Jinn and Juice (20 page)

“Since we got here. I wasn’t sure at first. They’re keeping their distance. But they’re there.”

A troll’s ears were keen as a chef’s blades, and I knew better than to question Bertha’s call. So I told Yulia we were being followed, and we shifted around, keeping Oz central but putting Bertha in front and us at the back.

When the attack came, we were ready.

“They’re coming,” Bertha hissed, just as the first being rushed us.

The fight was short and relatively bloodless. Oz kept us from killing anyone with a shout of “They’re just kids!” after which we changed tactics. Yulia’s wisps went from bladelike to more like tentacles of light, and I used my Fire to catch, not to burn. Bertha put her club back into her pocket of Sideways, and Oz snagged two of the little buggers by their collars. When we were done we were left with eight whole struggling children, ranging from early to late teens and all some sort of Immunda.

We’d also all collected a fair number of cuts and bruises. The kids were young, but they weren’t weaklings, and we might not have been so lucky if Bertha hadn’t heard them coming.

“So what do we have here?” Yulia asked, pacing around the little cordon of Fire I’d made to pen the teens in.

There were two half-vamps, eyeing us hungrily. The rest were relatively innocuous races, except for the oldest boy, a
disreputable-looking satyr with overdeveloped, bloodstained horns sprouting from his forehead. Sitting next to him was a girl with lush blonde ringlets, staring down at her feet.

Very familiar blonde ringlets.

“Hey,” I said to her. “You. Look at me.”

She refused and the satyr clamped a hand on her upper arm. “Don’t do it, Marissa,” he said.

Yulia, also looking suspicious, was sending a wisp creeping toward “Marissa” when the girl looked up, her gaze flicking between our eyes, her head giving an almost imperceptible shake. Yulia and I spoke at exactly the same time, in equally disbelieving tones.

“Loretta?”

The kids sitting around Loretta all turned to stare. One hissed. She rolled her eyes. “Nice work, morons,” she said in adult tones. Then she balled up her fist and punched one of the half-vamps, who tried to bite her, and Yulia quickly lifted her out with a flick of her wisps, setting the Exterminator down in front of us while I flared up the Fire penning in the others, so they’d settle down.

We stared at Loretta in shock. Whatever was going on here, Loretta wasn’t dressed as Loretta. The normally chic Exterminator was wearing dirty, camouflage-print leggings so cheap they were nearly see-through. She’d paired them with a very un-Loretta-like T-shirt featuring a current teenybopper band.

“I’m
undercover
,” she said. “And you’ve blown it.”

“What the hell, Loretta?” Yulia spit. “You knew about all this and didn’t tell us?”

Loretta’s eyes narrowed and her gills flared. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know the Exterminators were beholden to you, wisp.
And what, exactly, are all of you doing here? My cell phone wasn’t ringing with news that you’d made this much progress, was it?”

“We were going to call you,” I said, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. “But we wanted to get you something more concrete. Connect some of the dots.”

“Whatever,” Loretta said, shortly. “I was getting something concrete, and then you four bumble in like the fucking Scoobies, ruining everything.”

More awkward shifting. “Sorry, Loretta,” I said, eventually.

She made a rude noise. “I have to think of how to salvage this.”

“Have you seen Tamina?” asked Oz, obviously feeling no guilt of his own.

The siren looked up at him, her eyebrows flying up her forehead. They lowered, slowly, as she wrangled her temper.

“The Magi? Yeah. She’s a nice kid. Doesn’t deserve what she’s landed herself in.”

Oz’s brow furrowed. “And what is that?”

“She was one of the first to run away with Dmitri… he’s a human sorcerer with aspirations to take over the world, starting with Pittsburgh. A Russian,” she added, glaring at Yulia.

“Great,” said the wisp, in dripping Slavic tones. “Russian sorcerers are the
worst
.”

Loretta nodded, as if this were common knowledge. Oz cast me a look and I shrugged.

“So what’s different about this sorcerer?” Bertha asked. “He’s not the first to come poking around our Node. Why isn’t he dead already?”

“He’s the first to bring an army with him, rather than assume he can waltz in here and take whatever he wants, for one.”

“An army?” Then the other shoe dropped, right on my idiot head. “You mean the
kids
?”

“They’re not kids,” Loretta snapped. “They’re killers. Killers who hate everyone and everything, except Dmitri. He’s recreated himself as a savior to the poor, unwanted Immunda who were bullied and misunderstood for trying to eat their families.”

“Sounds effective,” said Oz, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Yup,” said Loretta.

“So they’re all his followers? Even Tamina?” he asked, dread in his voice. If she didn’t willingly go with him, I wasn’t sure he was the type to rip her away from people she’d chosen to run with, even if they were dangerous.

“Your girl is different. Like I said, she was the first to run off with Dmitri. I think she thought they were doing just that… running off together. But he had other plans. Plans she’s none too happy with.

“Actually, a lot of Dmitri’s followers are like that. Most are with him willingly, but not all. Or they started out willing, but changed their minds when they realized his real intentions.”

“How do you know all this?” Yulia asked, always suspicious.

“Tamina told me, obviously,” snapped Loretta. “She and ‘Marissa’ were quite close. Before you blew my cover.”

“We get it,” I said. “We suck. But maybe we can salvage something from this. It sounds like Tamina is important to Dmitri?”

“Yes, very,” Loretta said. “He is head over heels in love with her. She… well, it’s hard to say what she feels about him. She’s as much his prisoner as his girlfriend at this point, he’s so afraid of losing her.”

“Well, maybe we can multitask,” I suggested. “We want to
get Tamina to safety. Back to her family. And it sounds like Dmitri would see losing Tamina as a real blow.”

“Go on,” Loretta said, her lips pursing in concentration.

“So help us get Tamina back. Our purpose is to get her back to her family, but Dmitri doesn’t have to know that. We can use her to lure him out.”

Loretta thought for a moment, chewing on her plump bottom lip, her third eyelids working overtime. Finally she nodded.

“That just might work. I know she’s unhappy; she wants to go home. And I can’t go back to being ‘Marissa’ for much longer, what with those bozos knowing my true identity.” She pointed back to the penned-in gaggle of kids.

“We’ll take care of them,” Bertha said. Oz twitched.

“Not that kind of ‘take care,’ ” the troll clarified. “We’ll just get ’em back to the human plane, till you guys rescue Tamina.”

Loretta nodded. “Fine. I can make contact with Tamina, see if she’s willing to go, without letting her know I’m anything other than her ol’ buddy Marissa. But if she’s not, we’ll have to rethink our plan, and you assholes will have to help me take out this sorcerer, Tamina or no.”

“Done,” I said, not needing to think about it. If we had Tamina in hand, and Oz had discharged his debt, I could help the Exterminators corral this Dmitri and be unBound by the time my curse was up. No matter what, I’d be free in just a few days.

Maybe it really was going to be a cinch, after all.

O
z and I watched Bertha and Yulia herding the kids toward the gate out of Sideways, Yulia keeping a wisp harnessing the older kids and Bertha walking patiently behind the smaller children. They’d deliver the younger children to the human police, although—and I didn’t tell Oz this—they’d probably take the older children to Loretta’s coworkers. They’d question them and keep them safe till they could figure out what to do with them.

Loretta was all business.

“Here’s how we’ll play this,” she said. “They’re using the old palace as their clubhouse, it’s got a direct portal to the human plane so it’s convenient.”

“And a palace,” I murmured. Loretta ignored me.

“I’ll go in as Marissa. Make contact with Tamina. Tell her there’s someone who wants to see her. You can explain her family wants her back,” she said to Oz.

“What about the rest of your patrol?” I asked.

“No problem. I’ll say they went over to the human plane to forage after patrol. That’s pretty common. Shall we start off?”

It wasn’t a question, as Loretta turned on her heel and began marching off through the eerily empty, magic-laden city.

“Do you think she’ll come with us?” Oz asked, as we followed quickly behind the Exterminator, allowing me to guard our rears.

Speaking of which, Oz’s looked very nice in the high-quality hiking pants he was wearing today. I knew I shouldn’t be looking, but I allowed it, since we were so close to victory.

“I dunno. She definitely cared for Dmitri at one point, but he’s very different now from the boy she ran off with a year ago. And I know she misses her family.”

Speaking of her family…“Did Dmitri kill them?” I asked.

Loretta paused, looking at me gravely. “I don’t know. Tamina thinks the fire was an accident but we know better.”

“Well, telling her the truth may help us convince her to leave. How easy will she be to get out of there?” I asked.

“Dmitri guards her pretty closely,” Loretta said, jumping over a little puddle of pure power that lay, shimmering, on the wide white street. “He’s very careful with her. That said, he won’t be expecting anything like this. He doesn’t know he’s been discovered.” She cast a baleful look over her shoulder, another reminder we’d blown her cover.

“What do you mean by ‘careful’ with her?” Oz asked, as we hopped across ourselves.

“He doesn’t let her out without security. And he keeps her very close when they go to the human plane. But she does have the run of the palace.”

“He hasn’t hurt her?” asked my Master, concern lacing his voice.

“Oh, no. She’s treated like his princess. He’d never harm her.”

We passed under a series of intricately carved stone arches, the edges of which were starting to mutate in the way of
magical architecture. The elaborate geometrical pattern was turning squirrely, and those patches of non-pattern were overlaid with a dark sheen.

“How does Dmitri support all these people?” I asked, keeping my eyes peeled as we went under the archways for anything trying to bomb us from above. We passed through unmolested.

“They steal,” Loretta said. “Dmitri sends groups off to ‘forage,’ as he calls it. They either steal stuff from stores, or they steal money and buy stuff. Whatever’s easier.”

I remembered the empty backpacks leaving the squat, and the full backpacks returning.

“What happens if someone gets caught?” Oz asked, but I knew what the answer would be.

“They just have to sit tight and not ask any questions, and Dmitri comes to get them that night when they’re alone.”

“He just nips in, from Sideways,” I said to Loretta, who nodded. As I’d thought, this Dmitri was far stronger than we’d originally assumed. And, apparently, the Fagin of Sideways.

“Shit,” Oz said. “That’ll make things difficult.”

I knew he meant getting Tamina away from Dmitri, and keeping her away. “It doesn’t sound like he’s going to let us walk away with the girl,” I said. “There’s a good chance we’ll have to take him out.”

Loretta nodded gamely. Oz looked mutinous at this suggestion, but I could also tell he’d realized the same thing on his own. If we were attacked by someone as strong as Dmitri, neither of us could pull our punches, be they physical or magical. As a fighter he knew that, even if the justice-minded cultural anthropologist didn’t want to admit it.

“We’ll see what happens,” he murmured noncommittally, and I didn’t force the issue.

We walked for a few miles, Oz asking Loretta questions
about Tamina, then about Exterminators, then about being a siren. Loretta was exceptionally chatty with my Master. I’d known the siren for a century or two and considered her a friend—not as close a friend as my pals at Purgatory, but a friend. And even I’d never heard her talk this much.

Oz was good at getting people to open up, I thought wryly.

But Loretta never dropped her guard, helping us avoid at least two patrols we saw in the distance, steering us away from their route while keeping us from stumbling into other groups.

“We’re just about there,” I said suddenly, and Oz looked at me curiously.

“How can you tell?”

“We’re close to the Node,” I said, my voice soft, dreamy. I could feel all that power calling to me, wanting so badly to be used. And it knew I could use it. So it sang to me, in a voice even sweeter than Loretta’s.

“It’s crazy strong, isn’t it?” Loretta said, her voice also husky.

“Can you use the power, Loretta?” Oz asked.

“I can feel it, but no, I can’t use it,” Loretta said, her eyes heavy-lidded, her lips bowed in a sweet smile. “We sirens don’t get our magic that way.”

“You eat… hearts?” Oz asked, remembering our early conversation.

“Oh, yes,” she said, a sleepy, predatory smile arching her full lips. Oz blanched, but he looked curious as hell, so I explained.

“Sirens get their magic pre-filtered and concentrated through eating hearts. Preferably human. Magic’s all around you guys, even if you can’t use it, and it all has to go somewhere.”

“So our hearts… filter it?”

“Yep. Which is why quite a few other magical beasties eat hearts, or drink blood, or whatever. They get their magic through human filters.”

“And, um, who supplies these hearts?” Oz was being very open-minded.

“They don’t have to be living hearts,” I said, with a smile. “They strike deals with funeral homes, hospitals, stuff like that. But don’t be fooled, it’s not all aboveboard. Hunting still occurs, and more than is admitted.”

Oz looked a little green as he contemplated that, and Loretta rolled her eyes.

“Don’t be a baby; you eat living things,” she told him. He was obviously about to protest, but words failed him as we turned a corner, and there it was.

As in Point State Park, which sat exactly Sideways from us in the human world, the Node was a fountain. This fountain, however, contained not water, but pure power, looping in a thick, shimmering, seemingly infinite wave. Meanwhile thick rivers of power fed the loop of magic, the ley lines that mimicked Pittsburgh’s rivers.

It was beautiful, and the power called to me like a long-lost lover, just wanting me to touch it…

I awoke from my stupor to find myself directly in front of the Node, Oz’s heavy hand on my shoulder, his arm about my waist.

“Lyla, I don’t think you should climb in there,” he was saying. I shook my head, trying to clear it of magic but apparently only making room for more. I swayed on my feet.

“Whoa, honey,” he said, helping me sit down. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” I panted, after a few minutes. “It’s just really strong. Like nine thousand old-fashioneds.”

“That’s a lot of old-fashioneds,” he said, sitting next to me companionably. “And that explains a lot.”

I leaned against him, feeling like a woozy drunk, and apparently acting like one too, from his reaction to me. Closing my
eyes, I took a few deep breaths against all the spinning the world was doing, and tried to ground myself against all that power.

A few minutes later I felt better… or at least less likely to keel over.

“We should go,” I said, getting unsteadily to my feet. “It’s not safe here…”

As if to prove my point, Loretta screamed a warning. Twirling toward her, I saw the first of the shadow wraiths detach from an actual shadow, gliding swiftly and inexorably toward the siren.

I used a coil of my Fire to pull her sharply back, pushing her and Oz behind me as an entire battalion of the shadows detached, advancing upon us like a wall of hazy gray in which just the faintest tracing of a face could be distinguished.

“What the hell?” Oz asked, putting Loretta protectively behind him and stepping up next to me.

“Shadow wraiths,” I said, “although you’d call them ghosts. Those who used to live here, and were killed by the same steel that bound their magic to the place in the form of shadows of themselves.”

“What do we do?”

“You do nothing. I kill them,” I said, reaching even as I did so toward the Node.

I sank into all that juice like a fork into a meringue, and it flowed eagerly into me. Without my even consciously manipulating the power it streamed out of me in a single powerful beam of light that cut through the wall of wraiths, dispersing them in a shower of sparks that belied their superficially incorporeal appearance. They looked like shadows until they ripped your head off; then it was more than apparent they had some physical heft.

I had to wrestle with the Node to regain control of myself, and there were a few tense seconds during which I thought I might lose. But then the light streaming from me died with the last of the wraiths, and I collapsed to my knees, my channels burning and raw.

“Heal yourself,” Oz’s voice whispered in my ear. “I command you to make yourself feel better.”

And just like before, my jinni did as my Master commanded, soothing the aching magical wounds inside me. They still felt stretched and sore, but I wasn’t in agony.

I also realized that Oz was stroking my back with a big, gentle hand, comforting me immensely in a way I didn’t want to examine.

Standing up, I nodded at him in thanks but didn’t speak. Then I went to thank Loretta for the warning, but she was staring at me, open-mouthed with wonder.

“She said you’d be powerful now that you’re Bound, but I’ve never seen anything like that,” she said, then snapped her mouth shut as if realizing she’d made a boo-boo.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “What do you mean she said I’d be powerful?”

Loretta shook her head, as if she was confused. “Not
you
you, but anyone who could fully tap the Node. Tamina said that person would be very, very powerful. And she was right.

“Anyway, damn, girl,” she said, acting like my old friend Loretta again. “I’ve never seen you do anything like that. That was some shit!” And with that, she turned on her heel, Oz following her after giving me a quizzical look.

After a moment I followed too, choosing to trust my old friend despite hearing that sweet little voice saying the same thing over and over, like a litany.

“She said you’d be powerful… she said you’d be powerful… she said you’d be powerful…

“And she was right.”

“There’s where they’re kept,” Loretta said, pointing at the palace nestled in the valley below us.

“The perks of Sideways,” I muttered, mentally comparing the abandoned house in our world to its Sideways counterpart, before focusing on the task at hand. “OK, we need to get to Tamina and get out, preferably unseen. We can figure out what to do with the other kids later. Agreed?”

Before Oz could protest, I interrupted him.

“Look, it’s not just my freedom I’m thinking about. We’ve got just a few days till my curse is up; we’re good. But there are also two of us, and a shit-ton of those kids, not all of whom appear to resent their new existence. Our primary mission is Tamina. We get her out, get Loretta out, confab with both of them about the best way to get everyone else out if they want to leave.”

“We need to get everyone out, get them back to their families,” Oz said, but I shook my head. To my surprise, so did Loretta.

“Oh, no. Some of them wouldn’t leave,” said the Exterminator. “They’d rather die.”

“They’re not human,” I reminded my Master. “They like it here.”

Oz frowned, processing what we’d told him. “So just getting Tamina out, for now, is the plan?”

I nodded, then turned to our guide. “Loretta, it’s your call on what we do next.”

The Exterminator nodded, ringlets bouncing adorably but
blue eyes hard as ice. “As I said, I’ll go down first. Tell Tamina I’ve found you, see what she wants to do.”

“Tell her it’s Oz,” he said, his voice urgent. “From home.”

Loretta nodded. “No prob.”

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll stay here. For how long?”

“Probably a few hours,” Loretta said. “Dmitri tends to keep Tamina close, so I’ll have to wait till she’s alone. That could take a while. But you should be okay here. Nobody ever comes this way; it’s really boggy between here and the palace. Think you two can handle that?”

“We’ll be fine,” Oz said. “Stay safe. And thank you for helping us.”

“Whatever,” Loretta said. “At least I can do something good with the shambles you made of my hard work.”