Jinn and Juice (3 page)

C
harlie’s dagger ground to a halt inches from the Magi’s face, caught in a black tendril of my Fire.

“It’s too late,” I told my friend, but he didn’t listen. He pulled another knife from inside his ringmaster’s jacket and let it fly.

I caught it, too, letting it drop to the ground with a clatter. But he just reached into his pocket of Sideways and grabbed another. I caught that one before it found my new Master’s throat.

We could play this game forever, as Charlie had an infinite number of knives stashed Sideways.

The rest of my friends piled out onto the brick alleyway and, loyally, they all attacked. A deadly wisp shot at the Magi, courtesy of Yulia, which my Fire snared.

It also caught the twin nets that Trip and Trap shot out of the spinnerets located near the bases of their spines. The spider wraiths had turned as one, their midsections still joined by a thin veil of skin that was separating to let them run free. Trip kept spinning, leaping up onto the neighboring building and shimmying toward the sky. Trap did the same on Purgatory’s
rough brick. When they had enough height, they turned as if on cue to drop out of the sky like creepy missiles trained on their target.

Both bounced off the dome of black Fire with which I automatically shielded the Magi.

It was Big Bertha who intervened, although she didn’t look happy about it. Half human and half troll, she towered above all of us, her enormously muscled frame clad in her usual dark suit, huge breasts straining at the buttons of her blouse. Like all troll women, she wore her beard long, framing her surprisingly delicate features.

“Stop it!” she roared.

Everyone stopped. Bertha rarely had to roar, given her size. So when she did, people listened.

“You’re too late. She’s Bound,” the troll explained, using her Patient Bouncer voice.

Yulia, being Yulia, acted like she hadn’t heard and shot a series of wisps at the Magi that my jinni caught. Charlie reached for another knife.

With a sigh Bertha snagged her boss around the midsection, pinning his arms to his sides. “She has to protect him, sir. You’re just wearing her out.”

Trip and Trap looked at each other and skittered into the shadows, undoubtedly planning a new form of attack.

Bertha looked at me. “Get him out of here,” she said. “They’re not going to listen.”

I nodded gratefully to her, turning to collect my new Master. The Magi who’d Bound me was standing there, staring ahead of him, eyes round as a tarsier’s. In the dim light of the streetlamp, I could see he was a large man—tall and well muscled, dressed in raw denim jeans, wide cuffs light against his solid
black boots. He wore a T-shirt under a thick flannel shirt cut in that slim-fitting hipster interpretation of Western gear. In the hollow of his throat I could see a tattoo—an anchor.

“Nice ink,” I told him. “Now run.”

When he only blinked at me, I grabbed his arm and dragged him toward my scruffy black El Camino, throwing up a huge wall of my Fire to protect our progress.

As I threw my new Master into the passenger seat I used a spark of magic to start the car, since the keys were still in my purse in the dressing room, and another spout of black Fire carried me up and over the car to my own side. As I dove in to drive away I heard my friends shouting and Bertha, above the din, using her outside voice to remind them, over and over, that it was too late. They couldn’t do anything.

I was Bound.

Pittsburgh is made up of a series of tiny neighborhoods, and Purgatory, right on the main strip of East Liberty, was only a few minutes away from where I lived in Highland Park. But it felt like the drive took forever.

Not least because we didn’t say a word to each other. Knowing Magi, he wouldn’t deign to speak to me except to command me to do something. Why he hadn’t commanded anything yet was confusing, but my jinni was determined to get him to safety. And my jinni didn’t take no for an answer.

While I drove, I kept one eye on my new Master. He peered out the windows with large, unseeing eyes as the buildings went from glass-and-concrete shop fronts to the small row houses at the edge of East Liberty, and then to the much larger houses of once-affluent Highland Park.

The pack of werewolves that lived on the corner of Highland and Stanton gave me the bird or howled as I drove by, but I didn’t stop for my usual bourbon and chitchat. Not least because they’d probably try to snack on the Magi.

My jinni breathed a sigh of relief when we pulled up to the former carriage house I shared with Yulia, but I still had to get us inside. Black flames cloaked us as we hustled out of my old El Camino.

“Where are we?” the Magi asked as I unlocked the bright-purple door that led up to our apartment. He stood on my stoop, peering about, until I grabbed his wrist to pull him inside.

“My house,” I said, shutting the door firmly behind him. “Unless you have somewhere you need to be?”

He shook his head, and I realized I knew absolutely nothing about my new Master. But that didn’t matter; we were still far from safe. I knew my friends wouldn’t listen to Bertha, even if they knew she was right. They’d bust down the door in about two minutes if I didn’t work fast.

I led him up the stairs and through the interior door that led into our actual apartment. I pushed him through, slamming the door behind us, and immediately put my hands on its frame in order to reset the wards that protected our home. Unsure of exactly what would happen when I reached for Pittsburgh’s Deep Magic, since I’d not been Bound here before and had no idea how the Node would react to my intrusion, I homed in on Yulia’s magical signature and reached for the ley line beneath us.

I gasped as my newly Bound power surged with Pittsburgh’s potent, steel-stained magic. My knees buckled and strong hands caught my elbow, keeping me standing. Apparently I
would have no more trouble using the Deep stuff while Bound than I had had skimming off it while unBound.

A point in favor of my mostly human, if cursed, genetic makeup, I guessed.

“What’s wrong?” My Master sounded genuinely worried, despite the fact that he’d just Bound me. I also had to answer his question, even though I’d rather have punched him in the goolies.

“The magic’s a lot stronger now that I’m Bound…,” I managed to get out between panting breaths.

The Magi’s grip on my elbow tightened, his other hand clamping around my waist. I went ahead and leaned against him as I shut my eyes and followed the rabbit down its hole, trying desperately to adjust to the amount of juice flowing through me even as I reached for what I’d need for the wards.

“Lyla?” From a distance I heard the Magi’s voice. For a second I wondered how he knew my name, then I remembered he’d seen me dance.

“Talk to me,” he said. “You’re scaring me.”

Forced by the magic of his request, I heard myself respond. Despite the fact that I was locked in a desperate battle, my voice was calm, matter-of-fact.

“It’s being Bound,” I explained, wondering who was in charge at moments like this. A corner of my brain reserved for jinni duties? The magic of all jinn, itself, that flowed through us? Whatever it was, it talked real nice, although I wished it would shut up.

“When jinn are unBound, our powers are limited. When we are Bound, we have access to the Deep Magic.”

“But what are you doing?” he asked. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m changing the wards on our door. They’re magical locks. I don’t want Yulia trying to kill you in your sleep.” In
truth, I’d love it if Yulia killed my new Master in his sleep. But the jinni in me wouldn’t let that happen and I didn’t want to have her up all night guarding him when we could both be sleeping.

“And it’s difficult?” he asked. I wished I could tell him to shut up, but that wasn’t how our relationship worked.

“It’s just that I haven’t had this much power in a while. It’s like having something really big suddenly thrust inside of me…” The Magi’s grip on my hip tightened and I suddenly remembered I was wearing only my burlesque costume. I’d stopped having much body shame after about the fifth century of my existence on this planet, and the supernaturals I now lived with were all equally louche, so that didn’t bother me at all. But Magi, despite their abilities with jinn, were still human, with human mores.

So maybe I shouldn’t talk about thrusting.

“It’s also Pittsburgh,” I said, changing subjects. “This city’s magic is… funky…” My voice trailed off as I finally wrestled back control of my magical channels. I kept them open just enough to suck in a strong draught of steel-tainted magic, which I knew I’d regret later even as I funneled it at the wards.

The rest was easy. First a quick reset, which erased Yulia’s magical signature. I hoped somebody could lend her a toothbrush over at the big house, because my roomie wasn’t getting in here tonight.

Then I locked everything up tight, sealing the place against any form of intrusion, before adding a Silence ward on top of everything else. They could pound on the doors or windows all they wanted and we wouldn’t hear a thing. My cell phone was with my car keys, in my purse in the dressing room. We’d be undisturbed until I could figure out who this guy was and what he wanted.

Taking a deep breath, I opened my eyes, detaching myself from the powerful ley lines that lurked beneath our land. I stepped neatly away from my Master, who let me go without a word.

“I’m going to go change,” I said. “Make yourself comfortable. The kitchen is that way.” I pointed straight ahead, before walking left toward the hallway that led to our bedrooms.

To my annoyance, however, the Magi followed me. I figured it was for the obvious reasons a man followed a woman wearing pasties and a thong, and I got ready to work some of my tricksy jinni magic in defense of my honor. But he just followed me into my bedroom, not touching or speaking.

I pulled open the door to my closet, giving him a pointed look. He didn’t notice, however, being too busy staring around at my bedroom.

In all fairness, it did kinda look like a bevy of belly dancers had exploded. My antique four-poster stood in the center of my room, heavily curtained with colorful fabrics. Tons of pillows covered the bed, and there were quite a few on the floor. The walls were painted turquoise, except for the yellow accent wall. And the trim, which was scarlet.

I’d been told it was a bit much, but anyone who said so could go fuck themselves.

“Um,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I would like to change. Would you mind?”

My Master shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest so he suddenly resembled a shaggy Highland bull. “No. I need your help. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Listen…” Only then did I realize I didn’t know his name.

“Oz,” he said. “You can call me Oz.”

It wasn’t a name I’d expected, but I figured it was short for something. “Okay, Oz. You’ve Bound me. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Really?” He shifted from foot to foot, as if uncomfortable.

I raised an eyebrow. Who was this guy?

“That’s what being Bound means.”

He gave me a long side-eye. “How do I know you’re not lying to me?”

I took a deep breath. “You’ve
Bound
me. As all Magi know, I can’t tell you a direct lie.”

Which was true. Although, as all jinn quickly realized, not telling a
direct
lie left a lot of wiggle room. And I’d been born a wiggler.

Oz’s brow furrowed and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Please. A little privacy?”

He nodded, stepping outside. I immediately shut the door in his face, leaning back and letting my head loll against the cool wood.

I considered crying, till I heard shuffling outside the door. Oz obviously didn’t believe me and was lurking.

What the hell kind of Magi are you
? I wondered, for about the hundredth time. He’d Bound me—known the spells passed down since ancient times through the Magi tribes. And yet he seemed to know very little about jinn, or being a Master.

I pushed away from the door, filled with sudden hope. Nowadays magic was something for Dungeons and Dragons. In books, vampires sparkled and really wanted to marry teenagers who tripped a lot. Hollywood only dreamed about jinn. And none of these creatures or powers
really
existed in the same universe as chaos theory, or particle accelerators, or atomic bombs… except they did.

Was my Master one of the misfits? Cut off from their heritage only to stumble upon it in an ancestor’s diary or have it, perhaps literally, bite them in the butt one night?

In other words, I had to find out how much my new Master knew.

And, more importantly, just how much he didn’t.

M
y full name’s Ozan,” he said, to my surprise. He looked pure Irish to me, but that was a Turkish name. “Ozan Sawyer.”

I cocked my head at my new Master, pouring him a large dram of Balvenie. I did the same for myself.

Ozan reached for his glass, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. His silver Magi eyes met my own dark gaze as he set the glass down, empty, on my battered kitchen table. “And you’re Lyla?”

I nodded.

“That’s your real name?”

“Yes.” Then I remembered he’d seen the show and heard my stage name. “Not the La More part. But Lyla is real.”

His eyes swept over me, his head cocking as if he were confused. “And you’re a jinni?”

I looked different to his Magi Sight from other jinn; I knew that. But I couldn’t explain—conditions of the curse—so I just rolled my eyes and bluffed. “Long story, but yes, I’m a jinni. Who the hell are you?”

My new Master poured himself another snort of whiskey,
his Irish features crumpled in a rueful expression. “Not much of a Magi, to tell you the truth. I’m new to this whole thing. But I need your help.”

Watching Ozan fiddle with his glass, I studied his features. He wore his sandy hair just long enough to give him the look of a little rockabilly boy lost, hair that might have been just this side of ginger under the right light. His nose was straight, his chin puckish. High cheekbones arched under eyes that were Magi-silver, when they weren’t glowing like headlamps in the presence of a jinni.

Under normal circumstances I might have been tempted to play a little hide-the-shamrock with this guy. But these weren’t normal circumstances. And he couldn’t be
that
ignorant. After all, his eyes
were
silver. Someone had Initiated him, or he wouldn’t have been able to Bind me.

“Start at the beginning,” I said. “Who are your people?”

Ozan fiddled with his glass, looking down. For the first time I noticed the shadows under the silver eyes, the way his wide shoulders drooped with fatigue. He was exhausted. “My mom was Turkish. My dad met her in the service. But he’s Irish-American, first generation. A soldier and a boxer. When she died…” He took a deep breath. “When she died he did his best. He loved me. Taught me to box. Supported me when I wanted to study something he didn’t even understand. But he didn’t know any of this. He was a freaking Catholic.”

Leaning back, I crossed my legs. I was dressed comfortably, in yoga pants and an ex-lover’s massive sweatshirt. I’d put my hair back in a ponytail and scrubbed off all my makeup. I wanted to look as unsexy and non-jinni as possible.

“Okay,” I said. “So who Initiated you?”

He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Can I get something nonalcoholic to drink?”

“Of course,” I said, fetching us each a glass. “Feel free to start talking,” I said, doling out ice and water.

Oz obligingly did as he was told. I could get used to being the one in command.

“I was Initiated in Afghanistan,” he said, my surprise evident as I nearly dropped the water I’d intended to place in front of him. His hand reached out, steadying the glass to keep it from spilling. “I’m a social scientist. A cultural anthropologist, to be exact. I study the effects of forced migration on vulnerable groups.” He took a long draught of his drink, nearly emptying it.

It was my turn to blink. “Erm…”

“Basically, I study violence in refugee camps, especially sexual violence against women and children. We’re trying to figure out how to make times of crisis safer for the vulnerable, which means proving there’s a problem to start with.”

“Wow,” I said, trying to absorb this fact into the identity of the man who’d just attacked and Bound me against my will.

“My mother worked for the Red Crescent,” he explained. “That’s how she met my father. She was a do-gooder—his words. He was a soldier.”

“And she was a Magi,” I said. “You didn’t inherit those eyes from your father. Ireland has its own magic, but not involving jinn.”

“But she
didn’t
have my eyes.
I
didn’t have my eyes, until Afghanistan. Before I went, my eyes were like my mom’s had been—sort of multicolored. My eyes changed colors in Afghanistan after my, um… my…”

“Initiation.” I supplied the word for him. I leaned back in my chair, eyeing him speculatively. “An immature Magi has to be Initiated in the presence of another Magi, by a jinni. The mature Magi Calls the jinni, but does not Bind it. The jinni
is given an offer: Initiate the immature Magi in exchange for its freedom. Once Initiated, the Magi’s eyes turn silver. But before, Magi have the sort of multicolored eyes you describe.”

“So my mother didn’t know what she was?”

“Maybe not. Not if she was unInitiated and she never mentioned anything to you…” My voice trailed off when he shook his head.

“She wouldn’t necessarily have had time to tell me. She died when I was five, in a car accident. If she knew what she was, she never left me any indication. And she was a doctor… a real one. Her family back in Turkey were all doctors, engineers…”

“So not likely to believe in myths like jinn?” I questioned, letting my dark Fire flare around me in ironic counterpoint to my talk of myths. Ozan swallowed, taking a nervous drink from his empty glass. I rose to fetch him another. “What exactly happened to you in Afghanistan?”

Oz thanked me as I handed him his refreshed water glass. “I lived there for three years, doing research for NATO. We were in refugee camps on the border, interviewing current and former refugees who’d returned to Afghanistan.”

I raised an eyebrow. I could only imagine what the locals must have thought seeing an unInitiated ginger Magi running around. Oz didn’t notice my expression and kept talking.

“When I first arrived, I was sort of… adopted by this family. My first day at the camp this little boy came straight up to me, pointing at my eyes and talking in Pashtu. He led me back to his parents, who introduced me to their whole tribe… they were so kind to me.”

“Let me guess,” I said, “they all had silver eyes.”

He nodded, looking rueful again. “The adults did, yes. They were fascinated by me, asking all sorts of questions about my
background. I didn’t speak much Pashtu then, but there was a granddaughter who spoke English fluently. Tamina. She translated for me.” At the mention of the girl, Oz’s eyes squeezed shut.

“So she Initiated you and taught you to be a big bad Magi?” I asked, assuming a few things from the way Oz had said Tamina’s name. First, that by “translated for me” he meant “slept with me,” and second, that he’d lost her somehow, and was probably going to use me to get her back.

Which was why I was also starting to wonder why he was still humoring me by answering my questions. Normally a Magi blew in, Bound a gal, and then started telling her what to do. There was no chitchat, no “getting to know you” stage or pre-magic interview. There was a Master, giving commands, and a jinni, following them.

But I wasn’t about to interrupt and remind Oz of this. The more I could figure him out, the more I could manipulate him. And I wasn’t in any hurry to be commanded about, anyway.

“Tamina?” Oz asked, as if the idea of her Initiating him was ridiculous. “No, she was just a kid. She still had the greenish eyes, too.” And with that he leaned forward in his chair to pull the wallet out of his back pocket. Flipping it open, he pulled out a creased Polaroid and handed it to me.

It looked almost exactly like the famous
National Geographic
photo of the Afghan girl with the unusual eyes. They were the multicolored eyes of an immature Magi, of course, but that had remained unreported.

And she wasn’t that child, although the resemblance was striking. This girl was a tiny bit rounder and a little older. She was also considerably cleaner than that refugee child, and her lips curled in a tiny smile rather than bending in a sober frown.

“She’s cute,” I said, my voice carefully neutral. Oz picked up on the implication.

“She was thirteen when that was taken. That was when I met her. She was a child,” he repeated, glaring at me. “A smart, precocious, awesome child, but just a child.”

“And how many years ago was that?”

His eyes narrowed and his voice was like flint. “Three. She just turned seventeen, but she’ll always be that little girl to me.”

“Okay,” I said, still carefully neutral. He looked annoyed, but didn’t pursue my implications.

“Anyway,” he said instead, “Tamina ended up translating for us a lot, with the other children and sometimes the women. She wasn’t officially doing it, of course, but our official translators were all men and the women and children wouldn’t always talk to them, so Tamina would help out. She did it for years and she seemed to love it. She was really ambitious.”

“Oh?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow. I’d been an ambitious girl living in a patriarchal society once, too. That hadn’t ended well.

“Like I said,” he went on, ignoring me. At this point he was telling the story as much to himself as to me, as if prodding some trauma he couldn’t stop touching. “I was there for three years. Then, like ten months ago, Tamina’s parents suddenly immigrated to the States. It happened virtually overnight. One day Tamina was working for us; the next her father and mother had packed her up and taken her overseas.”

“Really?” I said, surprised. Magi weren’t huge fans of the States for a lot of reasons. What lurked Sideways off of the US wasn’t jinni territory, so they had trouble Calling us.

“Yeah. It was odd… everyone was really weird about it. It was like they were unhappy about Tamina and her parents leaving, but they’d also pushed them to go…”

“Well, I imagine that’s how it always is, when people move.
On the one hand, you want what’s best for them. On the other, you’re sad they’re leaving.”

Oz shrugged. “Maybe that was it. I don’t know. But why, if it was so easy, didn’t they all leave and come here?”

“Well,” I said, delicately, “not everyone wants to live the American dream, no matter what their circumstances. Something must have happened to make them want to leave.”

Oz grimaced. “I know Tamina’s family were very well respected and lived well, even in the camps. I guess because they were Magi, right?”

“Yes,” I said. Magi were a huge help to have around, for other humans at least. Not so much for jinn. “So Tamina and her family up and went to the U.S. Then what?”

“Everything went on as normal. We were finishing up our research, so we were traveling more than usual. We were gone for about three months, working in camps across the border in Pakistan, and when we got back to our base camp Tamina’s grandparents immediately sought me out.

“Tamina’s parents were dead, murdered here in the States, and Tamina was missing.”

“Murdered?” I perked up. I do love a mystery. “How?”

“Their house was set on fire. The police believed it was arson. And there was no trace of Tamina.”

“And that’s why you’re here? Searching for Tamina?”

Oz nodded. “Yes. They knew I was coming back to the States. I think they’d tried to find Tamina using jinn, but had failed for whatever reason. They’re… they’re family to me. And they didn’t have anyone else here and they couldn’t get anyone to America fast enough. So I guess I was their best option. They finally told me the truth about themselves, and about me. Then they Initiated me. I only had a few weeks to learn what I could. And I’m still learning, obviously…”

He looked down, lost in his own thoughts. “How long ago was that?” I asked, gently.

“The Initiation was a month ago. I was in that region another two weeks, wrapping stuff up, then I came home.”

“And you started looking for the girl.”

“Yes. First I tried looking for the jinn Tamina’s parents had brought with them, even though I knew it was probably pointless. Tamina’s grandmother told me they were probably dead.”

“She tried to Call them?”

“Yes. There was no answer. And Tamina’s grandmother is supposed to be really strong.”

I pursed my lips. A powerful Magi who knew an unBound jinni’s true name should have been able to Call it, even from that distance. And if Tamina’s parents were dead, their jinn were automatically unBound.

“So then what?”

“I figured maybe we just needed a closer look, so first I tried to find other jinn. That was tough.”

I bet it was. There were only a handful of jinn living in America—weirdos who liked the company of humans, but wanted to avoid Magi, for obvious reasons. For them America was great. But most jinn preferred the magical comforts of living Sideways.

“I found one in Boston, and Bound him. That jinni could trace Tamina’s family’s remaining jinn to somewhere around Pittsburgh, then they disappeared off the jinni radar. But they were definitely dead, and they had definitely not left Pittsburgh, so they must have died in Pittsburgh. I let the jinni in Boston go and came here.”

I didn’t have to ask how Oz had found the jinni he’d questioned… Magi were drawn to us like moths to a candle. And
jinn had the same ability to sense each other—and to sense when one of their own had its Fire snuffed out.

What was more interesting to me was that Oz hadn’t brought that Boston jinni to Pittsburgh. He’d let him go. While I wanted to ask him why that was, I didn’t want to call attention to the idea that Magi letting jinni go was weird, so I held my tongue.