Jinn and Juice (11 page)

I felt my cheeks heat, to my horror. Was I blushing?

“Yeah, well, we’re all interesting until we try to eat you.”

All I received from Oz was a raised eyebrow and I felt my face grow even hotter. Damn.

“Look, we’ve gotta go,” I said. “If you’re done Dear Abbying me?”

He smiled. “I’m done. If you’re done threatening to eat me.”

“I was not threatening to eat you,” I said, using my prim voice again. “And I thought you were just doing all of this so you could find Tamina, discharge your debt, and go back to normal?”

His silver eyes gazed into my brown. “I do. I think. But I’m beginning to realize that may not be feasible.”

“Another thing you’re okay with?”

He nodded, but the smile was gone. His eyes never wavered from mine. “Yes and no. I’m scared. But there are aspects of this world that I find more and more appealing.”

I had nothing to say to that.

“What should we do next?” he asked, breaking the silence for me.

I cleared my throat. “I need to tell everyone at Purgatory what happened. Talk to Bertha. I’m scheduled to perform tonight. Then we need to knuckle down. Start looking for your Tamina.”

“She’s not mine,” he said, gently. “But I would like to find her, when you’re finished doing what you need to do.”

He still wasn’t commanding me, damn him. He was the worst Master ever.

B
ertha’s big face, normally placid, was lined with grief. She was sitting bolt upright across from me at one of Purgatory’s small café tables. Charlie sat next to her, a hand on the shoulder of her black suit, and Oz sat next to me.

“Fodden?” she repeated, for about the tenth time.

“I know. I can’t believe it either,” I said.

“And not just one?”

“An infestation.” I looked at Charlie. “One that I hope the Exterminators take care of, before they realize humans are food, too.”

Normally creatures that only lived Sideways, fodden weren’t aware people were just as tasty a treat as the supernaturals upon which they normally feasted. But occasionally a rogue fodden somehow found itself on the human plane, and it never took it long to discover that the strange-smelling creatures in its new habitat made for yummy snacks.

“Are they aware of the situation?” asked Charlie.

“I texted Loretta earlier.”

My attention turned to Bertha when I heard her sniffle.

“Do you think Sid could have made it out?” I asked her, gently.

She shook her head. “Where would he go?”

I bowed my head, sharing in Bertha’s grief. I’d been hoping for a different answer, but I’d known the truth. A troll’s territory was everything to him; Sid would never have willingly left the place he’d been born.

“How could that many fodden have crossed the Bridge?” Bertha looked at Charlie, her long mustaches quivering along with the hand beneath mine. I’m not sure whether it was suppressed rage or grief or fear, or a combination of all three.

“They couldn’t have. At least, not on their own steam,” Charlie said. “They had to have been brought over.”

“Who the hell would do that?” I asked. “They’re useless.”

“Useless?” Oz asked. “One sliced you up pretty good.”

Charlie gave me a concerned look. “Are you all right now?”

“Yeah, all healed. Well, mostly healed.” I turned to Oz. “And what I meant by ‘useless’ is that fodden aren’t good for anything. They attack whatever they think is food, and they eat virtually anything. So you can’t use them for either defense
or
offense. And they’re super-invasive, so they can’t be contained. Most of Sideways is uninhabitable because of fodden, and the great Lords are said to have to go culling every few years or all of it would fall to the brutes.

“So nothing in its right mind would bring fodden over. It’d be like unleashing velociraptors to guard the house you have to live in, if velociraptors bred like rabbits.”

“And yet we’ve got an infestation in Frick Park,” Charlie said, his voice musing. “The bugbear and the fodden may be connected.”

“How? Fodden eat bugbears,” I said, thinking about the head with broken mandibles lying in Frick Park.

“Can I ask a question?” asked Oz. I’d known it was coming, had seen that now-familiar look of consternation creasing his forehead.

“Of course,” I said, while Charlie looked down his nose at my Master.

“How do you Call a bugbear? I mean, I know I can Call jinn, as a Magi…” He actually looked guilty when he said that, bless him. “But how can someone Call a bugbear?”

“Anything can be Called, son,” said Bertha, visibly pulling herself together. “You can be even Called, if someone has your blood and your true name.”

“My true name?” Oz’s face showed that unique combination of eager curiosity and trepidation with which he met everything we told him. Part of him very obviously loved this steep learning curve, even while the rest of him was continually braced for something terrifying.

“Yes. We all have a true name. But ‘name’ isn’t really accurate… it’s like a…” I looked at Charlie for help.

“Like a tone. A resonance. A vibration.”

I nodded. “Yes. Those. Remember when you first Saw me?”

“Of course,” he said, his eyes turning inward. “You glowed. You were beautiful, of course, and you had all that black Fire around you. But there was something else… it pulled at me.”

I ignored the “beautiful” bit just as I ignored Charlie’s twitching brows. “The pull you felt, that was the connection between a jinni and a Magi. You can See me, See my true name. And you can use that connection to Call me.”

“But you were standing in front of me.”

“You still Called,” I reminded him. “The second part of the spell you spoke. In this case, it didn’t pull me Sideways, but it did stopper my magic. And you’d do the same thing to Call a jinni from Sideways… you’d use your magic to seek for that
magical resonance. Once you hooked into a jinni’s true name, you’d Call, pulling the jinni Sideways.”

“And that same thing can be done to anyone,” Charlie said, to Oz’s obvious horror.

“Anyone and anything.
If
,” I clarified, “you have the power. All Magi have innate, varying degrees of power over jinn. But something with a lot of power can Call virtually anything if they have what they need—usually a spell that homes in on a certain kind of creature’s magical signature and the Will to work it.”

“So something used a lot of power to Call over a bugbear and some fodden, assuming it was the same person, but from what you said they’re not very useful?” Oz asked, bringing our conversation back into focus.

I nodded. “That’s what makes no sense. Although whoever called it didn’t have to be that strong; if you know what you’re doing, bugbears are pretty quick to Call. And yet
why
?”

Charlie interrupted. “Maybe we should start with other questions. Like when?”

“I talked to my uncle a few days ago. Maybe Monday?” Bertha said, her eyes glistening with suppressed tears but her voice remaining steady. “And we’ve not heard anything about humans disappearing, so the fodden couldn’t have been in that field for much more than twenty-four hours.”

“Which means enough of them had to come over all at once to infest that field that quickly,” Charlie said.

I met his colorless gaze. “Let’s go over the possibilities. Somebody could have Called the bugbear and the fodden specifically, although it makes no sense for anyone to want
any
fodden, let alone a metric fuck-ton of fodden. Or a bugbear, for that matter.”

“Sometimes bugbears are Called by creatures arrogant
enough to think they will be able to control them. Maybe someone Called the bugbear, and the fodden were an accident,” Bertha said.

Hearing that inspired a third option, one that made me grimace. But Charlie beat me to it.

“Or someone was trying to Call something very, very big from Sideways, and
both
the fodden and the bugbear were accidents.” Charlie’s voice was deep and low, but his words were anything but comforting.

We three magical folks all peered at each other as goose bumps rose on my skin. Oz looked more confused than ever.

“But who would do that, and why?” he asked, his gaze shifting among our worried faces.

“We have no idea who, or why. That’s not the kind of thing that happens in Pittsburgh,” I said.

“Nobody here has that much power,” Bertha explained to Oz. “No pure supernaturals with any real magical capacity can touch the poisoned Node.”

“Except for Lyla, now that she’s Bound,” came Loretta’s voice from behind me.

I clutched my hand to my chest, my heart beating like it was imitating a death metal drum solo.

“We should tie a bell on her,” Oz said to me, making me snort.

“Loretta,” said Charlie, rising to his feet to greet our guest. “To what do we owe this honor?”

“We sent a team to take care of the fodden,” said the Exterminator. She turned to Bertha. “I’m very sorry about Sid. He was a good troll.”

Bertha sniffled. “Did you find anything?”

Loretta shook her head. “Once the fodden were cleared, the Bridge was accessible. But there was no sign of Sid.”

Loretta didn’t have to clarify what that meant. The fodden must have gotten him.

“Excuse me,” Bertha said. She stood and made her way to the storage room.

“What are you doing here, Loretta?” I asked, turning to the Exterminator. We’d been sorta-friends for a long time, but I knew she wasn’t here to ask me to lunch.

“We recognize you’re on a time budget,” Loretta said, her nictitating membranes working overtime. After a pregnant pause, I realized she was talking about my curse. “But new circumstances have arisen. We’re going to need more help.”

Charlie’s mouth tightened into a thin line, but, to my surprise, it was Oz who spoke up in my defense. I was too busy trying to figure out how Loretta knew about my curse.

“Lyla has already helped you,” he said. “When we spoke the other night, you didn’t mention anything about her help being ongoing. She already did what you asked.”

That’s it
, I thought, relieved. I remembered Oz’s “put a bell” comment about Loretta. Who knew how long she’d been listening to our conversation the other night at Purgatory regarding my curse? One mystery solved. And as for the other…

“What do you need?” I asked. “The bugbear’s taken care of. So are the fodden.”

Loretta took the seat Bertha had vacated, crossing her long legs primly. The gills at her neck flared, causing Oz to startle.

Not so hot now, is she?
I thought, feeling smug.

“Yes,” Loretta replied. “But we have a bigger problem.”

“Bigger than a bugbear?” I quipped, feeling punchy.

“Yes.” Loretta obviously wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “Creatures have been disappearing.”

My eyes flew to Charlie’s. Loretta didn’t miss his reaction.

“You know something,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

I nodded, thinking of Aki. Loretta leaned over the table toward us.

“Tell me everything.”

“What’s a kitsune again?” Oz asked, peering up at the facade of Aki’s condo building.

“A kitsune is a fox spirit,” I replied, hitting the buzzer one last time. Loretta had charged us with checking out the apartment while she continued her own investigation. She’d have more for me to do after we checked on Aki, I was sure.

“What’s a fox spirit?”

“Aki’s a shapeshifter. He has two natural forms, a fox or a human. He’s also super-quiet, super-fast, and super-good at all things thieving or spying.” As I talked, I rooted around in my too-large purse for Aki’s extra set of keys.

“Are you going to break in?” Oz asked, just as my hand closed on his rabbit’s-paw key ring.

“Nope,” I said, pulling the keys out and holding them up for him to see. “We’re using the old-fashioned method. Keys.”

“Oh,” Oz said, looking disappointed.

“What’s up?” I asked, as I unlocked the big front door. Aki lived in a recently refurbished loft complex in Lawrenceville, the coolest neighborhood in Pittsburgh at the moment. It had been a dump until a few years ago, but now the properties were flying into the hands of developers like homing pigeons to their mark. Hipsters had set up residence, and Butler Street, Lawrenceville’s main thoroughfare, was full of craft beer joints and cafés where the bartenders and baristas sported more facial hair and tats than the crew of a pirate ship.

Personally I preferred living in much quieter, more sedate Highland Park, but Aki had drifted from cool spot to cool
spot in our city ever since he’d first come to Pittsburgh seeking shelter.

“It’s just weird, how you all live so normally,” Oz said, inspecting the neat rows of mail slots as I unlocked the inner door of Aki’s building.

“What do you mean?” I pulled open the heavy inner door and led Oz into the well-lit hallway, painted a very au courant shade of gunmetal gray with clean white trim.

“I mean, you guys are magic. But this guy lives in a condo.”

I snorted. “Where are we supposed to live?”

“I dunno,” he said, grinning ruefully at me. “Maybe under toadstools?”

“That’d be a bit of a squeeze,” I said, waving a hand in front of my substantial hips.

To my amusement, he stammered. “I just meant it’s weird you guys live like humans. It makes sense you do, since you were human. But a fox spirit paying condo fees? Seems odd.”

Avoiding the elevators, I led Oz toward the stairs, marked Fire Escape, that no one ever used. “Well, I already told you most of us in Pittsburgh are misfit toys. We can’t depend on our magic for day-to-day stuff. And we
do
live in the same world as humans, so why not take advantage of human conveniences?”

I stopped in front of the door leading to the fourth-floor hallway and pulled it open. Like the entry hall, the walls here were painted gray, with expensive-looking dark wood floors covered in the center by a thick dark carpet runner.

“I get it,” Oz said. “But it still strikes me as odd. Especially someone like you working at a place like Purgatory.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, leading him down the hall toward Aki’s apartment. “And why does that strike you as odd?”

He cast me a long side-eye, probably knowing he was on
thin ice. “It’s just that you’ve lived for so long. You must have so much to tell… so much knowledge to share. And you dance in a bar.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I said. “But I love dancing. And I gave up crashing against human ignorance about three centuries ago, which is why I don’t participate in coffee klatches anymore. I don’t have anything to tell anyone that’s not already on Wikipedia. It’s not that the stories aren’t out there, it’s that humans don’t listen.”