by Trisha Telep
Jazz frowned. “How about we find his tether, you skip the threat part and just destroy him?”
“I’m not killing anybody if I can help it,” he said. “This guy isn’t Morai. I don’t know enough about him to make that decision.”
“And if he doesn’t let us go?”
He closed his eyes. “Then I guess I’ll have to go through with it,” he said. “But destroying him is the absolute last thing I’m going to try.”
“Fine. As long as it’s somewhere on your list.” Her conscience muttered a protest and she told it to shut up. She’d always held the opinion that if someone was about to kill you, you had every right to kill them first. And she’d exercised that right more than once. Lately, though, Donatti’s insistence that killing could and should be avoided almost every time – coupled with the fact that he was still alive – had been chipping away at her beliefs. As if she didn’t have enough guilt to deal with. “All right, what are we looking for?” she said.
“It’ll be something metal and relatively small. Not a car or a fridge. Something that looks like it belongs in a museum.”
“So it wouldn’t be a 1960s radio.”
He shook his head. “Djinn don’t have radios. Whatever it is, it’ll have come from their realm. A coin, a dagger, a piece of jewellery.”
“Right.”
They stayed together. The living room turned up nothing, in plain sight, under the furniture cushions, or buried in the ashes of the fireplace. In the kitchen, one cabinet held exactly enough dishes for two people, another was filled with cardboard canisters of salt and most of the rest were empty save for a few canned goods, a bag of flour and a box of sugar. The fridge and freezer contained plastic jugs of water and unlabelled lumps of foil-wrapped meat. Deer, Jazz told herself firmly. Anything else was unthinkable.
The only out-of-place items in the bathroom were the ones she’d noticed the first time. That left the bedroom. There, they lifted the mattress, shook out the pillows, opened and removed every drawer in the small dresser, poked and prodded a closet for hidden panels. Nothing. Not even a suspicious dust bunny.
“So much for leverage.” Jazz sat down slowly on the bed. “Maybe we should start walking now. We could make fifty miles in a couple of days, if that road actually goes anywhere. And if Seth doesn’t find us.”
“He will.” Donatti crossed to the screened french doors, closed against the cool night. “What’s out here?”
“A deck, and a billion trees.”
He opened the doors and walked out. She heard him clomping around on the plank floor, his steps moving away, pausing, coming back. He stuck his head in. “Think I found something.”
“Tell me it’s a Hummer.” Christ, what she wouldn’t give for an off-road vehicle right now. Anything, even a little puddle-jumper Jeep but she’d sell her soul for a Hummer.
“Sorry. You’ll have to settle for the consolation prize. Come out here.”
Reluctantly, she stood and followed him. He led her to the left side of the deck and gestured, over the rail and down. “Bet you a dollar there’s something good in there.”
It was a storm cellar. Double wooden doors angled up from the ground, held shut with a hasp and padlock.
Jazz smiled. “Race you.” Before he could react, she vaulted over the rail and landed on the ground five or six feet below, bending her knees to absorb the impact.
“Do I look like Olympic-quality material to you?” Donatti practically groaned. “Guy’s been here at least five decades. Should’ve built some goddamn stairs on this thing by now.” He threw one leg over the railing, struggled to bring the other one around, and slid into the drop, stumbling when he hit the dirt.
“Can you make it to the doors, or should I fashion you a makeshift crutch out of sticks and vines?”
“Ha. Ha.” He walked over to the cellar and inspected the padlock, then straightened and patted various pockets. “Gotta have something . . . ah. Have this open in a sec.” He worked a slender length of metal free from the hem of his jacket. A lock shim. “Emergency supply,” he said with a grin.
She watched him work the lock, mentally ticking off the time. When the arm popped, she said, “Twenty-two seconds. I’m impressed.”
“I’d be impressed if I could figure out a way to close it back up from the inside.” He slid the lock out, popped the clasp and replaced it on the hook. “Oh, well. Here we go.”
He pulled one door open, then the other. Inside was a rough wooden staircase, descending into darkness beyond the pale wash of light cast from the bedroom. There was a darkened light bulb with a pull chain mounted at the top of the doorway. Donatti walked down steps until he could reach the chain, and turned the light on.
They descended to an opening framed with rough planks of lumber. Donatti had to stoop to get through, but Jazz had a few inches of clearance. Being five-foot-nothing came in handy sometimes. Through the doorway was a small, earth-cooled room. Enough light came in from the stairwell to make out the shapes of several dead animals hanging from the walls – rabbits, birds, a skinned deer. Seth’s meat locker.
“Yummy,” Donatti said. “Dinner.”
“I’m not even close to hungry enough for raw meat.” Jazz scanned the place for a switch or a bulb. Didn’t see a light, but she did see the other door, knobless and detectable only by the small hinges set flush with the boarded walls. “There,” she said, and pointed.
Nodding, Donatti moved to the door and pushed it open without resistance. The light wouldn’t stretch through the doorway. He felt along the inside, flicked something, and a glow sputtered and steadied.
“Holy Christ,” he said. “Seth must be part squirrel.”
He walked through and stepped aside, giving her a view of the room. It was bigger than the meat locker, the wood walls sanded and stained. And it was full of . . . stuff.
She went in and closed the door behind her. It was hard to decide where to start processing everything in here. There was a stack of tyres arranged by size, biggest to smallest. An intact leather-finish bucket seat, probably from the DeSoto. Three mismatched bumpers mounted vertically on the back wall. A pair of fuzzy dice and a coon-tail antenna decoration. Four old suitcases arranged side-by-side on top of a steamer trunk. Three folding metal TV trays – one with pairs of sunglasses, another with wrist and pocket watches, the third containing rings, necklaces, bracelets and earrings. None of the jewellery was ancient or museum-worthy.
And then there were the dummies.
Six life-sized carved wooden figures lined up along the left-hand wall. Four female, two male. Each of them was dressed in clothing that wasn’t sold in department stores any more. The mannequins wore 1950s and 1960s dress – bellbottoms, a crinoline skirt, shirts with ruffles and checked patterns and butterfly collars and tie-dye. One of the males wore a houndstooth suit.
This stuff sure as hell hadn’t come from a vintage shop.
“Looks like this is the luggage department.” Donatti was in front of the suitcases. He moved them to the floor and opened the steamer trunk. “Thought so. Here’s our bags.”
“See if my phone’s in there.” Jazz tore her gaze from the dummies and drifted to the stack of tyres, trying to shake off a serious case of chills. She wanted to believe that the clothes came from the suitcases, and not from the bodies of people who’d crashed up here; that the carvings were just random figures, and not likenesses of Seth’s victims.
She concentrated on finding something that resembled a tether. All the tyres were mounted on rims, so he couldn’t have stashed it inside one. While Donatti rifled through the contents of the trunk, she opened the suitcases one by one. All empty. She moved back to the TV tables and stared at the jewellery, as though she could intimidate one of the pieces into being what they needed.
“I found your phone,” Donatti said. “Sort of.”
She turned to him, and he held out a handful of plastic shards and broken circuitry.
“Son of a bitch,” she said.
“Yeah. I think it’s safe to say I can’t fix it.” He let the debris fall back into the trunk and glanced across the room. “Man, those things are creepy.”
“At least he didn’t stuff and mount the corpses.” Frowning, Jazz looked at the mannequins again. Blank wooden eyes stared back at her, giving nothing away. Each of them was posed straight on, arms at their sides, except the third one in – a female in a flowered sundress, with one hand outstretched.
And there was something in that hand. Something metallic.
She walked over and slid the object free. It was a row of copper tubes, even at one end and varying length at the other in descending order, banded together with thin strips of silver. Panpipes. There were symbols, almost like Arabic lettering, etched into the tubes near the even end. The thing could’ve stepped out of a Greek myth. She turned and held it out toward Donatti. “I’d call this museum-worthy,” she said.
He grinned. “Jackpot.”
“Okay, we’ve got the tether.” She went to him and handed it over. “Now we . . .”
“Wait for Seth.”
“And what’ll we do when he gets here?”
“Um. Tackle him?”
“Somehow, I don’t see that working.”
Donatti stared at the pipes, turned them over in his hands. “Wish I could read djinn writing,” he said. “Maybe I can get Ian to teach me.”
A muffled sound drew their attention. A bang, like a cellar door closing. Another bang followed. “You picked the wrong hole, rabbits,” Seth called. “This one only goes down.”
Donatti took a step back. “Queens,” he whispered – and vanished.
Jazz might have loved him, but she didn’t like him very much right now.
She knew exactly what he meant. When they were both still working, pre-Cyrus, they’d done a job in Queens lifting some electronics from a high-end specialty place. The owner had showed up in the middle of the gig, and Donatti had sent Jazz out to play the lost and horny distraction while he legged the rest of the stuff out the back. With one word, he’d just told her to seduce Seth while he did . . . whatever.
He’d better do whatever real goddamn fast. If she had to go any further than second base, she’d shove his picks up his nose. One at a time. Slowly.
Footsteps approached the door to the room. She debated throwing herself at him, telling him that he was the sexiest thing on two legs, but Seth didn’t strike her as stupid. She’d have to play things a little less directly.
At the last second, she remembered something critical. She’d bashed his skull in – and she wasn’t supposed to know he’d survive. Time to change tactics. She moved to the steamer trunk and started climbing inside.
The door banged open just as she was swinging her leg over. She stared at him and let out a startled cry. “You,” she whispered. “I killed you.”
Seth laughed, a harsh sound far from his earlier indulgent amusement. “You must not have hit me as hard as you thought.”
“But there was blood. I saw it.”
“A scratch.” He walked closer, his gaze sweeping the room. “Where’s your friend?”
She let herself shiver, put a tremor in her voice. “We got separated in the woods.”
“So the thief taught you how to pick locks.”
“We’re both thieves. Retired. We were on vacation.” She swallowed. “Why are you trying to kill us?”
“I wouldn’t have hurt you, Jazz with the beautiful eyes.” The beginnings of a smile eased across his lips. “Your friend was in the way. Sadly, he’ll probably die in the forest. It’s so easy to get lost out here.”
“Lost,” she whispered. Not all of her confusion was faked. Dizziness swirled around her, and her thoughts tried to centre themselves on Seth, on touching him, holding him. He was hypnotizing her again. Come on, Donatti, do something.
“Yes, but you’re not lost any more.” Seth closed more of the distance between them, his eyes practically flashing. “You’ve found me. And now you’ll stay, won’t you?”
Stay with you. It was an effort not to speak the words. Part of her wanted to cry out yes! and fall into his arms swooning, like some idiot woman in a herbal shampoo commercial.
Seth’s smile dropped away. “I sense . . . impossible. You can’t be.”
“Do these things actually work?” Donatti popped into view across the room behind Seth, holding the panpipes. They were splashed with blood – his own. One of the things he needed for the spell to destroy them. “Not much of a musician myself, but this seems pretty cool.”
The moment Seth turned to look at him, Jazz felt normal again. She held off on the sigh of relief, though. She still had no idea what Donatti was planning, and if Seth was like Ian, he could do just about anything.
“Lost in the woods, are you?” Seth glared at him. “Give me those.”
“Not until you tell us where your mirror is. I know you have one somewhere.”
“My . . .” Seth’s brow furrowed in what looked like genuine confusion. Then his expression shifted to mockery. “Ah, I see,” he said. “A human who believes he knows something about us. What do you think you’re going to do with my pipes, human? Make me grant wishes?”
Donatti grinned. “I’m not human,” he said. “At least, not completely.”
“So you’re a thief and a liar.”
“Oh, yeah?” He stopped smiling. “Ant lo’ahmar nar—”
“Stop!” Seth cried.
A shiver went through Jazz, genuine this time. That was the destruction spell. Damn. Donatti had gotten a lot better at bluffing.
Seth took a few staggering steps and sat down hard in the bucket seat. “Who are you?” he said hoarsely.
“Hold on.” Jazz stepped out of the trunk and crossed the room to stand with Donatti, giving Seth a wide berth. “Before we get to the Q&A here, can’t you do something to make sure he doesn’t throw any magic at us?”
“I don’t have to. He’s just about tapped.” Donatti almost looked sorry for him. “He would’ve had to transform to heal himself, and then change back. That takes a lot.”
Seth fixed him with an astonished stare. “How could you know that?”
“Because I hang around with a couple of djinn. And I’m descended from one.”
“Who?”
“Gahiji-an, but we call him Ian.”
“The Dehbei prince.” All the colour faded from Seth’s face. “I’d heard . . . he was supposed to have been killed. Centuries ago, when he was banished here.”
Donatti grimaced. “Oh, nice. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to hear he’s dead. I wouldn’t tell him that, if I was you. He might kill you for it.”
“By the gods.” Seth looked away and slumped in the seat. “I don’t believe this,” he muttered. “All this time, and I . . . wait. You said there were other djinn. Who? Where are they?”
“Wait. First, it’s your turn,” Donatti said. “Who are you really?”
He looked at them with hollow eyes. “My name is Seti-el, of the Anapi clan,” he said. “At least, I was. I’m sure my clan’s disowned me by now.”
“Just a guess, but I’m thinking Anapi means fox,” Jazz said.
Seth nodded. “Tricksters and thieves, the lot of us. Some more than others,” he said with a healthy dose of bitterness. “That’s why I’m here, instead of in my own realm. I was tricked into an arranged marriage to someone I despised, someone who despised me and only wanted the bond so she could make me miserable forever. I couldn’t change things, so rather than marry her, I came here. I’m sure you noticed I have no windows or mirrors in this place. It’s so they can’t find me and force me to come back.”
A glimmer of sympathy passed through Jazz, and she swept it aside with the image of the wrecked cars and the corpse. “So you settled down and started killing people,” she said.
“No! I’ve never killed anyone.” Seth let out a shuddering breath. “The dead man on the road wasn’t my doing. He crashed deliberately. Took his own life. I never came in
to contact with him.” He looked straight ahead, and his gaze unfocused.
“Yeah, right.” She frowned at him. “Even if that’s true, it means you caused the other wrecks. And you tried to rip Donatti’s throat out.”
He shook his head and looked at Donatti. “I knocked you down, yes. But I only nipped you, and you passed out from your other injuries. The blood was rabbit’s blood. I wouldn’t have let you die.”
“So I didn’t heal myself? Damn.” Donatti raised an eyebrow. “That’s seriously fucked up. Why would you do that?”
“To see how you’d react.” Seth stared at the floor. “I’d been here fifty years, alone, before humans started coming into the area. They were building that road. At first I only watched them, but when I realized whatever they were planning would bring them to my cabin, I . . . scared them off. Convinced them the place was haunted. And it was fun. The first entertainment I’d had in decades. Of course, after that it was years before anyone else came this way. A couple who’d gotten lost. So I decided to have some fun with them.”
“Let me get this straight,” Jazz said. “You crash people’s cars and chase them around the woods because you’re bored?“
He offered a miserable nod. “The first time, I didn’t play with them long. I healed their injuries before they woke from the crash, ‘miraculously’ unharmed. I let them see the fox, and turned myself invisible to play ghost. I created a few small illusions. Nothing too terrible. And when I’d finished, I brought them to the nearest town with altered memories and enough money to replace what I’d stolen. Your money is easy to reproduce.” A half-smile appeared and vanished. “But with each new arrival, I kept them a little longer, and played more elaborate tricks, until . . . well, you know what I’ve done with you.”
“Yeah. You tried to make me think Donatti was dead so I’d sleep with you.”
“I’ve been lonely,” he whispered. “I’m afraid that’s no excuse. But you are the most beautiful human I’ve ever seen and I couldn’t resist trying.”
Donatti made a disgusted sound. “Good thing it didn’t work, or I wouldn’t be able to resist kicking your ass. Not that I would’ve succeeded. But I’d try.”