Jinn and Juice (8 page)

I lowered my head, not wanting to see the pity in Ozan’s eyes.

“Her father employed a Magi, as did all men of wealth in that place at that time. He was powerful, and had Bound an incredibly old jinni named Kouros to serve the family.”

I shivered, hearing that name. Unbidden, I saw those red eyes before me, that taloned hand reaching for my heart…

“Desperate, Lyla approached Kouros, asking him to help her. She told the jinni she didn’t want to be married. She asked that she no longer be a woman, to be bought and sold like an animal. But she didn’t specify what she
did
want to be.

“So Kouros made her a jinni, like him. No longer a woman, not technically. And he cursed to her to live a thousand years like that.”

“Why a curse? And why a thousand years?”

Charlie took a sip of his Scotch before replying. “Magic has its own laws, and one of them is that curses cost less power than more permanent solutions. The gods only know what it took for Kouros just to curse Lyla, but we know he hasn’t been seen on the human plane since shortly after he made her a
jinni. We figure he didn’t have enough mojo to turn her into a jinni permanently or fully, just enough for a curse.”

“Why did he do it, then? That seems like a pretty extreme thing to do, just to mess with someone.”

Charlie and I exchanged glances. That was one question neither of us had ever figured out. And at this point in the game, we hoped we never would.

“We don’t know why,” was all Charlie said in response.

“But she’s almost free, you said?”

“No. She’s not almost free,” Charlie said. “Not as long as you have her Bound.”

“What?”

“That’s the condition of the curse,” Charlie explained, keeping his voice neutral. “She has to be unBound at the thousand-year anniversary of its being cast. Otherwise she’ll be a jinni for another thousand years.”

“Oh,” Ozan said, his voice small.

“Yes, ‘oh,’ ” said Yulia, her tone harsh, mocking. “Now you see what you have done?”

Ozan sat quietly for a full minute, looking between me and his big hands resting on his lap. I could see tattoos peeking out at his wrist, and another vintage anchor decorated the fleshy space between the thumb and pointer finger of his right hand.

“I do see,” he said, looking up at me. “But I can’t do this alone. And I
have
to do this, I
have
to repay my debt. They were my family.”

Ozan’s voice vibrated with passion and we all shifted uncomfortably. We understood debt, and what it was like to live with a true debt, a debt of the soul, gone unpaid.

As if he’d come to some sort of agreement with himself, Ozan looked at me, his face set. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt
you and I don’t want to keep you cursed. But I want my life back, like none of this ever happened. I need to find Tamina, send her back to her family, so I can forget. And to do that, I need help. I know nothing of this world…” His eyes crept to Yulia, darting back to me before she could blind him.

“I hate myself for using you like this, but I don’t know what else to do,” he said, his voice quiet. For me, only. “Please, give me another option.”

“A bargain,” I croaked. It was about all I could get out before my curse clamped my lips shut again.

He looked up, hopeful. “A bargain?”

“Yes,” Charlie said. “An offer from all of us. If you unBind Lyla, we’ll help you. All of us. Lyla, me, Rachel, Yulia, Bertha… I’m sure other people at Purgatory will help, too. Trip and Trap, Trey… we’ll all help you. We just want Lyla back.”

“You’re making this sound like a ransom,” said Oz, obviously uncomfortable.

“Well, son, it is,” said Charlie. Physically, he appeared younger than Oz, but something about how he said “son” had all of his hundreds of years of experience laced through it. “If you don’t let our friend go, she’s going to be cursed again. That’s not fair.”

“Of course it’s not,” Oz said, but he didn’t look like a man who’d seen a clear injustice and was ready to act to fix it. He looked confused. And guilty.

“Are you Immunda?” he asked me suddenly, and my heart thudded in my chest.

“I…,” my jinni started to say, as I struggled with her to keep control of my tongue. But I couldn’t refuse a direct question.

“No.” My voice was clipped. I had to answer, but I didn’t have to supply a critical exegesis on the subject.

“But you’re not pureblood.” Oz’s eyes were narrowed in
thought, undoubtedly putting two and two together to make slavery.

“No,” I said.

“I’m not sure what this has to do with anything,” Charlie began, but Oz interrupted.

“That’s what you did when you reset the wards. And why you were stronger even than that snake thing. You’re neither Immunda nor pureblood, so you can use the Node you said was so powerful.”

Charlie swore, Yulia sneakily tried to garrote Oz (my jinni caught the wisp without even trying), and Rachel looked confused. But I understood what was happening. My Master had grown teeth.

“I don’t want to do this, but sometimes things are bigger than we are,” he said. “And I swear to God I’ll let you go the
second
we find Tamina. But I
will
find her. She’s just a child and she’s alone and I can’t do this by myself. You said yourself you’re stronger Bound to me. We’ll find her faster this way and
then
I can let you go. But until she’s found…

“Until then, you belong to me.”

His words dropped like a bomb in the otherwise silent room. Charlie paled, Yulia bared her teeth in a snarl, Rachel fanned herself, and Oz sat, looking determined and guilty at the same time.

I felt about six thousand emotions, most of them located on the rage continuum, but my jinni wouldn’t let me castrate him or peel off his tattooed skin to wear as a raincoat. I tried to find purchase among all that anger, to reclaim myself, but all I could feel was my rage and my jinni and my bondage.

“Who died?” came a new voice, from the door to Purgatory.

It was Loretta. Her blonde curls were ratted, her face pale, and her siren’s third eyelids were blinking overtime, a nervous
habit she’d had to work on suppressing when I taught her to dance. Charlie’s already glum expression turned even dourer. Exterminators were never the bearers of good news, and, despite our long friendship, Loretta was no exception.

I obviously hadn’t rapped hard enough at that wooden skull of mine, because this situation wasn’t turning out to be any kind of cinch.

S
o who are we looking for?” Ozan asked skeptically, eyeing the copper-roofed cairn upon which was etched “Frick Park.” It’d taken some convincing to get Oz to believe that
this
Frick Park, which looked like a wild nature reserve, was the same Frick Park that had just played temporary home to a bugbear.

I kept telling him it was a big park. But he was apparently deaf as well as an enslaver of (not-so-) young ladies.

“His name’s Sid,” I grumbled, checking the lacings on the hiking boots I’d put on after we’d gone back to my place for a much-needed quick change. “He’s a troll.”

“I’m assuming you mean like Big Bertha, and not a jerk on the Internet.”

I stood, huffing at his lame attempt at a joke. “He’s actually Bertha’s great-uncle.”

“And why are we visiting Sid the troll?”

Zipping up my jacket, I frowned at him. “We’re trying to kill two birds with one stone. Loretta wants me to find out who brought that bugbear over
and
find out where it went, since they somehow managed to lose it. But Sid also knows
everything that comes over
and
everything that’s happening in Pittsburgh. So we can ask him about Loretta’s problem and if he’s heard rumors of Tamina’s whereabouts, at the same time. I just wish he would answer his stupid phone.”

“Trolls have phones?”

I glowered at my Master. “Here’s Random Supernatural Rule Number Forty-Nine: If it’s got thumbs it’s got a phone.”

Oz gave me a long look. “I’m sorry I have to keep you Bound. But I swear it’s only till we find Tamina. Then I’ll free you.”

I took a deep breath, reminding myself that antagonizing him wouldn’t help. Angry Masters were nasty Masters.

“Okay,” I said shortly.

“Even Loretta said it was for the best.”

I would have given anything to throttle him. But he was right. In the fight with the bugbear, Loretta had obviously noticed I could do the impossible: use the Deep Magic of our steel-stained Node now that I was Bound. And the Exterminators wanted that bugbear taken care of pronto. With their two best fighters out of commission after the Frick Park incident, I was the strongest thing in Pittsburgh.

Loretta had been happy to agree Oz shouldn’t unBind me until I found his missing girl… if I took care of their Exterminator problems first.

Oz had been very evidently thrilled to have another voice backing up his Master plan, and he’d promised her and everyone else in the room it was just for now. Charlie had taken me aside and reminded me that (a) I had no choice in the matter and (b) it was smarter to play nice with Oz, hoping he’d stick to his word, than piss him off. I’d already known both of those things, so we’d formally “agreed” to Oz’s terms.

Although it wasn’t really agreement if, technically, I didn’t have any real choice.

“Yes,” I said, through gritted teeth. “Loretta was keen on your plan. So let’s get going and find Tamina quickly… for the girl’s sake,” I amended, managing a faint smile at him.

And before you realize how cool it is to be a Magi.
I kept that thought to myself.

Oz managed to keep his trap shut as we started down the park’s steep paths. I knew my science-minded Master wouldn’t be able to maintain such quiet for long, however, and soon enough he was pestering me again.

“Why don’t you tell me more about Purgatory? Why it’s so hard to find. It’s a nice bar and the dancers are pretty good.”

“Pretty good?” I said, feigning outrage. He winked at me, an act of flirtation that I chose to ignore. “Well, we don’t make it easy for humans.”

“And how do you do that? I know it’s magic, but…”

The bright fall day was just crisp enough for my breath to hang in the air as I answered. “Warding, mostly. Wards make humans not want to approach, unless they have a bit of the Sight, like Rachel, or they’re pulled towards something, like you were to me. Purgatory is also a bit Sideways, mostly for space purposes, although just a bit.”

Oz frowned at me. “ ‘Sideways’? What the hell is that?”

“You’re Irish,” I said. “You’ve probably heard of Faerie.”

He nodded. “Yeah, my dad’s mom was from Cork. She talked about the Little People.”

“That’s right, although I’m talking about the place more than the people.”

“Oh, right,” he said, his brow furrowing as he thought back. “I remember them telling me stories about the fey living underground, sort of? But not?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Well, that’s Sideways. All purely magical beings have the ability to go Sideways. It’s called different
things in your mythologies… the demonic plane, Faerie, Olympus, whatever. A place that’s here, but not.”

“And Purgatory is Sideways?”

“Only a little bit. If you were a human who bumbled upon Purgatory’s door without any Sight whatever, you’d walk down the stairs and into a very small basement. Unless you were led by the hand, of course, by a pure supernatural or someone like me or you—a human who is a bit extra.”

We walked in silence for a while. This densely wooded part of the park gave the illusion of real wilderness as long as one ignored the nice wide dirt tracks and the occasional park benches. When Ozan finally spoke again, his voice was soft. Hesitant.

“Is that what I am, then?” he asked. I cast him a confused glance.

“Huh?”

“Human. Am I human?”

I laughed. “Is that what you’re worried about? Well, have no fear. You’re totally human. Just with a bit extra, like I said.”

“But how? Why?”

Thinking through the best way to answer, I finally opened my arms wide, gesturing to our surroundings. “It’s the natural law,” I said. “Take what you know of life, and add magic to it. Magic is part of the world, but I guess it’s like the God particle, or dark matter, or whatever they’re calling it these days. It’s all around humans, even if they can’t see it.

“But magic is like anything else in nature. It has its own laws. And for every action there has to be a reaction. For every sheep there’s a wolf. And for every wolf there’s a lion.”

Oz frowned at me. “You sound like a fortune cookie.”

I grinned. “Yeah, well, I’m a belly dancer. You’re lucky I’m not full hippie.”

“I dunno about that. I’ve seen your room.”

“That’s Bohemian chic, you Philistine.”

“Whatever, I still don’t have a clue what you’re saying. Where did jinn come from, first of all? Are they all like you? Cursed?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m the only one like me.”

Oz blinked at that. He was a smart guy and I could see the wheels of his brain churning over the implications of my experience.

“Wow,” he said, after a bit. “That must be lonely.”

“It is,” I said, sounding curt even to my own ears. I moderated my tone. “Or it was. Now it’s not so bad. But to answer your question, jinn are normally born, not made, as I was.”

We were walking steadily downward, away from cultivated grass. The path was still wide and clean, but other signs of man like signs and benches were becoming fewer and farther between.

“But where did jinn come from?”

“I don’t know. They have their own origination myth and it accords with the one I was taught as a child, which was that Allah made the jinn out of smoke and fire, while he made humans out of earth. They leave Allah out of it, of course, but they also trace their lineage back to a single being, who forged himself out of the heat of the universe.”

“Did this jinni-Adam have an Eve?” Oz asked.

“Yes. According to their legends, that first jinni created his own mate—Called her into being and Bound her to him. It was the first Binding, and the spell you spoke is supposed to be the same one he shouted into the darkness to find her.”

“Wow,” Oz said. He looked sorta like he might explode.

“I think your nose is twitching, you’re thinking so hard,” I observed.

“This is just so cool,” he replied, in the excited voice of a child
with a new toy. “I mean, I’m an anthropologist. To hear there’s an entirely new world out there, one that I can study…”

“First of all,” I said, “It’s not new. We’ve existed alongside humanity forever, Oz. Literally forever. Which leads me to number two…” My voice trailed off as I stepped onto and then over a huge tree that had fallen across the path. Oz hopped nimbly over, and I envied him his height. At five-four, I’d been tallish for a woman of my time and place. Now I was definitively short, especially next to my new Master, who stood well over six feet.

“There’s a reason you only just found out about us,” I said. “We keep ourselves secret, on purpose. A lot of us prey on humanity, in some capacity or other. And most of us are too vulnerable to your steel, your iron. If humanity knew about us, we’d be destroyed.

“So,” I said, choosing my next words carefully so he understood the importance of what I was saying, “we guard our secrets zealously. And by zealously, I mean we greet threats to our secrets with death. If you try to publish a paper or something about us, they will come after you. And I will have to protect you. Which means they’ll destroy us both.”

Oz raised his eyebrows. “By ‘they,’ do you mean the Exterminators? So they’re like some kind of secret police for you people?”

“We’re not people, Oz. Never expect human mercy or logic or reasonable behavior from one of us. If there’s any hint that you’d betray your heritage, not only would everything Other that knew your intent come after you, but so would other Magi.”

“But I thought you said Magi were human…”

“Magi are Magi,” I said, cutting him off. “Yes, you’re human. But every time, Magi trumps humanity.”

Oz fell silent, processing that last bit of info until he spoke again. More questions, of course. Having a scientist for a Master obviously entailed a lot of talking.

“So if jinn were created out of smoke and fire, what created Magi?”

I shrugged. “Evolution, I guess. Jinn are powerful. Some born jinn are as powerful unBound as I am Bound. Nature abhors such unfair advantages. So voilà… Magi emerged to keep jinn under control.”

“Is that the official story?”

I grinned. “No. The official jinni mythology is that humanity, seeing the glory of the jinn, were jealous. They raged at their own gods until their gods took pity on human weakness and made some of them Magi. But that’s like my theory, only the jinn stripped out the word
evolution
and put in the word
god
.”

He laughed. “Isn’t that what all religion does? Try to explain what science either hasn’t or can’t?”

I shrugged. “I’m no philosopher.”

The look he gave me was sharp. “Stop being so self-deprecating,” he said, probably not realizing I would literally have to stop being self-deprecating now. “And tell me… what are you, then?”

I cocked my head at him. “What do you mean?”

“You say you’re a human made into a jinni. So which are you? Human or jinni?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Neither, I guess. Not anymore. But we’re almost there.”

I turned onto a narrow path that led sharply downward off the trail we’d been using.

“Watch your step. It gets a bit treacherous from here on out.”

We half-hiked, half-slid down a steep hill toward the wide, marshy plain that led toward our destination. Oz struggled gamely behind me, his upturned nose wrinkling as cold water undoubtedly rushed into his boots. He wasn’t exactly dressed for the wilderness, but he didn’t complain.

When he realized our destination, he groaned. I couldn’t help but smile.

“They really do live under bridges?”

“Yep. Humans get most things mostly right about us,” I said, casting him a sideways glance. He shook his head.

“Amazing.”

We were slogging our way toward the Parkway bridge that loomed over Frick Park. The sounds of traffic and occasional huge piles of slag, signs of Pittsburgh’s industrial past, marred the otherwise beautiful landscape. But I couldn’t complain too much about such things. After all, it was all that cold steel that made Pittsburgh a haven for one with my unique heritage.

“So what do trolls do?”

“They eat humans who ask too many questions,” I replied.

“Very funny. I’m serious.”

“So am I. I can’t lie to you, remember? They do prefer to eat people.”

Ozan stopped short. “Um…”

“Don’t worry. They rarely do it anymore. And you’re safe with me.”

Ozan caught up with me with a few strides of his long legs. “So what do they spend their time doing now that they can’t eat people?”

I didn’t comment on the specificity of his question, although I certainly noticed it. He was learning, damn it.

“They still live under bridges. But they feed on deer
nowadays, mostly. Of which there is no shortage, around here.” If there weren’t trolls, all of Pennsylvania would probably be drowning in whitetails.

“And why are we visiting one?”

“Living under bridges, they get a lot of supernatural foot traffic, so they hear a lot. I’m hoping Sid knows who brought over the bugbear, since using the Bridge is the only way to bring something that big over. Sid also loves to gossip, and living under our main Bridge he gets a lot of opportunity to do so. He may know where we can start looking for your Tamina.”