Djinn

by Billy Baltimore

  Several steps later, the first room opened up off the staircase. Movement drew her attention. Glancing inside, Emma saw another old man in a flowing blue gown with equally blue pointy hat, all adorned with little gold and silver crescent moons and stars. His hair and voluminous beard looked like straw, albeit very old and gray straw. He was standing over a massive tome waving his arms, a wand in one hand. Seeing Emma, the figure started waving his arms at her, his empty vacant look giving her more of the creeps. She looked away and hurried to catch up to the servant drone who had already mounted the steps above her.

  Turning and climbing, the staircase eventually opened up to another landing and another room. Emma thought to keep walking, but was forced to double back for a second look. Inside, a forlorn looking princess sat by an open window. Her long braid extended out the opening, her head bobbing as her hair was being pulled or tugged on.

  “No… not… come on,” Emma said, just as a handsome, but very out of breath prince appeared in the window, clinging to the long stretch of the entwined hair.

  “Seriously?” Emma said, then hurried on up the stairs.

  A few more steps and a sound brought Emma up short. She stopped and listened, unsure of what she just heard, but some part of her knowing. She tried to screen out the clash of steel and the shouts of the dying from outside the walls. Up the stairs, from somewhere above her, she heard it again and her flesh went cold.

  The nervous whinny of a horse under duress.

  “No, God, please,” Emma said, putting one foot in front of the other, the steps carrying her on.

  As she rounded the curve, another landing and another open room, darkened, with the flicker of candle light dancing off the interior walls. Emma approached and stood just outside the door, not wanting to look inside. Morbid curiosity got the better of her and she ducked her head around the door frame.

  There, on her back, on a massive four post bed, was a frumpy looking gray haired woman. Above the bed, suspended in a reinforced harness… was a horse. Off to the side, another servant began to turn a crank, his face empty and devoid of all emotion like the others. Emma wasn’t sure if this was because he was a drone too, or because of the mental trauma of what he was about to witness.

  “No. Nope. Mm-Mmm. Don’t need that in my life,” Emma said, reaching in quickly and pulling the door closed.

  “Sorry. Sorry,” she said, as the servant lowered the horse down, the slow clack of the crank sounding like the drum beat to a freakish and perverted hell.

  The door firmly closed, Emma rubbed her face.

  “Not enough alcohol in the world,” she said, then ran up the remaining steps.

  As she got to the top, the old servant who had greeted her originally, stood motionless by the open door. Emma stepped out onto a large rampart. The sounds of mortal combat arose afresh from the battlefield below. All along the walls, the drone archers continued to let fly their arrows, the sheer number looking like a darkened cloud moving across the sky. An equal number of arrows hurled toward her, their barbed tips sinking into the breasts of the archers, their shafts vibrating at the impact before the archers dropped dead. As the soldiers on the field below, new archers appeared and the cycle repeated. The stone under Emma’s feet thrummed with the impact of the fiery projectiles slamming into the castle walls below them. Emma saw Cooper and headed over.

  “Cooper! Cooper! Hey!” she said, the old man not responding to her presence.

  She stood right next to him, yelling, but he was too involved in his own shouting to notice her. For a minute, she thought maybe he was a drone too, a side effect of Hendrick’s wish. Reaching out, she grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

  “Cooper! You Cooper?” she said, feeling evaporate what little patience she had left.

  The old man stopped mid scream and stared at her, it not seeming to register who or what she was. He looked around then back at her.

  “Who are you?! Who let you up here?!” he said, then turned back to the battle and the castle beyond.

  “Hey!” Emma said, reaching out and again spinning him around.

  “You listen to me! I don’t have time to explain! This is all because of some out of the box super-nat! She was passed to you and you passed her to somebody else! I need to know who that somebody else was!” Emma said.

  The man looked at her, seeming about to offer protest, but then deciding on the better of it.

  “She showed up. About right after that ass-hat Hendricks got his castle and started dropping flaming rocks in my front yard. Said she granted him his wish and she was here to do the same for me. Said he wished for all of this, to do me in, so I said, well give me the same thing. She did and now I’m gonna show him what for, like he thought he was gonna do me!” Cooper said, turning back to his archers and pointing at something down below.

  Emma lost it. She reached over and grabbed Cooper by the front of his flannel shirt. She pulled him in close and glared at him.

  “Look, you idiot! That Djinn isn’t about giving you what you want, see! She’s about screwing with you and anybody else she can sink her genie hooks into for her own twisted pleasure. Now I need to know who you passed her to, so I can go cram her back into her box, or bottle, or whatever the hell she came out of and put an end to this!” Emma said.

  Cooper sputtered in her grasp.

  “Well, now hold on just a minute, lady. Just a second there. Let me go and I’ll tell ya, okay?” he said.

  Emma continued to hold him and glare.

  “Do you know that right now, in your castle, there’s some kind of lecherous… queen with a horse suspended above her bed?” Emma said, her words laced with contempt and disgust.

  “What?” Cooper said.

  “Yeah, a horse,” Emma said.

  The two continued to stare at each other. After a couple of seconds, Emma let him go. Cooper patted down his shirt and caught his breath. He seemed just about to say something when he gestured to some knights in armor behind him. Before Emma knew what was happening, the knights had hold of her and had lifted her off her feet. They started to carry her away.

  “Hey! What?! Where are they taking me?!” Emma said, looking over her shoulder at Cooper.

  Cooper waved and smiled at her.

  “To the dungeon, of course. Every castle has to have a dungeon, right?” he said, turning back and renewing his shouting at Hendricks.

  Emma tried to fight her way out of the knights’ grasp to no avail as they carried her through the still open door and back down the stairs. The aging servant, staring on at nothing, followed, closing the door behind him.

  7

  A flood of emotions assaulted Emma. The reaction from Cooper shocked her. Couldn’t he see that the stupid war he was fighting was fruitless? With both he and Hendricks evenly matched, the battle could rage indefinitely. Not to mention that even when one of those idiots managed to kill a slew of the other’s soldiers new ones just jumped in and took their place. It was madness. Why couldn’t Cooper understand that? But that wasn’t what really had gotten her mad. No, the thing that made her feel the red rage was that Cooper had her thrown into this dungeon and derailed her efforts to track the Djinn, a Djinn who even now was granting time bomb wishes and sending Hemisphere into chaos. Any chance she had of tracking this thing down and being there for the next hand-off was rapidly diminishing.

  “Let me out of here, you asshole!” she said, stopping her pacing and peering through the square hole in the door, a door that looked decidedly iron in substance and completely resistant to her pounding.

  There was nobody to hear her and for a second, she thought there was nobody at all. Then, a guard passed her door. Clad in the same suit of armor as the ones that threw her in the cell in the first place, she had no way of knowing if that was the case and quickly decided it didn’t matter. They were drones, conjured by the Djinn. They served only one purpose, window dressing, only this window dressing was built like a tank and dressed like one too. The drone guard walked dow
n the length of the hall outside her door, then stopped and proceeded back the way he had come.

  “Hey, Monty! A little help here?” Emma said.

  The guard ignored her as he passed the door. Emma tracked him with her eyes, losing site of him at the end of the hall. A few seconds later, the guard reappeared in her angle of vision through the barred window in the door. This time he did not proceed down the length of the hall in the other direction. He stopped almost directly in front of her, against the facing wall. He remained still and stared at nothing.

  “Hey! Over here! Drone! Let me out of here and I’ll make you a real boy. I know people,” she said.

  The guard didn’t move. His eyes didn’t even blink. She was not sure he was even breathing. Did magically conjured drones need to breathe? Emma could feel her frustration rising as a pounding throb in her head, which already was pounding pretty good from the effects of… however long she had been drinking before today.

  “Look, maybe we got off on the wrong foot, okay? I’m one of you. This is all a big mistake. I have to get out of here, you understand? There’s a crazy blue bitch running around tearing shit up and I have to stop her,” she said.

  The guard did not respond.

  “Ni!” Emma said, again getting no reaction from her captor.

  She looked over at the rickety cot in the corner of her cell. Barrett just sat there, chewing a piece of the straw that served as the mattress.

  “We check in, but we don’t check out!” he squawked, dropping the piece of straw to the stone floor and plucking up another one.

  She was about to say something when the clang of a heavy iron door sounded down the hall.

  “Hey! Let me outta’ here!” she said, pressing her face to the bars.

  Footsteps sounded and drew closer. Two figures stopped just outside her door.

  Emma recognized Cooper immediately. He was still clad in his red flannel shirt. The man next to him was wearing blue, the same blue flannel that the man on Castle Hendricks was wearing. They both just stood there staring and she was again reminded of the slack-jawed drones.

  “She’s the reason you called me, Coop?” Hendricks said.

  Beside him, Cooper nodded.

  “Yup. Thought you should know what’s going on. She just showed up,” Cooper said.

  Hendricks scratched his chin.

  “Uh-huh. And she wants to put an end to our little war?” he said, approaching the door and peering at Emma as if she was some kind of oddity.

  “That’s right, and not only that, wants to capture the blue woman and lock her away, too. That’s what gave me the idea of puttin’ her in here,” Cooper said.

  Hendricks looked right at Emma. Emma gripped the bars of the window and stared back.

  “Why you want to stop all this, huh? We ain’t hurtin’ nobody,” Hendricks said.

  Emma felt the pain in her head amp up a notch.

  “You two are a couple of idiots. You have no idea what’s going on, what… harm you’re doing by keeping me locked up in here. Now, you let me out of here right now and I promise I will kill you quickly,” she said through gritted teeth.

  Hendricks backed away from the door and went over to Cooper.

  “Geeze, she’s a wild one, Coop,” Hendricks said.

  Cooper whistled through his teeth.

  “You ain’t lyin’ there, Harv. I mean, I didn’t know what else to do. I think if she gets out, she might just be serious about stopping all this,” Cooper said.

  Hendricks stared at Cooper another second, then looked back at Emma.

  “No, Coop, you did the right thing. She’d ruin all our fun for sure. I say, leave her in there, at least for the time being,” he said.

  Cooper let out his breath, looking to Emma like he was relieved.

  “Okay, then, that’s the plan. Back to the war, Harv?” Cooper said.

  Hendricks put his hands on his hips and looked at Cooper, smiling.

  “Don’t see why not. You know, this is the most fun I’ve had, ever?” Hendricks said, sounding giddy.

  Cooper slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Yeah, me too!” he said, a big goofy grin on his face.

  Emma stared in disbelief at the two neighbors.

  “Don’t you two idiots get it?” she said.

  The two men stared at her with blank expressions. Emma snapped her fingers at them.

  “Hey, don’t go all drone on me now, man-child. This genie, this Djinn that granted you what you wanted? What you THINK you wanted? She’s a crazy blue bitch who does not have your best interests in mind. She needs to be stopped! To stop her, I have to get out of here. So let me out of here!” Emma said, gripping the bars and trying to shake them to no avail.

  The men continued to stare at her. Then they stared at each other.

  “What’s she talking about, Coop?” Hendricks said.

  “No idea, Harv,” Cooper said.

  They started to leave. Emma pressed her face against the bars.

  “The downside, you meat-headed morons! You know there’s a downside, right?!” she said.

  This brought the two men back. They again stared at her.

  “Downside?” Cooper said.

  “Meat-headed morons?” Hendricks said.

  Emma groaned.

  “Everybody who gets their wish gets more than they bargained for, see? You two… children may be having the time of your lives right now, but what about when you want it to stop, or you want to sleep? Do you think you’re really controlling what’s going on here?” she said.

  Both men furrowed their brows at her.

  “Of course we’re controlling what’s going on here,” Cooper said.

  “We can stop anytime,” Hendricks said.

  Outside the sounds of battle raged. Mortar dust rained down from the stones above the two neighbors as the impact of another flaming projectile slammed Castle Cooper.

  “Oh yeah, then how come you didn’t stop your drones for this little get-together, huh? I mean you idiots are in here, but it didn’t slow them down, not a bit. My guess is, they will never stop. You’ve got a destruction play list on loop, you pasty-faced juveniles. And that’s the downside,” she said, raising her eyebrows and huffing.

  A look of concern crossed both their faces. Cooper rubbed his chin. Hendricks pursed his lips.

  “She’s lying,” Cooper said.

  “Like a rug, Coop,” Hendricks said.

  Both men turned to go.

  “Hey! I thought you two hated each other. If you’re such friends, why are you fighting?” she said, trying whatever line she could to stall them.

  Both men turned and looked at her.

  “Oh, we’re not friends, Missy. I can’t stand this guy,” Cooper said, thrusting his thumb at Hendricks.

  “Me, too. I mean talk about lousy neighbors, he’s the worst, but, I don’t know. This little war sorta brought us together. Gave us something in common, I guess,” Hendricks said.

  Emma was at a loss for words. She could only watch as the two men walked back down the hall.

  “To the field of battle, Coop!” Hendricks said.

  “After you, Harv!” Cooper said, pulling the heavy iron door closed with a tremendous clang behind him.

  Emma stood in silence, trying not to lose it. She took deep breaths and thought about what she could do to get out of there. Turning around, she saw Barrett still sitting on the cot.

  “Sully! Yes! Time to step up partner. Or fly up as the case may be. I need you to get us out of here,” she said, reaching down for the green parrot.

  The bird fluttered in her grasp and seemed to fight her.

  “Take it easy, will ya?” she said, carrying her partner over to the window in the door.

  Holding him up, she directed his attention to the iron key ring, hanging on a spike set in the wall.

  “There. That’s what we need. Think you can manage that?” she said, whispering against the side of Barrett’s head.

  She looked to t
he guard across from her door. He remained there, unblinking and unmoving. Emma brought a hand up and waved it in his line of vision. Nothing.

  “Hey! I’m gonna break out of here now. Got a problem with that?” She said.

  The guard didn’t respond.

  “I’d break you out, too, but I don’t have a can opener,” she said.

  The guard did not even blink.

  “Okay, I’m choosing to believe you’re not laughing at that cause you’re a mindless conjured drone who doesn’t give a shit what I do instead of because you didn’t think that was funny,” she said, bringing Barrett closer to the bars in the door.

  Carefully, she eased the bird through. When her hands could extend no farther, she gave Barrett a little toss. The bird flapped his wings in the air for a second or two, then fluttered to the ground. Emma looked again at the guard to see if he had noticed. If he had, he didn’t seem to care. He remained still. Emma pressed her face against the bars and hissed at Barrett.

  “Over there. Get the keys and bring them to me, partner. Hurry,” she said.

  Barrett turned and looked up at her, then over at the keys. He made no move toward them.

  “Come on, Barrett. We’ve got to move. The keys,” she said in a harsh whisper.

  The bird, her partner, stood in the middle of the hall. This time he didn’t look at the keys or Emma. He looked down the hall to the door at the far end. The door leading out and to freedom.

  Emma watched and a cold fear began to creep over her, the nagging thought that the longer Sully Barrett stayed in bird form, the more he would forget he ever was a human. Sully wouldn’t waste a second in getting those keys and freeing them both, but now he sat in the hall and seemed to hesitate. She watched with rapidly diminishing hope as the bird looked down at his own leg and appeared to study the silver charm clasped around it.

  “Sully? Please, don’t leave me. Don’t forget who you are, okay. We need to get out of here. We need to work the case, okay? To do that, we need those keys. Get the keys, partner. Please,” she said.

  She gripped the bars and pressed her face against them, waiting for Sully Barrett to be her partner.