Tales of the Djinn: The Double (23 page)

“This space wasn’t meant to be used,” Cade explained absently. His palm cupped a tiny glow he’d created with magic, and he was checking the room’s corners. “The previous sultan decided to establish a door to your dimension here because the structure is easy to secure.”

Secure wasn’t what Elyse felt. The skin along her shoulders crawled, and tiny goosebumps washed up her arms.

“Sheesh,” she said, catching sight of a ghost-shaped hump draped in a white sheet. “Is that Joseph’s statue?”

“Yes. Arcadius must have covered it when he woke.”

Joseph’s statue held a kneeling position. Elyse experienced a weird compulsion to lift the cloth and peek at the stone version of her friend. That would be rude, right? She should probably leave his copy alone.

She jumped when Cade’s warm hand squeezed the ball of her shoulder.

“He’s perfectly fine there. Certainly not aware that anything’s going on.” He rubbed her arm. “I know this place seems strange, but don’t let your imagination give you the jitters.”

She hugged the brass vase she was carrying a bit tighter. “Right. I’m just going to concentrate on what I need to do.”

“You’re ready,” he said, sounding sure of it. He jerked his head to the side. “The observation gallery is this way.”

There was a door with a metal knob. Cade yanked it open, displacing a puff of dust. He let the little light he carried wink out before he went through.

The narrow gallery the door led to was enclosed, but a series of decorative piercings in the stone created a screen where the arch loomed above the park. The view of the avenue and the green space was unobstructed, and they could see without being seen. Because this seemed so handy, Elyse conjectured the gallery had been used as a spy post before. Better still, the rays of a near-half moon allowed her to move along the passage without tripping. She was glad she’d memorized the pattern of the Solomon seal on her brass container. That design was no longer distinct to her human eyes.

She noticed Cade propped the door to the portal room open behind them. “Sightlines,” he said. “Best not to let someone approach from the rear unseen. Not that they could. Joseph refreshed the locks after he let us in.”

“But better safe than sorry?” Elyse suggested.

He smiled, pleased she’d understood. He dug in the pocket of his military style trousers. When his hand came out, he held two marble-sized creamy pearls.

“Take one,” he said. “Joseph linked them to Yasmin’s earrings. If you hold it close to your ear, you’ll hear what she and her brother say. Sorry I only have one pair of binoculars. We could take turns, but I think I should probably keep them.”

“You’re the professional,” she said, not at all offended. “Just warn me when Ramis arrives.”

Cade positioned himself in front of an opening and put the lenses to his eyes. Fortunately, some of the holes in the screen were low enough for her.

He was right to urge her not to worry. They seemed far from danger here. The palm-dotted park spread out quite a ways below and in front of them. She spied a pretty swirl of paths and flowerbeds that was probably the Sultan’s Circle Yasmin’s brother mentioned in his instructions. At the moment, it was empty of everything but shadows.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Cade said from beside her. “That name, Ramis, does it seem strange to you?”

“Well, I’m more used to names like Sam or Dave, but, no, I can’t say it does.”

“I feel like I should know it.” He focused the binoculars. “I wonder if we crossed paths before he turned ifrit.”

She didn’t get a chance to come up with a response. His shoulders straightened abruptly. “There’s Yasmin’s cat. She’s nosing around the meeting place.”

Elyse’s heart rate picked up, a tingle of nervousness streaking across her palms.

Please God,
she thought.
Help me to do this well.

~

Yasmin found a patch of shadow beneath a palm where she changed into her normal form. She remained in the concealing darkness when she was done. The moonlight made the Sultan’s Circle seem too bright to wait in.

Hanging back makes sense,
she assured herself.
I wouldn’t stand in the open for anyone to see no matter what I’d come here to accomplish.

A twig snapped and she spun in the direction of the sound. She saw nothing. Maybe it was a rabbit that had frozen.
Don’t look at the roofs,
she ordered.
Scan the park around you, like a normal person would.

She scanned, her shoulders as tight as if they were made of iron. She felt as if crowds of people were watching her. She started to touch the earring Joseph had fastened in her earlobe, the one with the listening spell. Before her fingers reached it, she jerked her hand back down. Joseph was watching out for her and so were his friends. She could rely on that. She didn’t need to add another prayer to the dozens she’s already said.

God, she hoped Elyse the human could close the trap. Did the men recognize the irony of their strategy depending on two women?

“You came,” said her brother’s voice.

She turned the other way and saw him. Ramis was dressed in djinn robes tonight: rich silk layers in shades of black and gray. The moon caught his eyes, the glow it kindled in his irises pure silver. He seemed lovelier than the last time they’d met, lovelier than he’d been even as a boy. It occurred to her—belatedly—that the image she was seeing might be an illusion. He possessed a great deal of magic. Maybe he was using it to disguise a more monstrous appearance. What did people like her really know about ifrits?

“Of course I came,” she said, trying to ignore the alarming possibilities pushing at her mind. “We haven’t seen each other in a long time.”

Smiling gently, he waved toward a bench shaded by the furled purple flowers of a jacaranda tree. “Shall we sit while we talk?”

Aware that the bench was in view of her watchers, Yasmin followed his suggestion. As she pressed her knees together and smoothed her robes, her joints were tight with tension. If Ramis noticed, he didn’t remark on it.

“I have a gift for you,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

She didn’t mind but she was surprised.

“It won’t bite,” he said, dangling a pretty printed wax paper bag. “It’s Turkish Delight. From the shop in the spice market you used to like as a girl. I believe I remembered your favorite flavor.”

She peeked inside the white tissue paper. “Honey lime with rose sugar! I haven’t eaten these in ages. Ramis . . . ” In spite of everything she knew he’d done, her throat closed with sentiment. The love she’d once felt for him was rising. She missed those days when the three of them were children. Simpler times, she supposed. “Thank you. You were thoughtful to remember.”

“My memories of my family are all that sustain me now,” he said.

She looked away from him and at her hands instead. Her fingers were pinching the small bag shut. Ramis seemed to realize he’d struck a discordant note.

“Well,” he said, his palms rubbing at his knees. “I take it you managed to sneak back into the palace without getting caught last time?”

“Yes. I’m not important enough to watch closely.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.” He shifted slightly on the bench. “And the investigation into our brother’s disappearance? Have you taken your suspicions to the authorities?”

“It seems they were already looking into it,” she answered, having decided this would account for the bodyguard that had been placed in the bath boy’s room—which Ramis probably had noticed. She shook her head dolefully. “They didn’t act as if my findings added anything to theirs.”

She expected Ramis to press her for more details. He rubbed his knees again instead, staring into space as if she’d given him more to think about than she realized.

The silence made her nerves tighten. How long would Elyse’s spell take to work? Yasmin didn’t sense any magic yet. She could, however, feel a fat drop of sweat rolling down her spine.

After pausing a few more heartbeats, her brother spoke. “Are you happy, Yasmin?”

She didn’t have to feign her jerk of shock. “What do you mean?”

“With your life.” Ramis’s gray eyes looked sympathetic as well as beautiful. “I don’t mean to be insulting, but Mother and Father sold you into the harem to be a sultan’s toy. Your acceptance there enhanced their status, but what did you get except—at most—a moment or two beneath a virtual stranger who wouldn’t recall your name afterwards? What has the great Iksander done for you besides use you for his pleasure? Now that he’s gone, you won’t even have that much. Why do you owe them loyalty?”

“
Them
?” she asked faintly.

“Your masters,” he said, waving one hand impatiently. “Everyone’s masters here. No matter how soft your bed or how rich your clothes, you’re their prisoner. Why not throw off their shackles? Why not build a free new life, one you can shape to suit your own desires?”

His questions were unexpectedly compelling. She’d barely been Iksander’s lover, and she’d come to hate being a concubine. In her heart of hearts, she knew she deserved better.

This is how he seduced them,
she thought.
How he got those children to willingly go with him.
But she couldn’t give away that she knew.

“I don’t . . . understand,” she said haltingly.

Ramis’s silver gaze gleamed with intensity. “What if I told you Balu was alive and I know where he is?”

“What?” Her hand pressed her chest, her heart thudding beneath her palm.

He took her other hand and squeezed it. “Come with me. The three of us can be a family in a wonderful new world. I know that’s what Balu wants.”

Hearing him admit he had their brother was different from suspecting it. Yasmin felt as if he’d yanked a rug out from under her. “You know what Balu wants? Ramis, where is he? Is he all right?”

“He’s better than all right. He’s—”

Ramis stopped speaking. His head cocked slightly to one side, as if he were listening to faint music. Yasmin hadn’t been paying attention to anything but him, but now she noticed a subtle thickening in the air, a tingling where it brushed it her skin. Elyse’s spell must be starting to take effect. She gripped Ramis’s hands to pull his focus back to her.

“Where is he?” she asked. “Where is Balu?”

“I—” Ramis swayed on the park bench. His eyes flared bright yellow, as blinding as little suns. When the glare receded, his irises didn’t return to their normal gray. They stayed the alien color, like flickering candle flames. His pupils were different too. Blacker. Smaller. And not quite round anymore.

These are his real eyes,
Yasmin thought.
This is what he looks like now.

Ramis’s expression changed as he took in her reaction.

“What did you do?” he demanded. He held out his right hand and stared at it. The tips of his fingers smoked. Notably, the blurring wasn’t restricted to his hands. Over all his edges wisps pulled off—as if a distant vacuum were dragging bits off him. He looked at her, horrified. “You betrayed me to them?”

“Ramis,” she begged, knowing she might only have seconds. Who knew if he’d speak once he was imprisoned? “Please tell me where Balu is.”

He threw off her pleading hold, leaping to his feet. “Damn you to hell for this!”

She was lucky he could only curse her with words. Caught up in resisting the human’s spell, he couldn’t spare power to do magic. More and more of his body turned to smoke. He was also shrinking rapidly, until he was no taller than a four-year-old. Yasmin gasped as new appendages suddenly sprouted on his back. He was all smoke then: a monkey-sized, roiling smoke demon with bat wings.

Was this what murder turned good djinn into?

“God help us,” she murmured unthinkingly.

The Ramis monkey let out a scream of rage. His smoke form—his true form?—was sucked up into the air . . . unwillingly, from what she could tell. Willing or not, the struggling ball of smoke sped toward the top of the Arch of Triumph, where Elyse and one of the commanders were posted. Yasmin wanted to fly after it. How else would she get answers about what had happened to Balu?

She was about to transform when Joseph materialized beside her. He put his hand on her arm, the unexpected familiarity startling her.

“Wait,” he said, not seeming to realize he’d done something he shouldn’t. “This situation isn’t settled. Your brother has a confederate, possibly more than one. We need to stay alert down here, not up there confusing things.”

“He actually took our brother,” she said, her voice trembling on the edge of tears. “He knows where Balu is!”

Joseph rubbed her arm through her sleeve. “I heard,” he said. “Just trust Cade to get the truth out of him.”

~

Cade was peering through the binoculars as Elyse succeeded in turning Ramis into smoke. Cade’s body jerked, his mind unprepared to accept the being his eyes had identified.

“Shit,” he said softly. “Ramis is Samir.”

He couldn’t be mistaken. The ifrit Samir had snuck into Elyse’s brownstone through the portal in her basement. He’d popped up again when they journeyed to the desert and met Sheikh Zayd’s Bedouins. When Cade, Elyse, and Joseph escaped the sheikh’s plot to do them harm, Samir had helped navigate their flying carpet here.

Cade hadn’t thought Samir might be
from
the Glorious City. In truth, he hadn’t imagined Samir started life as a light djinni. His smoke shape was distinctive, his mannerisms those of a low-level born demon: alternately unctuous and sly. He’d seemed childish in his emotions, though canny in intelligence. Samir was easy to be annoyed by and even easier to underestimate. The ifrit had never once assumed solid form in front of them. Cade hadn’t thought he could.

Cade and Joseph’s ignorance must have amused him.

“What?” Elyse asked, noting the change in his demeanor.

“Nothing,” he said, not wanting to distract her. “You’re doing perfectly. Keep chanting.”

She didn’t lose her stride as she resumed. The thrashing ball of vapor streaked toward their perch, yanked helplessly toward the brass vessel Elyse held.

“Ready the stopper,” Cade advised.