With Yvette already giddy at the prospect of working with the perfume witch, Elena left the young woman and headed downstairs. Before exiting the factory, she ducked into the store adjacent to the lobby, where the fragrances were sold. Dozens of bottles of perfume with crystal birds for stoppers were on sale. A bestselling scent, indeed. A dozen other bottles and fragrances were available too. So many there must be one for every woman. Standing in the middle of so many scents and thinking of the unique spellwork Yvette and Camille were embarking upon gave her an idea, one that had her exit the perfume shop and head for the marketplace of magical goods.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
There in the open air, riding on the heat and gray smoke that wafted out from the top of a chimney, Sidra recognized herself again. Her fire smoldered within her once more so that she felt it in the tips of her fingers and soles of her feet. Still, she would never again experience the exquisite heat she’d once known from a single touch. A glance. A shared bed.
At first she’d cursed the fairy king for returning her to this place of cold remorse, but his instinct proved correct. She was even glad the girl had been sent with her. Sitting above the rooftops, gazing over the village where she’d once been consumed with the happiness of a thousand dancing flames after marrying Hariq, she knew she’d been set on the good path again. Her only regret was not understanding earlier the fragility of love. How a heart was housed in brittle glass. So easily shattered.
But now the fire inside her had returned. The old one had been right. There were circles within circles in the continuity between past and future. Let Jamra come, she thought. Enough of this jittery, nervous energy. Enough fretting over what might be. Hariq was gone to the next world. Soon she would join him, so might it be, and may it fill her with the scorching blaze of vengeance.
She settled within the heat wave rising from the chimney, hiding amid its smoke as she kept her eye on the sky, the street, and the ether around her. It was then, while tracing the movement of a tiny dust devil that swept along the cobblestones below, that she caught sight of a dog’s tail slipping around a corner. A tail in the same crescent shape found in the omen the birds had gifted her. But whose tail?
There’d always been jinn who came and went through the village. Others had taken up residence in similar older villages in the hillsides to the east. Or there’d been nomads, clanless jinn who roamed over invisible mortal borders, curious to see the whole of the world.
If this was the same dog who’d led Elena to her, he was familiar. Knew her. Knew the village. Instinct suggested Rajul Hakim had sent him. A guard dog to lead the witch to Sidra’s side and watch over the last events of her life. Perhaps the dog was one who paid tribute to the old one from a village closer to his cave. The tail disappeared up a narrow lane. She contemplated the risk. One was smart to keep watch for those about to charge the tent, but one was wisest not to neglect those already inside.
Sidra filtered through the air unseen from rooftop to street level. She followed the animal around the corner, hoping to catch a glimpse of the tail again, but the lane held only mortals. The jinni animated behind a palm tree and sniffed the air. Spice, salt, sand. Someone roasting a chicken in wine. Always in wine. But there was nothing amiss—merely the usual odors of a town steeped in the botanic oils of a thriving industry.
Except . . . yes, there. Her nose caught a whiff of something enticing in the wind, something intoxicating, yet paired with the musty odor of dog fur. She followed it down a narrow lane where small recesses had been built into the walls of the ocher-colored buildings. Residents had placed small statues and an offering of a bouquet of flowers inside one of the alcoves, adding to the layers of fragrance mingling above the pavement. Even she couldn’t be sure she’d be able to detect the smoke of another jinni in the mazelike quarters. Sidra’s body wavered like a candle flame in a draft, realizing the same spell she’d invoked to protect herself might also prove a vulnerability in such a tight space.
The lane ahead veered to the left as it passed under an archway bridging two apartment buildings. She couldn’t see beyond the arch as the lane twisted, though she thought she heard the padding of a dog’s feet against the cobblestones, the pant of breath. She ventured ahead another ten feet, following each new scent that captivated her nose, anxious to uncover the dog’s motive.
But then the floral scents converged, churning in the air with the bitter odor of char and acidic ash. A smokeless flame shot up in the lane before her. A shadow of a man in a derby hat.
Jamra stood three feet before her, eyes blazing with the hunger of revenge denied too many times before.
“Jinniyah.”
Sidra bared her gold-and-ivory teeth even as the torch inside her wavered at the sight of her enemy. Had he been the one she’d followed? Impossible. He wasn’t worthy enough to take the form of a dog.
She grinned, seeing the whiptail end of a scar peeking out above his collar. “How fares your back?” she asked.
Jamra didn’t lash out as expected, but his temper clearly simmered beneath his skin. “Give me the dagger and I promise you will feel only minimum anguish when I kill you and avenge my brother’s death. Deny me, and the morning will bring nothing but destruction for you and the people of this village.”
Sidra glanced quickly at the rooftops for signs of ifrit hovering about, but the sightline was clear. Had he really come alone?
“You never spared any love for your brother,” she said, lowering her eyes to meet his. “You would have eagerly taken his life if his death would have delivered you what you seek.”
“Now I have the pleasure of demanding that same condition from you.”
Sidra grew bolder. “The dagger was not made to fit the hand of the defiled.”
The jinni’s eyes flashed with hatred. The insult had found its sticking place. Let the wrath of her fire do the same. Sidra conjured a wave of grease-fire and hurled the blaze at Jamra. The same spell she’d used to sear his skin the first time she’d faced him one-on-one. Only this time the fire missed. Went right through him. The flame hit the wall, licking the stone with scorching heat and black smoke.
Jamra hadn’t even made a move to defend himself. Instead he grinned as a choking column of smoke billowed upward. And then he faded from view. A mirage. A trick. He’d never been there at all. He’d manipulated her mind. Her vision. Provoked her from afar until she reacted. She looked up again. The smoke climbed above the rooftops to fill the sky.
A signal. A beacon to mark her spot.
At the end of the lane the dog lowered his head after watching the trail of smoke rise higher. Even he seemed to understand that, somewhere, a pair of plotting eyes scanned the horizon.
CHAPTER TWENTY
He’d had to slink behind a mother and child while they admired the stalactites, the rows of teeth-like formations growing in the stomach of the cave. Their tour guide had been so preoccupied with assigning lanterns and pointing out the guide ropes that he hadn’t noticed a dog slipping inside the gate behind the group. Not that it would have mattered. He could have easily moved through the ether, though the damp in the cave wasn’t to his liking in his spirit form. Better to trod on four paws than endure the unnatural merging of moisture with his essence.
The old one slept. To mortal ears his snores were likely nothing more than echoes inside a cave. The sounds of wind and dripping water. But to the dog they were the forewarning of an ancient one’s days winding down. He stared into the abyss where he knew Rajul Hakim was tucked away.
As-salaam-alaykum, Rajul Hakim. The dog sent the greeting into the old one’s mind, yet the jinni didn’t stir. He sighed, not wishing to do the thing he must. He waited through another chorus of snores, then reluctantly trotted inside the darkness, letting his wet nose nudge up against the coil of energy there. At last the old one grumbled awake.
“Who is there?” he asked, reanimating so that his hand reached out to touch the dog’s head. “Ah, it is you. I’ve been expecting your arrival
.”
“The time is upon us,” he said and transformed into the form of a man.
“Yes, so the great unwinding has begun.” The jinni gathered up the front of his too-long caftan and walked the few steps to the wall where the spirals had been scratched into the limestone. He traced a finger over each one, as if sensing the churning energy—wish energy—still swirling in the cosmos. “The confrontation is imminent,” he said and tapped his finger on the final spiral.
“She has already been found.”
The old one studied the coiled etchings. Each like a spring releasing its kinetic energy into the world, creating ripples of outcomes that might never have been otherwise. At least that was how the energy of wishes had been explained to the young man from his earliest education in the designs of magic. But the way the elements of the wish all interacted was a thing to behold. He bowed to the old one’s ingenuity and wisdom.
“It was not all my doing,” Rajul Hakim said, as if reading his mind. “She had a hand in things too.” He tapped his finger on the big spiral enveloping the smaller ones.
The man recalled the creature who’d sat on his shoulder to whisper in his ear and shivered. “She makes gooseflesh of my skin.”
“Then you have good instincts.” Rajul Hakim laughed, but it soon turned into a cough. In the outer cave a child cried out for his mother. “She is not one to trifle with. Especially if met in one’s dreams.”
The jinni nodded before lowering his head in thought. There was more he wished to say. Uncertainties he wanted made certain. Guarantees written in the language of the ancients. The old one’s blood oath that everything would work out the way it was meant to, but he was no fool. Events would go forward as planned, with the consequences spilling out when the thing was done.
“And you still do not know where she has hidden the dagger?” the young man asked, although his instinct knew the answer even before it was confirmed with a shake of the head. The old one seemed to realize then he had not extended his hospitality to his guest by offering coffee or a pipe, but the jinni waved him off. “I must return and find my place. May the All Seeing allow us to meet again on the other side.”
Aching to stretch his back, the jinni said a final farewell, then walked out of the cave on four feet. Soon, the All Seeing willing, he would live in the world as a man once again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Elena walked among the market’s generous baskets of spices and plucked flowers. There were also shells, jewelry, boxes of fresh fruit, clay pots with olives, shawls of wool and silk and lace, and even a few bottles of red wine for sale beside salty fish wrapped in paper. She’d need to consult her grimoire with Sidra, as delicately as possible, to learn which ingredients would be the most potent against the jinn, but as she only had the few coins in her satchel, the options were limited at best.
Ingredients for potions weren’t the only thing Elena browsed for. She also kept her eye on the people. She walked past each market stand until she came across a fellow in a dirty white shirt with sooty marks around the neck where a deep purple aura peeked out. He was busy tying sweetgrass into bundles for smudging—always a helpful cleanse for a spiritually sullied space. On his counter sat half a dozen brass incense burners, a bowl filled with chunks of resin she assumed was frankincense, and several bronze amulets small enough to be carried in a pocket for luck. The merchant himself appeared rather shopworn, though she supposed he had a genial-enough face and disposition. Besides, her instinct told her he and his goods might be of help.
Elena circled his shop at arm’s length as she continued to browse. The man stood to help another customer, alternating his weight between his good leg and a false one. Ah, so this was the one-legged sorcerer. And a thief as well, according to Sidra. Elena waited for him to sell a man a scoop of dried seedpods, then approached.
“May I help you choose an incense, madame?”
“I’m more interested in your talismans and sorcery skills, actually.” Sometimes it’s best to get right to the point. “You are Yanis, correct?” He shifted uncomfortably on his wooden leg. “I’m a friend of Sidra’s, and I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”
“Worse news than being a friend of Sidra’s?”
She ignored his remark. “I’m a witch in need of assistance protecting the village from a jinni, and I have it on good authority that’s something you can help me with.”
He backed away and leaned on his stool. “You have the wrong man.” He held his calloused hands out as if to prove they’d been depleted of anything she could want. “I’m a simple sorcerer who sells a few charms and ingredients for spells.” To make clear his position, he swept two magically incriminating medallions off his counter and stowed them away.
“I understand your hesitation when it comes to dealing with the jinn. I’d rather not be here myself. I have a husband at home who requires my attention, a vineyard that desperately needs nurturing, and a monk who ought to hear a few words of forgiveness before he returns to his abbey. But unless there’s another sorcerer with your particular experience in the village, I’m afraid you’re it.”
“Madame, you should return home to your husband. Tend to your vineyard. You will find only disappointment if you try to interfere with the jinn in this village.”
Elena peered at him until he nearly shriveled from the scrutiny. Had she heard wrong? Was he a mere charlatan selling charms to tourists?
No, he was the one. The shiver running up and down her neck was rarely wrong.
“But it is possible? There are amulets or spells that can help? Potions perhaps?”
The man shook his head. “If you try to interfere in magic you know nothing about, you will find yourself at the mercy of the jinn. There are symbols. Rituals. But one false move and the jinn can easily overtake you.” He pointed a finger to his temple to insinuate they could get inside her head.
“Sounds like you know more than you let on.”
He grumbled something about another lifetime before accepting a coin from a woman for a packet of incense. He wished the woman well, smiling at her as she walked away, then let his annoyance show when he saw Elena still standing at his counter.
“I could compel you to help,” she said. “The matter is that urgent.”
“It’s against your laws.”
“Only when used against mortals.” That got his attention. To convince him she was serious, she took a pinch of herbs from a bowl on his counter and ground them up with her fingers, letting the crushed bits of leaf fall in her palm. “Wind that blows, leaf that stirs, ruffle the hats of mesdames and messieurs.”
She blew a puff of breath over the herbs, and the wind picked up. A whirlwind—she kept it small enough to hit only one market stand at a time—stirred up leaves and debris from the ground and kicked them into the air. Men and women turned their backs and clamped their hands over their hats to keep them from blowing off their heads. Yanis, too, had to spread his arms over his merchandise to keep the items from blowing away. Elena closed her fingers to form a fist, and the mini storm abated as the whirlwind lifted over their heads and vanished.
“All right, all right,” he said. “No reason to show off.”
“We haven’t much time,” she said. “It’s probably best you close shop for the day and come with me. We have a protection spell to design, you and I. Unless you’d rather see the town burned to the ground by a horde of angry jinn. Because I assure you, monsieur, that’s exactly who we need protection from.”
Yanis raised his eyes to the sky. “Am I to be plagued with unruly women of magic all my life?”
“Gather any items you think you might need for a spell,” she said.
He shook his head, collected his items from the counter to pack them away, and closed his market stand, securing it with a padlock.
The man grumbled all the way to the abandoned shop about lost income and the debts he had to pay. It was little use explaining that there were other obvious metaphysical rewards and debts at s
take. Elena entered the alley behind the abandoned shop so they might go in through the back door unnoticed. The man stopped halfway, as if having second thoughts.
“She tried to kill me, you know.”
“Sidra? Believe me, if she’d wanted you dead you wouldn’t be talking to me now.”
Yanis limped closer. “Yes, but she blames me,” he said with a nod toward the store.
“For what?”
“Her husband’s death. But it wasn’t me. And I don’t believe it was her, either.” His eyes seemed to sink into his skull, his expression remorseful. “I was careful with the incantation, with the amounts. You understand. I can tell you’ve worked with potions. It was one batch for the both of them. Each the same. But something went wrong.”
“Why did the inspector arrest Sidra for his murder?”
The man swallowed and shook his head. “He said it was a classic lovers’ quarrel. And she still had the potion bottle when the police finally caught up to her. They claimed she poisoned him. But there was no poison.”
“What was in the tincture?”
“Mimosa flower. It’s a spell to mimic death, but one wakes after two or three days. Sometimes people need to start over. Leave an old life behind and start afresh.” He shrugged as if to say he was merely the messenger. “But even a double dose shouldn’t have killed him.”
Elena’s first thought was to wonder if a jinni could die by poison. But the authorities obviously thought so. And they’d have happily executed Sidra for the crime of murder if she hadn’t escaped through fire. But poison? Yanis was right. It didn’t make any sense. Then again, nothing in life had made sense since she’d broken the curse that had transformed her into a toad. Nothing except perhaps finding Jean-Paul. Love was the one curious remedy that had emerged through all the turmoil.
Right. The sooner they faced this next challenge, the sooner she could return home. She opened the door and waited for Yanis. “We have work to do,” she said. Recognizing there was little choice in the matter, he limped forward like a man marching toward his own execution.
The Conjurer (The Vine Witch) Page 13