Jinn and Juice (6 page)

His frown deepened as he went into the room’s little bathroom, returning after a minute with a small toiletry case.

“I had no idea it was all this complicated,” he said, shoving it into the bag and zipping everything up.

I scanned the room, looking for anything he might have forgotten. “It’s not, really. Think of it this way: there are only two types of magical creatures, when it comes right down to it: those who can use the Deep Magic and those who can’t. Those who can use the Deep Magic cannot live in Pittsburgh. They need the Deep Magic to survive, like they need air or water, and the Deep Magic here is poisoned. So Pittsburgh’s sort of a haven for the Immunda.

“We sometimes call it the City of Misfit Toys. The big guns don’t come here, because the magic here is deadly to them. So Pittsburgh houses a lot of magical beings who like living without the risk of becoming the bitch of something a lot stronger.”

Oz was standing, holding his duffel bag’s handle in one big hand. He was giving me an odd look.

“So what are you?”

“What?” I asked, sounding sharp even to my own ears.

“You said only purebloods can access the Deep Magic. But you used it to reset the wards last night. And you said jinn are purebloods, not Immunda. So how do you live here?”

I hemmed and hawed at him, mentally cursing my babbling jinni in fifteen languages.
You’re out of practice
, I told myself.
And he’s a lot smarter than you’re giving him credit for.

Luckily, my curse wouldn’t let me clarify what was going on, so I could only babble inanities as I shook my head. He was beginning to look distinctly suspicious when I was saved by the bell. Or a Call, as the case may be.

The burst of magic rang through my head like a shot and I felt my eyes cross.

“Lyla, what’s wrong?” Oz asked, as I fell heavily against the door.

I took a deep breath, then another, letting the Call’s message clarify itself.

“There’s a problem,” I said, utterly grateful for the distraction even though I normally hated being Called. “We’ve got to go.”

I nipped out the door, darting to the stairs and freedom from Oz’s questions. He kept up with me, taking just a second to drop the keys off with the meth-head smoking outside the manager’s office. I was already in the driver’s seat, pulling on my seat belt, as he jumped in. I’d put her into drive before he’d finished shutting his door.

“I’m taking it this is an emergency?” he said, hastily buckling his seat belt.

“It is. But you’re in luck. You’re going to get to see exactly
how this new world fits into your old, live and in the flesh, rather than my having to describe it to you.”

“Um, okay,” he said. “This sounds… instructional.”

“Oh, it will be,” I said, grimly.

My Master gave me a long side-eye. “Good. I think.”

“I’m delighted you approve, Master.”

Oz frowned at that word. I smiled. He really was too easy.

W
hat the hell is that?” Oz asked, peering out the window as I drove my El Camino up onto the sidewalk bordering Frick Park, right near Regent’s Square.

This wasn’t the time to think about traffic tickets.

“That is something that’s not supposed to be here,” I said. “C’mon.”

Frick was Pittsburgh’s answer to New York’s Central Park. And, as in Central Park, there were parts that were wild and overgrown and parts that were absolutely not. The part that sat in Regent’s Square, a little neighborhood near Wilkinsburg, was one of the absolutely-not-wild parts. It consisted of a few baseball diamonds, a playground, a nice running track… all the nice family stuff you didn’t want attacked by a slobbering insect monster.

And it was currently under attack by a slobbering insect monster. In the middle of the park, some ways ahead, something many-limbed and hulking tossed around playground equipment like paper dolls.

Unfortunately, it was also a pretty October day, with just the slightest chill in the air. The kind of end-of-summer day
humans wanted to savor out in the open, before it got too cold to do so.

People were everywhere.

“Shit,” I said, watching a plastic kiddy slide arc through the air to hit the sidewalk near my car. “This is going to be fun.”

Oz glanced at me. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious or sarcastic.”

I grinned at him. “C’mon, Master. This is your chance to see how we all get along. Or don’t, as the case may be.”

“Ma’am, I can’t let you in there,” said one of the policemen standing in a huge circle, keeping the humans out of the way. His voice had the robotically repetitive tone of the heavily glamoured.

I used my own power on him, knowing the Exterminators’ standard shtick. “We’re with the special squad.”

He nodded, pupils dilated, letting me and Oz pass.

“Why are the cops here if this is a supernatural problem?” he asked, as we hurried toward the flurry of activity at the far end of the park.

“In this case, they probably got here first,” I said.

“How do you know?”

I pointed to the torso of the human policeman that lay, wrong way around, next to his own legs, so he could have sucked on his own toes had he been alive.

“Oh God,” Oz said, turning green.

“We keep an eye on the police scanners. We have people who take care of this sort of thing, but when they need backup, they put out a Call. I was close and strong enough, so I could receive it.”

“That poor guy,” Oz said.

I nodded, flashing him an “I told you so” look. “Like I was saying, humans and supernaturals are best kept separate.”

He looked troubled at that, but I didn’t have time to pick his brain and he wasn’t asking me to, so I ignored him.

We were nearly to the source of the problem. It looked kinda like the Tick, from that old cartoon about a guy dressed up as a giant superhero tick. Only this Tick was more actual tick: greenish-black and while the body was distinctly buff and humanoid, the head was all mandibles and antennae and weird bug eyes.

“Bugbear. Goddammit.”

“A what?” Oz asked me, so I repeated myself, and then we were accosted by the Exterminator in charge of the whole shebang.

She was an old dancing buddy of mine, Loretta. A siren, she was all bouncing blonde curls, big blue eyes, and buxom figure. Also gills, third eyelids, and webbed fingers and toes, but from the way Oz was goggling at her, that didn’t distract from her beauty. Like all sirens, she was great at glamouring the human witnesses but not the best offense.

“Lyla?” Loretta said, clearly surprised to see me. Calls were magically calibrated to seek out beings with an appropriate level of power for the problem. I was normally only Called for far lesser issues—crowd control, things like that. But now that I was Bound, I could handle a whole lot more, and the Exterminator’s special Call knew that, even if Loretta didn’t.

Just then a small plastic Pegasus—one of those park toys on a spring that kids ride on—nearly beaned me, and I decided now was not the time for explanations.

“Who are you with?” I asked, cutting to the chase.

“Suki and Punyabrata,” she said in dulcet tones, naming two of Pittsburgh’s big-gun Exterminators. Suki was a gaki and Puny a naga. Like sirens, both were Immunda races. Gakis, though rare and very strong for Immunda, were really just
spirit vampires. Meanwhile Puny, a snake-shapeshifter, could skim just enough from the Node to fuel his transformations. And once he was transformed…

A snake the size of a big rig could do enough damage without resorting to any other magic than its own ability to slither over you like a steamroller.

“Suki’s down,” Loretta continued. “Puny’s…”

Something darkened the sky above us and then landed with a resounding thud at our backs. Loretta swore and when we turned it was to see Puny, still in snake form, embedded a few feet into the grass like a hissing, disgruntled comet.

“Puny’s having problems,” I finished for her.

“Do you really think you can help?” Loretta asked, looking at me with doubt in her oceanic eyes.

I nodded. “I’m Bound now,” I said, and she gaped from me to Oz and then back at me before her eyes narrowed in calculation.

“Oh.”

Any more small talk was precluded by a horrible chittering cry, as the bugbear launched itself toward the line of humans huddled behind the police officers.

“Tell me to fight the bugbear,” I told Oz, already reaching for the Node.

Oz did as I asked, without question. “Take that thing out, Lyla, before it hurts anyone else.”

And just like that, Pittsburgh’s steel-stained juice poured through my system. I launched myself on a wave of black Fire, forcing my shape to shift and grow huge even as I did so, into a size far more massive than I could have achieved unBound, fighting Oz the night before.

We met in midair, the bugbear and me, my Fire wrapping around both of us as I pushed it away from the humans
and toward the ground. We landed, me on top, knocking the breath out of the bugbear as I was enveloped by the smell of rotten eggs.

From underneath me the bugbear blinked, obviously surprised at my aerial assault. I grinned at it, my lips feeling large and unwieldy, as I pulled back a fist and hit it square in the mandible.

The solid blow only pissed it off. It growled, mandibles opening wide to reveal jagged bug teeth covered in stinking saliva—the old-egg smell came from inside the creature, a charming discovery.

It blew its stinking breath right in my face, the reek so powerful I pulled back, then yelped as the beast yanked my arm hard, flinging me off. It bounded to its feet, lunging at Oz, who had gamely trotted over and assumed his boxer’s stance. Just as the creature’s meaty, armored fist hit my Master’s nose with a crunch, I crashed into the beast from the side. We landed squarely in the center of a picnic table, spread with what looked like a lovely lunch. The table buckled under our combined weight, listing to the right. Rolling onto the ground, we scrabbled at each other with clawed hands, Oz, his nose streaming blood, shouting unhelpful exhortations of encouragement like an overzealous hockey mom as the creature breathed its reek all over me.

I managed to get on top of the beast, beefing up the thighs I wrapped around its neck with an extra layer or five of muscle, using my massive calves to restrain its arms. “Hit it with the bench!” shouted Ozan, and I had to obey. I reached for what had been one of the picnic table’s benches, hefting it with ease in one of my hamlike hands. Raising it above my head, I brought it down with all my strength on the bugbear’s head.

“Hulk smash!” I shouted, just for the fun of it.

It grunted, but didn’t appear particularly fazed. So I brought the bench down again and again, although still to no effect. “What the hell?” I shouted at it. “Die already!”

It snarled, bucking like a bronco, ignoring my suggestion.

“Try the balls!” shouted Oz, and I did as he said, partly because it was a good idea and partly because I had to follow his commands. I raised the bench again, but twisted as I brought it down, landing it solidly in the creature’s crotch.

I’m not sure bugbears have a gender—not all fey monsters do—but it definitely had something sensitive between its legs. The creature sat bolt upright, shock and pain giving it a surge of strength. The good news was that I seemed to have done some damage, as the creature stopped trying either to kill me or get to the humans ringing the park. The bad news was that it sat up so swiftly it flung me off, leaving it free to flee. Which it did, rolling like a massive, stinky tumbleweed away from me. Bounding to its feet, it leaped up and away from the main street of Regent’s Square toward the wilder portions of Frick Park.

I was on my own feet, flinging a wave of black Fire at the creature, but I was too late. Bugbears could jump like fleas, and this one used its superpower to great effect.

“Shit!” I shot a few more waves of black Fire at the beast, but it was way out of my range.

Muttering Turkish imprecations under my breath, I turned to Oz. My Master’s nose was still bleeding heavily, which I pointed out to him with a finger poked in his direction. His hand went to his face and he blanched when it came away wet and red. He stripped off his button-up, then his T-shirt, showing off an awful lot of muscled, lightly haired chest, all covered in vintage tattoos.

Pressing his T-shirt to his face, he looked me over with a
combination of shock and curiosity. I knew he’d have a thousand questions as, ever the scientist, he scanned down with clinical precision over my now hugely muscled shape. Only he suddenly blushed red and looked back up at my eyes, clearly forgetting his clinical detachment.

I looked down to discover what I’d expected. Only in superhero comics do clothes tear in such a way as to protect one’s modesty. And so I’d burst out of my jeans and thin black sweater leaving one boob hanging out and my cooter exposed, a look that would have gotten me summarily stoned where and when I was from.

I shrugged ruefully at him as I reclaimed my true form, shifting down into my own comfortable shape. He watched with fascinated curiosity until the few wisps of clothing that had managed to cling to me in the first shift gave up the ghost and fell off entirely.

Not making me regret I’d left the cantaloupe at home, Ozan did the gentlemanly thing and whirled around, keeping his back turned as he tossed me the button-up he held in one hand.

I donned the shirt, staring at his broad, tattooed shoulders. My new Master kept surprising me, much to my own consternation.

“You decent?” he asked, using a phrase I hadn’t heard for years outside of period drama.

“Yes,” I said. “As decent as I get, at least.” Then I walked toward him, hand outstretched. A small burst of magic fixed his busted nose.

When he lowered his T-shirt his mouth was quirked in a smile. Even bloody, he was handsome, and I regretted the day he learned what being a Magi really meant and did something to make me hate him.

Loretta pounded up next to him, squawking into her mobile phone. She lowered it from her ear to yell at me.

“That was insane, Lyla! Were you using the Node?”

Shit
, I thought. “Uh, the Node? Hell no.”
When it doubt, brazen it out.
“That was, um, jinni magic. From being Bound. Jinni magic.”

Maybe not my best lie. Loretta did not look convinced but she didn’t push. Oz looked between the two of us, his brow wrinkled in thoughts I probably didn’t want him to be thinking.

“Well, whatever it was, that was a great job,” Loretta said. “We’ve got a team tracking the thing.”

“You need me to help?”

She shook her head. “Negative. We were just taken unawares. We haven’t seen a bugbear this side of Sideways in a very long time.”

“Yeah, what the hell was it doing here?”

“We have no idea,” she said, grimly. “Something must have brought it over, but why?”

Bugbears lived Sideways, they were dumb and mean, and they tended to eat anything that moved that they came across. They couldn’t be bought, or bribed, or blackmailed, so they didn’t make good employees. Why anyone would bring such a thing to the human plane was completely mystifying.

And not my problem.

“I got ninety-nine problems and a bugbear ain’t one, Loretta. Can we go?”

Loretta nodded. “You did a great job. We may need you again, if we find the thing.” Her eyes narrowed further at me, a look that made my palms sweat. “I’ll be seeing you.

“And thank you for your help, too,” she said, turning to Oz.

He nodded, gesturing awkwardly with his bloody T-shirt as he told her it was no problem.

She smiled at him, openly admiring his chest as he talked. “Here,” she said, reaching for the shirt. “I can take get rid of that for you. Least I can do.” He handed it to her and she turned back to all the watching humans as I felt the powerful swell of her magic begin changing their perception of everything they’d just seen…

“She’s gonna have to eat a lot of hearts tonight to refuel,” I said, hoping the hospital morgues were stocked. Otherwise there’d be a few less homeless people wandering around tomorrow.