Hammer of Witches (8 page)

I touched the charm with the tips of my fingers, feeling the shallow scratches in its dull surface. Oddly enough, the charm felt warm to the touch — bizarrely warm, even on such a hot summer’s day.

A disturbing thought flew up in my mind. This was Amir
al-Katib’s necklace — my
father’s
necklace. That man had touched this charm with
his
fingers, had worn this necklace around his own neck. What if this warmth I was feeling was
his
warmth, a warmth that had been trapped there for the last fourteen years?

It was an irrational thought, but all the same I let the chain jangle back to the floor. This necklace. It was proof. Amir al-Katib was no legend, no myth. He was my father — a Storyteller and a traitor and a Moor. I looked down with horror at the dark skin on the back of my hands. A Storyteller and a traitor and a Moor. Now I was all those things too.

I rubbed my face, stretching back the skin around my long Moorish nose. Every time I closed my eyes I saw a terrible bearded man, his face splattered with the blood of innocents. That was the way al-Katib looked the night he had abandoned me, after the Inquisition came and killed my mother. At least, that was the story al-Katib had told Diego — but who knew if that story was true? Everyone knew Amir al-Katib was a deft and savage warrior. In a fit of rage, he could have killed my mother himself, just as he killed Luis de Torres’s brothers in Granada.

I could feel my uncle’s gaze pushing against me, as if he were standing right behind me, just out of sight.
It’s from your father,
Diego had said of the necklace.
For your protection,
he said.
It will help you.
And my uncle had laughed, too, though I could hardly figure out why.

I sat on the edge of the bed and again lifted the necklace
before my eyes. I didn’t get it. Gold was worthy of protection, sure. But how could a necklace possibly protect
me
?

Unless . . .

Unless there was something inside that gold charm. Only one way to find out. I clicked open the necklace.

And was blasted back against the wall. My head thunked against the wall behind me, and most of the breath shot out of my lungs. The golden charm jumped out of my hands, its glittering chain waving behind it — and then I knew I had gone completely mad.

Because it appeared to me that the charm was bouncing across the floor with purpose, as if it were trying to get from one place to another. In fact, it was trying to get to the exact center of the room. Once there it stopped short and sat itself upright, as if someone were balancing it there with the tip of an invisible finger. When the charm was perfectly perpendicular to the floor, a stream of gas began hissing out, filling the room with plumes of purplish smoke.

In a panic I covered my face with an arm and threw open the attic window. With a stubborn
bang
the shutters slammed themselves back shut. Above me, purple clouds swirled about the ceiling, sending jagged bolts of violet light toward the charm vibrating on the floor. Every moment, the vibrations grew more urgent, and the clouds above the charm swirled faster. Until —

An unnameable mass spewed out of the necklace. I ducked as it bounced off the wall right next to me. It flew past me so quickly that a gust of wind blew up the hair around my ears. Still ducking, I watched the glob zoom around the attic. It banged off the dresser, the shutters, the attic door, the opposite wall. As it flew, the glob spasmed and squelched, raging against itself, writhing. At last, it reached its dizzying peak in the center of the room, spinning faster and faster until it was a purplish blur.

And then, of course, it exploded.

Tears stung my eyes. I squeezed them shut. The popping sound of the explosion had temporarily deafened me. I could hear nothing but the dulled sound of my barking coughs. But gradually, I thought I heard something else, too. Something like girlish sneezes. I waved the smoke away from my eyes and was astonished by what I saw.

A slight girl sat on her knees in the middle of the room, surrounded by dissolving puffs of smoke. That fact alone was enough to make my pulse stop short, but when the smoke finally cleared that’s not what surprised me most.

What surprised me most was that the girl’s head was on fire.

The girl sat frozen in the center of the room, a lithe reddish-brown figure with black flames ravaging her skull. The girl sneezed again — a series of three quick, short
achoo
s that together sounded something like a birdsong. “Excuse me,” the girl said. Her voice chimed, nymphlike, through the attic.

From my place on the bed I took in this spectacle, my back perfectly flush against the wall. The girl swept her flaming head from side to side. “You’re not Amir. What is this place?”

My hands gripped the bedspread, my only link to reality. Obviously the girl in front of me was a demon. At the same time she appeared to be a girl of eleven or ten. Her eyes were violet, friendly and warm, and her mouth soft with the loving amusement of a grandmother. Glittering jewels of every color covered her fingers and bare toes, and half a dozen diamonds hung in neat rows under her batlike ears. The ivory dress she wore was cut from some rich material too, something like whatever flower petals are made of.

The girl-demon raised herself up on tiptoes. Soon I realized her feet were no longer touching the floor. Now the girl was floating above the floorboards, her violet eyes calm and inquiring. Finally she alighted in a graceful squat on the edge of the mattress, sending me scrambling toward the foot of the bed so quickly that I nearly fell off.

With a delicate finger the girl cracked open the window so she could peep down at the marina below. Her bat ears perked up at the sight. “Oh, good, good, good!” the girl said. “At least we’re still in Palos.”

Were we? At the moment it seemed like I had been transported into one of my uncle’s old stories — one where a mischievous spirit tries to steal a young man’s soul.

My own mischievous spirit cocked her head at me. “Who are you, anyway? How do you know Amir?”

This time I at least tried to answer, but my voice came out in little crackles that disintegrated in my mouth. The demon’s
ears twitched happily as she raised her chin toward the room’s only exit.

“Is Amir down there?” she asked. She hopped off the bed and flounced toward the attic door.

I threw myself in front of her. “Don’t go out there!”

Again the girl cocked her head at me. The way she hung there, her bare feet pointed vaguely inward, she looked like a young child waiting for a parent’s return. “Why?” she asked me in that way only a child can. When I couldn’t answer she reached out to open the attic door.

Again I jumped in front of her. “No, I mean it! You
cannot
go out there!”

The girl floated slowly to the floor. “Why?” she asked me again, but this time her voice was heavy with suspicion. The black bonfire that was her hair was growing larger now, swirling closer and closer to the ceiling. Little black sparks, I noticed, were springing onto the girl’s bony bare shoulders.

“Why do you keep telling me what to do?” The girl flew in close to me so her flat chest was an inch away from my own. “You can’t do that. Only Amir can do that!”

“I’m sorry,” I said, backing away from her toward the bed. “But there’s no reason to go downstairs. Amir isn’t down there. Really!”

The girl flew toward me faster now, at such a steep angle that her bare feet were nearly over her head. “Then where is he? Huh?” The girl poked me hard in the chest, sending me
falling into a sitting position on the bed. “Huh? Tell me! Where is Amir?”

Rubbing my chest, I scooted away from her toward the pillow. “Ouch! Look, I swear to you! I have no idea where Amir is. No one does!”

The girl’s hair erupted in a black fireball. “Liar!” she cried. “You’re a liar, liar, liar!”

By this point there was nowhere left for me to run. I had backed all the way into the corner of the bed, with a wall on one side of me and the window on the other. The girl flew in closer, her hair roiling. I shrunk back so my skin wouldn’t be burned off by the flames.

Because the flames were growing larger now — much larger. In fact, they were cascading down the girl’s entire body. “Liar!” the girl shouted, and the black flames lapped down her neck. “Liar! Liar!” And they swallowed her arms and stomach. I cowered at the sight of her. This girl was a demon, no doubt about it — a white-eyed demon of pure black flame.

I had to do something. At this rate, she was going to set the whole inn on fire! That’s when I noticed something in the corner of my vision. Of course — the pitcher! The ceramic pitcher the innkeeper had given me! I covered my eyes with a forearm and, in one wild motion, snatched up the container and flung the liquid inside at the girl.

I heard a splash, which I expected, and a fizz, which I expected too. But what I didn’t expect was the horrible, strangled
yelp that came out of the demon’s mouth when I splashed her. I heard a couple of thumps and then silence. The girl had crashed onto the floor.

My God.

I had killed her! My heart gasped at the thought. I threw myself on my hands and knees so I could look over the side of the bed. “Are you all right?” I said, but it was clear the girl was anything but. She was curled into a ball on the floor, her head completely bare except for a fizzing black splatter that covered most of her brown scalp. It was a burn — a deep, black burn. The water had branded it into her skin where it hit her. More burns, black and dry as charcoal, snaked down the girl’s once-flawless neck and arms. Clouds of steam sizzled out from her skin, and her blackened toes bent inward, petrified in pain.

“I’m sorry!” I whispered to the poor corpse below me. “I didn’t mean to — I didn’t want — Look, I’m sorry!”

In response, the corpse whimpered and hugged her cracking arms. “That really hurt,” the girl croaked. She sat up and sulked down at her broiled arms. “Oh, look what you did. Now I’ll have to change.”

Which is exactly what she did. With a
whoosh
, the black flames rekindled on her skull. The girl winced as the burns gradually disappeared from her body, and the wet spots on her ivory dress slowly faded away. In a few more seconds the girl had completely transformed. She now looked exactly the way she had looked before.

“Amir didn’t tell you I’m an ifritah,” the girl said sadly, as if that explained what I had done to her.

I didn’t know the word, so I shook my head.

“You really don’t know where he is, do you?”

I shook my head once more, jaw slack. The girl floated up from the floorboards and landed beside me on the mattress. This time I tried not to flinch away from her as she came near.

“Who are you?” the girl said to me at last.

“Baltasar,” I answered, and I offered her a timid handshake.

She didn’t take it. Distress or something like it was wrinkling her brow, and tears were forming in the corners of her eyes, singeing the skin near the bridge of her nose.

The girl reached out hesitantly and touched my cheek with one of her thin hands. “You can’t be Baltasar. It’s a joke. Tell me it’s a joke.”

Feeling uncomfortable, I turned my face away from the girl’s hand. “Here,” I said. “Look, I can prove it.” I bent over the side of the bed so I could pick up the scroll from the floor. I unrolled it between us on the bedspread. “It’s from the Malleus Maleficarum. It should have my name on it somewhere.”

The girl dragged a ringed finger across the parchment as she read to herself in a whisper. “Warrant for the arrest of Baltasar Infante, son of Amir al-Katib, the Moor. Should be treated as an enemy of the Spanish crown.” The girl looked up at me with those huge violet eyes. “What is this? When was this written?”

“There’s probably a date on it somewhere. Here — the thirtieth of July, the year of our Lord fourteen-hundred and ninety-two —”

The girl, stiff and unblinking, shook her head. “No. Read it again.”

Not sure of what she’d do if I refused, I reread, very carefully, “Warrant for the arrest of —”

“No, the year! The year! Tell me the year!”

“1492?” I said, shocked that I bothered to repeat it.

“No.” The girl’s body quaked in terror or rage. “No, it can’t be!” The girl grabbed the top of my tunic and yanked me roughly toward her. “If you really are Baltasar, you must know where Amir is! Where is he? Tell me! Where is your father?”

I tried to back away, but the girl’s hold on my shirt was too strong. “I already told you. I have no idea where he is!”

“And I already told you to stop lying!”

“I’m not!”

“Yes, you are! You’re a liar! So just stop it, Baltasar! Bal —! Amir . . .”

Though the girl’s words were fierce, I heard pain twinging in every syllable. It was a pain I knew all too well. This girl, this little demon — she was just as alone as I was.

“He left me,” the girl said. She let go of my tunic and slumped against the attic wall. Silent tears burned down her eyelids and onto her cheeks.

I crawled closer to her on the bed. “Hey,” I said to her,
softly. Demon or no, this person beside me was a little girl, and right now, this little girl was crying. “Hey, no. Please. Please don’t cry.
Shh.
What’s your name?”

“Jinniyah,” the girl answered. She hiccuped back a new batch of tears. “How could he, Baltasar? Fourteen years! Fourteen years, and he left me all alone. Fourteen years, and I . . . I . . . I hate him!”

And the girl collapsed into new sobs.

Not knowing what else to do, I held onto the girl and let her cry. Amir al-Katib. Jinniyah’s necklace had once been in the man’s possession, maybe even forty years ago when Amir met Diego in Constantinople. And then, at the same time he left his son as an orphan on Diego’s doorstep, Amir had left this girl — this Jinniyah — too. That time, when my father had abandoned me, he had abandoned Jinniyah, as well.

An odd sensation worked its way up my body. If that was true, then this girl was as good as my sister. Not knowing what to do with this information I shut my mouth and held her close, like I thought a brother should.