Tales of the Djinn: The Guardian (20 page)

Satisfied Elyse was secure, Cara rose and dug
out her cell phone. She called someone she had on speed dial.

“We’re a go up here,” she said.

ARCADIUS hadn’t wanted to let Elyse leave.
This dimension’s attitudes about not overprotecting women confused
him. He’d said himself she wasn’t fragile. He knew she could run
her own life. Being bulletproof, however, wasn’t a quality she
could claim. She also wasn’t magic-proof, which was just as
relevant.

Hearing her go into the neighbor’s unit eased
his mind somewhat.

Hoping to ease it more, he dug out his new
cell phone. Joseph should be told what was going on.

Joseph didn’t answer even after many
rings.

Arcadius’s chest tightened. Joseph had been
quick to adopt this world’s technology. He wouldn’t turn off his
phone any more than he’d ignore his master’s ring. Something was
wrong. Arcadius needed to get to him.

He grabbed his coat but didn’t bother to find
his shoes. If Joseph were in trouble, time was of the essence. He
bounded down the building stairs, pausing at the vestibule to scan
the street outside. The metropolis’s morning was getting into gear.
Vehicles trundled by and pedestrians strode the sidewalks in work
attire. One dark sedan was begging for a ticket from the police. It
had parked in front of a fireplug. Other than that, he saw nothing
suspicious.

Cursing under his breath, he covered the
distance from the brownstone’s front steps to their below-street
entrance as nonchalantly as a barefoot person could pull off in the
snow. Remembering the window, he approached the door at a crouch.
What he spied through the security bars made him glad he’d taken
the precaution.

Two men stood in the small living room. The
first was well dressed and slightly portly, with striking
salt-and-pepper hair. The second was tall and muscular and wore
handyman overalls. Joseph didn’t appear to be enjoying their
company. He sat on the modern black couch—not in a relaxed pose.
The better dressed of the intruders had a gun trained on him, which
probably explained why Joseph hadn’t answered his call. Arcadius
instantly recognized the other man, due to his distinctive shaved
head and thorny black tattoos.

He should have known he’d cross paths with
the man who killed Elyse’s spouse. He reached for the blade he kept
in his ankle sheath . . . and remembered he’d left it tucked
beneath the pillow on Elyse’s couch. Cursing didn’t make it
reappear. He’d have to do this unarmed.

He reassessed the situation. Tattoos’ broad
back was angled to the door. He held something in his hands, over
which he was chanting. Allowing that to continue didn’t seem like a
good idea. Joseph’s face was tight with dread, the older man’s gun
preventing him from fleeing.

Arcadius prayed a distraction would allow his
associate to save himself.

Testing the door revealed that the knob would
turn. Arcadius eased it open and slipped silently inside. There was
no cover to hide behind. He had a second to debate which target to
address first.

The man with the gun decided for him.

“Hey,” he said, his arm swinging around
toward Arcadius. His voice was deep, his face oddly familiar.
Arcadius ducked to make himself a smaller target and ran for him.
Unfortunately for his spur of the moment plan, the man didn’t lose
his cool. As he faced Arcadius’s rush, he planted his feet
squarely. His second hand joined his first on the grip, and he
pulled the trigger.

He didn’t miss.

Arcadius grunted as a bullet hit him high in
the chest, beneath his left shoulder. The room flashed hot. He
assumed it was a pain reaction, but as he fell forward onto his
hands, Joseph screamed. Thick billows of black smoke erupted
through the room. The cloud swirled and hissed as if it were
angry.

“
Do my bidding
,” Tattoos intoned
ritually. He lifted his hands, which held a small brass oil
lamp—the same lamp, Arcadius suspected, that recently adorned
Elyse’s living room.

As if he were being sucked by powerful
vacuum, every bit of Joseph’s smoke essence disappeared into
it.

“Don’t get any funny ideas,” the man pointing
the gun ordered Arcadius.

Funny
ideas seemed unlikely. Serious
ones maybe. On the floor but half sitting up, Arcadius pressed one
hand to his chest. His head was swimming, the hole the bullet made
bleeding copiously.

“I can stick him in here too,” Tattoos
offered. “Killing him seems a waste.”

“Fine,” said the older man. “Just do it
quickly. He’ll bleed out if he doesn’t change form soon.”

Their awareness of this was interesting.
Suddenly Arcadius knew why the gunman’s features were familiar.
“You must be Uncle Vince,” he wheezed.

Uncle Vince snorted as his accomplice
recommenced chanting.

Magic wasn’t simply the djinn’s birthright,
it was their Achilles’ heel: the Creator’s way of evening the
scales if the more powerful race tried to take advantage of humans.
Tattoos had his chant down pat, or he couldn’t have transformed a
skilled practitioner like Joseph against his will. He wrenched
Arcadius into his smoke and fire shape even more speedily. While
Arcadius didn’t regret losing the pumping bullet wound, the
sensation of being squeezed into the lamp was highly
uncomfortable.

As soon as he was all in, he popped back into
his normal form. From his captors’ standpoint, he’d shrunk down to
toy size. From his perspective, the lamp had grown very big. The
reservoir was empty, though the musty smell of old olive oil
overwhelmed. Joseph was there already, dry heaving on his hands and
knees by the curving wall. He wasn’t far from the nozzle hole,
through which the wick would feed if it were lit. The floor of the
lamp bobbed like an anchored ship in a rough harbor. Grateful the
motion wasn’t worse, Arcadius lurched carefully to Joseph. The oil
residue was sticky beneath his feet. Because Joseph wasn’t getting
up, he knelt down and rubbed his back.

“Sorry, master,” the servant said miserably.
“I wasn’t clever enough to stop them.”

At moments like this, when Joseph took so
much weight upon himself, Arcadius felt like his father.

“Neither was I,” Arcadius said. “But in every
battle some events go awry. The important thing is not giving up.
Take a minute to recover. We’ll figure a way out of this.”

Joseph groaned. “My body wasn’t ready to be
changed. I feel terrible.”

Arcadius supposed he had his rescue of Elyse
to thank for the fact that he felt all right. He’d already cleared
that hurdle. “Lift your head closer to the spout where the air is
fresh.”

Without air, they’d have had to stay in smoke
form. Arcadius helped Joseph move, keeping his arm around his
shoulders even after his shakes lessened.

“All right,” he said then. “Tell me
everything you’ve learned.”

Joseph had been paying attention. He’d
discovered the tattooed man’s name was Mario. Elyse’s Uncle Vince
acted like he was the boss of the partnership, but Mario had
betrayed signs of having his own ambitions. “Mario doesn’t respect
him,” Joseph said. “I saw him sneering behind Elyse’s uncle’s back.
From what I pieced together, Mario plans to enslave a gang of djinn
to commit crimes for him. After he’s honed the art of control on
us, he’ll journey through the nexus to capture more. Vince doesn’t
seem to care about that. He’s interested in treasure. He views
Mario as hired muscle. I don’t think he suspects his associate
wants to take over.”

“You learned a lot,” Arcadius observed.

“They weren’t careful how they spoke. I don’t
think they saw me as a threat.”

“What about the spell? Did Mario leave any
holes your magic can sneak through?”

“Not that I could tell.” Joseph’s shoulders
sagged. “I fear our gooses are truly cooked. Elyse’s too. They
believe the three of us are working together, and that she knows
more than she’s admitted.”

The message David left for Elyse made this
unsurprising news. Arcadius very much disliked being unable to go
to her, but hopefully she’d stay safe with her neighbor until he
could. “What about this lamp?”

“It is a proper djinn artifact. The lid is
stamped with the full Seal of Solomon, the same as the wise king
wore on his signet ring. No spell I know can break through
that.”

Arcadius recalled picking up the lamp at
Elyse’s place. He’d been convinced it was empty, though he hadn’t
tried opening it. Something about the memory nagged at him.

“The spout,” he breathed quietly. “It had no
stopper. And this Mario fellow hasn’t yet put one in. He probably
doesn’t know he should.”

Joseph’s eyes went round. “We
can
get
out. Master, you are the wisest djinni who ever lived.”

Arcadius knew that wasn’t true. Neither of
them would be in this fix if it were.

“We’ll watch for our moment,” he said.
“They’ll probably take the lamp with them wherever they go next,
but at some point their attention will shift to something
else.”

“And out we’ll smoke,” Joseph said. “May God
the Merciful smile on us.”

Arcadius murmured a quick prayer of
agreement.

~

Cara paced the length of the living room,
waiting for whomever she’d phoned to arrive. Elyse had plenty of
time to admire her figure-flattering white blouse and black
trousers. Her crisply clacking heels looked like Jimmy Choos.

Cara dressed stylishly for every occasion,
she supposed.

Under the circumstances, feeling frumpy in
her jeans and T-shirt was pointless. She focused on her relief that
whatever Cara had drugged her with was wearing off. She was duct
taped to a chair and couldn’t escape, but at least her head was
clear enough to consider how she might.

It was also clear enough to realize she’d
kill for a cup of Joseph’s spine-stiffening Turkish brew.

Oh, my God
, she thought, a tingle
sweeping across her scalp. When Joseph said he used magic to make
the coffee, he hadn’t been kidding. He was a genie too.

All right, Elyse’s thought processes really
had been sluggish.

Normally, she tuned out the building’s
various noises. With nothing to do but listen, she heard multiple
sets of feet coming up the stairs. Cara heard them too. She
immediately fluffed her hair, undid two more buttons on her white
blouse, and turned to face the door. She rubbed her lips together
to ensure her bronzy lipstick covered them evenly. Finally, she
took a deep breath and smiled. A quiet knock sounded.

“It’s open,” Cara called.

After witnessing that little preparation,
Elyse was interested to see who came in. The chair she’d been taped
to faced the front windows. If she turned, she could see the
fireplace on one side and the door on the other. The first person
to enter was Uncle Vince—surely not who her cousin had primped for.
Unable to speak, Elyse met his gaze unflinchingly, telling him as
clearly as she could what she thought of his behavior. He looked
away, irritation and a hint of shame fighting for the upper hand in
his expression. Defensiveness defeated both.

The reaction was classic Uncle Vince. Nothing
could ever be his fault.

Then Elyse noticed the man behind him.

Damn it, she
was
the biggest idiot in
Creation. Uncle Vince’s companion was Mario, her tattooed
substitute handyman. Screw being PC. She should have trusted her
original suspicions.

He seemed to enjoy her reaction. He grinned,
tipping two fingers from his temple to her in acknowledgment. Then
he caught sight of Cara.

His stride faltered, his jaw dropping. He
acted like he’d never seen her before, though Elyse was under the
impression the trio had been conspiring for a while. That didn’t
seem to matter. Mario’s breath sucked in, one fist pressing his
breastbone. His eyes were actually glazing as Elyse watched color
bloom in his cheeks.

Oh
, she thought.
He’s the man Cara
wanted to fall in love with her
. She couldn’t deny she was
relieved. A second later, she felt unnerved. Had she looked like
that the first time she met David?

“Dad,” Cara said with a little smile.
“Mario.” She put an extra purr in his name. “As you can see, I’ve
been busy.”

Mario shook himself, immediately looking more
normal or trying to. He was carrying something like a football in
the bend of his arm.

“Cara,” he said gruffly. “Good job as
usual.”

“Can we get on with this?” Uncle Vince
prodded impatiently.

“Are the djinn secured?” Cara asked Mario,
temporarily ignoring her father.

With one tattooed hand, Mario tapped the
object he held. Elyse sat straighter. That was
her
Aladdin’s
lamp, one of her favorite presents from her father. Cara must have
stolen it to give to him.

“Locked up tight,” he said.

His gaze connected with Cara’s. He’d lost his
glaze. He reminded Elyse of a badass biker guy in a bar who’d
settled on his night’s target.
Yes
, his dark eyes were
saying.
You’re coming home with me
. Pleased with the
attention, Cara simpered and stroked her neck. Mario didn’t seem to
mind.

“For God’s sake,” Vince snapped. “My daughter
flirts with every male on two legs. Set up the shield so we can
interrogate my niece.”

Mario appeared startled to have been so
transparent. He set the Aladdin’s lamp on a table—not the table it
belonged on, Elyse thought in annoyance. Hands free, he pulled a
ball of twine from one of his work uniform’s side pockets. He
unrolled it quickly, forming a wiggly circle around her living
room, perhaps ten feet in diameter. When he ran out of string, he
tied the ends together and muttered a single word. Elyse’s ears
popped. She guessed the shield was in place.

“The twine blocks sound from leaving the
circle,” Cara explained helpfully. “You can scream all you want and
no one will hear.”