I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) (8 page)

“Hammam?” Bowie inquired.

“A steam bath,” explained Raheem. “And I was
initially considered a conspirator and imprisoned. But I digress.”
The genie looked to Gossitch. “Let us dispense with business so we
may resume these pleasantries, no?”

“Agreed,” said Gossitch.

“What do you have for me?”

Gossitch told him about the van parked in
back and its contents.

“Very good then,” Raheem snapped his fingers
and Fakhri pulled back a rug and stepped into the enclosed area. He
carried a briefcase which he laid down in front of Gossitch. The
attendant in the
Oasis
smoke
shop
t-shirt
stood behind him with two similar briefcases. Fakhri snapped the
locks open and lifted the top, revealing stacks of rubber banded
hundred dollar bills.

Bowie whistled.

“That’s beautiful,” said Jay.

“No, my friend,” Raheem admonished
pleasantly. “That is dirty money. What is beautiful are the things
one can procure through this.”

“True that,” agreed Santa Anna.

“Would you like to count it?” The genie asked
Gossitch.

Gossitch held his hands up. “Never a need for
that, Raheem.”

The genie smiled. “You flatter me with your
confidence in my person.”

“It’s a confidence born out by time,” noted
Gossitch.

“Undeniably the sands of time reveal all,”
agreed Raheem. “Those that can be trusted,” he looked from Gossitch
to Santa Anna, “and those that cannot. Yet, one would do well not
to let the sands of time get in your lunch, yes?” The genie let
loose a robust burst of laughter.

“You get funnier every time I see you,” said
Santa Anna.

“Raheem has been attending open mic comedy
nights,” interjected Fakhri.

“Really?” asked Santa Anna. “How’s that going
for ya?”

“I am working on my delivery,” admitted the
genie. “Would any of you happen to have any jokes?”

The men shook their heads.

“Fakhri, bring these to their vehicle,”
Raheem indicated the briefcases. Fakhri and the attendant
disappeared.

“These are some beautiful rugs, Rah,” said
Bowie. “My ma would love these.”

“This one upon which we sit is from Herat.”
Santa Anna wished Bowie hadn’t said anything. The genie was given
to long-winded expositions on seemingly everything. He now launched
into one, explaining the difference between Turkish and Persian
rugs, which had something to do with the number of knots, but Santa
Anna wasn’t paying attention, drawing on the shisha.

“
Khoshet
miad
?” Raheem asked
him if he liked the tobacco and when Santa Anna nodded the genie
beamed again. “Oh,
che
khoob
! Did you know that the
hoses were once made of cane sugar? Now my friend,” he turned back
to Bowie, “Solomon’s carpet was magnificent to behold. Sixty miles
long and sixty miles wide it was.”

“Magic carpet, yeah?” asked Bowie.

“…
Any
place
it
goes
is
right
/
goes
far
,
flies
near
,
to
the
stars
from
here
…”

“Did you just quote Steppenwolf?” Jay asked
the genie, which laughed.

“Rah,” asked Gossitch. “What can you tell us
about a vampire that walks in the day?”

“A day walker?” the genie looked incredulous,
then certain. “Impossible. Myth.”

“Like a man who lives in a bottle?” Bowie
nodded.

“Hmmm, point well taken,” the genie leaned
forward over the table, closer to the four men. “There has been
talk” he announced conspiratorially.

Gossitch pressed. “Talk
of
?”

“Talk of DNA splicing and genetic doping in
eastern Europe, among the vampire themselves. Why might you
ask?”

“This morning’s job,” said Gossitch,
“something we saw.”

“Do tell,” invited the genie, clasping his
hands.

“Tall vamp. Walked out into the rain. Yeah,
it was dark, but…”

“But this thing you saw walked in the
daylight, yes?”

“Yes.”

“There has been talk of a vampire from the
continent,” Raheem maintained his conspiratorial tone. “Extremely
tall, extremely cruel. Filled with a hatred that would defy the sun
itself.”

“Sounds like our guy.” Bowie looked at
Gossitch.

“What can you tell me about this…creature?”
Gossitch had been on the verge of saying
thing
, but
thing
had a derogatory connotation, one that might have
offended the genie.

“I will counsel you to avoid it at all
costs,” Raheem said aloud. “It has a propensity for violence and
revels in bloodshed. Its appetites are said to be nothing short of
enormous.”

“Its appetite for blood?”

“For blood, yes, but also for carnage and
sex.”

“Carnage and sex, huh?” asked Santa Anna.

“What’s sex without a little carnage?”
quipped Bowie.

“And, oh yes, it has three wives.”

“Three wives?” asked Jay. “Shit, isn’t one
enough?”

“If she’s the right one,” offered Santa
Anna.

“I myself had seventy wives in my seraglio,”
the genie offered modestly.

“Seventy virgins, Rah?” Bowie asked with a
salacious tone.

“Of course not!” Raheem waved his hand. “What
man desires inexperienced girls who know not how to please him? I
never desired su—is this where the blood you bring me comes from?”
A serious look came over the genie’s face as it locked eyes with
Gossitch. “From this creature of which we speak?”

“Yeah.” Gossitch would never lie to
Raheem.

“Then we must be extremely super secret, my
friend,” mirth filled the genie’s voice again. “Like your double
agent, what is his name? Double-oh-seven.”

“Actually he’s British,” noted Bowie but the
genie hadn’t heard him.

“If it were anyone but you, my old friend,”
Raheem addressed Gossitch, “I would not accept this delivery.”

“I appreciate it, Rah. I really do.”

“I know you do, my friend.” A smile a mile
wide spread across Raheem’s face. “You are sincere in your
gratitude. I am
djinn
. I can detect this.”

“You can offload this stuff?” asked Santa
Anna. “I mean, considering where it comes from and all…”

“There is always appetite to contend with, my
friend. Those we feed know better than to inquire about the
origination of the supply.”

“It’s like making sausage,” offered Jay.

The genie offered a mild oath in Farsi.
“Please, you
do
not
mention the filthy sow in my
establishment.”

Jay quickly apologized.

“You have the smell of the supernatural on
you.” Raheem eyed Jay.

“I don’t know why,” said Bowie. “Jay wasn’t
too close to any of them this morning. Me and Boone got to see them
up close and personal.”

“Boone,” the genie huffed. “He is outside I
imagine?”

“I wouldn’t think of bringing him back in
until you said it was alright,” said Gossitch.

“And I wouldn’t think of inviting him in
until he apologizes. That man brings you so many difficulties, my
friend. I cannot imagine what his redeeming qualities must be.”

“He’s got a point,” said Santa Anna, but
Gossitch ignored him.

“He brings us difficulties, this is true. But
what man does not? And he also delivers us from difficulties,
Raheem.”

“There is wisdom in your words, my friend,”
noted the genie. He looked at Santa Anna. “I can appreciate
loyalty. I just hope it is never misplaced.”

“I can’t imagine genetic whatchamacallit goes
over well among the vampires,” said Santa Anna.

“Though the truce holds for now, the battle
lines are being drawn each night.”

“I been away for ten years, Rah. Break it
down for a brother.”

“As in all species, the young eventually
overtake the old.”

“But the old don’t go down without a
fight.”

“Correct. Older generations of vampire were
hunted and nearly exterminated. They were forced to accept
anonymity as a prerequisite for their survival. The best they could
hope for was a peaceful co-existence with your kind, with humanity.
But this new generation seeks suzerainty of the earth.”

“Suzerainty?” said Bowie. “That shit don’t
sound good.”

Raheem nodded. “Total control. Of everything.
Including, alas, poor old
djinn
and their modest water-bowl
establishments.”

“Nothing modest about this place,” noted
Bowie.

“Yeah,” added Jay. “These rugs alone must
have cost, what? Five grand apiece?”

The genie waved his hand in a modest motion,
as if to dismiss the cost. “Ten to fifteen. And we are planning a
second location in Brooklyn sometime in the next year.”

“What do they think—the vampire?” asked
Gossitch. “That humans and every other thing is just going to curl
up in a ball and let them take over?”

“No, my friend,” the genie’s voice took on a
serious tone again. “They look forward to nothing short of the
extirpation of your race and the banishment of humble creatures of
faery like myself.”

“Extirpation?” asked Bowie. “You mean they
want to enslave us all?”

“No. They wish to wipe your kind out. What
you would call genocide.”

“What would they do for food?” wondered
Jay.

“I have heard it lamented among the elder
vampire, that this new breed has no eye to the future. They are too
self-involved, too focused on the present, on today at the expense
of tomorrow.”

“Yeah, well if they’ve got their scientists
manipulating genes,” deduced Santa Anna, “I got a feeling they’ve
got something in the works as far as securing a food supply.”

“Fortunately, this is much talk,” the genie
injected some levity in its tone. “The older generation of vampire
will never allow the young to implement their plans.”

“And in the meantime,” concluded Santa Anna,
“we’re safe.”

“Ah, but is one ever really safe,
doostam
?” the genie turned its attention to Jay again.
“Really, you bear the scent of the otherworldly. Tell Raheem, where
have you been?”

Jay looked flabbergasted and Bowie answered
in his stead. “That’s just good old pussy you’re smelling on the
man, Rah. Jay’s got himself some new tail.”

“Ah, the pleasures of the flesh,” Raheem
recalled fondly. “I remember well my harem and the women in it.
Western civilization was too quick to dismiss polygamy, should you
ask me.”

“How long’s it been, Rah?” Bowie slyly
asked.

The genie smiled. “Let us say, ‘it has been
awhile,’
doostam
.”

“You gotta get out of here more often,” Bowie
referred to the Oasis. “Get Fakhri to take you on a vacation.”

“Vacation? I have no time for a vacation.
Have you seen the hookah bar down the street run by those Pakis?
And I’m still recovering from my last wonderful holiday in Oman.
Have you ever been?”

“Can’t say I have,” noted Bowie.

“Oh, you should visit sometime.”

“What’dya got against Pakistanis, Rah?” asked
Gossitch.

“Have you not heard of this infidel
Bashiruddin Mahmood?”

All four men shook their heads.

“A Pakistani nuclear scientist,” explained
Raheem. “
The
Wall
Street
Journal
interviewed him and he said that
djinn
could solve the
energy crisis.”

“Really?” asked Santa Anna, taken aback.

“That’s whack,” noted Jay, pulling on the
hookah.

“Really. Imagine this humble
djinn
working for Consolidated Edison.”

“Come on, Rah,” joked Bowie. “Think outside
the bottle.”

“Sometimes, to survive,” Raheem looked at
Santa Anna. “A man finds he must do things he would otherwise
abhor.”

“Raheem,” Fakhri appeared through the rugs.
“We have a disturbance outside, in the alley.”

“Boone,” surmised Bowie.

Gossitch remained calm but looked concerned.
“Thank you for your hospitality, my friend.”

Santa Anna stood, massaging his thighs which
were cramped from being crossed.

“The pleasure is all mine, my old friend.”
The genie picked up his bottle and caressed it. “Do come back
tonight,” Raheem invited the four men as they left. “We will have
belly dancers.”

“I can’t believe you mentioned pork around
him,” admonished Bowie.

“You got him started on the fuckin’ rugs,”
retorted Jay.

“Shit…” Santa Anna muttered as the four men
entered the alley. Gossitch held up his hand, stopping Santa Anna
and the two behind him.

A black cat hissed, raising its hackles when
it saw the four new arrivals. It turned and scurried away under the
van.

Boone had a forearm across a woman’s throat
and was pulling her close to his body, the barrel of his Smith
& Wesson pressed to the side of her head. One of the woman’s
hands was clamped on the veined muscle of Boone’s forearm where his
flannel had bunched up near the elbow. Her other hand, which was
down between her and Boone’s thighs, gripped the curved blade of a
Gurka kukri knife. The kukri was buried between Boone’s legs to the
tang.

“Just shoot him.” The woman’s voice was calm
and clear. She wore black Capri pants and a black
spaghetti-strapped tank top. “Shoot me if you have to, but
definitely shoot this asshole.”

She was talking to two other women in the
vicinity. Both were similarly attired and armed with Heckler &
Koch MP-5 submachine guns.

Hamilton was lying flat on his stomach on the
ground, a look of consternation on his upturned face. The woman who
straddled him had a H&K trained on his back. An identical
submachine gun in her other hand had tracked to Gossitch and the
three men behind him as they’d entered the alley.

A third, lone gunwoman stood her ground, the
iron sights of her MP-5 focused on Boone.