Djinn: Cursed (6 page)

I narrowed my eyes and hissed in anger as I looked between the wide-eyed Dorian and angry looking Hailey, “Xerxes line is safe from any retaliatory wishes as his first wish to Synne, was that our Djinn power could not be used against any of his blood.”

I shrugged as I felt another tear roll down my cheek.  “So basically, I'm fucked.”

Dorian pulled my head down to her shoulder, shaking her head and shushing me.  It felt good.  It felt safe.

Hailey brightened. “I don't know if I can believe any of that.  But your wings sort of put the kibosh on any doubts I could possibly voice.  But you've already broken the curse.  So you still have a chance to beat it, hon.”

I looked over at her, hope in my heart. “What do you mean?”

She squinted one eye and turned her head slightly to the side.  “Weeeell, unless I read all your signals wrong, you play on the fairer side of the fence.  And I'm pretty sure it takes a guy somewhere in the mix to make a baby.  So if that part of the curse is broken, maybe the rest is too.”

Then I started laughing without meaning to, and the laugh started changing into a sob.  It wracked my body uncontrollably, and Dorian latched onto me, concern etching her face.  She held me and shushed me and asked, “What is it, Angel?”

I got control over my emotions.  This was a living nightmare.  I found myself terrified, but not for me.  I whispered, “I have a daughter.”

This got both of the women to ask in shocked unison, “What?”

I sat up, moving away from Dorian and wiping my tears on my arm.  “I... when I was younger.  Fifteen.  I was confused.  I didn't understand my own sexuality and tried to prove to myself I was... normal?  I was stupid.  One thing led to another, and I found out I was pregnant, and that I was definitely a lesbian as I found I couldn't connect more than just physically to the boy.”

I fought off another crying jag as I finished, “Nine months later, I gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl.  I was just a child myself, I wouldn't be able to care for a child, being in foster care myself.  I thought that giving her up for adoption was best for the little one.  I didn't even get a chance to hold her, her new parents took her away before I could even say goodbye.”

I sobbed. “I don't even know my baby girl's name.  And now she's going to share this fucking curse with me.”  I pulled myself under control and growled, “I'm never going to wish again.  I'll never let the curse win.  I've already wasted two of the ten.”  I slapped a wing, illustrating the dangers.

Dorian and Hai exchanged a look, and my purple haired savior offered carefully, “Two?  I mean the wings are self-explanatory, though I don't know why you'd wish for wings.”

I shook my head and chuckled sardonically. “It wasn't something I consciously wanted, I was busy falling to my death from where Baldy had thrown me from the Coit Tower.  I wished I could fly and... well...”  I spread my wings, to Dorian's wide eyed delight.  I shivered at her touch as she ran her fingers wonderingly along my feathers.  It felt so sinfully good.

I swallowed and blushed then playfully wrapped my wings around her, with the sound of flapping canvas in the air, as I looked over to Hailey while Dori giggled.  I shrugged and said, “And the second...”  I trailed offhandedly.

She nodded slowly in understanding as she finished for me, “Before you started screaming bloody murder and collapsed, you wished you knew what was going on.”

I nodded as I let Dori out of her feathery prison.  I tapped my head, which was still aching with the worst migraine of my life, as I shrugged and said in resignation, “And now I do.  I don't even know all that was stuffed in here yet.  There is too much on the subject to sift through.”

I said in a whisper, “I can't let this thing win, my daughter is out there somewhere, and I can't put her through this.”

We were all silent for a long moment, at a loss.  Then I asked, “How am I going to live like this?”  I shrugged my wings up in illustration.  Then looked over at the muted television where I watched security footage from the club of me running for the back door, Baldy in pursuit as Hailey kicked some serious ass.  Then I added, “Half the city is looking for me now, and I can't let them find me.  Not like... this.”

Hailey nodded and took charge, much to my relief. “Ok.  First things first.  You need to get out of those clothes, they have blood all over them.”  I paused and looked down at the blood spray on them and swallowed hard.  It was Stacy's blood.  I looked around, she was here now, and I'm sure she knew it was hers as well.

I nodded, and Hai went on. “Take a shower, and I have to get at least a bit of sleep if I have to deal with all the fuckery with the police in a bit.  Then we can figure things out from there.”  Then she got deathly serious as she said in a firm tone, “We'll help you figure this all out, darlin'.”

I nodded, fighting back tears.  Why was knowing I wasn't alone such an immense relief to me?  I started for the bathroom, grabbing the hem of my tank top and started to pull it up before I stopped and ground out, “Son of a bitch.”

The two looked at me with concern as I looked over my shoulder, between my wings.  Dorian asked with that same concern in her voice, “What is it, Angel?”

I looked at them sheepishly and tugged up on my shirt, the bottom tangling with my feathers as I squeaked out in embarrassment.  “How am I supposed to get this shirt off?”

This got a couple of chuckles from the peanut gallery as they stepped up to help.  I felt silly and awkward.  But I guess I fit right in there, not such an odd platypus in our group.  A bird-girl, a ghost magnet, and a purple haired badass who was sexier than anyone her age had a right to be.

I must have dozed off sitting in the little plush reading chair beside the bed while Hailey slept.  I had a rough time in the shower trying to get clean.  My stupid wings would not cooperate because I was thinking about moving them again.  My damn mental blocks were frustrating as hell.

Eventually, I was able to spread one wing at a time out from behind the shower curtain to wash myself properly.  At one point I was fascinated as I just stared at my alien appendages as the water seemed to bead up and roll off the mottled colored outer feathers, while the down and stark white feathers on the underside got wet and soggy looking.

I sighed and closed my eyes at one point and accused the heavens, “I'm a flippin' bird-girl.”  I mentally flipped off my ancestors for this new level of hell I found myself in.  As if growing up in today's world wasn't hard enough, or the fact your mother committed suicide when you were just a kid, leaving you drifting through the foster care system.

I had staggered under the spray of the warm water in the shower at that particular thought, while the ghost of a memory that was not mine played in my eyes.

A woman who looked like the pictures of my mother, on a train platform, men chasing her.  Then my perspective changed, and I was her, feeling as though all hope was lost, not wanting my daughter to go through this same hell.  I heard a train coming and then smiled at my pursuers as I made a decision and murmured a wish, what I knew to be my tenth and final wish.  Then I just fell backward and let the darkness take me as the train took their prize from them, ending my own torment.

Why had I experienced that?  Was it because of my wish to know what was going on?

I had collapsed to my knees in the spray of water and just stared at nothing in shock and horror.  She hadn't abandoned me because she was selfish like I had thought all these years.  She had done it to protect me and to deny Xerxes line the boon of three wishes.  She denied them the power they pursued and her final wish still echoed in my ears, “I wish my daughter to be hidden from Xerxes and his kin.”

I had felt her experience the same distortion of reality and self which I have experienced when making my two wishes.  I also felt the pain of her free will being stripped away forcibly to be replaced by ironclad chains of sin, to prepare her for servitude for whoever used her as a conduit for their wishes next, as she stepped off the platform into oblivion.

I tried to get my breathing under control and stop myself from hyperventilating.  My anger was rising, and I had no outlet to lash out at.  I swore I'd never use another wish, but they took my mother from me!  I had been alone my entire life because of them, I had no idea who my father was.

I tried to form another wish to wipe out Xerxes descendants, but I couldn't voice it.  Then I growled in frustration, it was one of Xerxes wishes that we lesser Djinn could not use our power against his family.

I exhaled in defeat as I got back to my feet, feeling heavy and emotionally numb, then turned the water off.  I dried off the best I could.  On instinct, I flicked my wings out with an audible snap a couple times to sling the water from them.

A stray thought popped up.  If mother had wished them not to find me, then how did Baldy and crew find me?

Then I stood there stupidly balling my toes on the little shower rug, with a towel wrapped around my chest, staring at the clothes Hailey had left on the counter at the sink.  I peeked my head out the bathroom door, Hailey was asleep, and Dorian was in a deep conversation with someone.  I held up the t-shirt in my hand and looked sheepishly at the overly cute and inquisitive look on Dori's face when she paused in her conversation to look at me.

I asked in embarrassment, “Umm... how am I supposed to get into this?”  I was over these damn wings already.  She just beamed a smile at me and hopped up.  She stepped over and took the shirt and looked at it and my wings.

I held my breath as she reached out.  I tried not to close my eyes and savor her touch when she again laid her hand on a wing and stroked it gently.  Then she seemed to shake her head out of it, and she looked over and said as she blushed, “Shut up Stacy.”

She swallowed then looked back at the shirt, obviously trying to ignore someone.  I knew how my... dead roommate, could be.  And I could imagine what she was saying to the cute mouse woman to make her blush like that.  So I grumbled, “Yeah, shut up Stace.”

Then Dorian looked around and pushed her full, wavy hair back over her shoulder.  What a difference a shower made in the woman, I tried not to follow her with my eyes as she stepped over to the little closet to pull aside the accordion door.

She looked through the clothes, then pulled out a plain white button-up blouse and grinned in triumph.  Ah, brilliant.  Then I squished my mouth to one side in the realization that as long as I had these flappy things on my back, I'd be relegated to wearing only button-up tops.  Inconvenient and more expensive.

I blinked.  How was I supposed to live like this?  How could I finish school?  How could I get a job to pay for the stupid ass shirts, to begin with?

She bobbed her head down and tilted it into my vision to get my attention and pull me out of the spiral I had gotten myself into.  “Arm up Angel.”  She wiggled her eyebrows, and it was my turn to blush.

I snatched the shirt from her hand and stepped back into the bathroom saying, “I can dress myself, thank you very much.”

I almost snorted when I heard her through the door speaking, no doubt to Stacy, “Told you.”

I pulled the jeans on and rolled up the cuffs.  I felt like a child putting on Hailey's things, she was so much taller than me.  Then I put the shirt on, sliding it up my back, under my wings.  The fabric fit awkwardly, bunching up under the point they connected to me.  It wasn't like the oversize neck hole of the tank top which had stretched to accommodated them.

I could button all but the top two buttons, and I looked in the mirror.  I looked silly with the shirt all bunched up in the back like that.  I rolled up the sleeves so it looked like I actually had hands, then I opened the door and stepped out, holding out my arms in helplessness and said to the thoroughly amused brunette.  “Help?”

She chiggled a cross between a chuckle and a giggle.  Then she stepped around me, appraising as she commented, “Only you would ask a crazy woman for help.”

Before I could comment, she was off like a woman on a mission to the little desk by the door to the studio.  She rummaged around on it then opened a small drawer and said “Ah ha!”  She turned and came at me with a pair of gleaming scissors in hand a toothy grin plastered on her face.

I looked around wondering where my old roommate was standing and pleaded with the open air, “Hep me?”

Dorian said in a pleased tone, “She say's you're on your own here, Drake.”  Then she started hacking at the back of the shirt with the scissors.  With each cut, the fabric relaxed until it was sitting around my shoulders comfortably.  I felt guilty that one of Hailey's shirts was being sacrificed for me.

Then I froze as she massaged the point where my wings connected to my back and good lord almighty did it feel divine.  I moaned in pleasure.

She said, “Your muscles are all bunched up here, flying must be quite a strain.  Or in your case, crashing spectacularly from the sky.”

I muttered, “Shut up.”  Hiding my smile as I back flapped, squashing her between my wings.  Then I stepped over to the reading chair by the sleeping Hailey and flopped down, my wings draping over the back of the chair and pooling on the floor behind me.  I noted that my injured wing no longer hurt, though I could feel a dull ache where the bruise was.

I watched Hailey toss and turn fitfully in her sleep, in some night haunt of her own, while Dori went over to speak to someone as she sat on the floor near a corner.

I must have dozed off since I woke to Hailey sitting up in bed.  My eyes fluttered open to the delight of seeing Hailey's smile as my vision cleared from the fog of sleep.  She said, “Hi, gorgeous.”

I blurted awkwardly as I turned my back to her in the chair, “I ruined one of your blouses.  Sorry.”

She chuckled.  “It's ok.  It seems to be the least of the casualties around here, and I'm sure it won't be the last.”

I swallowed hard at that.

She wiped her face with her hands, rubbing the sleep out of herself.  Her purple locks were tousled, and I absently wondered why she wasn't attached to anyone.  I mean, she looked hot even disheveled, her character was top notch, if not a little scary, and she was very protective.  And have you seen that smile?

I turned to see Dorian staring at her appreciatively, and I felt oddly... jealous... of her attention on Hailey.  That feeling was quickly beat back when she turned her dark eyes to me and then winked.  I blushed.

Fucking raccoon farts! I was attracted to her, and when I should be worrying about Billie and trying to salvage what was left of my life.  I tried to reason with myself, that no, it was just because she had saved me the prior night and got me safely to Hailey's.

Hailey braced her arms on the side of the bed and tensed them as she shoved off to stand.  There was a bit of strain like she was in pain as her muscles flexed, but she didn't show it on her face.  Had she gotten hurt in the fight when she took on those men?  I asked, “Are you ok, Hai?”

She turned to me as she rolled her head and cracked her neck as she seemed to work out some kinks.  She rubbed at a shoulder absently and almost smirked.  “Define ok.”  She chuckled then said, “My time in the service was not kind to me, it just takes a minute to get the blood flowing.”

I opened my mouth to ask about the Special Forces tattoo, but she read me like a book and held a hand up to stop me, shaking her head in warning.  Right.  The mystery that was Hailey Frost was to remain so.

She scooped up some clothes from the floor, sniffed them, then threw them over her shoulder.  She said as she headed to the restroom, “I gotta go deal with the police at the station.  We can figure out what we're going to do about you afterward.”

She paused and looked back, apology in her tone, “Sorry, darlin'.  Don't mean to sound so callous.  I'm still trying to absorb it all.”

I shrugged, I knew the feeling.  I was still balancing precariously on the edge of my own sanity.  I was so oddly numb about the situation that knew I was on the way to some sort of massive emotional breakdown in the near future.  One I might not come back from.  So not dwelling on it was the safest thing for me right now.

I said in a small voice, “I want to see Billie.  I need to know she's going to be ok.”

She just held the doorknob to the bathroom door a moment, not looking at me.  Then she nodded once and said, “Give me time to think.  We'll figure something out when I get back from the station.”

I nodded and exhaled.  I knew it was more than I could expect under the circumstances.  She shut the door behind her and a few seconds later I heard the shower start then Hailey blurted out through the door, “Damn it, Drake, you got feathers all over in my shower.”

This got Dorian chiggling again, which just made me smile like a loon.  I told her, “Shut up.”

She flipped me off with a wink.  Then kept her eyes on me as she went back to the kitchen area and started a pot of coffee and got the last of the eggs out.

I was feeling self-conscious and hugged my arms to my shoulders and absently wrapped my wings around myself.  I asked, “What?”

She looked away and concentrated on scrambling the eggs.  She said quietly, “Sorry.  It isn't often I see a girl with honest to goodness wings.”

Then she grinned at the pan where she was over seasoning the eggs, and added, “This doesn't bug you now does it.  Me cooking eggs.  What with you being a bird-girl and all?”

I bit the inside of my cheek to stop from smiling, and I threw a balled up sock from the floor at her.  She batted it aside with the spatula.

I pointed around in the air, my finger tracking the whole room and warned my deceased roommate, “You too Stace, I know you're egging her on.”

This time, I saw Dori bite her lip with strain on her face and amusement in her eyes.  Then we both started chuckling when she repeated under her breath, staring at the eggs she was making, “Egging her on...”

I was sort of relieved that I could still laugh, when everything seemed so dark and screwed up in my life at that moment.

Hailey stepped out, dressed in the other outfit, and toweling off her hair.  I averted my eyes when I saw her tattooed abs peeking out from under the teasingly short tee she had on.  She shook her head to make the hair fall into place. Looking a little disheveled but so, her.

She tossed the towel into the pile of clothes by the bathroom door.  That must have been her laundry pile.  Then she narrowed her eyes at Dorian as the dark haired girl scraped some slightly overdone eggs onto three plates.  Dori held a plate out to her.  “Eat, we don't know when you'll have time to next.”

Hailey took the offered plate as Dori said, “We'll need some groceries soon.  You seem out of almost everything but pickles and oatmeal.”

Hai said as she shoveled the eggs into her mouth.  “I don't cook much.”  She nudged her chin to the low table by her bed and all the fast food wrappers all around.

Dorian nodded and said, “Yeah, and the place needs a good cleaning.  You're a slob for a hottie.”