Jinn and Juice (30 page)

I reached for my Fire, willing it to toss my hair as I liked to do on stage.

Nothing happened.

I did it again.

Still nothing.

“I think I’m human,” I said, raising my forearms to stare at my hands, as if I might find confirmation there.

“Human,” I repeated. Then I burst into tears.

Various hands patted my back and Oz’s arm snaked around my waist.

“What’s wrong, honey? Isn’t this what you wanted?” asked Yulia.

I looked at her, then at Oz, who looked completely stricken. “Did I do the wrong thing?” he asked.

“No,” I said, pulling him into a hug. “No.”

I held him, gathering my scattering thoughts. Then I pulled away.

“It’s just a lot. I’ve been living as a jinni for centuries. It’ll take some time to adjust. But I’m happy. I wanted this.”

“Good,” he said. “I, for one, am glad you’re human.”

I couldn’t resist touching that strong jaw, then the anchor at the heart of his clavicles.

“I’m glad, too,” I said, quietly.

“Get a room!” called Rachel, adjusting her wig. “And give me a hug.”

I hugged all my friends then, thanking them for coming back to me. Even Trip and Trap allowed an awkward embrace, but they said nothing to my whispered “Thank you.”

Since they couldn’t eat Kouros, though, and he’d been very dangerous, I could only assume they’d come back because they actually liked me. If only a little bit.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “If I never see this place again, it’ll be too soon.”

“What should we do about Tamina’s entourage?” asked Oz.

I swore. I’d totally forgotten about them.

“Why don’t we let Trip and Trap let them out,” Charlie said. “After we have a chance to pull down the gate behind the throne room after us. There’s no reason they can’t live Sideways, where they can’t prey on humans. There are enough encroaching fodden for them to eat.”

“That’s perfect,” I said. “I really didn’t want to have to send the Exterminators after them. They’re still only children. Well, they look like children. When they’re not lunging at people’s throats.”

“They’ll be our secret. And they’ll be a good deterrent for anyone else trying to set up shop here.”

I met Oz’s eyes as Charlie talked, and I felt my cheeks growing red.

“Ye gods,” Yulia said, “they’re like schoolchildren. C’mon, let’s walk ahead and leave the lovebirds alone.” She started for the door behind the throne and the others followed, Rachel giving us an indulgent smile.

Oz took my hand, his finger stroking my thumb.

“You must be exhausted,” he said.

“I’ve felt better,” I admitted. “But I’m okay. I’m human.”

“You are.” Another gentle stroke across my palm, making me shiver.

“You’re not my Master anymore,” I told him.

“I most certainly am not.”

I tugged on his hand, pulling him to a stop. Then I pulled him to me, and raised my face to his.

The kiss he gave me was gentle as a butterfly’s wing, just a brush across my lips. Then another, and another, and then he went in for a real kiss, his lips parting mine and his tongue tasting, gently. I sighed, leaning into him.

His hands moved from my back to my waist to my butt, cupping it gently and pulling me even closer. I wound my own arms around his neck, my fingers in his hair, my mouth opening wider against his…

When we came apart a few minutes later, we were both panting, our eyes dilated with lust and my knees, at least, trembling.

“Take me home,” I told my former Master. “And make love to me.”

He dipped his lips down for another kiss, but pulled away before it could get too intense.

“Your wish is my command,” he said, with a wink.

“And then I want you to show me this list you made, of things to do once I’m human.”

He grinned. “We’ll have already crossed off my number one priority by then.”

I laughed, slinging an arm around him as we started walking toward the door.

“What’s number two?”

“Repeat number one a few dozen times. And then get you a Social Security number. I don’t suppose Purgatory offers health insurance or a 401(k)?”

I groaned, made a joke about sticking with number one on the list for at least a few days before moving to other numbers, but I stopped him when we got to the little door that led to Tamina’s Bridge Sideways.

I didn’t say anything, just held Oz’s hand as we surveyed the chaos of the throne room. Ash was everywhere, and Tamina and Dmitri lay crumpled in a corner. We should probably bury them, but I really couldn’t be bothered. And I never wanted to return here, if I could help it.

Finally my eyes settled on the dark shape of Kouros huddled on the floor. He had, despite himself, saved me from what probably would have been a short, abusive marriage ending in my own death either at the hands of my husband or in childbirth. He’d also given me a thousand years on this earth and powers I’d never dreamed of. But he’d betrayed me, and taken away my humanity for a while, until I’d been able to reclaim it for myself.

He’d been something in my life, and now he was lifeless on the ground. His body growing cold…

His body.

Fuck.

His body.

“Oz,
run
,” I shouted, just as Kouros raised himself on shaking limbs. An oozing trail of bright red fire still leaked from his slashed stomach, but he had enough juice in him to point a finger at me.

“I curse you, Lyla,” he said, in the ancient language of the jinn. “With my dying breath I curse you. May you be a jinni until my revenge is enacted, my death for your life, the curse of my last blood.”

Then he lifted a dribble of his Fire to his lips, power surging out of him in a blast that reverberated through the room,
catching both Oz and me and hurling us through the door and through the gate that waited just behind it.

I felt a curious numbness as we tumbled Sideways over the Bridge, landing with a thud on a cold tile floor.

Oz came tumbling after me, face-first, and he probably would have broken his nose again if I hadn’t caught him.

With a thick rope of black Fire.

We stared at each other, him floating above me, held up by my magic.

“Here we are again,” I joked, weakly. “Curses.”

Then I set him down and started crying.

O
n the third day, Yulia had had enough.

“You stink,” she said, using her wisps to pick me up by my armpits and set me on my feet. I tried to crawl back into my bed but she wouldn’t let me.

“Shower. Now,” was all she said, as her wisps carried me in front of her toward our bathroom. I struggled weakly, but didn’t have the will to fight her.

She used another wisp to run the shower, waiting till it was warm enough before shoving me in. Then she soaped me down, humming a Russian lullaby as her wisps lathered me and pushed me around under the water until I was mostly clean.

Towels appeared, held on more wisps, and I wrapped one around my hair. The other one I pulled around my body; then I moved back toward my bedroom.

“Nope,” Yulia said, her wisps steering me to the kitchen. “You’re getting something to eat, and you’re putting on clothes, and we’re going over to Charlie’s. We have things to discuss.”

I sat, disconsolately, in a kitchen chair as Yulia presented me with a ham sandwich. I ate it mechanically, drinking glass after glass of orange juice, which she placed in front of me.

When I was done, I looked at my bedroom with yearning, but she was having none of it.

“Clothes,” she said, pointing at the pile she’d set down on the far end of the table. I dropped my towel and struggled into the underwear and sports bra, Yulia’s wisps helping me with the yoga pants and T-shirt.

“That’s good enough,” she said, steering me to the door.

We walked across the moonlit lawn to Charlie’s, the November air cold and crisp. I could smell a far-off hint of leaves burning and the scent of winter on the air.

It just made me feel even more hopeless.

Rachel was waiting to open the door as we walked up, pulling me into a crushing, sequined embrace.

“Baby girl,” she whispered, before pulling away to look at my face. “Is it so bad?”

I nodded, tears forming in my eyes. She shook her head, tutting.

“I know you hurtin’, but you look… well, you look scraggly as hell. But we’ll sort you out, won’t we?”

Then she put an arm around me, and Yulia put a wisp around my shoulder, and we walked into the living room.

Charlie was there, looking resplendent in a padded dressing gown he wore over an ascot and fine linen trousers. Oz was there, too. He looked sad, and handsome, and my heart broke about fifteen times before I sat down next to him—not touching—on the love seat next to Charlie’s favorite chair. Yulia and Rachel took the sofa across from Charlie.

Bertha and Trey had the club that night, our second string of dancers performing with Trip and Trap, so we could finally have the talk I hadn’t been able to, before now.

“So you’re a jinni again,” Charlie said. I gave him a “duh” look, but then my eyes teared up.

Oz’s hand crept toward my knee hesitantly, as if he were afraid to touch me. Finally he let it rest on the couch with just his pinky touching my thigh. I stared down at it, the tears leaking down my face.

“That’s enough,” Charlie said, not unkindly. “You’ve been wallowing for days. I know you needed it, and the gods know I’ve done my fair share of wallowing in my day. But the time for self-indulgence is over. We have to figure out what to do.”

“There’s nothing to be done,” I said. “Kouros cursed me with his dying breath. You know how strong a death curse is. This could last forever.”

“And it might last a week. Or a month. Or seven hundred and seventy-seven years,” Charlie said, steepling his hands in front of him. “But in the meantime, you’re alive and kicking, Lyla. That’s more than can be said for Tamina and Dmitri.”

“We never buried them,” I said. “We should go back.”

“Already done,” said Yulia. “Bertha, Charlie, and I went back to release the kids. But before we did that we buried the bodies. And we took down the portal in the throne room.”

“Good,” I said, but I sounded as listless as I felt. Nothing was good, not anymore.

“So now we have to discuss what’s to be done with you.” I looked up at Charlie, feeling a flush rise in my cheeks.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been outed, Lyla,” he said, gently. “No one knew you could use the Node here, because you’d never been Bound when you lived in Pittsburgh. But word of your ability is already spreading.”

“How?” I asked, confusion and sadness making me sound like a child. “No one saw me use the Node except you guys, the jinn who died, Tamina and her minions who are all dead or trapped Sideways, and Kouros.”

Oz’s pinky strayed closer to me, finally closing around my knee. “Loretta,” he said, his voice quiet. “She got away.”

I sat back, stunned. In all the chaos of the fight Sideways I’d forgotten about Loretta.

“Of course she did,” I said, feeling a tremendous darkness invade my soul. “The worst ones always do.”

“I’m sorry,” said Oz, his sad eyes letting me know he knew that wasn’t enough.

“I’m just a jinni; who cares about me?” I tried, but my voice held no conviction. I knew the truth.

“You’re not just a jinni,” Charlie said. “You’re a jinni that can use Pittsburgh’s Node.”

I ducked my head and felt, blindly, for Oz’s hand. His closed over mine in a warm, comforting embrace I knew I didn’t deserve.

“You know what this means, Lyla,” Charlie said. I nodded, snuffling.

“Well, I don’t!” Rachel said, sounding defiant. “So Lyla is powerful. So what? That just means she can fight off any of those boujie Magi trying to claim her. She can use the Node and send ’em straight to hell, Kmart, or whatever. Right, Lyla?” When I didn’t answer she kept going. “And if she can’t take care of them, we can. We can keep her safe, can’t we, Charlie?”

“I wish it were that simple,” I said, my voice sounding rusty. “But it’s not. I’m not strong, not unless I’m Bound. And I’m vulnerable to any powerful Magi’s Call. You won’t be around to save me if I’m Called to Turkey, or Saudi Arabia, or back to Persia, then Bound and taken back to Pittsburgh, or whatever.”

“Shit,” Rachel said, a defiant declaration. But when she saw the look in my eyes, she said it again, this time sounding sad.

“I know,” I said. “But thank you for being willing to help me.”

“We’re still going to help you, stupid girl,” Yulia said, her voice harsh and thick with unshed tears. “I will investigate this curse. Death curses are strong, but they can be broken… maybe.”

“And I will use my Sight,” Charlie said. “As will Rachel. Sometimes she can See what I miss.”

Then my friends all looked at Oz. They’d already discussed with him what he needed to do, I realized.

“And I’ll Bind you again, if you won’t hate me for it,” said Oz, pronouncing the words like he was juggling acid on his tongue.

My hand gripped his, painfully tight. “You hate being my Master,” I said, acknowledging everything that meant about who he was, as a person.

“I do,” he said. “But I’d hate it even more if something happened to you.”

I risked looking at him. I hadn’t done more than sneak a peek or two for fear I’d start bawling again. If lifting my curse had been my goal, my sundae, Oz had become the cherry on top that symbolized everything I felt I’d earned for my years spent as a jinni.

Now he represented everything I’d lost.

His lovely silver eyes Flared gently when they met mine, his Magi recognizing my jinni. Oz, the man inside those Magi eyes, looked scared and defeated, but also determined. And hopeful.

“We may never be able to fix this,” I said. “You may have to keep me Bound until you die.”

“No,” he said, with no hesitation. “That’s not going to happen. We
will
fix this.”

“You can’t be sure,” I insisted, but he stopped my mouth with a kiss. It was quick, stolen, but it shut me up and filled me with a terrible desire for him, all the more painful because I knew his feelings on the subject of sex when Bound.

“I
can
be sure. We will free you, and for good. None of us will rest till it’s done, least of all me.”

And for the first time since I’d been re-cursed I felt something other than dread. A spark of hope sprang inside my breast, kindled by the look in his eye and nurtured by the set of his jaw, and the steady, firm way he held my hand.

Then I looked at each of my friends in turn. They were so strong, so brave. They’d come back for me and saved my life. Granted, I’d saved all of theirs a time or two over the years, but that’s because we were friends, and we saved each other.

We saved each other.

I was crying again, but this time for an entirely different reason. “Do you really think we can do this?” I asked.

Charlie shrugged. “Maybe. Your last curse was done by the book. Knowing what we know now, I bet Kouros nudged your father to arrange the marriage in the first place, hoping you would approach him. He had time to prepare. But this time he improvised. And while death curses are powerful, they’re also brittle. Plus…” His voice trailed off. “There may be other factors,” he said, finally, his gaze turning inward in his own particularly creepy way of ending a conversation about a particular subject.

“Then let’s do it,” I said. “Oz, please Bind me. I trust you.”

My soon-to-be Master stood, taking my hands in his. “I swear to keep you safe. And as soon as we know how to lift your curse, I’ll free you again.”

“I know,” I said, lifting a hand to his jaw and letting it rest
there. Then he spoke the words, his eyes Flaring, and I felt my jinni swell with power and my soul unite with his again in that terrible subservience under which we both chafed.

When it was done, he rested his forehead down against mine, his expression one of regret and love, and my heart broke a few thousand times more.

Like Humpty-Dumpty, I didn’t know if it would ever be whole again.

“So is he moving in?” Yulia asked to break the somber mood, pointing a finger at my Master. She tried to mimic her old animosity, but it was gone. Even she liked Oz by now.

“No,” Oz said, sounding as regretful as I felt. “But I will need somewhere to stay. I can go back to that hotel I was staying at…”

“Nonsense,” Charlie said, waving his hand as if that were out of the question. “You will stay here. You’ll need access to my libraries.
All
of my libraries.”

My eyes widened. A secret but ferocious hoarder of knowledge, Charlie had quite a few libraries stashed Sideways, and he rarely let people peruse them without his close observation.

“Libraries?” I asked.

Oz nodded, his lips curving in a sweet smile. “I’m an academic. I research. Instead of ways to make refugee camps safer, now I’ll be researching death curses. Did you know Charlie rescued the Library of Alexandria?” Oz said sotto voce, just to me. “He’s got it stashed partially in a bathroom closet.”

“So you’ll stay in the big house?” I clarified, not giving a hoot about the library.

“Yes,” he said, keeping his voice pitched just for me. “If we were at your place, I couldn’t trust myself. I still have that list…”

“And we haven’t even gotten to number one.”

His hand squeezed mine again.

“But we will,” he said. “As God is my witness, we will get to number one. A lot. Maybe a few times a day, for at least the first month or two.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, then pulled him down for a kiss. He pulled back way too quickly, but it still felt amazing.

“Maybe this isn’t so bad,” I told my friends. “Or, even if it is that bad, maybe it’s not so bad because of you guys. I don’t know how to thank you. You saved me about a dozen times over the past few weeks.”

“It’s because we’re such angelic, wonderful beings,” Rachel said, standing up before hoisting her boobs with both hands. “Now let’s have some champagne…”

A few hours and a few bottles of champagne later, I was still drifting on my little inlet of hope. Yeah, things looked bad, but I had my friends, I had a Master I was more than a little crazy about, and I had myself.

Including my inner jinni, whom I had gotten used to after all those years, and would have missed, if I was honest.

And I kept up that hope even when Charlie took me aside and told me the truth. That when they’d gone to bury Tamina and Dmitri and let the kids out, there’d been no little pile of ash where Kouros’s remains should have been.

“What does that mean?” I asked. He shrugged.

“It could mean everything or nothing. A gust of wind probably hit that corner of the room. But I wanted you to know.”

I didn’t know what to do with that information, so I simply said, “He made a death curse. Which means he’s dead. End of story.”

Charlie didn’t argue.

By midnight everyone had gone home, leaving Oz and me alone on Charlie’s porch. I built up a warm little fire on the
table in front of us. It burned only at the top half, away from any furniture, leaving us warm and toasty without destroying anything.

Oz put his arm around me, and I snuggled close.

“We really are going to get through this. I’ll find a way to free you; I promise.”

I kissed him gently, lingeringly. My own form of promise.

“I know you will. And in the meantime…” I stroked a hand down his chest, which he caught before I hit gold.