Djinn: A Hemisphere Story (Emma Spaulding Paranormal Detective Book 2)

by Billy Baltimore

  “Adelaide?” Emma said, turning to look at her.

  Adelaide looked around and then looked at Emma.

  “Well, it kinda makes sense, don’t it? I mean you dispelled the Djinn, so ya musta dispelled all her workings, too,” Adelaide said.

  Emma nodded and felt relieved. Then a thought came to her and she felt afraid once more.

  “Everything?” she said.

  Adelaide furrowed her brow at Emma, not understanding her meaning.

  “Sully,” Emma said, running back up Brown Street, towards Conjurer’s row and her car.

  When she got there, she didn’t have the courage to look inside. Adelaide hurried up beside her.

  “I didn’t wish for it, but she said she knew. Said she knew and granted it. Do you think… I mean maybe…” Emma said. She felt tears well up and run down her cheeks, but didn’t try to wipe them away.

  She felt Addy’s hand on her arm, a gentle squeeze. She watched as Addy went to the passenger window and leaned in. A second later, Adelaide stood back up, Barrett sitting on her arm. Emma gasped and felt her world sink lower. She tried to accept it and found the effort as hard as the first day. She went up to her partner and stroked his head.

  It was then she noticed the silver charm on Barrett’s foot. Emma looked up quickly at Adelaide.

  “Do you think? I mean maybe it was because of the warding charm,” she said.

  Adelaide looked like she was about to say something, but Emma didn’t want any part of it. Turning back to Barrett, she quickly loosened the charm and took it off. Both women stared at the bird, waiting.

  “If there’s any magic left, please,” Emma said.

  The bird moved nervously on Adelaide’s wrist for a second, bobbing its head, then in a flash of green feathers it was gone, flapping its wings skyward.

  “Sully! No!” Emma said, reaching for her partner, but already knowing she was too late.

  Seconds later, the bird was lost to view. Around Emma, bystanders and passers-by gave her odd looks as they went about their daily lives, but she hardly noticed and she didn’t care.

  12

  Emma drove into the cul-de-sac off Miller road. She had never gotten her client’s address and so had to look it up. The cul-de-sac where Kaitlinn lived contained ranch style, single family homes that hadn’t been updated since they were built, sometime in the 70’s by the looks of them. Even without the house number, she would have known which house was Kaitlinn’s. It was the one with the lawn that needed mowing.

  Emma parked in the driveway. She sat there for a minute, the engine running, and just stared through her windshield. It had been within her grasp. The Djinn had granted her wish, with no strings attached and she had blown it. Now Sully was gone, trapped as a parrot with no real memory of being anything else. And it was all her fault. She felt the tendrils of a real depression coming on and didn’t try to fight it. After a moment, she looked to the house. All she wanted now was to collect her 150 and then drink every last cent of it.

  Emma went to open her door, only realizing too late that it would not yield to her so easily. It made her mad and she slammed her body into it, over and over again. Opening on the third strike like it always did, Emma spilled out, tumbling face down in the overgrown grass. She lay there a minute, not even really trying to get up. Tears came and she didn’t try to fight them either. Her body trembled with the crying. After a moment, she pushed herself up, wiped off her face, and stood up. Feeling numb from head to toe, she shuffled her way to the front door and knocked. She stood there a moment, waiting. When there was no response, she knocked again, louder.

  The door flung open and Kaitlinn Gardner stood there, staring at Emma.

  “Kaitlinn, hi, uh… look I, uh… Everything’s taken care of, so… I just need my fee and I’ll be outa your hair,” Emma said, trying to put on a smile and knowing how miserable she was failing at it.

  Kaitlinn scrunched up her face and stared at Emma.

  “Your fee? For what?” she said.

  Emma felt bile in her throat and she swallowed it down.

  “For stopping the Djinn, your rogue super-nat. My fee is 150 a day, plus expenses. I worked one day and there were some expenses. I can give you an invoice if you need one. Just call me at… my office and I’ll print one up,” Emma said.

  Kaitlinn took a step back, one hand on the door, one on her hip.

  “Lady, I’ve never seen you before in my life. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, and I sure as shit ain’t payin’ you no hundred and fifty dollars,” she said, moving to close the door on Emma.

  Emma stepped in and put her hand on the door, stopping her.

  “Look Kaitlinn, I’ve had a bad day and that IS your fault. I’ll do ya a solid and knock off the expenses, but I damn sure have plans for the 150 and I’ll need that in cash!” she said.

  Kaitlinn took another step back, her angst gone. Emma liked the tinge of fear she saw in the girl’s eyes and held her glare on her.

  “Look, I think there’s been some kind of mistake, you know? I can barely afford my rent on this dump, let alone hire… what are you again?” she said.

  Emma sighed and rubbed her temples.

  “I’m a paranormal detective. You hired me to stop the Djinn after your wish for a maid went haywire. I stopped the Djinn and now I want my hundred and fifty dollars,” she said, keeping her eyes closed against the reawakened hangover.

  “My maid? Does it look like I have a maid?” Kaitlinn said, gesturing with her hands around the living room.

  Emma opened her eyes and took in the room. The place looked like a novice hoarder lived there. All over the floor and on every flat surface was the flotsam and jetsam clutter of a twenty-something slacker.

  “Wha…” emma said, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

  “Yeah, right? I wish I had a maid. I mean I can’t find my phone to even call a maid if I wanted to,” she said, staring at Emma.

  Emma finished her perusal of the house and looked back at Kaitlinn.

  “So you never conjured a Djinn, a genie, never hired me to stop her?” she said.

  “Nope,” Kaitlinn said, staring back at Emma.

  Epilogue

  Inmate 4076182 woke with a start. At first he thought it was morning revelry, wake up call. He always thought that was pointless, because he was never let out of his cell. None of the prisoners at Super-Max were. What was there to get up for except the 3-by-4. Three meals and four walls. With little else to do in between those meals, he had taken a nap. He called his cot the time accelerator because whenever he woke up, hours had passed. That too was pointless because no matter how much time passed or how quickly, one thing was absolutely certain, he wasn’t going anywhere. Inmate 4076182 rubbed his eyes and swung his legs over the edge of his cot. He sat there a minute, gripping the side of his bed, supporting his weight with his arms, head hung down, when he realized it wasn’t revelry he was hearing. And it wasn’t morning.

  He raised his head, stood, and shuffled over to the small square window in his door. He pressed his cheek to the thick safety glass and looked left and right. The cell block was laid out, as was the whole prison, in a circle. He could only see a narrow field of cells across the way. In those small windows other Supernaturals also pressed their faces to the glass, trying to see what was going on. The alarm klaxon continued to blare, and it was loud even through the steel reinforced door.

  At first, there was only the sound, but then there was something else. Guards, and not a few of them. Not a few of them and not dressed in their usual attire. These guards were dressed in full riot gear, to include plexi-shields adorned with warding. They rushed across the colored tiles of the massive ward that was emblazoned on the floor outside the cells, the same ward that was on their shields. The same ward was tiled into the floor of his own cell and presumably on the floor of all the others too. Magic of any kind was not allowed in Super-Max. Inmate 4076182 watched with increasing interest as the guards gr
ouped up. Seconds later he knew where they were going. They were headed right for his cell.

  The guards formed a barrier around his door, a channel through which one guard approached. When the guard’s face appeared in the window, Inmate 4076182 saw the guard’s eyes get big. Seemingly taken aback for a second, the guard gathered himself and shouted orders to back away from the door. He could barely make the words out for all the noise, but the message was received. Still unsure of what was happening Inmate 4076182 stepped back. He knew the drill even without the guard gesturing down to the floor. It was the same for every inspection. He got in the center of the ward on the floor of his cell, put his hands on his head and knelt down, waiting for them to breach his confines.

  When the heavy locking mechanism released, the door was pulled open. The cacophony that had leeched through the door now washed over him and became almost disorienting. In a flash, the guards rushed in, surrounding him. Their shields forming an impenetrable wall around him, a cell within a cell. Hands seized him, the weight of many bodies pressed him to the floor. His hands were pulled behind him and cuffed with iron shackles bearing wards etched into their surfaces. The guards yanked him to his feet and all but carried him out of his cell. One guard pressed his face against his, was shouting in his ear.

  “How did you do it, Jammer?! You think you can fool us with that?!” the guard said, the words sounding thin and distant in the din of the alarm.

  Inmate 4076182’s mind reeled. He still had no idea what was happening, what triggered the alarm, an alarm he had never heard before? He certainly hadn’t tried to fool anybody. He had only ever tried to tell them the truth, a truth they had always found unbelievable. What had changed to cause all of this and what did it have to do with him?

  As the mob of guards pushed and prodded him roughly out of his cell, he got his answer. In the reflection of one of the guard’s masks, Inmate 4076182 saw something he had not seen in a long time.

  Hemisphere Police Detective Sullivan Barrett saw his own face.

  About The Authors

  Under Cover, But Not Under Wraps

  Hello. Hemisphere Books would like to introduce to you four undercover authors. “Undercover authors?” you might wonder. What exactly, does that mean? Simply that Billy, ‘G’ (he refuses to tell us what the ‘G’ stands for), J.J., and Kitt are established authors under real names… but their fans aren’t particularly fond of the paranormal and fantasy genres.

  So one day, when Billy came up with the idea for Hemisphere and asked if we were interested in writing in that wonderfully weird world, the rest of us said, “Hell yeah!” And when J.J suggested we hide out from our current fan bases by taking on pen names, the guys said, “Hell, yeah!”

  And here we are.

  Calamity Or Death By Misadventure

  Anything Can Happen

  A Paranormal Detective with a chip on her shoulder and a parrot for a partner. A chain smoking guardian angel protecting the righteous from things that go bump in the night. A time traveling romance and a day that just won’t seem to end. How about a suited up vigilante who has all the right tools to put down demonspawn. He lets his fingers do the talking. And all that is just for starters.

  Welcome to Hemisphere, where anything can happen, and something always does.

  Don’t miss a thing.

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