The Genie's Witch (Dirty Djinn) (8 page)

“That won’t be necessary.” He’d talked incessantly since that second drink and the pain in her temples had advanced from throbbing to pounding.  “It’s fine.”

“I really don’t mind. Napa’s on the way to my mom’s house. I need to head up there to pick up the dog anyway. Might as well go a day early. Let’s be honest, you’ve been drinking a bit. I want to make sure you get there safe. You want to. I can see you breaking,” he added in a singsong voice.

Points for persistence. She’d brushed him off a million different ways since meeting him, but he hadn’t given up. The man’s face and physique could pull any woman in this airport. Dinah’s eyes would have to roll out of her head before she denied his beauty, but not a spark of attraction lit within her.

Maybe that explained his determination. The man didn’t look like the type used to being ignored. “It’s just a ride, Demetrius.”

“Of course.”

“You swear it’s on the way? I won’t have you making a special trip.”

Demetrius tossed his keys in the air and looked over his shoulder with a playful grin on his lips. “You’re not that cute. We’d better get started. The lot is a million miles away.”

A billion miles away, she later found. It took a fifteen-minute shuttle to get to the edge of the lot and another eight-minute walk to the car itself. When she got there, her stomach threatened to toss its contents. Filth. Pure, filth.

“Sorry about the mess.”

“No problem.” Problem. The midsized, dented and rusting sedan smelled of turned food and wet clothes gone moldy. She looked back to the main terminal, now separated by lot after lot of cars. She was too tired and too over it to walk back.

Demetrius raked crumbs off the passenger’s seat before she sat down. “This isn’t my regular car. It’s my first one. My baby. I don’t feel comfortable leaving the Benz out here.”

“Right.”

Demetrius finally shut his mouth as they turned into traffic and in the stillness, the exhaustion of the day wrapped around her like a warm, if smelly, blanket. She yawned once, then twice, before drifting off into sleep.

She woke up to an insect bite and a bumpy ride over unpaved hills. “How long have I been asleep? Where are we?”

“About an hour. This is a shortcut only the locals know.”

Through the woods? No houses, no road, not even a path? She’d been tired and upset and it’d made her stupid. “I prefer to stick to the road.”

“You didn’t believe me, did you?”

“Huh?”

“When I told you about the second car?”

“Does it matter? Listen, Demetrius, I’m hungry and I paid for my first night’s dinner at the inn. I’d like to make it there in time. I don’t think this shortcut of yours is going to make that happen.”

“All the other girls couldn’t wait to get alone with me. You though, you looked right past me. I think I’m insulted.”

“What other girls?”

“The ones I’ve given rides to. You’ll join them.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just relax. It won’t be long now.”

Boy, she could pick ‘em. Djinn Love At First Sight just got bumped down a notch on the list of crazy. “Let me out.” The car wasn’t going so fast that she couldn’t jump and roll, but the door lock didn’t budge. She tried again, but her fingers were thick and uncooperative. “You picked the wrong girl, buddy. And the wrong damned day.”

“Now whose turn is it to sound unconvinced?”

She might have panicked at another time, but her mind was too busy examining every possible next step. If she let him keep driving, it meant a longer trip back to the highway. She could kill him, but she pushed that away too. Despite him very clearly wanting to do at least that to her, she would save that as a last resort. 

“They all did that. Got real quiet trying to figure something out.”

“Did you let any of them go,” she asked, voice steady as a rod of steel.

“I didn’t peg you as someone illogical. I’m a doctor with a well-earned reputation. These hands have saved countless lives in the ER. Every once in awhile, I need to level the balance.”

“Gotta tell you, Demetrius, that makes killing you a lot easier.”

“Funny girl and so calm. That will change. Your arm hurt when you woke up, didn’t it? Does it still hurt now? Speech is the last to go.” He pointed to the dashboard and she blinked against the glare. When her eyes refocused, they landed on a syringe. Demetrius picked it up and tossed it into a crumpled potato chip bag. “Your lids aren’t heavy at all, but when you try to move, everything slows. I can almost hear your little heart thudding inside you. I’ll free it soon.”

She tried to twist her head, but only succeeded in dropping her chin into her chest. Lifting the car would have been easier. Magic could fix her, but it would take up too much time and energy – commodities in short supply.

“You’ll hear everything I say. You’ll see me and feel everything I do to you. Your life will abandon you drip by drip, like water through a sieve and you’ll experience every moment of it. I hope you appreciate what a rare treat that is. Most people won’t have that chance.

She couldn’t answer. Couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream, but he was right about the feeling. She was very much aware that tears beat a path down her cheek. He slowed the car to lick them away.

She knew then it’d be the last time he ever touched her. She may not be able to free herself, but she could sure as hell stop him. In her mind’s eye, she drew the symbol for power. It blazed gold, and then red, as life returned to her lips. She’d have one shot – one mumbled word – and it had to be enough. “Potestas.”

Brakes squealed as the car jerked to a stop. Only the seat belt kept her head from hitting the dashboard. Magic didn’t stop the car. He did. “Impossible. Did you just say something?”

She sure had. The old word for power.
Potestas
was a tricky thing. It drained her as it pumped her up, magical adrenaline, but it gave her a needed boost for one final word. “
Siste
.”

He gasped once and froze, stiff as a board. If he wouldn’t let her move, then she wouldn’t let him move either. Minor difference...well, big one. His drugs left her self-aware. Her magic was far less gracious.

Then too, so was gravity. Without Demetrius on the brake, the car skidded backwards, crashing against what must have been a tree. She didn’t have the ability to turn and confirm it. After several false starts, she gave up trying to count the minutes and waited it out.

The sun was low, but still in the sky when she managed to lift her head. Other faculties came back in fits and spurts. First, a tingle around her knee, then an itch around the presumed injection spot. At least she could see the clock now and watched as another hour went by. She used the time to focus on home, her family, her city and Tig.

Another thirty minutes passed.

It took five tries to get her arm up. On the last attempt, she dove straight for the chip bag and the syringe. “
Potestas
.”

Dinah rode the avalanche of power until her hand closed over the needle and brought it down, business end first, into Demetrius’ knee. He gave no acknowledgment of the medicine shooting through his body.

Slow, dragging, but determined, she unlatched the seatbelt and reached across him to unlock the childproof doors. While pins and needles attacked her awakening body, she hobbled to his side of the car and dragged him out. The man was all muscle, but she set her jaw and grunted her way through it. 

All the universe screamed at her to drive away, but the last thing she needed was to crash into something and pass out behind the wheel. As much as it terrified her to stay near him, she climbed back in and waited for strength to return.

Twenty minutes.

As the sun made a dangerous dip to the horizon, she made her move and exited the jalopy. She jumped over an unmoving Demetrius to rummage in the trunk of the car. Bile rose at what she found. Bloody clothes, shoes, purses and tape. She hoisted out a length of chain and went to work on him.

“Are you awake? Can you hear me?”

He didn’t move, but his eyes watered.

“Good. This is me tying you up. When I find the cops, they’ll destroy you. We’ll never see each other again, so have a wretched life. Enjoy prison. ”

Demetrius, wrists and knees tied together, was the last thing she saw in the rearview mirror.

Ahead of her, nothing made sense. She’d been asleep for most of the trip and had no real idea of where to go. Yet by any measure, heading down the mountain made a lot more sense than going back up it.

She drove for an eternity and didn’t stop until a woman jumped out in front of her. Dinah screamed. Her feet pumped the breaks, but the car didn’t slow in time to avoid her.

Good thing she was already dead. The woman carried the horror of her death, bloodied and twisted, but a sense of calm settled over the car as the ghost materialized in the seat next to her. Fear wasn’t an issue. The creatures weren’t of this world and couldn’t do much in it without a little inside help.

“Did he do this to you?”

The dark haired, transparent figure nodded. She was beautiful or had been, before the Glasgow smile split her face.

“How many are you?”

Six tiny fingers rose.

“Are they here?”

The hairs on her arms frosted in the chilled car. Despite the temperature, the windows froze over and she knew the answer was yes.

“Do you want to be found?”

A nod.

“Do you want to be free?”

The figured twisted to look at her sisters in death. Eyes, once blue, now burned vermillion. The smile split and curled.

“Then I welcome you into this world to have your revenge.” Dinah opened her body to them, feeling their rage pass through her, taking tiny bits of her essence needed to make it into this plane of existence. She had no worry for herself as they went through her body. She felt their purpose. They didn’t blame her for living. No, they thanked her for the opportunity to make things right again. Demetrius wouldn’t leave this mountain the same way he came up it.

With a new promise to keep, Dinah started up the car and drove away.

“I
’m rich. I won.”

“I know.” Tig sat on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands. It’d been nearly twenty-four hours since he’d seen Karlin. She’d sailed through the door in the middle of the night, waving the ticket in the air.

This he expected.

The dark glow and stench of evil along with it came as an unwelcome surprise. Her skin was clammy - he could see drops of perspiration from across the room and she held herself too tightly, clutching her arms and looking at him through bulging eyes. What he’d mistaken for delight was far worse. She stank of dark magic. The kind that seeped into your soul and charred it forever. Every jerky action of her body served as testimony to it.

“What have you done?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“Whatever you’re messing with, you need to stop.”

“I don’t need to be told what to do by...well...a servant. Slave. Prisoner. Pick one.”

Let her soul rot then. What did he care? And yet, he should. Karlin was no more than a child about to stick a wet finger in a socket. “That stuff will change you. You are not born of magic. You can’t handle what you’re playing with. It’s bigger than you can manage.”

“You care so much?”

“One less mess I’ll have to clean up.”

A grin crept across her sallow face, one he could read plain as day. She didn’t mean for him to be around to do anything. Had she learned how to kill a djinn? Perhaps, but if so, why was he still alive?

Tig swallowed past the lump in his throat. Anything could be killed with dark magic. He preferred that to the other possibility that his mind started to fixate on: a half-death. Such a thing was common to the southern hemisphere, but only the darkest of workers knew of it. Half-death turned its victims into mindless slaves, present but unaware. He’d seen it first hand during the colonial wars and it was the only way he could think of to keep a djinn, and his power, forever.

“Something scares you? Me? Did I put that look on your face?”

“So a last wish and we’re done. Let’s hear it.”

“Only because you tricked me out of one. That was a bad idea.”

“Consider me less than sympathetic.”

“The fact remains that I’m not exactly sure what that third one will be. The list of possible wishes is still in flux.”

“Ergo?”

“Here’s the thing. I’m rich as the devil now, so I may not need that wish for some time.”

Tig looked up, resting his chin on his fists. “And therefore you intend to keep me.”

“I’ve always wanted a pet.”

How? He so badly wanted to ask, but if she didn’t know about half-deaths yet, he didn’t want to plant the seed. Only the laughing teenagers in the hall stopped him from killing her and his face must have said as much. She wisely stepped to the door. “We leave in three hours on the first flight in the morning.”

“There’s no point to it, Karlin. You’re rich. You have everything you want and could ever want. Cash in the fucking ticket and be done with it.”

She leaned against the door jam, one foot in the hall. “I’ve got a husband to ditch first.”

“This being the man you love and hold so dear?”

“Don’t get me wrong. I still do. He doesn’t understand what I am. Calls it a hobby. I can’t have him finding out the truth and blabbering about it. Besides, it’s my money. We’ll have to do something permanent.”

I
t had been the worst few days of Dinah’s life. Her only bit of consolation came from the area newscasts. A local physician had been found in the woods, bloody, wounded and half-mad. In his ranting, he’d disclosed the locations of several missing women. He’d been booked, but died mysteriously in his cell. Not so mysterious to Dinah. Soon after, she’d had a few ghostly visitors. With her help, the six women went into their final peace.

The trip out here was worth that alone. It’d also made her realize how short life was. Love, even chances at it, didn’t come often. If she had a shot, no matter how it came, she had an obligation to the universe to go for it.