Master of None (22 page)

“Under a rock.” His eyes flashed with amusement. “The pathetic human calls me Ian. Perhaps you should as well, to avoid confusing him.”

“Watch it, genie boy. I can name-call right along with you.” I had to grin myself, from pure relief. At least they wouldn’t try to kill each other now.

Unless the subject of Akila came up again.

I leveled a look at Ian. “Isn’t there something else you want to explain, now that he’s listening?”

“I do not recall anything else.”

I sighed. “Subtlety isn’t one of your strengths, is it? Descendants, wife . . . any of this sound familiar?”

“Good point, Donneghy.” Tory raised an eyebrow. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

“It’s Donatti,” I said.

“Whatever.”

Ian made a dismissive gesture. “Listen all you like. I have nothing to say.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Tory snorted. “Like I said, you’ve never wanted her.”

The expression on Ian’s face made me regret bringing it up. I hoped Tory’s tether wasn’t anywhere close. He might end up disintegrating—or whatever happened to a djinn when his tether was destroyed. “He must have,” I said, trying to put myself between them in case of sudden murder attempts. “I mean,
he wouldn’t have married her in the first place if he didn’t. Right?”

“Ah. He hasn’t told you.”

“Apparently not.” Now what had Ian conveniently forgotten to mention?

“It wasn’t his choice. Their marriage was arranged to unite our clans. And he protested it—loudly and publicly.”

“That is enough, Taregan.”

“What’s wrong? Don’t like being in the hot seat? Well, now it’s your turn.” Tory moved closer. “You deserve it, after you humiliated Akila.”

“I did not mean to hurt her—”

“Whether or not you meant it, you did. Everyone else sure as hell saw it that way.” He turned to me and said, “Your friend Ian here showed up late for his own marriage ceremony. Then, as soon as it was over, he announced that he was leaving, and he’d see his new bride in ten years when her mating cycle arrived.”

“Her wh-what?” I stammered.

“Female djinn can only reproduce for a three-day period, once every three hundred years,” Tory said. “Only when her time came, he was here, impregnating his human harem.”

“Enough! I have my reasons, Taregan, and they are not your concern. Regardless of what you and the rest of your clan believe, Akila is my wife, and we have every right not to share the details of our personal life with you.”

Tory reeled as if he’d been slapped. “Please,” he said softly. “I’m not asking for details. This has nothing to do with clans or politics. I just . . . gods, Ian. She loves you so much. It breaks my heart to think you don’t return the feeling.”

Something in Ian’s rigid stance relented. “I have always
loved her. More than you can know.” He looked away. “Akila is aware of my descendants. In fact, she made it possible by breaking the dormancy component of the tether spell. Without access to blood magic, I could not defend myself against the Morai—and I wished to do so without human sacrifice. I also needed blood descendants to ensure that the barrier would not collapse.”

“I thought all the Dehbei created the barrier together,” Tory said. “You’re telling me their blood won’t keep it from collapsing?”

All the color drained from Ian’s face. “They are all dead, Taregan. Only I remain.”

It took Tory a full minute to pull himself together. “Ian, I . . .”

A short electronic tone cut through the room and amputated the conversation. Lark’s voice followed. “Tory. Where are you?”

Tory shook himself. He unclipped a small, slim black rectangle from his waistband and held it near his head. “Upstairs. Our guests are up and about.”

“Good. We have a problem. Bring them down.”

“Be right there.” Tory replaced the device and frowned. “Come on. If Lark says we have a problem—”

“Then we’re five minutes away from gruesome death,” I finished for him. “Right?”

“Exactly.”

Crud. I’d wanted to be wrong this time.

Tory lurched us down to the basement in an old-fashioned birdcage elevator that creaked and complained and had me praying we’d survive long enough to find out what the problem was. I considered introducing Lark to the technological wonder of WD-40 but decided he’d probably take it the wrong way. We stepped out, and the décor changed from ancient cave to Bat Cave.

The central room of Lark’s subfloor hadn’t changed much since my last visit. Banks of equipment lined the perimeter, projecting a kaleidoscope of indicator lights and screen glow. A row of digital clocks still displayed the current times in every major metropolitan area on earth, and the industrial gray linoleum and cool, dry air still reminded me of a morgue.

But the sarcophagus in the glass case hadn’t been there before.

I took a closer look and recognized the unusual piece. It was about three feet tall, as if it’d been made for some obscure midget pharaoh. King Tiny the Terrible. Its angular, blank-eyed, inhuman face sported a traditional Egyptian headdresstrimmed
in onyx and gold, and long folded wings crossed its chest in place of arms.

When Lark first showed me a photo of the thing, before we failed to steal it and I crippled him, he’d said it was a falcon and that it contained mummified remains of said bird. Aside from the wings, I couldn’t see the artistic vision. It just looked damned freaky.

“Lark, how in the hell did you get this?”

Too late, I realized he couldn’t possibly know what
this
was, but he wheeled around from the screen he’d been facing to cast me a twisted smirk. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Matter of fact, I would.”

“Well, tough shit. You’re a master thief. I’m sure you know every trade secret there is to know, so I’m not going to bother explaining.” He turned back, and I could’ve sworn his chair harrumphed at me.

“Fine.” I squinted through the glass. The sarcophagus leered back. “This thing’s even uglier in person. Why’s it still here? I thought you had a buyer lined up.”

“I did,” Lark said without turning. “And I delivered.”

“So this is a figment of my imagination, then, right?”

“No. I commissioned a dupe.”

“Impressive dupe.” I was no collector, but I’d stolen plenty of art, and it looked exactly like the original to me. “Who’d you get it from?”

He laughed. “No. The one I delivered was a dupe. That one’s real.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Afraid not. That’s the genuine article, and some sucker in Italy paid half a mil for a fake.” Lark gave a thin shrug. “We needed it.”

“We?”

“Thank the gods.” Ian had come up behind me to stare into the case. “You did find it.”

“Whoa, hold on,” I said. “You’ve seen this thing?”

Ian nodded. “It is where I attempted to conceal Taregan’s tether.”

“Oh, you did more than attempt to hide it,” Tory said from the doorway. “Took me forever to find the damned thing, and when I finally did—”

Lark interrupted with a snort of laughter. “He tried to steal it. And he got busted.”

“I wasn’t trying to steal it.” Tory flushed and crossed his arms. “I was just going to get my tether out. They could’ve kept the damned coffin.”

“Yeah. That’s like saying you didn’t want the
Mona Lisa,
you were just going to take the frame.” Lark smiled, shook his head. “He’s lucky I was already working on the guard who grabbed him. That’s how we met. I had a buyer lead for a different piece at the OCM in Albany, and when I went up to feed the bribe, there was Tory trying to talk his way out of a trip downtown. He’d told the guard he dropped his watch into the exhibit, and it somehow mysteriously landed in the sealed sarcophagus, and he had to get it back.”

Tory rolled his eyes. “You just love this story, don’t you?”

“You know it.” Lark shifted his chair around and almost relaxed. “I ended up having to use the bribe money to get him out. Lost the lead, gained a partner. Fair trade.”

“Something like that.” Tory looked away, but a faint smile lingered on his lips.

I felt like an ass all over again. “So that’s why you were so hot to lift this thing,” I said. “And I . . .”

“Yeah, you fucked us. But we managed.” Lark stiffened and swiveled back to the screen, which displayed a topographical map. “Tory, I need your eyes.”

Tory crossed the floor to stand beside him. “What’s up?”

“I listened to the audio feed twice, but you know how garbled the scanner is. Check the police band for the county sheriff.”

Nodding, Tory leaned in front of the wheelchair and punched some buttons. A ticker-tape banner scrolled across the bottom of the screen. I couldn’t read the text from where I stood, but I got the general gist of it when Tory said, “Shit. How could they know?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. Funny, but I can only think of one possible answer. Why don’t you ask him?”

Tory straightened and glared at me. “You sold us out.”

“What? No, I didn’t.”

I managed two steps toward him before Ian pulled me back. “Let us clarify things before anyone does something regrettable,” he said. “Taregan, I can assure you he’s done no such thing.”

“Really. So it was you, then?”

“Will you let me talk?” I shrugged Ian off and restrained myself from lecturing him. He might have been a few thousand years old, but he had no idea how to deal with criminal protocol. I did—and I had a feeling Tory knew a thing or two, if he’d hung around Lark for long. “All right. What, exactly, is the code?”

“A ten one-oh-seven and a four eighty-seven. Two squads and a Frank dispatched. ETA thirty minutes.”

“Jesus. What did you steal, the mayor?”

Tory hesitated. “Sure you don’t know anything about this?”

“I’m clueless. Like I said, came by to ask for help.” I stifled a laugh at Ian’s baffled expression. “Suspicious person, grand theft, four officers, and a detective en route,” I explained. “They expect Lark to resist arrest. But I swear to God, I didn’t tip them. I’m not looking for amnesty. Do you think . . . wait.” Certainty struck me like a pile driver. “It was Trevor.”

Lark swiveled and faced my general direction. “How? He doesn’t know where I live, or he’d have tried to finish me off by now.”

Ian uttered something garbled and explosive. It sounded like the same curse he’d spat in Trevor’s yard. “He used Shamil to pinpoint our location.”

“
What?
” Tory looked at Ian like he’d just forecast a snowstorm in hell. “Shamil would never work for them. And only the tethers can be traced, remember?”

“I know,” Ian said. “That disgusting son of a jackal has Shamil bound and sealed. Trevor uses his blood to whore himself to one of the Morai. And . . . I carry my tether.”

Tory stood silent for a moment. “So that’s why you’re not dead. Well, Ian, this is a bit of a mixed blessing, isn’t it? They can’t break the barrier as long as you live, but you’re leading them straight to us.”

“Shamil can only trace to a fixed point, and he won’t be able to repeat the spell for several hours. No matter what they do to him.” Ian shuddered. “We will have to move.”

“Hey. Excuse me. The blind cripple objects.” Lark slapped a palm on the arm of his chair. “I can’t run. And besides, this is my fucking house. That bastard’ll destroy it if no one’s around when his rent-a-cops show up.”

Ian glanced at me. I didn’t like his expression. Before I could throw in some objections of my own, he said something stupid.

“We cannot protect your house. But we can remove your other objections.”

Tory stepped in front of Lark. “He’s not expendable, Ian. Don’t even think about it.”

“Come now. Do you really believe I intend to kill him?” Ian forced a grim smile. “The thief and I will heal him.”

I had to assume Ian meant me. Which obviously wasn’t going to work. “You’re crazy. Seriously. I can’t do that mojo stuff.”

“You’ve enough to contribute, and you will have to learn to control it quickly. I cannot do this alone.”

I shook my head. “What about Tory? I mean, he’s gotta have more juice than me.”

“Ian,” Tory said. “What is he babbling about?”

Ian looked uncomfortable. “Donatti is my descendant. And there is one other who lives still.”

“Holy shit. How did he dodge them?” Tory sent me an approving smile. “You must be the luckiest human alive. No others have managed to escape the Morai once they’ve been marked.”

“Uh, right. Lucky. That’s me.” Except that when it came to my fellow humans, I was a disaster waiting to happen. Everything that kept me alive ended up hurting someone else. How fortunate. “Like I said, why can’t you and Tory do this? You’re both full of djinn.”

“Because Taregan and I combined are merely two. You and I are bound, thief, like it or not. And together we are exponential. Now, concentrate.”

“On what? Damn it, Ian, I have no idea what I’m doing. This is stupid. I don’t have magic powers.”

“Hold on. Donatti has a point.” Lark wheeled forward with a frown. “Are you sure you have the right guy? I don’t think
he’s really your descendant. I mean, he doesn’t have a competent bone in his body.”

“Jesus Christ. I’m not that bad—”

“Besides,” Lark interrupted, “Tory already tried to heal me. Obviously, it didn’t work.”

“Taregan is young and . . . alone.” Ian averted his gaze. “And I am certain Donatti is descended from me. I would not have found him otherwise.”

“Have you actually seen this clown do anything magical?”

“All right. Enough bullshit,” I said. “Lark, if you don’t want us to try, that’s fine with me. I don’t want to make a fool of myself, because I don’t think it’ll work, either. But you’d better come up with another idea fast. The cops aren’t going to wait for us to formulate an escape plan.”

Tory crouched next to Lark’s chair. “Ian is right,
adjo
,” he said. “This guy really is descended from the djinn. I can sense it, too.”

Lark turned his head in Tory’s direction. “Do you think they can do it?”

“They’ve got a better shot than I did.”

“I don’t know. He’s still an idiot.”

“Okay, that’s it. I’m not doing this.” I backed away and looked around the room, trying to think of another option. No way I’d be able to work any magic, and Lark would hate me even more when I failed to help. “Cops aren’t here yet. Maybe one of us could carry you or something. You do have a vehicle stashed around here somewhere, right?”