Jinn and Juice (2 page)

Yulia came and gave me a hug, her always-cool skin making my own flesh goose-pimple reflexively.

“Not too different, please,” she whispered, and I hugged her hard.

“If you two hookers make me cry off my makeup, I’ll shave your eyebrows,” said Rachel, her voice quivering slightly. We broke off our hug immediately, knowing she was completely serious.

Nothing, not even friendship, could get between a drag queen and her makeup. Not without feeling the wrath of fabulous scorned.

T
he air whispered cool over my arms as I stood on stage, ready to be announced. The room was dark, the wisp-lights glowing on our small café tables the room’s only illumination.

Suddenly Charlie’s smoky voice oozed over the audience like KY at a porn shoot, getting all up in the audience’s aural cavities.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I know you’ve been waiting for this. Straight from the sultan’s bedchamber, a woman of fire too hot for the harem—put your hands together for our very own… Lyla La More!”

Applause, wolf whistles, and a few ululations echoed from the crowd, but the lights stayed off and I remained still. The crowd quieted, growing totally silent as it heard the first low strike of the bass drum. A deep, dark sound, it echoed through my bones as it thumped again, and again, speeding up by infinitesimal degrees. Stock-still, I moved only when the low sweet strain of a cello cut across the drum, and my left hip lifted and dropped. The cello sounded again as my right hip lifted and dropped. And then my hips erupted in a chaos of shimmies with the entrance of more drums and a violin. Beats Antique
rocketed out of the speakers, taking the audience out of its seats and my limbs into hyperdrive.

The dance was a serpentine one, my costume signaling the theme with tight, sheer green fabric sheathing my legs from where it hung off the heavy, crazily Bedazzled belt slung low on my hips. The smooth, soft skin of my belly was bare, of course, and above my ribs metallic serpents cupped my breasts, holding more green fabric to protect my modesty.

It was the headdress that stole the show: a great papier-mâché serpent reared above me, its fangs glittering with rubies and its eyes with emeralds. Or the craft store versions of precious gems. It was heavy and awkward, but it looked marvelous in the low light, winking malevolently at the crowd as I danced for their entertainment.

My hips slowed as my chest took up the dance, lifting and shifting, my spine arching as I raised my hands in snake arms. I did a slow circle, alternating movements between hips and chest. As the music swelled into a crescendo I faced the audience again, letting my hands fall to frame my hips. My belly bowed and swooped, muscles pulling in and then relaxing. The beat increasing, I moved as much as my tight costume would allow, darting my hands at the audience like another pair of striking snakes doing the bidding of the great snake that loomed above. The audience went wild, thumping the tables and calling for more. But the music slowed, and I let my shifting carry me downward, my hands above my head. I knelt before them, my snake’s head weaving and my arms undulating as the violin cut out, then the cello, leaving only that slow thrum of the bass drum once again. The lights lowered, and for a split second I could hear only the thudding of my heart and the rough pant of my breath through my toothy smile, until the first clap sounded in the room, sending everyone into another round of
applause. The lights went up again and I stood, Charlie coming to take my hand.

Charlie was wearing all of his clothes, since it was relatively early in the evening. Soon enough he’d be stripped of his red velvet ringmaster’s coat, underneath which he wore only lovely white skin and black suspenders holding up tight black jodhpurs. His mustache was twirled into two rakish whiskers flaring over thin lips, black guyliner smudged around his eerily colorless eyes.

He gave me his sexy ringmaster’s leer as he approached, those pale eyes sweeping over my body. His interest was all part of the show, though—Charlie was both gay and taken.

The clapping slowed as Charlie grabbed my arm, jerking me around and toward him. For a split second we were nose-to-nose, me on my tiptoes and him bending over me. Then his arm wrapped around my waist, pulling my hips against his and arching my back. I melted against him, my hands slipping inside the lapels of his coat to lie against his chilly skin. We stayed in that classic pose for a second, Charlie’s lean frame looming above me—the alpha male subduing his exotic female. I let my Fire flare just enough to swirl my hair, its sinuous weight mimicking the natural movements of the snake I still wore on my head.

On cue, Charlie whipped me around so I faced the audience. He stepped behind me, his hands moving to my headdress. He undid the strap beneath my chin, lifting the heavy snake’s head off me. He set it by my feet, reaching for the belt at my waist.

The audience, having fallen silent when Charlie first grabbed me, began to clap with Trey, who’d initiated a slow beat from behind the bar.

The clapping sped up as Charlie’s hand reached for the knot of the belt, undoing it with theatrical slowness. On cue, my
next song began. “Hey, Miss Kiss, let us dance,” echoed out of the speakers as Charlie whipped my skirt off, leaving me clad in a coin-covered G-string. The audience was on its feet, clapping as Purgatory’s ringmaster grabbed my serpent head and, wielding my skirt like a bullfighter’s cape, plunged offstage.

It stayed on its feet for the second half of my act, a traditional burlesque number to which I gave only the slightest belly dance flair. I was already pretty nude, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t tease. And tease I did.

In fact, I got so deep into the dance I went ahead and let my Fire flare again, its dark shadow swooping around me like a doppelgänger, its preternatural heat caressing my skin like a familiar lover.

I would miss my Fire when my curse was lifted.

As the song ended I let the black flames fall around me like a cloak. My hands went behind my back, finding the knot that held on my bra. Then I let the dark swath of my Fire peel away, letting the coin bra fall with it and leaving me clad only in my coin G-string and a pair of pasties in the shape of genie lamps. The audience hooted as my Fire dissipated and my arms fell to my sides, leaving my mostly bare flesh sweating in the hot lights of the stage. Charlie came out again, leading me stage left, where I made a deep curtsy, peeping up at the audience provocatively through my lashes. I repeated the movement stage right, and then finally center.

Straightening from my final bow, I caught a glimpse of a man sitting toward the back, his silver eyes opened wide.

And glowing like fucking headlamps in the dark.

Magi
, chimed my brain, unhelpfully.

I pulled sharply away, startling Charlie, who dropped my hand. A smart move on his part, because I was already running.

Panties a-jangling.

Trip hissed at me as I leaped over her and Trap. The twin spider wraiths were currently conjoined at the waist, their legs splaying around them as they prepared for their act.

I didn’t respond, since I was in fully panicked fleeing mode. Trip and Trap, after all, couldn’t help me. Neither could Trey, or Big Bertha, or Charlie, or any of my other friends. Not unless they ripped that fucking Magi’s tongue out before he could speak. For Magi he certainly was, his eyes Flaring to my Fire.

I heard crashing behind me as Trap cried out, “No humans backstage!”

The Magi ignored the spider wraiths, his footsteps closing in behind me. But he hadn’t Called yet, and I used my Fire to propel me forward, pushing me toward Purgatory’s stage entrance and the street. There I could hopefully put enough distance between me and the Magi for Pittsburgh’s steel-stained environment to help me hide.

The cool spring air hit all my bare skin like a slap as I plunged into the night, cutting right down the alley. It was a wide, empty East Liberty alley, giving me plenty of room to run. But the guy chasing me was fast, and his hand managed to catch my elbow, twirling me around to face his glowing eyes. He stared at me in wonder for a split second and I thought I might just have time to kick him in the balls before he could speak.

But it was too late.

“Hatenach farat a si.” I See you
, he said, in a language older than humanity. Older than time. A language of smoke and fire; a language of magic. The language of the being that made me what I am today, which had the power to make me a slave.

Fuck if I was ever going to be a slave again.

With a harsh cry I launched myself at the man, skimming off the surface of the magical Node beneath the city to shift my nails into long, wicked talons. A look of surprise twisted his features, but he had good reflexes. He threw himself out of my way with a neat somersault that had him back on his feet, his fists raised as he balanced on the balls of his feet—the stance of an experienced boxer.

I lunged at him again, calling my Fire to flame around me. I hoped to intimidate him even if a jinni’s black flames wouldn’t burn a Magi. His eyes grew even wider at the sight, but he didn’t budge. So I slashed at him again with my talons, but he got under my guard and I overextended badly, cursing my inability to use my strongest weapon even as I fell.

I landed hard on the ground, my breath knocked out of my lungs. He kicked away my hands and jumped on top of me. Concentrating on the words, he opened his mouth to speak. Before he could get out the rest of the spell, I struck upward with both my hands bent, the heels of my palms striking him in the chin.

His eyes, already glowing in reaction to my presence, Flared brighter in the darkness, causing my anger to blaze with them.

“Magi,” I hissed, and I hit him again. This time he caught my wrists, his hands like vises. Now that he had me on the ground, his bigger size gave him the advantage.

At least for those few seconds.

It was his turn to hiss as suddenly, instead of being a tiny Jasmine-stripper look-alike, I blossomed into obesity. My fat hips knocked his thighs open, pushing him off balance. I heaved myself over, morphing into a taller, more muscular version of me as I did so. Unable to tap the Deep Magic unless Bound, I couldn’t get that much bigger, but it made the fight a little more fair.

“Why don’t you take on someone your own size?” I growled as I dove for him.

In retrospect, I should have taken the fight slower. I was just so pissed and so panicked. I hadn’t heard anyone with those eyes speak that language in a century—not since I’d escaped Europe for the New World, and found refuge in steel-soaked Pittsburgh, where only Immunda could survive. Recognizing a true, Initiated Magi, my crazy inner she-bear emerged, gibbering about never being taken alive. If I had any thought at all it was that my sense of self-preservation would give me an edge. I was fighting for my life, after all, while this guy was just a jerk trying to Bind a jinni.

Unfortunately he didn’t fight like a jerk; he fought like a cornered wolverine. He fought as if he were the one who’d be enslaved if he lost this match. He fought like his life depended on it. Which, considering I was intent on killing him, I guess it did.

He fought better than me.

I was hitting him, hard, but I’d lost my talons shifting to a bigger size. Being unBound meant I was far less powerful, even with my unusual access to all of Pittsburgh’s corrupted magic swirling at my feet. And now that I was unarmed, he wasn’t hitting back, just using his big body to deflect the majority of my blows. Until I overextended a kick.

His own booted foot lashed out, knocking my leg out from under me. I was on the ground again and this time he didn’t underestimate my abilities.

He pinned me down with all his weight, his knees pressing painfully into my thighs and his chest blanketing mine, his hands holding down my wrists. His face was inches from mine, but his features were entirely obscured by the bright glow of his Flaring eyes.

Not me
, my brain howled.
Not when I’m so close to being free
. I started to shift again in a last, desperate attempt. But before I could change, he’d spoken.

It was the second part of the spell that was the real bitch. And I was too late to stop him.

“Te vash anuk a si,”
he chanted over and over.
I Call you
. His pronunciation grew more confident with every repetition. The harsh sibilance of the language of the jinn reached toward me, wrapping around my soul. I cried out, but the spell blanketed me, muting my powers. I stopped mid-shift, my power whoomping out, leaving me beneath him in my own small form.

My wide brown eyes stared up at him, begging him silently to stop, not to say the last bit. The bit that made me his; that made me do his bidding; that made me a slave until he either let me go or died.

He spoke the words.

“Hatenoi faroush a mi.” I Bind you.

And just like that, I was caught. Bound to a human. Again.

There were no lights or sounds or other magical occurrences, but we both felt it. I was his. He stared at me with eyes gone wide with shock, his Flare fading as his magic accepted my acquiescence.

He was my Master.

“Göt,”
I muttered. Then I switched to English, so he’d understand.

“Asshole.”