Lamp Riders: A Jinn Motorcycle Gang Novella (4 page)

What she saw before her, however, was so extraordinary that she almost thought she was hallucinating. For Abdul began to glow, a red aura radiating off his body like angry ocean waves. The air buzzed with static electricity, and the red glow increased in the darkness with every pulse. He was perfectly still while this happened, for just a few milliseconds that felt like centuries. Then he pounced.

He threw his hands out in a punching motion towards Juan, even though they were still at least ten feet apart. Juan fell backward in surprise, his tiny eyes briefly opening wide. His face flung to the side, and a red mark instantly appeared, as if he had actually been hit by the punch.

Time, which had been so slow, suddenly hit fast forward. The henchmen opened fire as their leader grabbed his face in shock. The bar was peppered with bullets, the smell of gunfire clogging the already stale air. One of the other bikers, a bald man with mahogany skin and curiously green eyes, grabbed Celia and pushed her to the floor as bullets flew around them like angry hornets.

She sank to her knees and braced herself for breaking glass, shattered lights, and splintering wood. She tried to calm her heart that was beating wildly at the knowledge that she was about to be shot, and it was going to hurt like hell. It wasn’t how she had planned to spend her night.

However, she didn’t hear any sounds of destruction or screams of agony mixed with the exploding gunfire. There was certainly a lot of noise, and her ears were beginning to ache from the constant barrage of gunfire. However, she had expected a lot more chaos from a room being filled to the brim with bullets.

She shot a quick look around the bar and realized that nothing seemed to be getting damaged. The bar remained exactly as before, no holes in the walls, no broken glasses. The other customers still had their heads down, but none seemed to be bleeding or writhing in pain from being shot.

“What the hell...” Celia mumbled in confusion.

Right then, she felt a soft thud on her cheek. It felt like being hit by a marshmallow, and she looked down in surprise as whatever hit her fell to the ground. It was a bullet. A long metal bullet glistened at her knees, shiny but slightly squished, as if the impact with her face had crumpled it. She grabbed her face in shock, expecting to feel a wound. However, her face felt completely normal. There were no holes and no blood.

“Stay down,” the biker who had knocked her to the ground yelled.

He was also radiating an unearthly light, but it was a green that matched his eyes. He moved in front of her, sending sparks flying from his hands. The other bikers followed, moving in mass past her and towards the henchmen. The cartel men continued to fire madly, their hands shaking on their guns as the bikers advanced with their rainbow of auras and their firework hands. The bullets continued to do nothing but bounce off the men like wads of silly putty.

It looked like the bikers, whatever unholy creatures they happened to be, were about to decimate the cocky criminals in a single swoop. However, Juan Reyes had finally managed to regain his balance after Abdul’s long-distance punch, and Reyes was not done with the fight. He grabbed a golden ring off his finger, which looked much like Abdul’s, and threw it down onto the ground. An explosion ripped through the room, finally causing glasses to smash everywhere. Smoke filled the air, and Abdul and his men disappeared in the haze, their auras snuffed out suddenly and dramatically.

C
elia awoke the next day with the smell of cigarettes and stale beer surrounding her. Her head was pounding and her mouth felt as dry as her backyard. She rolled over and groaned as her eyes demanded to stay shut against the cruel light of morning. It was the typical morning-after for a night at the Rusty Jug – a hangover and a hatred for humanity. Eventually, she managed to sit up and stretch, trying to find her alarm clock in the mess that was on her floor.

Nine A.M.

It was way too early to get up, but her eyes seemed insistent on staying open. The smell of eggs and potatoes drifted into the room, and Celia’s stomach began an angry list of demands. It was early, but the lure of breakfast burritos was stronger than the desire to stay in bed. She got up, wrapped herself in a robe, and shuffled out of her bedroom. Bleary-eyed, Celia made her way towards the kitchen.

“Morning,” called a handsome bald man from the couch, where he sprawled like a lion.

“Morning,” Celia mumbled, wrinkling her face with the effort to talk.

“Hungry?” asked another man, reading a newspaper while leaning against the counter.

“Yeah, it smells good out here,” Celia said, before the surprise hit her.

She turned around slowly, looking back at the man on the couch. He waved at her and gave a little wink. She had a sudden memory of the man pushing her down while bullets flew around the room. Her foggy brain tried valiantly to process what was happening, but kept hitting an error message. She turned back to the man at the counter and looked at his newspaper. It was that day’s paper from the New York Times.

“We...don’t...have any newspapers in this town,” she said slowly.

As the situation started to become clearer, she looked around the room again. There were even more men than she had originally thought. Sprawled on couches, chairs, and even the kitchen table, sat a whole crew of muscled guys, all looking at her with a hint of mischief.

“Oh God, I didn’t imagine you,” she sighed, shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Nope. There is no way you could even imagine a group like us,” came a familiar voice from the kitchen.

She looked behind the guy with the newspaper and saw Abdul sitting in her father’s favorite chair, drinking tea out of a tiny tulip-shaped tea glass. His dark hair was slightly ruffled, and Celia thought she could detect a hint of tiredness to his eyes, but otherwise he looked as stunning as ever. He appeared to be supervising Murrah, who was making a valiant attempt at cooking eggs. Based on the copious splatters of yolk all over the floor, Murrah had already made and thrown away more than one pan of omelets gone wrong.

“The bar last night,” Celia said slowly, as the memories came rushing back.

“We had quite the dance,” Abdul broke in, beginning to hum Brown Eyed Girl.

Celia’s cheeks threatened to betray her, and she coughed slightly to hide her face in her sleeve. Only once she was sure that she had control did she look back up and face Abdul again.

“I remember the fight. Juan Reyes was here, and you fought him!”

She felt a rush as the memories came back. Her mind replayed how the bullets hadn’t touched anything, as if everyone was protected by magic. She had thought perhaps the bikers were some sort of protectors sent to save the town. Except, eventually everything had gone horribly wrong; Juan set off a small bomb and made the entire building fill with smoke and slump dangerously to the side. Thankfully the roof had stayed on, and no one was seriously injured.

“You guys show up, the meanest man on this hemisphere shows up, and then we were all left to pick up the pieces!”

Celia had spent at least an hour talking Phil out from under the bar after Reyes and his men left. It had been painful to watch a grown man cry over shattered shot glasses, holding the tiny shards in his hands like they were his babies. Seeing Phil’s sadness had almost made Celia’s own eyes fill up with tears. It was part of the reason she had picked a six pack out of the wreckage and went home with it, drinking until she fell asleep and forgot all about evil cartels and freaky magic men. At least, she forgot about them until they came crashing back into her living room.

“We didn’t exactly want to go,” Murrah said defensively, as he tried to flip the gooey omelet in his pan. It fell on the floor with a splat.

“I’m sure,” Celia said, rolling her eyes. “What the hell are you doing in here anyway? Where are my parents?”

Her parents.
She ran back to her parent’s bedroom and flung open the door. Inside the bed was made just like normal, and Pico could be seen sitting in his little cage on the floor. Nothing was out of the normal except that her parents were nowhere to be seen.

“What did you do with them?” She roared, storming back into the kitchen with fists curled.

“They are at an art show,” Abdul said calmly, his tea glass now mysteriously gone, much like her parents.

“Yes, and I’m the pope. There are no art shows in this town!”

“Which is why they had to go to Los Angeles.”

“They drove to L.A. without telling me?” Celia wasn’t sure who she was mad at more – her parents or the weird magical wizard in her house.

“Of course they left a note. I think you were a little too hung over to notice,” Abdul said, nodding to a pink piece of paper pinned to the fridge with a magnet shaped like a chili pepper.

Celia shoved Murrah away from the stove, where he was attempting yet another egg disaster, and made her way to the note. Her mother had written a cheerful note in her round, curling style. It read:

Just got a call from an art agent in L.A. Someone wants to buy my painting ‘Cottage with Lilies’! I’m not even sure how this gallery called 1001 Paintings found out about me, but apparently there is a seller who absolutely must see me today about it. It is six in the morning, and we are just leaving out the door. See you tonight.’

Celia stared at the note for several long moments. Then she turned to Abdul’s grinning face with a mix of fury and bemusement. “1001 Paintings? Like the storybook? Which happens to have some magical creatures in it?”

“I told you she was too fast for us,” the bald guy on the couch drawled out, sounding bored with the entire situation.

“Shut up, Baktan!” Abdul yelled, his eyes getting the fiery red look that Celia had seen the night before.

“What is up with the weird names? Actually, never mind. I don’t even want to know! You are the weirdest customers in the world, and I need you out of my house right now!”

They all continued to stare at her, not a single man moving. She had twelve dreamy, magical men who for unknown reasons were camped out in her kitchen making horrible food and drinking tea. She felt a flash of anger, which threatened to quickly reach nuclear level.

“Fine. If you aren’t leaving, then I am,” she said with all the dignity she could muster and turned on her heel to head to the door.

She was down the steps and ten feet away from the trailer before she heard Abdul slam open the door and follow her out. She could tell it was him by the smell of lemons in the air. She whipped around and put her hands on her hips, facing him with slit eyes and her mouth set into a thin line. He was trying to be charming again, running his hand through his hair and looking at her with big eyes as he came after her.

“Your parents are fine. We just needed to be able to talk to you alone.”

“How do I know you didn’t magic them away like what happened last night? I know what I saw, and I don’t think you are people I really want to know much about. You or your psycho little friend Reyes.”

“We thought you saw the magic. Everyone in the bar had the good sense to put their heads down and pray. And then there you were, staring death in the face. You saw it all, didn’t you?”

Abdul was talking to her straight then, dropping his cutesy act. He was now only a foot or so away from her filling the air with the smell of a small Parisian bakery.

“Why do you smell so good?” Celia blurted out, unable to handle why Abdul always smelled like warm cinnamon buns or apple pie or something equally delicious.

“I smell like your favorite things,” he shrugged. “What does it smell like?”

Celia ignored the question, not wanting to discuss her favorite things with this possible kidnapper with magic powers. “Is this another voodoo spell thing?”

Abdul sighed and inched a little bit closer. “Not voodoo, but something like that. You know what we are, don’t you?”

Celia scrunched her face up as she considered. The names, the spells, the 1001 nights. She had a guess but hadn’t really wanted to think about it too hard. She found herself surprisingly cool with the supernatural happenings of the night before, but perhaps that was because she hadn’t said the words out loud.

“Phil would say you are genetically modified super soldiers sent here by the government to wreck his moonshine business. This might make me the crazier person, but I don't think that is it. I think it is more likely you are...” She paused, unable to finish.

“Go on, say it,” Abdul challenged, moving closer still until their faces were almost touching.

Celia looked up into his face with the defiance bred into her by a thousand hot, windy days. “Genies.”

“Not bad,” he murmured, looking genuinely impressed. “And you’re not afraid or going crazy like most people do.”

“I’m afraid of about two things, and you aren’t one of them.” Celia was surprised by how true it was – she didn’t feel afraid or even all that concerned. Based on what she learned in CPR class, she thought she might be in a state of shock.

“Apparently neither is death, considering how you reacted last night.”

Celia ignored his probing again. “So you are genies and not super soldiers? Don’t you live in lamps or grant wishes or something? Why are you in my town fighting drug lords?”

Abdul laughed heartily. “This isn’t a fairy tale. We aren’t your little servants here to make you wildest dreams come true.” He looked at her with a sly grin and leaned in to whisper quietly, “Unless, of course, your wildest dreams involve a muscled, handsome genie?”

“No, I tend to dream of hot lawyers, astronauts, and guys that can’t shoot fireballs out of their hands,” Celia said, rolling her eyes.

Abdul cocked an eyebrow as if he didn’t believe her, and refused to reply. Standing there, a smug look on his face and his bulging arms cross over his chest, made him look even more gorgeous than before. Celia couldn’t take how proud he was; she could almost imagine his tail of peacock feathers sprouting behind him as he stood before her, light perfectly hitting his shimmering black hair. She wanted to slap the playboy look off his face, or maybe kiss it off. She wasn’t quite sure which, and it made her grumpy.