Genie for Hire (30 page)

Biff shook his head. “Trust me, they can’t help her.” He
lifted Farishta in his arms, and she was as light and weak as she’d been at the
bridge. “We’ll catch up with you later,” he said.

He carried her down the riverbank, leaving Jimmy shaking his
head. Raki followed uncertainly, as Biff walked to the Miami Circle, drawing
his own power from the stones and from the proximity of the lamp in his
backpack. He was still weak himself, but just being in that sacred place, and
having his feet solidly planted on the ground, helped him.

He continued across to the seawall protecting the land from
the bay. When he reached the water’s edge he lowered Farishta to the ground,
her legs dangling down over the concrete. Then he sat down next to her.

She was woozy, her edges fading in and out. Biff knew she
must have drained her power tremendously in trying to stop the freighter. He
put his arm around her and she rested her head on his shoulder.

“I am so tired, my Bivas,” she said, slurring her words. “I
need my amulet.”

“I know, my sweet,” he said. “But you’ll be better soon.”

He kissed her cheek, then pushed her forward until her
connection with the seawall was a tenuous as a butterfly’s wing.

Then he let her go.

The squirrel chittered as Farishta slid into the choppy
water. For a moment Biff was worried that the waves would crash her up against
the shore before she could recover, but she drifted out a few feet on her back,
her hair swirling around her like a sea of eels. He sat on the ground, hoping
he was right, drawing his own power back into him from the circle of stones.

Farishta opened her eyes. “Ah, my Bivas,” she said. “Thank
you.” Then she closed her eyes and faded below the surface of the water.

He sat there until he felt strong enough to get up again. There
was still the amulet to retrieve. He stood, picked up the squirrel, and walked
back toward the flashing lights. The rodent chittered the whole way. “She’ll be
all right,” Biff said, more to reassure himself than Raki. “Her element is
water. It’ll recharge her.”

The ambulances had left to take the injured to the hospital
by the time Biff returned to the empty lot at the river’s edge. Several cop
cars remained, along with the Medical Examiner’s van. He reached it as Laskin’s
body was being lifted into the back. Something was wrong, though; the body did
not have Laskin’s unique aroma of sweat, steroids and that expensive cologne.
He sniffed more carefully—had his sense of smell been hurt by the fire? Or was Laskin’s
odor overwhelmed by the smoke?

“You’re back,” Jimmy said. “How’s Farishta?”

“She’s recovering.” Raki hopped to the ground as Biff leaned
in closer. “Are you sure that’s Laskin?” Biff asked Hector.

“The face was badly burned, but he’s wearing the same jacket
as when he got on the boat.”

“Can I see?”

“Biff…” Hector began, but Jimmy interrupted.

“Let him take a look. Biff’s got a good sense of this kind
of thing.”

Hector nodded to the EMT, who pulled away the sheet covering
the body. Despite the disfiguring burns on the face, the Marlins ball cap on the
man’s head had emerged from the flames untouched.

Biff didn’t bother with the burned face. He looked first at
the neck—but there was no gold chain, and the dead man’s skin was smooth—not
hairy like Laskin’s. The giveaway, though, was the lack of musculature. He felt
a wave of remorse that an innocent man had died instead of Laskin.

“It isn’t him,” Jimmy said, swallowing hard, before Biff
could say anything. “I’ve had  Laskin under surveillance for a while, and I can
tell you he’s built like a brick shithouse. This guy hasn’t seen the inside of
a gym in years.”

“I agree with Jimmy,” Biff said. “Laskin pulled some kind of
trick.”

“He’s not on the boat,” Hector protested. “We did a thorough
search.”

Biff pointed to the red windbreaker. “No way the body could
have been burned with the jacket still intact. Laskin must have dressed the
dead body in his clothes.”

“
Comemierda!
” Hector said. “Where could he go?”

They looked out at the placid river. “Must have jumped off
and swum somewhere,” Jimmy said. “But how could he have climbed up the
seawall?”

Biff knew that Laskin had bulked up much more after
acquiring the amulet. He believed that with it around his neck, enveloping him
in its power, Laskin could have not only survived the jump into the water, but
been able to swim a great distance, perhaps to a place on the river without a
seawall, but he didn’t say anything. “I’ll get a couple of uniforms out to
search the area,” Jimmy said. “But it’s going to be hell to find traces of him
in the dark, even with powerful lights. And he’s a moving target with a head
start.”

The darkness wouldn’t bother Biff—but the presence of a lot
of police officers would get in the way of his ability to sniff out where
Laskin had gone. He yawned, and used that as chance to slip away from Jimmy and
get a head start on the search. “It’s been a long night,” he said. “I’m going
to head home and get some sleep.”

“Take care of Farishta,” Jimmy said.

Hector stuck out his hand. “Thanks for your help tonight,
Biff. Wish things had gone better, but at least we’ve shut down their operation
for now.”

Biff couldn’t leave Raki down by the river to fend for
himself. He leaned down and picked up the squirrel, who gripped his tiny claws
into Biff’s shoulder. As he walked back toward his car, he pulled the lamp from
his backpack and held it cradled in his hands. Then he opened his third eye and
using what remained of the lamp’s power, expanded his senses to track a wide
circuit. He felt a vibration in the air, a weak signal from the amulet—but it
was so vague he couldn’t track it.

He focused instead on Laskin’s smell, sniffing the air. For
a moment, as he recognized nothing, Biff felt he couldn’t go any farther. His
reserves of energy had been depleted, his magic was almost gone, and his body
stung where it had been splashed, despite the protection of the lamp. Farishta
was gone and so was Syl.

The lamp’s magic needed time to replenish. All he had was a
squirrel for company. Only the thought of Farishta, who desperately needed to
retrieve the amulet in order to remain in this world, gave him the motivation
to continue. He caught a faint trace that led him under the Metrorail tracks
and up to Fifth Street. Laskin was on the move—but where was he going? Was he
looking for a car to steal?

Laskin must have been agitated and sweated freely, because
his scent got stronger as Biff moved farther south. Biff even noted residual
traces of the amulet’s energy in the air. That was good; it meant he was
getting closer.

Though traffic passed, regulated by a light two blocks away,
the street was deserted except for three teenagers leaning against the back
wall of a bank building. Biff was overwhelmed for a moment by fatigue, and
stumbled on a curb. Raki leapt off his shoulder, and Biff looked around for him
to apologize—but the squirrel had scurried away.

The teens began to cross the parking lot toward him. He put
the lamp back in his pack, stepped up to a palm tree, and clasped his hands
around the rough bark, focusing on drawing energy from the elemental power of
the earth.

When he opened his eyes the three young men were in front of
him. One was black, the other two Hispanic. “Have too much to drink, dude?” one
of the Hispanics said, his voice menacing, carrying with it a hint of Latin
America. Biff recognized the gang-related tattoos up and down his arm, the two
tiny red teardrops tattooed beneath his eyes, supposed to signify the number of
men he’d killed.

The palm tree shook briefly, and one of the unripe coconuts
fell—right onto the head of Mr. Teardrops. His mouth dropped open and his eyes
looked dazed. Then he fell to the ground. Biff looked up to the top of the tree
and saw Raki there.

The other two gang-bangers both pulled knives and closed in
on Biff. He said a silent thank you to Raki, then marshaled his energy enough to
zap the other two teens into a temporary stupor. Both of them fell to the
ground, the three boys a clump of arms, legs, T-shirts and nylon workout pants.

Raki jumped back down to Biff’s shoulder, and they followed Laskin’s
trail east, toward Brickell Avenue. At the corner stood what was probably one
of the last pay phones in all Miami. The stand was covered in graffiti and the directory
was long gone, but the phone still worked. Biff stood there with the receiver
in his hand, inhaling Laskin’s scent. The man had been there, and not long
before. It made sense that if he’d been in the water, his cell phone would have
been ruined, and he’d need the pay phone.

Biff tried *69, to bring up the last number dialed from the
phone—but that feature didn’t work. He looked around, as traffic moved past on
Brickell, many cars turning right to head inland. He began pacing in ever
larger circles around the pay phone, looking for a hint of where Laskin might
have gone. The problem was that Laskin’s scent was so strong at the phone that
it radiated outward.

At a palm tree a hundred feet away, Biff’s nose was assailed
by the sharp, acid smell of urine. Not a dog’s or a cat’s, though; this smell
was human, with the distinct tang of steroids. Laskin must have ducked behind a
neatly groomed hibiscus hedge to take a leak.

Biff wrinkled his nose—but Laskin’s trail picked up again,
and Biff followed it two blocks south, feeling more like a tracking hound than
a skilled genie. At Seventh Street, the trail turned inland again, and ahead of
him glowed the lights of a late-night bodega selling lottery tickets and Cuban
coffee.

A twenty-foot tall banyan tree stood beside the bodega, its
vertical roots looking like the cage around a dangerous animal. Biff approached
carefully, as the magical residue the amulet had left behind in the air grew
stronger. Was Laskin in the bodega?

He heard the roar of a sports car’s engine, and slipped into
the shelter of the banyan as a Mercedes sedan zoomed past him and pulled to a
screeching stop in front of the bodega. The driver’s door swung open and Viktor
Petrov got out and slammed it behind him.

The air around him crackled with dark energy, a glowing aura
that was blacker than midnight. He wore a black track suit with the Russian
double eagle crest embroidered on the back, and his dark hair stood on end,
giving him the look of a mad professor. He stood beside his car for a moment,
scanning the area, the power radiating around him, then strode up to the
bodega’s front door.

Biff pulled the lamp from his backpack and cradled it in his
hands. It glowed softly in the darkness, and its energy pulsed toward the
bodega. It seemed to be drawing in the power Petrov had left in his wake,
growing stronger from it.

He realized that Laskin was just a puppet, with Petrov
pulling his strings. At his boss’s direction, he had killed Sveta Pshkov and
Kiril Ovetschkin, and probably the valet Usnavy. He had trafficked in stolen
guns and most likely many other illegal activities, too.

But at the same time, he had cared about Natasha Petrovna
and been angry about her recruiting young girls for Sveta’s porn operation.
Biff had even come to like him when they worked out together.

Humans. Even after centuries among them, sometimes they
still baffled him.

Biff had seen that Petrov loved his daughter, and he
couldn’t blame the man for exacting revenge on those who had taken advantage of
her. But he had gone too far, and committed too many other crimes. It was time
for Biff to deliver some justice, and retrieve Farishta’s amulet in the
process. Even though he knew that once she recovered it, she might disappear again
for years—or centuries.

Feeling his strength returned, he put the lamp back in his
pack, and slung it over his shoulder. He left Raki to climb a palm tree tilted
at a forty-five degree angle and stalked across the street to the bodega.

Though Biff could not create matter, he could manipulate it.
He couldn’t magic a jail cell into existence by the side of the road and lock the
two Russians inside so he had to work with what was available.

First, to disable the getaway car. He pointed his index
finger at the right front tire, opened his third eye, and marshaled the energy
stored in the ground beneath his feet. With one sharp hiss after another, each
of the four tires was punctured and deflated.

The front door of the bodega opened, and Petrov strode out.
Biff was slammed back against the banyan’s trunk by the force of the magical energy
that emanated from the man, magnified a thousand fold from what Biff had seen
before. In a flash, he understood. The fool must have damaged the nesting dolls
in some way that released the demon from its confinement. The Div-e Sepid had
taken over Petrov’s body, and Petrov’s anger with Laskin had caused the demon’s
power to explode.

Laskin followed Petrov out of the bodega, arguing and
pleading in Russian. Petrov reached his car and noted the blown tires. His body
swelled to twice his size and turned a bright red, glowing as if lit by an
internal fire. The black track suit split and frayed around him. Wherever his
skin was visible it was coated with a dark hair, as if he was a werewolf in
mid-transition.

Laskin cowered beside the bodega. Biff marshaled his energy,
drawing from the earth below the banyan tree. He wrapped his hands around the
lamp once more  and pointed its spout toward Petrov. He focused everything he
had into pulling the Div-e Sepid and its power into the lamp.

But the ancient demon was too powerful. It had been
contained inside those dolls for a long time, growing in strength, and Biff and
his lamp were no match for it. He staggered backward  as the demon repulsed
him.

Then, like an ancient Chinese firework, Petrov shot up into
the night sky. But instead of exploding, he streaked away toward the glittering
towers of downtown Miami.