbo about disturbing the dark forces and taking heed. Did you think he was joking about the script – it’s standard.’

  ‘Well I could just give you the short version,’ said the old man hopefully.

  Tamar sighed. ‘Go on then.’

  ‘It’s very dangerous – be warned.’

  ‘Oh thank you! – Now ...’

  ‘I have to give you the speech about the seven ...’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Show you the mirror of ...’

  ‘The clue old man – or else.’

  The old man shrugged and said. ‘Go to the ‘Pink Parrot’

  ‘That’s it?’

  But the room was fading leaving them standing in an alley complete with dustbins and graffiti. They heard a voice on the air. ‘I don’t know, you wait six hundred years, and they don’t even want to see the mirror of futures.’

  ‘The mirror of futures?’ said Denny. ‘That might have been useful – why did you have to be so ...?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been,’ she said testily. ‘It would have been a trick, only showed you a part of the future to mislead you. I know that game. Anyway, it’s better not to know the future. Trust me; you’d be too afraid to take a pee if you did. You think no one’s ever asked for that?’

  ‘Okay, so what about the speech? The seven what?’

  ‘Deadly sins, for all I know – dwarfs – brides for brothers. Who cares? All of that’s just mumbo-jumbo; it’s just for show, you don’t want to take any notice of it, it wouldn’t have been relevant – trust me. I mean just look at what the clue turned out to be. The “Pink Parrot” sounds like a night-club.’

  ‘Yes, run by the Mafia.’

  ‘Or Queens.’

  ‘Aren’t they usually called the Blue – something?’

  ‘Anyway – back to the Yellow Pages again.’

  Then they heard a scream. They looked at each other and without exchanging a word both began to run down the alley in the direction of the screaming. As they reached the end of the alley, they saw them, lit by a window above. Two men, one was holding down a struggling girl on the ground, his intentions, not hard to imagine. The other was holding a gun in a nervous hand, pointing it shakily towards the street in the direction that Denny and Tamar had just arrived by. Fast as thought, Tamar pulled Denny into the shadows against the wall.

  ‘Now,’ she whispered, ‘how would you have felt if you’d known this was going to happen?’

  ‘More prepared – We have to help her. Can’t you do something?’

  Tamar frowned. Not as such, she thought. Not on my own, it’s not as if I can blast the νόθος into atoms, not without Denny’s express wish at least. On the other hand – maybe ...

  ‘Yes,’ she said decisively, ‘I can.’

  She stepped out into the light; both men’s heads snapped round to look at her, even though neither of them had heard anything. This strange phenomenon can be witnessed in bars clubs and restaurants everywhere. Men just seem to know instinctively when an attractive young woman steps into the vicinity, no matter what they are doing – it’s a thing.

  Tamar had changed; it was subtle, but she now looked like the most unlikely hooker since Julia Roberts in ‘Pretty Woman’

  ‘Hello boys,’ she cooed. Not the most original start, but the best she could come up with off the cuff. She smiled maliciously, ‘Why don’t you pick on someone your own size.’

  The nervous one swung the gun round towards her. ‘Cop!’ he yelled. She dismissed him; he was young and had evidently been led into this against his will, and had now got more than he bargained for. (Whether she would have dismissed him so lightly had she not been immortal is an open question, on the one hand, he did have a gun pointed at her, on the other he looked like a rotten shot.)

  ‘Hold it,’ said the other one. He was older, and mean looking, with a thin weaselly face and hard, flinty eyes. ‘Don’t shoot her yet, looks like we have a real woman here. Might be we could have some fun with her.’

  He got up, letting the girl scramble to the corner of the alley.

  ‘Watch her,’ he said, gesturing to the terrified looking girl. The younger one obediently swung his gun down towards her, looking sick.

  The mean one advanced on Tamar grinning wolfishly, showing yellowing teeth.

  Yuck.

  From the shadows, Denny watched in horror as Tamar clamped a hand firmly around the man’s neck.

  ‘What the ...’ The man struggled violently as Tamar pressed her mouth firmly to his, but she clearly had him in an iron grip. As Denny watched the man slowly stopped struggling and then went limp.

  Tamar let him go and he dropped to the ground, eyes open, staring at nothing. She gave him a kick and then apparently satisfied; she turned to the other one who was waving the gun at her in a trembling hand. He was working his mouth, but no sound came out. She moved toward him, and he fired off two shots. When they passed right through her, he dropped the gun and ran.

  ‘Let him go.’ Denny was right behind her.

  She shrugged and turned. They both looked at the man on the ground.

  ‘What did you do to him?’ said Denny, hoarsely.

  ‘I guess I killed him – I didn’t mean to.’ But even as she said it, she knew she was lying. Hadn’t the scumbag deserved it?

  ‘I guess I misjudged it,’ she said. ‘He must have been weaker than you.’

  ‘Weaker ...? You mean that could have happened to me? When you – When we – That’s why I passed out?’

  ‘Of course, I thought you knew. I thought you’d realized.’

  ‘Why?’ said Denny, apparently apropos of nothing? But Tamar understood.

  ‘I’m not human,’ she explained. ‘I may
look it, but a Djinn is composed almost entirely of pure, magical energy. Everything you see is just an illusion. See this?’ She placed his hand on her arm. ‘That’s not real flesh, it’s a manifestation. And when a human is exposed too closely to that kind of raw energy it sort of – shrivels them up, burns then up from the inside they – you just can’t handle it.’

  ‘So, that’s why you never did it again. I thought maybe ...’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to hurt you. I never meant to ...’

  ‘But you’re saying that I could have ...?’ He gestured to the body on the ground.

  She nodded. ‘Any longer, and you would have been catatonic, probably permanently. Another few seconds after that and, yes I could have killed you. I didn’t know though. You have to believe me; I would never hurt you.’

  He had a strange look on his face. Tamar felt panicky. ‘Don’t…’ she began.

  ‘I have to just ... I ‘m just going to walk for a minute.’ He said. ‘I just need to ... Just leave me alone for a minute.’

  And so saying he walked away, his head a maelstrom of conflicting emotions, leaving Tamar alone.

  ‘Oh hell!’

  No, not alone, the girl they had rescued was getting to her feet. Tamar turned and froze – literally, she could not move; it had her. The same fear that she had felt in the water gripped her.

  ‘It’s you,’ she gasped, terror rising in her throat. ‘What are you?’ The girl was advancing; her face was familiar, not like someone she had met before. It was more like a face she had seen in a dream. It gave her an eerie feeling. She tried to remember.

  ‘What are you?’ she repeated. ‘You’re not Djinn, are you? What do you want with me?’

  ‘I catch up with everyone in the end,’ said the girl. ‘There is no escape.’

  A long blade appeared in the girls raised hand, the other hand gripped Tamar’s shoulder. She was paralysed. I’m going to die, she thought frantically. This time, I’m really going to die.

  Vaguely she heard footsteps behind her. ‘Denny,’ she thought – hoped. She cried out. ‘Denny – help.’

  The girl slashed wildly at her and then Denny caught her as the girl vanished.

  ‘It was him, or it, again – from the water,’ she sobbed.

  ‘I shouldn’t have left you alone,’ he said remorsefully.

  ‘But I’ve been alone lots of times since the last time – you couldn’t have known.’

  ‘No excuse,’ said Denny. ‘Don’t the rules say, never leave the damsel alone in a dark, scary alley. It’s just asking for trouble.’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘You’re bleeding again.’

  She nodded. ‘It’s not Askphrit,’ she said. ‘It’s not a Djinn at all. I don’t know what it is. It said it catches up with everybody in the end – what does that mean?’

  ‘What does it want with you?’

  ‘It wants to kill me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She started to sob again. Denny put his arms around her and after a few minutes she calmed down.

  ‘Hey, I’m touching you. How come I’m okay?’

  ‘It’s drained out most of my power,’ she said. ‘Like it did last time, that’s how you could carry me back to the hotel.’ Denny looked at her in silence and then drew her towards him and kissed her.

  She pulled away from him. ‘It’s no use,’ she said, ‘I’ll be back to normal again soon – and then ...’

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘I’ll take what I can get.’

  ‘So,’ he said after a short silence, ‘I guess we’re stuck here until normal service is resumed.’

  ‘Where is here?’

  ‘New York I think. So I suppose we’d better find a hotel or something.’

  ‘We haven’t got any money or anything.’

  ‘Let’s just start walking, we’ll think of something. Find a park or something – come on.’

  ‘It’s two O’clock in the morning – oh all right.’ They walked back to the street in silence. Tamar stopped suddenly. Denny turned. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Oh, oh nothing.’ She caught up with him.

  But it was not nothing; Tamar had just remembered where she had seen the girl’s face before. It had been a long, long time ago – several thousand years. The last time she had seen that face, had been in a mirror.

  ~ Chapter Eleven ~

  The “Pink Parrot” had proved thus far to be a far worse clue than the cigarette. There were a total of seventeen “Pink Parrot’s” in America alone. Tamar felt that she should have expected this. Denny had suggested that since they were in New York, then it must be there. But, as it turned out, there was no “Pink Parrot” in New York. This was not surprising in one way. “I knew it couldn’t be that easy” – but very surprising in another.

  But the search for the “Pink Parrot” was, in fact, the least of their problems. A rift had formed between them since the incident in the alley. Denny was not sure how to handle the fact that Tamar had killed a man. He knew in his heart, despite what she had said, that she had meant to do it, and he did not know how to feel about that. On the other hand, he had discovered at the same time that her suspected feelings for him were, apparently, real, while simultaneously finding out that she was effectively debarred from him forever, literally on pain of death.

  He was also worried about the other incident – two now – when Tamar had almost been killed. It was clear that something was after her, and, despite his mixed feelings he did know that he did not want her to die.

  Tamar was also worried about this. In the alley, she had been certain that whatever it was, it was not a Djinn, but Denny was not so sure.

  ‘How do you know it wasn’t Askphrit? How do you know what he became after you set him free? He’s had a long time and only his own wishes to consult, he might have become anything.’ Tamar had to concede that he had a point. She thought about the face of the girl. Who else – who was still hanging around – had ever seen that face? Only Askphrit – the νόθος’, and yet she had always felt sure that she would know him again, no matter what form he took; although, she had to admit, she had no solid base for this assumption.

  The other thing that had occurred to them both was that if Askphrit was her stalker then the whole plan might well be a bust. So all things considered neither of them was trying particularly hard to find the “Pink Parrot”

  So, life had gone back to what passed for normal. Denny had gone back to work at “Disc – Harmony”*

  *[Clearly, the proprietor had not thought this one through – this is the sort of “witty” play on words that a certain type of thinker comes up with at four a.m. after a few spliffs. He had obviously never noticed the phonetic irony – and he wondered why he never had many customers.]

  The manager, a tall, lanky, bearded man who dressed like a refugee from the summer of love and never wore shoes (to keep contact with the earth’s magnetic fields) and was somewhat inevitably called Bo – real name unknown – had not even noticed Denny’s absence. Denny was not even sure that he knew his name.

  Had Bo, Denny wondered, ever felt like this? He felt an insane urge to confide in him, to seek advice from a fellow human being. (Or, as Tamar had said on first meeting him – ‘a close approximation.) That was typical of her – she could be cruel. It had seemed funny at the time; he wished he could stop thinking about her – well, maybe not “wished”.

  The truth was he was having second thoughts about the plan. Yes, she needed his help and yes, it was not fair that she had been tricked into slavery, Denny had strong opinions on that kind of thing – but ... She would have such a lot of power if she were free. Did he really want to be responsible for unleashing her on an unsuspecting world? Would that be fair on the world? Who knew what she might do? Oh, she said she wanted to save the world, and he believed her, but how would she go about it? It was as she had said; she might look
human, but she was not, she was an ancient and powerful Djinn with an altogether different set of values and morals to humans – that fact had been made apparent to him in the alley. She clearly had no problem at all with vigilante justice. Imagine vigilante justice on a worldwide scale.

  All this thinking was giving him a headache, so he decided to slope off home, Bo would never notice.

  ‘Hey man – where you goin’?’

  Rats! ‘I – um – I – Just nipping out for a few minutes – okay?’

  ‘Yeah man, I guess – hey, how’s that chick of yours doin’? That’s a fine lookin’ woman,’ Bo always talked like this (what’s in a name? – indeed!)

  ‘Oh – she’s um – fine – you know?’

  ‘Fine uh? – sounds bad, you guys having trouble?’ This was, by the way, the longest conversation Denny could ever remember having with Bo, who usually seemed to inhabit another plane of existence peculiar to record shop owners.

  ‘No,’ said Denny. ‘Well, yeah a bit.’

  ‘Just follow your heart man, you can’t go wrong. The heart knows what you want even when the brain don’t. Yeah follow your heart man.’

  * * *

  Denny stalked home in a fury, “follow your heart” indeed. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Typical! Load of hippie claptrap. Still, he was not to know. It was not his fault. He just did not know what was at stake. It just was not that simple.

  When he got home, Denny got the shock of his life. The room was back to its original state, peeling wallpaper, stained carpet et al, and there was no sign of Tamar or her bottle; she was gone.

  He sat down on the bed (unmade) staggered. Where the hell was she? Where had she gone? How? Why? How had she gone? He wanted her back. Now that she was gone, he realized that he needed her, perhaps because she was the only person in his life who had ever needed him. He should have known she had come into his life for a reason, all his doubts melted away. He had to find her; she would not be safe on her own with whatever it was out there still after her. Oh God! What if ... what if that was what had happened, what if “it” had got her?

  ‘Oh you’re home,’ said a voice behind him. Denny jumped three feet in the air.

  There she stood, large as life and quite clearly un-eviscerated. Anger took over.

  ‘Where the hell were you?’

  She held up a bag. ‘Peking Duck,’ she said mysteriously.

  ‘What?’ Denny was nonplussed.

  ‘Peking Duck – your favourite – from Peking. You said you didn’t like magical food, so I ...’