Chapter 30
"Wizards!" bellowed Throok.
I skidded away on my back. "Whoa there, big guy."
Throok snorted. "I
hate
wizards."
"Anyone ever tell you you're single-minded?"
He growled. "This is clearly your fault."
"I admit, a little more open communication between us could've avoided some trouble, but we've both made mistakes here. Can you please stop lumbering now?"
"I'm not lumbering, I'm walking."
I tilted my head. "You should see yourself."
He hissed and sheathed his short sword. As he did, his form shifted back to a man. A boy, really.
"Relax," he said. "You had the right idea back there. I only attacked you as a show to distract the wizard."
"But you were really swinging that thing at me."
"Don't be a baby. I've seen you work your shadow magic."
I sighed in relief. I didn't feel like a baby.
I sat up and checked the water again. No dead mermaids floated to the surface. I scooped up the single red scale, translucent under the moonlight.
"You hit her," said the minotaur.
"She's still alive." I cursed. As long as I wore this black mark, she'd find me. Note to self: Beef up my gator guard back in the Everglades. I'd make her regret swimming into those swamps.
"Listen," I started, getting to my feet and collecting my things. "You need to broaden your horizons. Not all animists are bad news. That guy and his Society? I don't want anything to do with that business."
"On the contrary," he rumbled, "his issue is that you are irrevocably tied to his business."
The big dummy had a point. "You don't understand. The people he's protecting, they did things. They killed me."
Throok arched an eyebrow and looked me over. "Killed you?"
I shrugged and put on my best Monty Python accent. "I got better." He didn't get the reference. I shook my head. "What are we even talking about, anyway? The bottom line is, he took Ceela. And he used some kind of teleportation package to escape, so he could be anywhere."
The minotaur grunted as a young couple entered the stadium. We had an audience again, even if they were mostly concerned with sitting in the back row and locking lips. Throok stroked his red goatee.
"This is what troubles me," he said. "That man, that
wizard
, he shouldn't have been able to take her."
I bit. "Why not?"
"She's too powerful to be manhandled by a human. I protect her from the worst of it, but her enchantments and glamours should've kept her safe."
"I don't know. That sleep incantation she tried was small potatoes."
He grunted. "It did what was intended. But I meant her defenses. That wizard shocked her into submission too easily. That should've been impossible. He wasn't even strong enough to beat you."
"Hey! What're you trying to say?"
"Stow your ego." He turned to the sea, contemplating the problem. "Ceela's no normal satyr. She's special among her kind. A principesse of the Juniper Circle."
A silvan princess. It all clicked into place. Orpheus, the baby of the family, seeking to improve his station and gain influence with other silvan circles. If Ceela was a true principesse, I could see why Throok wasn't supposed to mingle with her. And I could see why her future was being arranged.
I rubbed my neck as I thought of Simon squeezing the life out of me. I was starting to think Throok had a point about us missing something. There wasn't just lightning coursing through my body. There had been something else, something that stirred my soul. An odd bit of spellcraft that had left me dazed. It might've gotten me if Throok hadn't stepped in.
I then thought of the glass object he used to teleport with.
"So he had help," I concluded. "And you're not gonna like who that is." Throok turned to me and waited expectantly, hands clenched, ready to mete out justice to whoever I named. "It's a jinn."
The minotaur jerked away from my words as if they could infect him. Silvans and jinns don't mix. And Connor couldn't be further from the minotaur. One was all cunning and discretion, the other muscle and action. Throok's face darkened. "I
hate
jinns."
"Big surprise. From what I understand, he can disappear whenever he likes. But he can't bring Ceela with him. And that teleportation package has to be a limited resource. So he'll have her stashed somewhere safe." I thought of all the various properties where Simon and Connor could hide. What didn't I know about? Where couldn't I find them? Then I had it.
"The private island," I said. "Ceela's being held in the sea between the Caymans and Cuba. A drug lord's haven. If we could somehow get to her—"
"We?" interrupted the minotaur.
I shrugged. "I mean, we both kind of screwed up here. I figure the least we could do is help each other out."
The minotaur considered me for a moment then nodded with an approving snort. "Perhaps
all
wizards aren't
all
bad."
I guess that was an apology, maybe?
"But it's too dangerous," he finished.
"We can take him."
"It's not about a fight. It's about Ceela. Jinns are shifty. Ethereal air and fire. If we attack his lair, what's to stop him from hurting the principesse? No, there is another way."
I crossed my arms. "I'm all ears."
"Deal with them. This wizard promised Ceela wouldn't get hurt if you backed away. Give them what they want, Cisco. Do what they say. It's the only way to guarantee Ceela's safety."
Well, crap. I tried to look as apologetic as possible for this next part. "There's a problem, Throok. We can't deal. The information Simon doesn't want to get out? I already leaked it to my source." I swallowed, hoping not the enrage the monster. "It's too late to stop it."
He snarled. "That means we don't have time to argue. We need to get to them quick. Before the scandal goes public."
I nodded. "Except we don't have a boat or a jet. I know a lady. I could scrounge up more cash—"
"There's no time," said Throok. "You said this island is in the Caribbean?"
I pulled it up on Kita's phone. "Sure, along the underwater Sierra Maestras."
The minotaur's face flashed with recognition. "This jinn. Is he an ifrit?"
"How would I know?"
"He would command fire as your friend did lightning."
I frowned. "I've never seen him fight, but he melted through a steel chain like it was butter."
Throok grinned. "He's an ifrit. Very powerful. Very nasty."
"Then why are you smiling like a kid with a cookie?"
"Because I know the island you speak of. And I can get us there."
I didn't hide my surprise. "Is this some kind of Wonder Woman invisible jet thing?"
He growled. Silvans weren't big on pop culture.
"There's a reason Ceela and I chose this location to hide, wizard." The minotaur gazed at the sea again, this time pointing to a slight disturbance on the surface. A faint swirling of waves formed a barely-recognizable whirlpool. "At any moment, had Orpheus shown up, we had an escape route."
I stared into the deep. A section of water below the disturbance was darker. It was a rabbit hole.
Throok saw the look on my face. "Too late to back out now, wizard. Your speech about uniting our causes moved me."
"It wasn't really a speech," I backpedaled. "Just a few words, really."
The minotaur picked me up and heaved me into the ocean. I splashed through the surface and spun around, feeling less resistance than I should have, like I wasn't in water at all. I shot down through the portal, losing my grip on Kita's phone.
Next thing I knew, I slammed face-first into a dirt surface. I was underground now. Roots hung from the dirt above, with no visible exit.
I examined my crusted black hand. Great. A one-way trip to the Nether. The one place I
really
didn't want to be.
Chapter 31
The Margins of the Nether connect to all sorts of places in the world, rabbit holes with little sense or purpose, but useful. If Throok was right, getting to Connor's island was as simple as a stroll down a tunnel. Winding, twisting, indirect perhaps, but sometimes those make the best shortcuts.
I barely rolled out of the way as the minotaur's hooves thumped to the ground.
"Jeez," I said, looking up to him while on my back. "How do you guys manage that so gracefully?"
We were in a wide passage that stretched to forever in two directions. Spooky, maybe, but it felt comfortable with the darkness blanketing me. Like most of the Nether, I couldn't quite tell where the ambient light came from, but there was more than enough shadow to go around.
"By the way," I said, "thanks for the warning. I dropped the phone with the GPS coordinates."
Throok started down the tunnel. "I don't need it. We're going to Fire Island."
"Isn't that a board game or something?"
He snorted. I liked to think I was wearing him down.
The silvan seemed to know the way to the aptly-named hunk of rock in the Caribbean. Every time the tunnel branched, he chose a route without hesitation. I followed silently, using the time to inventory my spellcraft tokens. My belt pouch was pretty light. I'd nearly gone through two weeks of nonstop preparation in the Everglades. I loaded my very last shotgun shell, another non-lethal glue round. This underground raid basically came down to me hoping Connor's compound wasn't well lit.
"So..." I said, breaking a long silence after more walking, "Connor's an ifrit, huh? What does that mean?"
Throok shrugged. "They wield fire. But you're a wizard. You can stop fire, I think."
I didn't want to shatter his high image of me. "Do ifrits have a weakness? Or jinns in general? I don't actually know a whole lot about them."
"There is a reason your kind speaks little of them," said the minotaur. "Ignorance against the jinn is powerful."
I arched an eyebrow. "Shouldn't it be the other way around?"
"Not in this case. You've met Orpheus, right? Fauns are fabled tricksters among your people, and mine. But jinns go beyond that. Every story of a jinn interacting with a human or silvan is a cautionary tale. Every one."
The ground got rockier and I had to watch each step or risk falling. "Cautionary how?"
Throok adeptly handled the terrain without looking. "Their deals are tainted. Jinns will appear to offer you the world, but it is part of their snare. They will lock you away if they can." He looked me in the eye. "Never deal with a jinn, wizard. It always ends in misery."
As we made our way through the tunnel, chitinous things peeked out at us. More than once I spun around to scurrying noises, but everything kept out of sight (even to my shadow-sharpened eyes).
"So how does this curse thing work?" I asked after a time. "Does every single thing down here hate me?"
Throok didn't slow his stride. "More or less."
"That's bad news because Orpheus has a whole spriggan army."
The minotaur grunted. "We don't need to worry about spriggans. They're underlings as far as fiends go. Weak, cowardly creatures, practically scared of their own shadow. They can be deadly en masse but, army or not, they stay alive because they're afraid of dangerous things. They don't leave the Nether. They don't face other armies head on. And they
never
attack someone with a Nether mark."
I flexed my stained hand. "Why not? I thought that was the whole point."
"Black marks aren't given lightly, wizard. Only awarded by royalty. Only to a worthy foe. To wear the black mark is a badge of honor in some circles. The spriggans revere that badge and won't dare attack a marked one for fear of being outmatched." Throok turned to me. "In a sense, under these circumstances, you're lucky to have it."
I chuckled. "Yeah," I said, deadpan. "I should play the lottery."
I stopped to shake a rock from my boot. Throok walked ahead, and I hissed.
"Lucky."
A black lump fell out of the upturned alligator hide. It wasn't a rock; it was a spider.
I kicked it away and jumped on one foot as it touched my sock. I backed against the wall and shoved my foot into my boot. The spider and I stood still, waiting for the other to make the first move.
Ahead, Throok paused, giving me an odd look. That's when I felt the appendage on my neck.
I screamed and shivered away, blasting through the shadow and into the far wall. I materialized pointing my shotgun at a large, eight-legged, one-foot-wide arachnid.
"Why's it always gotta be spiders?" I asked whoever was listening. There had to be somebody because this was too cruel to be a coincidence.
The thing wiggled its front legs like it was casting a spell, then suddenly broke loose from the wall and landed on the floor. I jerked my gun down, keeping a lock on it. Before I could pull the trigger, Throok's kukri came down and cleaved the thing in half. The minotaur kicked at the giant spider with his hoof. It was beyond dead.
I heaved out a frantic breath and lowered my weapon. "What?" I asked under his judgmental glare. "I
hate
spiders. I thought that would be an emotion you could empathize with."
Throok snorted and shook his head.
"Besides," I added, "what happened to things being too scared to attack me?"
He shrugged. "Scourgelings are little more than animals. They do not act out of desire for wealth or favor. To some of them, the black mark is a scent. An irritation. They have a natural drive to defend themselves against you no matter the danger. Spriggans are dumb, but they're not
that
dumb."
I shook my head. Keeping up with Nether ecology was a rollercoaster of ignorance.
"Were you really going to shoot a spider with a shotgun?"
I tilted my head. "It was a big spider."
With a dismissive breath, he mumbled, "As long as you have the ammo to waste."
I thought it would've been a perfectly reasonable use of my last shell, actually. I pushed off the wall. Something wriggled and jiggled and tickled my shoulder. I brushed at it.
More spiders. Suddenly the entire wall was crawling with them.
"This..." said Throok, his voice trailing off, "is abnormal."
"You don't happen to have a can of gasoline handy?"
"No, but I'm not afraid of getting messy." Still he was making fun of me.
"No need," I said, reaching into my belt pouch. "I have loose sparking powder. I can burn them all."
"No!" came a voice near us.
Throok and I whirled around. Standing fifty feet ahead, somehow, was Grettle, the brittle black-haired woman wearing a nightgown I'd seen last time I was in the Nether.
"Stand back," commanded Throok, approaching the girl. I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or her.
"It's okay," I said.
"She's with Orpheus. He found us."
"No," I said, pulling him back. I crept forward and studied Grettle's face. She still had the sadness from before, but her jaw was set and her eyes were determined. "I think she escaped." I approached her slowly. "What are you doing here?" I asked.
She eyed me with a quiet grin and wrapped her arms around her lanky figure. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. Being so dirty and malnourished was awful, but somehow her happiness made it worse.
I tried again. "Do you need help, Grettle?"
She relaxed her head and whisked her tattered hair to the side. She wore a corset over her nightgown, and she reached her hands behind her, ripped it off, and threw it to the floor.
"I'm not the one surrounded by spiders," she said, then unfolded an extra pair of arms from behind her.
I took a step backward as Grettle's skin turned mottled gray. Her eyes swelled with pus and grew to half the size of her face, and her cheeks opened up into articulated mandibles. Finally, if that wasn't horrific enough, one of her four arms reached down and lifted her dress up. Between two grungy legs with bare feet hung another pair of legs, smaller and weaker than the main ones, toes dragging awkwardly in the dirt.
I looked up at whoever I was addressing before. "Now you're just fucking with me."