The Accidental Genie (31 page)

“Any last words, tulip?” Victor asked, sultry and smooth, his lips on the shell of her ear.

Her eyes popped open and she stared him down just like she had at the warehouse. “Nope. Slice away. But do me this—you know, thinking ahead to a possible open-casket funeral—keep it neat, ’kay?”

If he was taken aback, it was only for seconds before he was giving her that hard glare again. “I can’t believe you have no last words. You always have words.”

She sighed, slumping back against the wall. “It’s not like you understand most of them anyway. They’re too big. So I don’t see the point.”

He leered at her, ramming his face into hers while his hot breath lanced her nostrils. “You were always so high and mighty, weren’t you,
Charlie
? With your big words and your high school diploma? Too smart for a drug dealer, right?”

She laughed in his face. If she was going, it was all the way. “Oh, c’mon, don’t sell yourself short. The FBI called you a drug
lord
. Muuch bigger than small-time dealer. You were on the most-wanted list. Still are, as far as I know. Pat yourself on the back. You’ve done your mother proud.”

His hand snaked back around her neck—so cliché. “Fuck the FBI! They killed my brothers! And as to mothers”—he lowered his voice, adding that deep hum of a threat—“I plan to pay her a little visit—very soon.”

The mention of her mother made her blood boil. If he touched her mother . . . Nekaar’s eyes flashed a warning in her peripheral vision, and she fought the urge to strike back in anger. Clenching her hands tight to stave off the instinct to spit in his face, she said, “Make sure she offers to whip you up a batch of her white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. Badass. All the drug
lords
like ’em.”

Victor’s head cocked for a moment in wonder at her, making Jeannie’s intestines knot up. She had to play this right. If he questioned her intentions, they were ruined. In comedy, timing was everything. That held weight in genie death, too. Yet it was much different when you knew what the outcome would be. Or thought you knew . . . She gave him a bland look. “So are we doing this? C’mon, drug lord, you know you got it in you.”

Leaning into her face, he sneered at her, his eyes full of the hatred he’d nurtured for so long. “I’ve waited twelve years for this, you traitorous whore,” he seethed. Sweat dotted his upper lip as he leered at her.

Yet, he lingered, tracing the knife in a shaky pattern over her neck. Jesus Christ and a crack whore.

Phase two of this plan clearly needed to be set in motion. Praying her voice wouldn’t give out on her, Jeannie reared up against him, feeling the tip of the knife prick her flesh. “Do it, coward! Do it, you spineless piece of uneducated shit!” she screamed, making her eyes bulge, spraying his face with spit. “Do it just like you did to Jorge. C’mon, you know how to kill innocent babies! I should be a piece o’ cake! Kill me and get it over with, you motherfuckerrrr!” she bellowed so loud it made his greasy hair sway from her exhale of breath.

And it hurt her throat. But it was for the cause—so, whatever.

Victor dragged her forward by the hair, digging his fingers deep into her scalp, tilting her neck back so her throat was revealed. He yanked her upward with a furious hand, dragging her as far away as the ankle cuffs would allow. Jesus. If he didn’t do this soon, she was going to have a dislocated hip, too.

Briefly, she caught sight of Najim and Nekaar, their faces appropriately fearful. Yet, the flicker in Nekaar’s eyes was real. This plan they’d hatched was risky, and she felt Nekaar’s cool facade slip, but she warned him with her eyes, begging him to just let this play out. He twitched his thumb in an upward motion, pretending he was wiping the corner of his mouth.

All systems go.

Burt was still behind Victor, his sunken eyes wide with fear, his body visibly trembling. He continued to hop from foot to foot in nervous anticipation—like some methed-out cheerleader. “C’mon, Victor!” he whined. “Do it before one of her stupid dogs starts to bark—they’re tearing shit up in the bathroom.”

Victor shook her violently, arching her spine at an awkward position, breathing heavily as he raised the knife, gleaming and sharp. She saw it then. The anticipation in his eyes. The gleam of excitement he drew from literally being handed the opportunity to finally get his revenge made keeping her mouth shut and not screaming a neener, neener in his face really hard.

Victor held that pose for a long, drawn-out moment. He looked macabre in his new genie garb. Dark and glistening with sweat, his teeth white in his swarthy face, he shook with maniacal joy as he prepared to end her life.

Sweat dripped from his brow. His wild eyes looked down at her when he opened his mouth wide to screech, “This is for
mi familia
, you backstabbing snitch!”

“
Fuck—you
, Victor!” she screamed just as the knife sliced through her flesh, cutting her so deep, she heard the gurgle of blood spew from her neck.

Oh, and she also heard Sloan burst through the door with Nina right behind him roaring, “Jeannnniieee!”

What was it about hell and a road?

Oh, right. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

*   *   *

S
LOAN
lunged for Victor seconds too late, snarling his agony in a howl so earsplitting that even from where Jeannie sat, for all intents and purposes dead to the casual observer’s eye and still propped up against the wall Victor had slammed her into after he’d slit her throat, made her want to put her hands over her ears. As she watched, helplessly immobile, her rage rose to a new level of hatred.

“I’ll kill you, you bastard!” Sloan bellowed, Nina charging in behind him.

Jeannie realized, from this strange in-between place, she was almost glad Sloan and Nina had shown up. It meant Nekaar and Najim would suffer far less abuse at the hands of Burt and Victor while she did this crazy thing called transition. Her thoughts warmed when she realized, both genies had gone into this crazy plan knowing they’d be rendered helpless until she transformed.

As Sloan went for Victor’s throat, Nina, her eyes full of momentary anguish at the sight of Jeannie, hesitated for only a moment before she was prying the cuffs from Nekaar’s ankles like they were made of butter.

For all the good it would do him, Jeannie mused. Hadn’t Nekaar said no one could remove the curse on the ankle bracelets but the genie who’d cursed it in the first place? Wasn’t that why she’d taken this ugly, gaping-wound hit? Didn’t Nekaar say there was no other way but for her to die? Oh, if this crazy idea worked, she was going to banish him to the realm of eternal stupidhead!

But to Jeannie’s surprise, Nekaar was up and springing into action, removing Najim’s cuffs as the ex-ruler scrambled toward Jeannie to perform the ritual as they’d planned. His eyes held terror when his gaze fixed on Jeannie.

Yet, Najim’s words for the spell were strong if not hushed and quick and when he rose to join Nekaar in the fight, his last glance at Jeannie was that of reassurance.

Nekaar became a force, leaping into the air to raise an angry fist in Victor’s direction. He screamed something in a language Jeannie didn’t understand, his face a mask of tight fury.

A thunderbolt of a multicolored beam shot from his large fingers, knocking Victor against the wall and smashing her dresser. Wood pieces exploded into the air, jutting into the walls in sharp splinters, making a whizzing sound as they flew by. The wall separating her bedroom and living room blew apart with an explosion of sheetrock and nails.

The beam of light, menacingly blue, sought Victor as though it were a missile in search of its target. It headed straight for him, grazing his head so it slammed against the wall and bounced back off, giving Sloan just the opportunity he needed.

Sloan dodged the hissing beam and went for Victor, clearly mindless to the fact that Nekaar was now in control of the situation.

Nekaar screamed above the shrill howl of wind Burt had created, “No, Sloan!”

But Sloan was single-minded as he raced across the room at the speed of light, heading straight for Victor’s throat.

But Victor had semi-recovered, rising up and levitating to hover over the room. His hand morphed into a sledgehammer, oversized and square. He brought it down with the sound of thunder on Sloan’s head.

Sloan dropped to the ground, crashing against the floor and leaving an imprint of his twisted form in the remains of the wood.

Jeannie’s surprise at how swiftly Victor had taken to djinn magic was quickly replaced with sorrow for Sloan. Fear for his safety washed over her. A fear she couldn’t express while this transition kept her imprisoned as nothing more than a corporeal observer.

This stupid spell better friggin’ work or she was going to hunt Nekaar down from her genie afterlife. Sprawled up against the wall and helpless was nothing short of maddening. And, in a moment of lunacy, she thought, this position she was propped up in was probably going to leave her with a crick in her neck due to its odd angle. On top of everything else, if she survived this, someone owed her a massage.

Victor set his malicious eyes on Nekaar. Throwing his hands up like a conductor at a symphony, he lifted Nekaar in the air, and for a moment, suspended the regal genie before balling him up and throwing him across the room like a human baseball.

Nekaar crashed into her living room wall, falling to the ground in a pile of limbs and harem pants.

Nina flashed her fangs in anger, setting her sights on Victor just as Najim twirled his finger in the air, creating a tornadolike effect of rain and wind. As rain slashed against her face, Nina launched herself at Victor. Grabbing him by the neck and raising her hand high, she slammed him into what was left of the springs of the bed, piercing his skin with the sharp coils of the mattress.

Then Burt was in the mix, too, finally grasping what was really going on around him—he sprang into action. Using both arms, he raised them high and spread his fingers, flinging his hands as though there were excess water on them he was attempting to shake off.

Bolts of fire came from out of nowhere, hitting Nina in the head with a sizzling crack. She screamed her rage, straightening with her arms open wide, her fists clenched. She narrowed her eyes, pinpointing Burt as her new target. As she leapt through the room, hurling pieces of debris from her path, she lifted the chair and flung it at Burt, just catching him in the side of his head and knocking him sideways.

She screamed a rebel yell so untamed and fierce, Jeannie, from her strange, ethereal view, shuddered. Yet, even as Nina immobilized Burt, Victor was back on top again, soaring through the air and directly toward Nina.

Then Marty and Wanda were at her door, eyeing the situation with a critical glance before rushing in and shifting to their were-forms. Snarling and screeching, they lunged into the melee. Howls rose up in the air, flesh tore, hair flew, and still, they waged.

All in an effort to avenge her supposed death.

Jeannie wanted to scream into the falling debris and howling wind, to warn them they weren’t immune to a genie’s magic. There was no eternal life when up against a djinn, but she was trapped until this transformation occurred. Her fear ratcheted up a notch, as the people she’d come to care for fought for their lives.

Sloan shifted then—his clothes splitting and ripping apart in chunks of material. He fell to the floor with a crash. He growled, his mouth opening wide, revealing his teeth; his howl was feral when he reared back on all fours and located Victor.

Victor had Nina clamped to the wall, imprisoned by some invisible force while she struggled to free herself, the veins in her arms pulsing visibly.

And Team Paranormal was suckin’ wind.

Najim eyed the spot in the room they’d chosen for her to wait and gave a slight nod of acknowledgment to her before he began to spin like a top. The centrifugal force of it created a windstorm even Victor’s newly acquired magic couldn’t contain.

Nina was suddenly thrown free of the wall, dropping to her feet with catlike grace. “I’ll kill you, motherfucker!” Her eyes met Najim’s, and Jeannie wanted to scream to her that he wasn’t the enemy.

But she had no choice in the matter
. Completion is important, madam
.
These things take time
, Nekaar had said.

Yet, while she waited for completion, devastation was occurring all around her.

Nekaar noted Nina’s lunge for Najim and roared, “He is not the enemy, angry one! Get Victor!”

Glass flew in every direction, loud clashes of thunder and screeching metal clanged around the room in resounding echoes.

And still Jeannie waited as Nina rose up again and again, doing whatever was in her power to thwart Burt and Victor.

Jeannie’s eyes followed Sloan as he lunged for Victor over and over, snarling, bellowing his rage until she wanted to scream for them to stop.

As suddenly as that thought came was how suddenly she felt the return of her soul to her body. In the blink of an eye, she felt her arm move, her toes twitch, and her head throb from the brutal blow she’d taken to the back of her head.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, literally, Jeannie plowed upward, taking the debris of Sheetrock and glass that had fallen on her prone body with her as she went.

So, yeah, in the immortal words of Nina Blackman-Statleon—it was time to roll some bitchez.

CHAPTER

18

Power surged through her limbs, rocketing her skyward. The room quaked, crashing and shaking with such vengeance her teeth chattered together.

Victor, his eyes wide in disbelief, backed away, staggering to press himself against a wall.

Nekaar had managed to untwist himself and locate her old bottle. He held it up like he’d just won the mirror ball on
Dancing with the Stars
, shaking it wildly and jumping up and down. His face was weary. Blood dripped from the top of his shiny head as his strong, bronzed arm began to tremble in an effort to hold up the bottle.

Burt now hovered in a corner, cowering and quaking. His face was covered in Sheetrock dust, marked only by the tracks of his frightened tears. He curled into a ball, whimpering and begging.

Jeannie flew at Burt’s face while debris swirled around her, and yelled the words Nekaar had taught her. “I, master of all djinn . . .” she stumbled.

Hoo, shit. She’d forgotten. Damn her short-term memory. Wait. Was it,
I, master of all djinn, do so solemnly curse you to this bottle for eternity
? Or was it
forever
? Wait. Didn’t the curse rhyme?

Crap, crap, crap! If she got one word wrong, it could all go to hell.

Nekaar ran toward her like a football player headed for the goal post. He jumped up on what remained of her bedpost, wobbling momentarily before perching himself there and repeated the words in a flurry of frantic gestures. “Madam, listen! I, master of all djinn
near and far
, curse you to live in this bottle wherever you are!”

Well, hell. There was no
eternity
at all in there, now was there?

Her voice flew from her throat in a boom when she repeated the words, “I, master of all djinn near and far, curse you to live in this bottle wherever you are!”

“Not agaiiiinnn!” Burt wailed, making a break for what was left of her doorway only to become a stream of green smoke with the faint smell of garbage to it. Nekaar held the bottle up, waving his hand and directing the stream of wispy tendrils into it like an air traffic controller.

One down, one to go.

And there was no choice in the matter. As vile as Victor was, as much as Jeannie found the only solution to this problem as reprehensible as what Victor had done, Nekaar had reminded her, she had more than just herself to think about now.

“Act quickly, madam!” Nekaar directed frantically, as Najim continued to try to pry Victor’s hands from an object she couldn’t quite see, and Sloan, attached to Victor’s back, began tearing at his flesh with his razorlike teeth.

As fast as Sloan’s teeth tore gouges of skin from Victor’s back was as fast as they healed. Marty and Wanda ripped pieces of his flesh from his legs to no avail.

But Mat was there like a shot out of the dark, soaring through the air like an Air Force fighter plane. He aimed right for Sloan, Marty, and Wanda, spreading his fibers until he encompassed them all, knocking them off Victor. “Invisiiiibbbblllee!” he yelled, clear as day, nary a phlegm-riddled cough in sight.

OMG. He’d done it! Jeannie roared her approval, fighting back a tear of pride. “Totally invisible!”

Najim, through clenched teeth, yelled to her, “Jeannie—
do this
! I can’t hold him off”—he clamped his jaw tight—“much longer!”

Victor lunged for Nina and dug his fingers into her neck, ramming her against the wall. Her eyes had gone glassy and her long legs dangled.

The scent of garlic and burning flesh rose to Jeannie’s nose, and it was then that she realized, Victor must have materialized a cross out of thin air, a cross decorated with a rope of garlic. He drove the cross against her chest, singeing her flesh and immobilizing her.

She didn’t think she could hate Victor any more than she already did for the life he’d stolen from so many, but his hands around Nina’s neck, burning her flesh, made Jeannie’s anger spike to a new height.

Her eyes zeroed in on Victor, her voice flew from her lips like a sonic boom. “You will die, Victor Lopez! For all the wrong you’ve done, for the lives you’ve stolen, you will die!” she spat, shooting hot flames from her mouth so they nipped at his limbs.

Throwing her hands into the air, she fisted them, releasing what Nekaar had called the Walk of Shame curse—or spell—or whatever.

Their eyes connected, and with the help of her newly bestowed power, Jeannie created a startling visual—the visual she’d lived with in her head for the last twelve years.

An ugly picture of agonizing suffering—the movie reel of the deaths that had dirtied his hands. Jorge, broken on the ground, their housekeeper, bloodied and riddled with bullets, Victor’s brothers in twisted piles of limbs. Him as he brought the butt of that gun down on her relentlessly, screaming she was his forever.

It was all there for him to see in living color.

Victor dropped Nina, whimpering in fear. He looked up at this entity she’d become, his mouth open wide in a silent scream of horror.

Jeannie wasted no time, striking hard and fast. Whirling around, Jeannie put her hands together, one on top of the other, then opened them, keeping the heels of them pressed tight and curling her fingers inward. She repeated the words in her head, words she must never speak aloud, just as Nekaar had taught her but moments ago.

I banish thee, oh foulest of foul, I banish thee with this dragon’s howl!

To her shaking amazement, her hands twisted, reshaping themselves into the mouth of a scaled, mottled blue dragon. Its head bobbled, rearing back, then up in a fierce howl. Opening her hands wide, she breathed fire on him, hot and searing. A long tongue, pink and ringed with ridges, snapped at Victor once before snatching him from the air and rolling his body up like a weenie in a blanket.

He wailed in agony, twisting and tearing at the tongue just before it swallowed him whole.

Silence, in all its eerie bliss, settled on the room.

Jeannie dropped to the floor, falling to the ground in a puff of Sheetrock and wood. Nekaar was above her in an instant. “Oh, madam.” He clapped his hands together with a rapid motion. “You were stunning!”

She looked up at him, her eyes crossing. “You know this genie thing?” She held up her red palms for inspection. “It burns. The next time you tell me to dragon-up, a little warning, m’kay?”

Nekaar swept her up in his arms and twirled her around, laughing and lifting her off her feet to bounce her up and down. “You did it. Never have I seen such vivid execution!”

She winced at the pain in her ribs and tried to squirm out of his grasp. Nina, immobile on the floor, caught her eye. She waved a hand, a hand that made Nekaar release her without saying a word.

Wow. Goooo, genies.

Dropping to Nina’s side, she threw herself on the vampire’s chest and sobbed, “MWA! Don’t you do this to me. Don’t you dare die. Not today. Do you hear me? If you die, there’ll be no one to call me midget!” Tears stung her eyes.

Nina groaned, making Jeannie’s head pop up. Nina’s eyes flew open. “Shut up, shawty. I’m not dead, but I want explanations—like right fucking now.” She rubbed at the spot, where a faint imprint of the cross Victor held to her chest remained.

“Jeannie!”

Her eyes lifted to the tune of Sloan’s voice. Sloan, who’d come to get her despite the fact she’d asked him to stay away.

A buck-naked Sloan who was fighting his way out from under Mat.

She snapped her fingers like she’d been doing it all her life, restoring Sloan’s clothing to the precise shape they’d been in before he came charging in to save his damsel in distress. Jeannie stared at her fingers, confused. After all that frickin’ struggle to keep some candles floating in the air, she was suddenly genie extraordinaire? The magic had just happened without effort or even much thought.

Jeannie hopped over a grumbling Nina and hurled herself into his arms, forgetting the screaming ache of her ribs and the continual throb of her head. “Sloan! Oh, God. Why did you come here? I told you to stay home!”

He pulled her tight to him, his cologne drifting to her nose as she buried her face in his neck. “You didn’t really think I believed you, did you? That was some of the worst acting I’ve ever witnessed. It’s good you cook,” he teased.

She planted a warm kiss to his lips, running her hands over his jaw. “You could have been killed.” Her heart clenched at the thought.

“Um, excuse me, Ms. Carlyle. You
were
killed,” he reminded her, his eyes taking on a haunted look. “I saw it with my own two eyes.”

She nodded, squeezing his neck. “That was the plan, silly.”

Nina was leering at her over Sloan’s shoulder, her head bald in spots where the fire had singed it, her clothes torn and blackened. She waved her hand. “Explanation. Now. ’Cus I’m feelin’ a little pissy about the state of my hoodie.” She held up the burned edge of it and narrowed her eyes.

Jeannie slid from Sloan’s body, planting her feet on the floor. “Okay, so here’s the deal. I’m now officially the master of the djinn.”

“Well, la-dee-da.” Nina crowed sarcastic approval.

Jeannie curtsied in response and smiled.

“So, queen djinn, how the fuck did the whack Victor get out of the bottle?” Nina demanded.

Nekaar was instantly at Jeannie’s side. “It was I, pale one. I am responsible for Victor’s release. Should ire be your choice of emotion, please direct such at me,” he stated with an arrogant lift to his chin as he crossed his arms over his chest and widened his stance.

Nina’s lips thinned. She jammed her face into Nekaar’s. “You know, cue ball, that motherfucking wife beater almost killed me and the paranormal posse. How is it that whenever your Aladdin ass is in the vicinity, bad shit’s happenin’?”

Jeannie stepped between Nina and Nekaar. “Nekaar mistakenly let Victor out of the bottle. Long story—I’ll share the details later. Anyway, Burt was the one who kidnapped Najim, er, the former ruler of the djinn.”

Sloan’s eyes held confusion. “Na-who?”

Najim crossed the room, his elegant silver jacket, cropped at the waist, still smoking. His raven hair was almost white from the sheetrock dust, and his harem pants, garnished with red rubies, were flapping behind him. Placing his palms together, he bowed before Nina and Sloan. “I’m Najim. It’s an honor.”

Nina scoffed and made a face, wiping a hand over her soot-streaked face. “You’re the head genie? Did you win that title on your Xbox 360, dude?”

Instead of taking offense, he leaned into Jeannie and gave her a brilliant smile. “No. But it’s just one more thing I can add to my list of stuff to catch up on now that Jeannie’s taking over.”

Jeannie couldn’t help but giggle. “Najim was the ruler of Genie Land. When Burt cursed me after he escaped from the bottle, he didn’t just turn me into a genie or simply screw up and tether Sloan and I together—he somehow released this crazy power that sort of landed on me. So the reason I was granting random wishes was because not only was my magic untrained, it was all screwed up. It had to be tweaked, so to speak.”

Nina scruffed her soot-covered hair up and grinned. “Badass, midget. So explain the shiz that just went down. You were dead, kiddo. Scared the living shit out of me.”

Jeannie saw the flash of concern in Nina’s eyes before she slapped her tough exterior back on, and it made her heart shift in her chest. “I was dead, that’s true. Very dead. And you’d have never seen any of it if you’d just stayed away,” she admonished, rolling her eyes in Sloan’s direction. “Genie magic trumps
all
magic. So your paranormal superpowers, as you saw, did little good.” She went on to explain how Burt had found her and what he and Victor had planned to do to Jeannie in their quest to steal her power.

Nina’s eyes went directly to Nekaar with accusation flashing in them. “So, if Burt was the dummy in this relationship, how the fuck is it that you didn’t know he could do something like this?”

Nekaar’s sigh was of exaggerated exasperation. “Because, madam, I do not seek such atrocities. I was not aware anyone could take our ruler’s place. I was also unaware that a book existed with instructions on how to do so. I am not malevolent in nature!”

Sloan patted Nekaar on the back. “Burt was who checked out the book from the library? The book had real information? Information that worked?” Sloan asked.

Jeannie squeezed Nekaar’s arm. “Yep, and the curse Burt originally hurled at me was totally a screwup on his part. He didn’t complete the curse. When he found out what he’d done, he looked for ways to get the magic back.”

Nina planted her hands on her hips. “Get to the death part, midget.”

Jeannie smiled in Nekaar and Najim’s direction. “My death was all part of the plan. I distracted Burt while Victor was in the kitchen cooking up my destruction and Mat, the most awsometastic magic carpet ever, slithered off into the living room, found that damn book, read the spell they planned to perform on me, and slithered back in. Originally, Victor was going to kill me, transfer my power to Burt, making Burt the new ruler because as you know, genies can’t use magic for personal gain. So I let Victor do what he’s wanted to do all these years. Kill me.”

“I fucking told you we shouldn’t have put Victor in the bottle. You shoulda let me kill him,” Nina said, balling her fists.

Sloan put an arm around Nina and said, “Hush, vampire.” His warm eyes fell on Jeannie as she continued.

“Anyway, we didn’t have much choice. We were all rendered powerless by those stupid ankle cuffs. So the only choice we had was to let Victor kill me, have Najim repeat the words to the spell, which, by the way, you don’t even have to be a genie to perform, and pray Najim and Nekaar didn’t suffer too long, chained to that damn wall, while I made the transition. Talk about a leap of faith, right? What they didn’t count on was Najim performing the spell on me before they could get there first.” Jeannie followed her words with a smug smile. “And speaking of spells . . .” She turned to Nekaar, her eyes flashing. “Didn’t you tell me no one but the genie who cursed those cuffs could remove the curse? Nina’s not a genie.”

Nekaar’s eyes were sheepish. “I spoke too soon, I fear. My most informed guess is, Burt cursed the cuffs, madam. And we all know how Burt’s curses roll, as you say.”