“They come to rule over the misfit toys?” he asked.
“Exactly. Needless to say, the misfit toys don’t like that very much.”
“So it’s a big deal that there’s a new sorcerer in town,” Aki said, nodding emphatically.
“What did you do after you found the squat?” asked Charlie.
“I got the hell out of there. I figured the sorcerer explained why Loretta was looking for me—so I could help get rid of him. But I’d already lost my tail to the cause; I did my part. I figured I’d lay low till they did their jobs and then I could come back.”
“Way to be civic-minded,” I said. He batted his long eyelashes at me.
“This is all fascinating,” Charlie said, “But it doesn’t explain why the half-vamps were after you. Did they say anything when they attacked you?”
“Are you crazy?” asked Aki. “They were half-vampires. The second I started bleeding, which was about a half-second after they pounced on me, they lost their damned minds.”
“Think hard, Aki. They didn’t say anything? Nothing at all?”
Aki pouted, but then his eyes widened as he remembered something. “They did keep raving about me being the person who could find things, which is true, of course. They wanted me to find the Cursed One… that’s what they kept saying. The Cursed One. Before I could ask more, the smell of blood got to them and they went totally crazy…”
At hearing “the Cursed One,” I’d frozen. Aki kept chatting about the fight, detailing the loss of his tail, but I was a million miles away.
I tuned in just long enough for Oz to ask about Tamina. Aki said he’d seen a few girls fitting her description, but hadn’t paid enough attention to know for certain if one was an immature Magi.
Soon enough we were back in Charlie’s car, headed toward the city.
Finally I spoke.
“When did this suddenly become all about me?” I asked. No one tried to persuade me that the half-vamps had meant someone else. Real curses are rare, powerful things, and I’d only met a handful of fellow cursed beings in my long life.
None of them were in Pittsburgh.
No one answered, but I heard Rachel rooting around in her purse. A second later she passed me back a very full flask.
“We’ll figure it out,” Oz told me as I took a long drink. “It’ll be okay.”
Then he took my hand, and I let him. Charlie raised an eyebrow at me in the rearview, but I ignored him.
I took another long, hard swallow of whisky, wondering when my world had gone Fresh Prince and flip-turned upside down.
Chapter Eighteen
From a hill above the house, Oz and I surveyed the abandoned bungalow tucked between two equally abandoned buildings. They were what you’d expect from a couple of long-abandoned houses: grotty, run-down, and distinctly dangerous-looking.
A great place to hide out, if you didn’t care about getting fleas.
When we’d gotten back to Charlie’s after finding Aki, we’d had a serious powwow and decided the first thing to be done was some reconnaissance—find out exactly who was living in that squat, and whether Tamina was among them. We also decided not to tell Loretta about the squat until we had something more concrete than “Aki found it,” not least because we didn’t want to tattle about Aki’s whereabouts.
So it was just my Master and me, on a stakeout.
A very surprising stakeout, it turned out, for nearly all the magicals coming and going from the house were like the half-vamps who had attacked Aki and, later, Oz: teenagers.
“It’s like the most dangerous boy band ever,” Oz mused from beneath his binoculars, as we watched a pair of wyverns come out of the house and scuffle briefly, lighting each other on fire. They were reprimanded by an older ghoul who emerged a few minutes later, and the three walked down the sidewalk together.
We counted at least two dozen young people either leaving the building or entering it. The ones leaving carried empty backpacks; the ones entering carried full backpacks. Just as Aki had said, they were also all Immunda races, and all in their teens to maybe early twenties, at a stretch.
And each of the small groups contained at least one older magical, who was the clear leader.
Maybe more sinister than mere leaders? I mused, watching a scuffle between a much-older werewolf and a pubescent-looking incubus. The werewolf was clearly putting the incubus in his place, smacking the kid around until he visibly folded into himself in defeat.
“I can’t tell what these kids are,” I said, lowering my own binoculars. “Are they runaways or are they captives?”
Oz shrugged, sweeping his binoculars across the scene below us. “Hard to tell. Maybe both.”
“Do you see Tamina?” I asked.
Oz shook his head. “No. Do you see the sorcerer? I don’t know what one looks like.”
“They look human. Until they blow something up with magic.”
We watched in silence for a while, till Oz got bored.
“Tell me more about jinn,” he said.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” he said. “Tamina’s tribe told me some things… that you’re made of God’s fire. But I don’t know much else.”
“Well, first of all, I’m not really a jinni, so I’m not made of fire, as you know. And only humans think they’re made from Abrahamic God’s fire; jinn think they were made in their god’s image, just like humans.”
“Who is older, jinn or man?”
“Jinn are much older.”
“Where do they live?”
“Most live Sideways, like the sidhe. They have their own cities, the purebloods, and some of the greatest Sideways cities are creations of the jinn. But, like the sidhe, they also like to roam among mortals.”
“So when I Call a jinni, where am I Calling them from?”
I moved my binoculars left, to where a bunch of children were walking out of a small outbuilding. But they were all boys… no Tamina.
“It depends on your power,” I said. “Some Magi have more Will than others. Yours is very strong. That’s why you could Call that jinni all the way from Sideways.”
“I wish I could take credit, but your power helped a lot. How, exactly, does all of that work, anyway?”
“It’s just what your magic does naturally. It automatically Calls to the most powerful jinni it can, that’s closest. Then you pulled him into our world through your Will and your Call.”
“That has to be awful,” he said. “Knowing you can be Called like that.”
I nodded. “Yeah, it is. But Magi are rare nowadays, while jinn are numerous. So your chances of being Bound are slim, at least in these times.”
“How often have you been Bound?”
I lowered my binoculars to look at him. He was watching me, his Magi eyes wide, innocent.
“A lot,” I said. “I can’t go Sideways, so I’ve always been easy to Call.”
“Why can’t you go Sideways?”
“I can, but I have to take a Bridge, like the one we saw. And even if I did get there, where would I go? I’m loathed by the jinn.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But at least you’re human, too.”
“Oh, I’m loathed by humans as well,” I said. “They sense I’m not right, just as easily as the jinn do. Humans can’t usually put a finger on why I’m off, but they know I am.”
“So how did you end up in Pittsburgh?”
I raised my binos again, recalling with a smile the move Charlie and I had made, so many years ago.
“Pittsburgh is legendary among us. There are a lot of cities that were as heavily industrialized by humans as Pittsburgh, obviously, but none that sat upon a Node this powerful. Before humanity, one of the greatest fey cities existed directly Sideways from here. But all that magic worked against itself, acting like a system of veins and arteries that pumped the steel everywhere—it spread so deep it went Sideways, destroying the city and totally corrupting the magic.”
“So only Imm
unda can live here. Along with you and Charlie, who don’t quite fit anywhere,” Oz said.
I smiled at his analysis. “Charlie and I are certainly different. I think it’s that we’re not half of something, we’re extra something. Charlie had gods inside of him—his magical channels are about as wide and well-worn as you can get. And I’m just… different. I’m decently strong for a jinni, which means I’m strong enough to at least skim the Node, even when I’m unBound. When I’m Bound, I’m a lot stronger. And when I’m Bound to a strong Magi, like you, I’m even stronger than that.”
“So that’s why you came to Pittsburgh? For the power?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “We came to the city because we’re just as much misfit toys as everyone else here. Also, normal jinn can’t come to Pittsburgh, at least not for anything but a very short visit, like the one you Called. They can’t touch the Node and, as purebloods, they need magic all the time to live. So jinn avoid this place like the plague. And if jinn avoid it, so do Magi.”
“Except for me,” he said. “Sorry about that. But I know we’ll find Tamina. And even if we don’t… I would let you go before your curse was up.”
I wanted desperately to believe him, but I couldn’t be entirely confident he wouldn’t get a taste for power and realize what he’d be giving up if he freed me.
“We will find her,” I agreed, wanting to change the subject. “And then you can go back to ‘normal,’ whatever that is.”
He smiled ruefully, his eyes warm on mine. “I don’t think that’s going to be possible. I’ve seen too much of your world… I’m too intrigued. I want to explore more. Plus I’d like to help you. I feel badly for Binding you, but I can make it up to you. And I can finally take you to that dinner…”
I opened my mouth, ready to tell him that wasn’t necessary, that I could take care of myself, that he didn’t owe me anything.
But help would be nice, whispered a traitorous voice in my mind. You’ve never thought beyond breaking the curse. You have no idea what it means to be human, nowadays.
And dinner would be nice…
“Oz, I…” I began, but before I could finish, his hand shot out and gripped my elbow.
“Tamina,” he said. “Two o’clock. Getting out of the SUV.”
Training my binoculars where he’d indicated, I saw a young woman wearing jeans, a long tunic, and a headscarf standing next to a battered old Highlander. Surrounding her were a group of young men and women. They stayed in a tight circle around the girl as the group headed toward the house.
“That’s your Magi, all right,” I said.
“Who are the people around her?”
“I dunno who they are, but I see another half-vamp… one young full vamp… a troll… all muscle.”
“She looks okay, though,” he said. “She doesn’t look hurt.”
“No,” I said, “she looks healthy. I can’t see her face…”
My voice cut off as a young man appeared out of the doorway, greeting Tamina and her cohort. He was a wiry young man with thickly curled, dirty-red hair. His arms went around Tamina, a greeting she did not reciprocate. Then the whole group walked toward the door, only to disappear entirely. One second they were about to walk in the house, the next second they were gone.
“What the hell happened?” Oz asked, sounding panicked. “Where’d they go?”
“Sideways,” I said, sounding calm but feeling anything but. “They just went Sideways.”
“How?” he demanded. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “They either found a portal, or they built one.”
Oz looked at me, then his face went tight again as he registered my alarm.
“Is that not normal?” he asked.
I shook my head. “We need to get back to Purgatory. We’re gonna need some advice.”
Oz took a deep breath and began packing away his binoculars. “I’m just glad we found her, and that she’s safe.”
Again I made a noncommittal noise, packing away my own binoculars. She’d looked healthy and unhurt. But the sorcerer holding her was stronger than I’d feared.
So yes, she did appear to be safe. But everything else had suddenly gotten a lot more complicated.
I pulled up in front of Purgatory, parking the El Camino at a rakish angle. Normally I parked in back, but, still rattled by the memory of the sorcerer pulling Tamina Sideways, I wanted to talk to Charlie as quickly as possible.
Oz followed me in silence as I clattered down the steep staircase that led to the bar. I felt that cool whisper of magic at Purgatory’s lintel, the one that let us pass slightly Sideways into the bar, rather than staying on the human plane.
As if reading my thoughts, Oz spoke. “Could that sorcerer have what you guys have here? What did you call it? A pocket of Sideways?”
“Yeah, he could,” I said. “But Charlie and I built this, and it took years and a lot of luck. He had to use his Sight to find the right spot, and then I had to build it using power from the Node, and it took a long time.”
Oz was about to reply when I held up my hand.
“Do you hear that?” I hissed. He glanced at me quizzically and was about to speak when Charlie came hurtling through the double doors that led to the stock room behind the bar. He leaped over the bar, landing in an ungainly sprawl, a café table breaking his fall. A second later three forms sprang after him, growling and spitting blood.
Before I could stop him, Oz had jumped past me, rushing to meet Charlie’s assailants.
“Shit,” I muttered, watching as Charlie rose, swinging one of the table legs at two of his attackers, just as the third adjusted his sights onto Oz.
My jinni kicked into high gear, and I felt myself swell with power as she reached through me into the Node, pulling hard. I sighted and pulled, popping up fist-first in front of my Master so that the nose of his would-be killer crunched wetly into my knuckles. My other fist was already in motion, smashing into the side of the thing’s face with a blow that sent him flying. He was a full vamp, registered the tiny part of me that was still Lyla and not angry jinni, but I didn’t have time right then to think through the implications of that fact.
My fist, which had swelled to the size of one of those Hulk-hand toys, deflated back to normal size even as it reached into my pocket of Sideways for a sword. A quick sight to where the vamp lay crumpled against the wall and I was there, slashing with a neat blow that decapitated the fanger in an instant.
Charlie was making equally short work of one of his attackers, staking the vamp quite neatly with the table leg. Which left the third…
… hurtling through the air toward Oz, who gamely took a fighter’s stance, ready to face down what looked like the vampire version of Bruce Lee. If Bruce Lee had started taking a fuck-ton of steroids at some point in his career.
My Master, good boxer or not, was going to get creamed.
I sighted and popped up a few yards in front of Oz, but a full vampire in a blood rage is fast and ruthless, and he was happy to use my spine as a trampoline to facilitate his forward momentum toward my Master. I felt a terrific pain in my back as my knees buckled, but I kept my eyes fastened on the vamp.
My jinni was frantically healing me, trying to get me back up and into the running so I could do some rescuin’, but I couldn’t get my legs working fast enough. The vampire’s long, black-clawed fingers brushed away Oz’s punches like he was a toddler, reaching for his throat…
What happened next I only remember as pain. It made having a broken vertebra or two, along with some cracked ribs, feel like a gentle massage.
The claws found Oz’s throat and I saw a bright bead of red blood mar the ink of his anchor tattoo and my jinni flipped the fuck out. She reached deep and hard into the Node, pulling out more juice in an instant than I’d probably used my entire time living in Pittsburgh, including the last few days. I felt the steel-stained mojo blast through me and a mushroom cloud of Fire rose and then fell, blasting outward in a burst of black Flame
that picked the vampire up and incinerated him like he was a gasoline-soaked match.
“Well this is new,” I said, my voice oddly conversational, still kneeling, as I watched my Fire dance around me. Oz was staring, a hand pressed against the small wound at his neck. Charlie, meanwhile, dropped his impromptu weapon and raised both his hands in supplication.
“Honey, put out your Fire,” he said. “Your Master is safe. You hear me? Oz is safe.”
My eyes flicked between my Master and my friend, the jinni in me registering his words. She backed down, taking my Fire with her as she did so.
Leaving me to crumple forward onto my face, every nerve in my body on fire.
Charlie and Oz were at my side a second later. Charlie went to lift me but Oz stopped him, tracing a hand down my spine and ribs. I cried out, thumping my fist against the concrete floor of our bar.
“Lyla,” said my Master. “Talk to me. What hurts?”
I sobbed incoherently, tears streaming down my face. It wasn’t my back—that hurt, but my jinni had taken care of most of the real damage in her effort to get to Oz.
“Magic,” I managed to say, my voice cracking. “Too much…”
“She’s blasted out her channels,” Charlie said, grimly. “I’ve never seen her use that much power. She must like you, boyo.”
I groaned and Oz ignored Charlie’s comment. “What can I do?” he asked me.
Whimpering, I tried to move my eerily still legs. There was nothing he could do. I’d never done this before; I had no cure. The only magic I could access to heal myself was the same poison that had abraded me raw.
Oz, crouching next to me, lowered himself to the concrete. He stretched his long length next to me, wrapping a strong arm around my waist, cuddling me close.
“I need you, Lyla,” he said. “I need your help. I can’t do this without you. I command you to feel better. Do you hear me? I command you to heal yourself, because I can’t do this without you…” He pulled me even closer, his breath hot against my ear. “Damn it, you fucking jinni. You did this to her. You can help her get out of it, or I swear to God I will send you so far Sideways you’ll only have that bastard Kouros to play with…”
Jinn and Juice Page 16