“I don’t doubt that in the least,” Leo said, his tone and expression conveying serious agreement, his glance going pointedly to the darkened skies. Only Faith could see the word on his scroll that told her he was being mostly patronizing.
Then again, there was definitely a part of him that was all too serious about knowing how weak he was in the grand scheme of the things he was navigating of late. She could tell that he had experienced the world of the supernatural in a very unfriendly manner. It was very much the seat of his hostility toward her. But she hoped he would come to realize that there were the good and the bad in the supernatural races just like there were the good and the bad in the human race.
“Well then, we’re agreed. But I feel the need to warn you. The Sultan of the Western states is, well, very old and very clever and very…bored. And a bored Djynn of any power is a bad, bad thing. They thrive on their urges to entertain themselves at the expense of others. And believe me when I tell you there are hundreds of ways they can think up to do that and there’s no telling exactly which he’ll use on you if he does. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Faith looked over at Leo, the question in her eyes long before she said, “Are you sure you want to do this? I can do this by myself if you don’t want—”
“No, I’m very sure I don’t want to deal with any of this,” he said sharply. “But it’s here and I’m in it and there’s nothing I can do about that, so count me in.”
“If you want, you could maybe make a wish,” SingSing wheedled. She narrowed her focus on Leo. “You could maybe wish not to remember ever having met a single paranormal entity. You would forget everything that’s happened to you, to date, that is associated with a paranormal creature.”
“No!” they both cried in unison. Faith looked at him in surprise. She wouldn’t have thought he would resist a temptation like that so quickly and definitively. She could tell just looking at him that this world had been the crux of whatever trauma it was that he had suffered. Djynn had a knack for ferreting out what someone wanted most in the world, and she knew that somewhere in there was the ultimate in temptations for Leo.
“All right then. As long as you’re sure. Tie that nik around your neck or wrist or something. He can’t take it from you, but he can trick you into dropping it if he wants to.”
Faith did as instructed, looping the pretty thing around her neck and tying it on in a low knot that rested on her breastbone.
“Okey doke!” SingSing said, dusting off her hands and wriggling her fingers dramatically. “Off you go!”
And off they went.
CHAPTER SIX
Leo felt himself dissolving in a tingly numbing sensation. It was as though he had become a carbonated beverage, popping little bubbles of himself into the air. And then he resolved just as slowly, just as sparkling, until he was solid again and feeling incredibly heavy in his normal weight and body after having felt so light.
The first thing he did was look for Faith, to make certain she had arrived just as safely and that she was nearby. He exhaled a silent sigh of relief when he saw her. He was reluctant to admit it, but having her near him made him feel a little safer somehow. She had certainly proved her supernatural expertise as she had navigated the tricky dealings with the diminutive little Djynn. His reluctance came with letting himself think for a single second that dealing with these creatures was safe on any level. He was determined to keep his guard up and do whatever he could to keep his head above water and protect himself, for what that was worth considering he was seriously outgunned.
He looked around and was absolutely shocked to find himself in front of a gingerbread house. Well, not made of gingerbread and candy, but it was a large, colorful house with clapboard siding painted pastel colors. Purple on the casings of some windows, pink on others. The main breadth of the house was sunshine yellow, but the garage was sky blue and the upper floors were minty green. There were white scalloped edges framing just about everything, especially the roof, every window was tinted with color…and it was obvious from an up close position that you couldn’t see inside the house through the glass. He could only assume it was polarized like the house in New Mexico. The driveway was made of white stone kept one hundred percent in a perfect stripe. There was, literally, a white picket fence about two feet high all along the front edge of the property. However, it did not escape his notice that the fence to the backyard was over six feet in height, but picketed just the same. The other difference was while the pickets in the front fence were wide apart from each other, the pickets in the back fence were set so close together that there wasn’t a single hint of light passing through them.
Leo heard Faith sigh in a hard exhalation and he looked at her. Instantly he reached out for her, a helping hand because it was obvious she was unsteady and, he suspected, in pain. It was hard to determine with her universally white pallor, but he could somehow sense she was sickened and hurting.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, moving closer to her so he could lean her up against his body. She was a tall, strong woman, and he felt that eddying into him in spite of her weakened state.
“Night Angels don’t teleport well. Most Nightwalkers don’t in my experience. Magic is such a tricky thing.”
“As opposed to what you can do? That’s not magic?”
“No,” she said, exhaling another soft sigh. “What we do is innate. In our genetics. Born to us. What Djynn do, that ability to tap into magic, that’s innate…but the magic itself is in the niknaks. They draw the power from them, accumulating it and using it. I’ve always thought that they were the only Nightwalker for whom magic is not a negative aspect to be avoided at all costs. Not to themselves anyway. It’s almost like they can filter the negative properties out somehow.”
Leo found himself nodding even though he wasn’t sure he fully understood. He was still getting used to the idea that all of these things…genies and dragonlets and all of it were real. And to make things worse, having been fascinated by mythology and mythical beings when he had been younger, he had a vast recollection of hundreds of creatures and their abilities. Were they all real? What was fact and what was fiction, he wondered, his gut tightening even more than it already was. An interesting feat considering he felt like a head to toe knot of tension.
“Better now?” he asked after a minute of letting her catch her breath. “I don’t know how long we’ll go unnoticed standing here. We kind of stand out. Well,” he smiled sheepishly, “I do in any event.”
She shot him a look that said “And I don’t?”
“I’m just a lowly mortal, and you’re, well, not. Besides, you’re white. It goes with the motif.” He lifted a brow toward the house.
“Ha. Ha,” she said dryly. But she smiled in spite of herself and gave him a chuckle. Leo looked farther around, noticing that they were in what one might call an average suburban neighborhood…if the neighborhood was made out of gingerbread houses. The lawn ornamentations alone were going to put him into sugar shock. Everything was just so…sweet. Little kittens frolicking in the lawn, gnomes and lawn jockeys standing to stalwart attention. It might as well have been made out of candy after all. Then again, there was a house a little ways down the road that looked very gingerbready. Good thing he hated gingerbread or he might have been tempted to take a bite…just for shits and giggles.
“Well, let’s start the next leg of the magical mystery tour,” he invited her, gesturing for her to precede him. She leaned her weight into him in a silent indication that they should head up the drive together, side by side. Their proximity to each other made him realize a few things. One, she was just about as tall as he was, and two, she radiated that delicious smell of cinnamon and nutmeg. Christmas, he thought suddenly. She smelled like the scrumptiousness of Christmas desserts.
A few other palatable observations struggled for his attention, but he pushed it all away. He could never forget what she was, he reminded himself sternly. Even though the powder soft white of her comp
lexion screamed how different she was, he felt he needed reminding just the same. As it was, looking at her was no longer followed with a feeling of shock, that sensation the limited human psyche felt whenever it saw something so far out of the norm that it had a hard time processing it. It was the next step in desensitization, he realized. Get bombarded with something extraordinary for long enough it would start to feel quite ordinary.
Wherever they were, it was windy and cold. Like, on the brink of snow cold. He could smell it on the air and because neither of them was wearing coats, they most certainly felt it on their skin.
“Where the hell are we?” he asked aloud.
“I’m guessing the Northern states?” But it was more a question than it was an answer.
“Maybe. It’s still winter. On the tail end of it, but still enough to account for the cold. But there’s no snow on the ground.”
“Yet,” she said looking up at the sky. “Soon.”
“I’d kill for my cellphone right now,” he said.
“Why didn’t you bring it?” She was all curiosity, nothing accusing or insulting in the question. Another woman would have whined or possibly outright bitched about a cellphone being left behind, as well as whatever else struck their minds. It said something about how much of an impatient, intolerant world it was that they lived in, and how much being used to complaining was a part of it. But she didn’t complain. She took everything in stride…even his erratic behaviors; of which there had been many in their short time together.
“I…lost it,” he said, not bothering to explain how it had been lost. That it had been in his hand the day Chatha had jumped him. He hadn’t gotten around to replacing it just yet.
“What would you do with it anyway?”
The question seemed to take him off guard. Why did he want it? Was he looking for some kind of lifeline before putting his neck out? Even if it wasn’t to call anyone specific, but just the sensation of being connected to the outside world? He answered her question with a shrug, and as usual she simply accepted it.
They stopped and both of them looked at the door, then at each other.
“So…we ring the bell and say what?” Leo asked. “Hey, are you a genie? Can I see your bottle?”
She pressed back a smile, but it shone in her eyes just the same.
“They don’t like being called genies,” she said. “Especially not at this level.”
“But I thought SingSing was a genie level Djynn.”
“It’s a caste system. And its Djinni, spelled D-J-I-N-N-I with a blend of the d and j at the beginning.”
“I get it. How about I leave all discussions with magical beings to you?” he suggested grimly.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied, that smile in her voice again. “You held your own against SingSing admirably well.”
He didn’t reply, reaching out instead to ring the fuchsia-colored doorbell.
Fuchsia? Really? Come on now, he thought with a mental eye roll.
It took a minute, and another ring of the doorbell, but someone finally came to the door. When the door opened there was no one there…above four and a half feet. Looking down they discovered a tiny old woman, so small she hardly looked more real than the garden gnomes at the end of the drive. She wore a blue and white gingham dress, a string of pearls, a pair of reading glasses on her nose, and a garish red lipstick on her lips. In one aspect it was exactly what he would have expected to find behind the door of a house that looked like this. On the other hand…no one could possibly predict anything in this world he was flailing to tread water in. He refused to be taken in by innocent sheep’s clothing ever again. He had turned his back on Chatha because of his Down syndrome appearance, and it had cost him dearly. It was a mistake he would never make again.
“Yes?” she asked, her voice sounding disused and gentle. “May I help you?”
Leo didn’t know what to do next, a feeling he was becoming increasingly familiar with. Something inside of him remembered his mother smacking him in the back of the head for mouthing off to old Mrs. Wheederman down the street, but it was severely contrasting with a long adulthood of knowing anyone could be the next threat.
“Where is he?” Faith asked.
The question was flat and cold, brooking no nonsense, and for once he was grateful to have someone else take the lead. Which was funny because one of the problems he’d had when he’d been an Army Ranger had been the chain of command. A total moron who had somehow put in enough tenure to become a major was giving orders, often with bullying connotations, just so he could feel like his erection was the biggest one in town? Yeah. Not Leo’s idea of a good time and certainly not his idea of how to take care of business.
“Who do you mean, dear? There’s no one here but me.”
Leo could read people really well, and he’d have been tempted to believe her, but that was his mother and that sting on the back of his head talking.
“Let’s not play games. I really don’t have the time,” Faith said, her hand coming to rest on the door. She leaned her weight into it pushing the woman back a few inches.
“You better back off, missy,” she said sharply to Faith, “or I’ll be calling the authorities!”
“I said—!”
“That’s a pretty shade of lipstick you’re wearing.”
Faith’s head veered around and the look she gave him was stupefied, pure and simple.
“Really? You like it?” The old woman preened. Literally preened. Then a rattling sort of chuckle erupted out of her. “It’s called Hussy Red!”
“It goes well with your dress and your…” He paused when he realized she was wearing red shoes. Ruby slippers, to be exact. “…shoes. My friend didn’t mean to be rude,” he continued, “but we are in…someone’s in trouble and we were told we could find some help here.”
“Well, I could call the authorities,” she said helpfully, but she stepped back and let the door open wider. “That’s about all I can do for you. Can I get you something? Some sweet tea maybe?”
“That sounds lovely,” Leo said, but he was talking to her back and they were stepping into the foyer. A quick look around showed a home exactly like one he would have pictured for a sweet little old lady. A little china tea set on a low table. TV dinner trays…one with medications lined up neatly on it. A recliner that clearly got a lot of use with a doily on its back. There was a fat gray cat snoozing on top of the doily.
“What are you—?”
“Shh,” he said softly, reaching to squeeze Faith’s hand in a gentle signal that she should trust him. He realized what he was doing an instant later and after a startled look into her slightly widening eyes, he drew back from her. Strangely enough, her warmth didn’t disappear from its place against his fingertips as quickly as it should have. He found himself wiping his palm surreptitiously down over the thigh of his jeans.
“Here you go. Some sweet tea,” she said, a glass for each of them in her hands.
“Thank you,” they said in unison as they reached for the glasses.
Sweet tea.
“Is that a touch of the South I hear in your voice, ma’am?” he asked her. Of course, he didn’t hear anything of the kind, but sweet tea was the knee-jerk drink of choice in the South and he suspected there was some import to her offering it, even if he didn’t exactly know what he was dealing with. But this was clearly a series of hoops they were meant to leap through, and he was willing to play the game for the moment. And this hoop, it seemed, was based strongly in their politeness to this old woman.
“Why yes, yes it is!” she said, a southern drawl magically appearing in her tone. “Now what is it you nice people want from me? Shall I call the authorities?”
Not police. Authorities.
“Would you do that for us? Call the authorities?”
“Why yes. Of course. Let me get my phone. Now you drink up!”
“Don’t drink it,” they whispered in unison to each other once she’d left the room. Leo met her eyes with
surprise, finding her just as astonished as he was by the way they seem to be hitting the same notes together.
Leo looked over his shoulder for the fifth time since entering the house, the crawl of nervousness over the back of his scalp a constant sensation it seemed. He had learned the hard way not to turn his back on anyone, and ever since then it had been a constant thing for him, this hyper vigilance. He wanted to see it as a good thing, an added awareness that would keep him from ending up…
Leo pushed the thought away before it was birthed. Now was not the time for self-reflection. There was a great deal of danger in what he was doing. He had no idea why he was here, why he was risking his neck for…for what? For whom? Did he even know? Did he really know if the man he had left in that bed was the friend he had known since boyhood? Or was he just holding on to something that was already gone?
“There. The authorities are on the way,” the old woman said. “You haven’t drunk your tea,” she noted with a frown.
“I’m not thirsty, thank you,” Faith said, leaning to place the glass on a nearby table.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Faith froze as the threat in her words and tone came through loud and clear.
“I beg your pardon,” Faith said just as sharply.
“I’ve had about enough of you, missy,” the old woman said with obvious agitation. “You’re rude and ungrateful, that’s what you are.”
“We’re sorry,” Leo jumped in. “We’re just very worried about our friend.”
“Now that’s not entirely true, is it?”
This time it was Leo’s turn to still. He narrowed his attention on her, the feel of his gun itching against his spine. It was an instinct, a reaction he had always trusted.
“You’re not even sure you want to be here. Not sure you would even call him a friend.”
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