The Angel: Tales of the Djinn, #3 Read online

  “The columns, I think. Those monsters are solid oak. Our fork lift’s kaput at the moment, but if you help me muscle the ends onto a hand truck, we can transfer them to the workshop.”

  Iksander followed Tobias’s instructions, pretending to grunt periodically in imitation of the human. When they had the base of their prize balanced on the wheels, Iksander lifted the other end and walked backwards. Back home, the sultan would have ordered this thing magicked to its desired location. That being impossible here, Tobias’s arrangement was effective. Without much trouble, they rolled the pillar across bumpy concrete through a gaping maw into the warehouse.

  As they entered, two burly humans shut off whirring saws and laughed. One was dark-skinned and the other ruddy-cheeked.

  Iksander had a feeling he was the source of their merriment.

  “This is Alexander,” Tobias said, his tone conveying a warning. “He’s from Turkey, and he’s helping us out today.”

  “Another of Francine’s strays,” the florid man observed to his companion.

  “Hey,” said his fellow worker, nodding and—apparently—ignoring the comment. “You should maybe change. Francine has jeans and shit in the clothing room.”

  “Um,” Iksander said unsurely. Shit wasn’t real shit, he realized.

  “Go ahead,” Tobias encouraged. “I’m afraid I’ve already dirtied your clothes. Jerry can help me unload for now.”

  Jerry was the red-faced man. The darker one was Mike. He led Iksander to a room stuffed with the saddest, most worn out garments he’d ever seen. To his amazement, hand-written price tags dangled from them on strings. These were part of the junk shop’s goods. Other humans were going to buy them.

  Though he attempted not to recoil, Mike must have noticed his widened eyes. Luckily, he misread his reaction. “You don’t have to pay,” he assured him. “Just don’t take forever. Francine and Tobias are nice, but they’ll expect real work from you.”

  “That is fair,” he said.

  Mike nodded at him and left him alone to change. Hoping it was the right thing to do, Iksander chose items that resembled the other men’s outfits. He hid his own clothing in the bottom of an overflowing bin. If worse came to worse and he were here a while, he could sell the jewels that adorned them—once he figured out their value on this plane.

  No djinni worth his smoke liked striking a bad bargain.

  Iblis take it, he swore, abruptly remembering he hadn’t brought the sack of miniaturized treasures Joseph the Magician had prepared. They’d been meant to support the travelers, and he’d totally forgotten. He cursed again in his head, though the anger was pointless. He couldn’t undo his mistake now. He’d have to manage the best he could with the resources he possessed.

  Because he had time to address at least one annoyance, he tied his hair back with a price tag’s cord. With regret, he relinquished his curly toed slippers. They were more comfortable than the work boots he’d found.

  On the bright side, he was now much warmer.

  He scanned the rest of the store on his return to Tobias. The display area was a jumble his eyes couldn’t make sense of. Windows hung from the ceiling, and tables stacked one atop another. Did humans truly shop here? How could they find anything? It didn’t help that djinn would have paid to dispose of most of the things he saw.

  He guessed he’d chosen his work outfit well enough. When he reappeared outside, Tobias nodded in approval.

  “Let’s get the last two columns,” he instructed.

  The truck was packed like a puzzle. So many items had been fit inside Iksander began to wonder if it were an enchanted container. He carried out floorboards and corbels and countless other half-wrecked items whose peeling patina Tobias declared to be “money.”

  “You can’t fake weathering,” the human said happily. “Father Time and Mother Nature are always the best artists.”

  Iksander offered a grunt of response he hoped was appropriate. Despite his strength advantage, he was tiring.

  The concentration required to play human kept his concerns from pricking him as persistently as they otherwise might have. Only in fits and starts did they push for his attention. Was his city all right, so far as it could be? Were his friends? Iksander wasn’t sure if he were frustrated or grateful for the lack of leisure to dwell on this. Certainly, he’d never lived through a morning so peculiar.

  Finally, Tobias rolled the truck’s back door down.

  “Lunch,” he announced. “I hope you like egg salad sandwiches. It’s Wednesday and Francine’s a creature of habit.”

  The mention of the day reminded him of a question he needed answers to.

  “Might I ask where to procure a copy of The New York Times newspaper?”

  Joseph the Magician had devised a means of communication for the four escapees. By placing coded ads in the classified section of the human broadsheet, they’d notify each other they’d arrived. Though Iksander doubted Tobias guessed why he wished to know, the man did shoot him a quizzical glance.

  “If you want today’s issue, the tractor supply should have it. The diner too. And Francine keeps back copies in shipping. She crumples the pages for packing material.”

  Iksander filed that for later consideration. If he’d calculated his time of arrival as badly as the place, outdated issues might be useful. Though he longed to scan them immediately, he thought perhaps he shouldn’t look too eager.

  “I shall ask your wife to see them when it’s convenient.”

  Tobias snorted and slapped his back. “They must have good English language teachers in Turkey.”

  Happy to have him think so, Iksander inclined his head.

  Seeming comfortable with the mixing of their genders, Tobias, Francine, and the male employees ate together at a table in a corner of the machine shop. Francine said a prayer before they started, to which the others murmured “amen.” Iksander was familiar with the practice of blessing meals. What he wasn’t used to was the words not affecting the quality of the food—at any rate, not enough to make the egg salad edible.

  As sultan of the Glorious City, the finest chefs in the Qaf catered to his whims. He didn’t think he was spoiled, but the idea of putting mushed-up eggs between coarse brown bread never would have occurred to him. The lettuce that had been inserted—perhaps for color?—imparted no taste at all. Considering how unimpressive the sandwich was, he avoided the potato chips.

  These humans are sharing food with you, he reminded, and asked nothing in return. The least he could do was behave like a proper guest.

  Tobias laughed at his polite attempt to consume the sandwich. “Have an apple,” he said softly, sliding the fruit to him. “I realize not everyone’s a fan.”

  To his relief, the apple was delicious, quite as good as grew in his city.

  Once the meal was eaten, Iksander thought he might safely raise the topic of newspapers.

  Before he could, Tobias let out a curse. “Damn it. With everything that’s happened, I forgot our install in Abingdon. The boys and I are supposed to put that bar in this afternoon, the one we made from the side of the fire truck. Who’s going to pick up Georgie at the train station? —Not you,” he warned when his wife inhaled. “The doctor said you aren’t staying off your foot enough. He said you re-stressed the break.”

  “I was going to suggest we ask Marianne,” she huffed.

  “If we ask Marianne, that only leaves you to work to the sales floor.”

  “I’m not a cripple!”

  “Screw it,” Tobias said as he and his wife flushed equally with anger. He dug in his pocket and came out with a set of keys. Removing one, he set it on the nicked wood table in front of Iksander.

  “I’m trusting you,” he said, pinning Iksander with a stern look. The human’s eyes were the same steel gray as his bristled hair. “You’ve been all right so far, but let me know if you plan to run off with my goddamned car.”

  “Language!” Francine objected.

  Iksander looked at the key and bli
nked. The human was asking him to drive to the train station. If he agreed, he’d gain a useful mobility. The question was could he absorb the necessary skills in the time desired? He absolutely wanted to try. Those motor vehicles intrigued him.

  “I . . . would require directions,” he replied.

  “I’ll draw you a map,” Tobias said. “It’s only about eight miles.”

  Eight miles was nothing. Iksander had flown farther his first time piloting a carpet when he was twelve. Plus, he’d watched the CSIs drive to crime scenes more times than he could count. At the least, he knew where to insert the key.

  “You don’t even know if he has a license,” his wife complained.

  “I have an international license,” Iksander said. He tried not to smirk. He was proud of himself for pulling that answer from thin air.

  THE HUMAN LED IKSANDER to a lamentably plain white vehicle with four doors. A fifth door secured the rear, where once-shiny metal letters said ISUZU. Iksander opened the hatch he knew was the driver’s door and got in. To his dismay, Tobias didn’t leave, but stood and rubbed his neck unsurely.

  Iksander preferred not to intuit the car’s functions with him watching. He was certain a human would find the process unusual.

  “I will be all right,” he said, he hoped reassuringly.

  “Sure,” Tobias said. He shifted his weight to his other leg. “Just FYI: the old gal is sluggish when you step on the gas.”

  “I’ll be careful of the ‘old gal,’ I promise.”

  Tobias sighed and dug some folded up green bills from his jeans pocket. “Take a couple twenties. Just in case. I don’t think you’ll need to fill her up, but you should have it. You worked hard this morning.”

  “Thank you,” Iksander said gravely, though the paper money did not impress. “I shall be careful of this too.”

  Fortunately, Tobias was too rushed to stay longer. Waiting until he was out of sight, the sultan focused on connecting with the car’s history. He’d suspected it was well used, and in this he was gratified. As he ran his hands around its instruments, the memories of at least five drivers vibed out at him.

  He congratulated himself on discovering how to move back the seat, thus gaining needed room for his legs. Also to his pleasure, when he inserted and turned the key, the engine started immediately. Sadly, that satisfaction was the last he enjoyed for the next ten herky-jerk, break-out-in-a-sweat minutes.

  Almighty, he thought, pulling onto the roadway’s verge to let his nerves settle.

  He mopped his face and checked landmarks through the window. There was the second stoplight Tobias mentioned—and the E-Z Stop with the Arby’s across from it. If the map the human drew was correct, he had five miles left to the train depot.

  He didn’t suppose he’d get away with walking them.

  Look at the mountains, he advised. The trees are quite lovely.

  The landscape calmed him, even if it was alien. The overlapping ridges stretched to the horizon, the leaves that emblazoned them breathtaking—so many splendorous reds and oranges and yellows he couldn’t name all the hues. He appreciated knowing some things in the human realm weren’t ugly.

  Beauty notwithstanding, his hands were shaking as if he’d contracted a palsy.

  “Fuck,” he said and balled them into fists.

  He’d made it this far—and not just the first three miles but all the way to a new dimension. Naturally, he needed to adjust. Any djinni would. He wasn’t failing again, not unless he gave up.

  He put the car into driving gear again. He went slowly enough that three other vehicles passed and honked. He didn’t care. He stayed in his lane and didn’t jerk to and fro. By the time he pulled into the lot for parking, he’d actually stopped sweating.

  Possibly, his stressful journey had darkened his outlook. To his mind, the train depot didn’t deserve the name “station.” It was a concrete platform plunked beside a pair of tracks. Its roof—if you could call it that—was stingily embellished and propped up on green-painted iron. The iron Iksander would steer clear of. That particular metal burned djinn skin.

  He got out and read the sign. Apparently, the Virginia location he’d washed up in was known as Black Bear Mountain. The long hoot he heard in the distance implied the train had come and gone.

  A single female—Georgie, he presumed—waited on the platform. Iksander wasn’t close enough for her to have noticed his arrival. She was gazing intently at something in her hand, an object he believed was a cell phone. Compared to his previous experience of women, she didn’t have much baggage. Two large trunks and one smaller bag stood near her. Her peacoat was navy, her loose jeans faded blue. Both obscured her figure. She seemed slim and unremarkable; medium height for a human female, he supposed. Her hair spilled straight and shining from the confines of a brown headband.

  To be fair, its color was pretty: a striking pale sunset red. As he strode closer, she gathered her locks in her second hand and smoothed them. Thinking she might want a warning, Iksander cleared his throat.

  The girl looked up, and his new heart literally stopped.

  The human’s tresses might be red, but her features were an exact match for his dead wife. There was Najat’s adorable pinch-tipped nose and the pink cushions of her lips. That was her jawline and sculpted cheekbones, with their perfect blending of straight and soft. The ends of her eyebrows winged up precisely like his wife’s. The eyes beneath them were the same stormy lavender he’d woken to each morning.

  Every djinni heard stories of human doppelgangers. In some accounts, Iksander’s kind became so fascinated by their twins they couldn’t resist possessing them. This was against the laws of the light, the same as murder was. For one thing, possession tended to drive the human crazy. For another, it violated humankind’s free will.

  That was a sin their mutual Creator did not forgive.

  She wouldn’t have, Iksander thought, realizing this would have been a way for Najat to escape her death. She was too goodhearted, too gentle to harm a soul.

  His heart resumed beating thunderously, his emotions in tumult. He gasped so loudly he startled the human.

  The hand that held the cell phone flew to her breast. “Shoot. I was so busy reading Tobias’s text I didn’t see you there. You must be Alexander. I’m Georgie. Thank you for driving out here to pick me up. As you can see, Black Bear Mountain isn’t overrun with taxis.”

  She spoke with Najat’s voice—in American English, of course, with the appropriate accent. The notes of it were the same, though, the underlying humor and sweetness his kadin had been loved for.

  Iksander ruled a city. He’d given speeches to massive crowds and had conversed with every possible cross-section of society. This single human stole his breath and his words. As to that, he doubted he could move.

  “Are you okay?” Georgie asked, her brow furrowing. “Did I talk too fast? Tobias said your English was really good.”

  “I . . . am well,” he said haltingly. Unable to think what else to do, he climbed the steps to the platform to collect her traveling trunks.

  “Those are heavy,” she said, flustered by his action. “Don’t carry both. At least let me have the one with wheels.”

  The trunks were already beneath his arms. They weren’t heavy to him, but to a human he supposed they’d be. He glanced at both and set down the one with attached rollers.

  “The handle pops up,” the human said. Her hand bumped his as she demonstrated. She had Najat’s hand, with Najat’s elegant slim fingers. Iksander fought an impulse to snatch his away.

  “I have it,” he said, when she tried to claim the trunk’s handle. “This isn’t too much for me.”

  He should have let her take it. His stubbornness contravened his need to maintain a low profile.

  “Okay,” she said unsurely. “I’ll just grab my backpack.”

  He immediately wanted to carry that as well, with a fierceness that was illogical. Georgie wasn’t his dead wife, and she wasn’t a djinniya. Human females we
re accustomed to handling their belongings. Despite knowing this, he had to clamp his teeth together to keep from demanding the last of them.

  “The car is this way,” he said, stamping stiffly down the stairs.

  The trunk’s wheels didn’t roll well on gravel, but he continued dragging it ruthlessly. More than a little rattled, he fumbled to get the Isuzu’s fifth door open. He swung the bags in as he’d seen humans do in the car’s embedded memories. When he closed the hatch, he realized with dismay that he now had to drive again. Worse, he had to do it front of her. He cursed in his own language beneath his breath.

  You’re only embarrassed, he rebuked. Your pride will survive it.

  “Is something wrong?” Georgie asked.

  He looked at her reluctantly. She wasn’t afraid or angered by his behavior, but she did seem concerned.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “My manners are atrocious. This is not the greeting you should receive for your return home.”

  “That’s okay. I mean, you got drafted to play chauffeur without warning.”

  “Nonetheless.” He drew in and let out a breath. “I regret to inform you I do not have much experience with this conveyance. The journey to your parents’ place of business will not be as smooth as you’re accustomed to.”

  She laughed, her too-familiar face brilliantly sunny. “If that’s what’s bugging you, I’d be happy to take the wheel. Tobias tends to forget not everyone drives stick.”

  He focused enough to sort out her meaning. “You aren’t weary from your journey?”

  “Nah.” She waved one hand in denial. “I slept most of the way on the train. Francine would be upset to hear it, but I’m kind of relieved to have time off from studying.”

  He knew a thing or two about relief himself. “In that case.” He dug out the key to offer it to her. “I gratefully relinquish the privilege.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  —

  GEORGIE 1.0

  This Alexander guy was a character. Georgie was used to Francine’s strays. Her adoptive mother had made a few dubious choices over the years, but her radar was generally good. Tobias must have thought Alexander was okay too, or he wouldn’t have sent him to pick her up. He didn’t smell bad at least. The opposite, actually. When she’d wrestled him for the suitcase, she’d caught a whiff of mint—like leaves picked fresh from a garden.