Forsaken: The World of Nightwalkers (13 page)

“SingSing?” Faith asked.

“The one and only. How’d you get my nik? Give it here.” She emphasized the extension of her hand with a little wiggle.

“The friend you left it with needs your help. She sent me with this,” she held out the nik but kept it firmly wrapped around her hand, “to find you.”

“George? You took this from George?”

“Uh…you left it with Docia,” Leo spoke up, inching a little closer to the two women. But Faith could see he had the butt of his gun seated firmly in his hand…though he had not unholstered the weapon yet. Good thing, too. Djynn didn’t take too kindly to threats. He narrowed sharp eyes on the Djynn. “But you know that,” he said astutely. “You know exactly who you left it with. You’re just testing us.”

She grinned and shrugged a shoulder. “Can’t be too careful these days. So what does Docia need? Does she have a
wish
?” The Djynn’s eyes had widened with eagerness.

“No! No wishes,” Faith said hastily, making sure she shot Leo a warning look.

“Oh c’mon,” she whined a little. “This one’s full of wishes. I can just smell it on him.” She stepped closer to Leo and gave him two obvious sniffs. “And fear. I can smell fear.”

“Fuck y—”

“SingSing!” Faith cried over Leo’s potent verbosity. “We need a Djynn who can tether a severed soul back into its body. Can you do that?”

SingSing chuckled, seemingly unaware of the tiny dragon head that peeked out from among her curls. Faith hoped like hell Leo hadn’t noticed it because he would very likely have a stroke.

“Oh no. I’m only Djinni caste and I’m nowhere near that strong. Only Marid could do that. Or Afreet. One or the other. Say, are you holding my nik hostage?”

“I’ll give it to you,” Faith said.

“Good!”

“As soon as you tell me where I can find a Marid Djynn.”

“Not good,” SingSing deflated with a frown. “Marid don’t exactly advertise their locations, you know. There’s a reason for that. They’d be like…constantly getting clients knocking on their piggy bank. Not that you don’t want a client, because, then, what’s the point of being a Djynn, right? But still, if you’re kicked back in your hookah pipe and ding-dong, ding-dong! ‘Hey can you grant me a wish?’ I mean, that’s not even including more intimate pasttimes that could be going on inside your canteen. I mean, who wants to be interrupted in the middle of
you know
…you know? Don’t come a-knockin’ if the canteen’s a-rockin’!”

“Piggy…?” Leo began, having a hard time following the rapid-fire deluge of thoughts that were spewing out of the diminutive little Djynn.

“What?” SingSing demanded, her face scrunching as she narrowed her eyes on Leo, “did you think we all lived in bottles or lamps? Bottles can be recycled these days and believe you me, there’s nothing worse than waking up in a refuse reclamation facility. And lamps, of course, are so passé.”

“O-of course,” Leo agreed, looking a bit shell-shocked. Faith had to press her lips together to keep from looking too amused, but she realized her eyes had given her away when he looked at her and then immediately scowled. She supposed she should have warned him that Djynn were all a bit…quirky, each in their own way. But even for a Djynn, SingSing was absolutely effervescing with quirk.

“Are you saying you don’t have any Djynn connections? You don’t travel in Afreet or Marid circles?” Faith asked.

“I absolutely know several Marid and several more Afreet! Well,” she deflated a little, “I know one Marid. Maybe two or three Afreet. Well, maybe
know
is stretching it a little, but all Djynn of all levels know their local Marid Sultan or Sultana. They’re sort of like the king over all less powerful Djynn in their empire…or, well,
you
might call it a territory. Stop that!” She reached to gently flick the green-and-blue-headed dragon that had begun to wrestle and chew on one of the springy coils of her hair.

Yeah, Leo had definitely seen that.

“Is that a dragon?” he asked, pointing accusingly at the beast that had ignored its owner’s wishes and was now enthusiastically tangling itself up in her hair.

“Dragon
let,
” the Djynn said. She rolled her eyes. “A real dragon wouldn’t play with my hair, it’d floss his teeth with it. You know, like, on the way to swallowing me for lunch? Actually, more like an appetizer. As a whole people are like sushi, you eat some and get hungry again about an hour later.”

“Could we just stay focused?” Faith said hastily when Leo went pale beneath his natural tan. She didn’t blame him. Anyone who had never believed that anything magical or supernatural existed, only to be suddenly thrust into this world and watch it expand in all directions all at once, was bound to be a little intimidated. What was more, she could see that Leo was used to being in control of himself and being able to tackle anything thrown his way. For him, his reactions to these things, his paralyzing sense of fear, would be far more frustrating to him than anything else. “Considering what we’re up against, it would probably be most efficient for you to point us in the direction of the Marid. We don’t have time to hunt down a less powerful Afreet only to have him not capable of the task at hand.”

“Well, that’s going to be a little tricky. The best thing for you to do is to wish for it, then I could send you straight there.” She smiled brightly, as if she were the most benevolent Djynn of all time.

“No wishing,” Faith said firmly, knowing full well that wishing always came with a price to pay. Either in the right now or the later, there was
always
a price. And it was never a good idea to owe a Djynn from a wish.

“Then no Marid,” she said, folding her arms over her chest and humphing loudly with exaggerated pique.

“Then no nik,” Faith countered, holding up the scarf. She could only hope the power in the scarf made it a big enough bargaining chip.

“Fine. I don’t need it.” SingSing turned up her nose and spun her body away with another punctuating “humph!,” as if to leave. But a quick, longing sideways glance at the nik gave her away. It was only a second before she turned back around. “It’s just one little teensy tiny wish! I promise you won’t owe me a thing.”

That was a bald-faced lie. Djynn always lied about the quid pro quo of a wish. They couldn’t help it. It was in their nature to bargain with all they had in order to close the deal on a wish. Sort of like a used-car salesman knowingly trying to push a lemon off his lot. Only in this case it didn’t make her a bad person. It made her a Djynn acting one hundred percent in her nature.

“Thank you, but we’ll find another way.” This time Faith was the one to turn away. She sent Leo a look, and he took the cue instantly. He turned as well and they walked back to the truck.

“But that’s mine!” the little Djynn whined. “It’s not nice to take things that don’t belong to you!”

“Then you shouldn’t have left it lying around,” Faith called back. “We’ll just find another Djynn,” she said in conversational tones to Leo. “I’m sure this nik is something they might like. Sorry to have bothered you!” she called out brightly to SingSing.

“Okay, stop!” the Djynn said as she materialized with a bounce right under their noses, startling them both. Now there were
two
dragonlet heads sticking out of her hair, as well as a tail. Whether it belonged to those two or any one of potentially dozens of others, there was no way of knowing. “What if I traded one of my dragonlets for it? He can show you the way to the Marid and I get my scarf back. There. Everyone’s happy now, yes?”

“No deal,” Faith said. “As soon as we turn our backs he’ll just fly home again.”

“Oh God. It has wings?” Leo said.

“Of course it does! It’s a
dragonlet,
duh!” SingSing huffed in frustration and both dragonlets immediately folded their arms over their chests and huffed as well. “Fine. You drive a hard bargain,” she said, frowning intently. “Now give it to me.” She held out a demanding hand.

“Yeah, right,” Leo said. “I don’t think so. The minute you get it you’ll go poof and disappear. Or you’ll send us to a hut in the middle of the Gobi desert. Or you’ll keep your word, send us to the Marid, but yank us back again a second later.”

Faith smiled. Leo Alvarez was a very smart man. He was definitely getting the picture now. She had to concede that he was very clever when he next addressed the Djynn.

“How about we hold on to your nik,” Leo said, “keep it safe and sound, and we’ll give it to you when we get back.”

Faith had to admit, he was pretty good at thinking fast on his feet. But she had to consider that men like him didn’t survive the things he had been forced to survive without having some pretty ballsy skills.

“Yes. What he said,” she said, backing him up completely.

“No way. If you bring a nik with you in the presence of another Djynn he’ll totally take it away from you.”

“He’s already a Marid,” Faith argued. “Surely this little nik would mean nothing to him.” She dangled the scarf again.

“If you believe that, then you don’t know Djynn very well,” SingSing groused.

“Well enough to keep this safe,” Faith said. “I know that he cannot forcibly rip this from my hands, and he cannot use magic to take it from me. A nik has to be handed over voluntarily as long as someone else is in physical possession of it. If it’s found lying around that’s another story, but as long as we’re holding on to this the Marid Djynn can’t take it from us.”

SingSing chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “Okay, I’ll do it. But don’t you let him have my nik or you’ll have one seriously pissed off Djynn to deal with. And I might not be a Marid or an Afreet, but I’m definitely stronger than a little human,” she pointed to Leo, “and even a Night Angel.” Her pointing finger shifted accordingly.

“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.

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 complexion 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.