Djinn City, page 22
“Oh shit, I forgot about Barabas!”
“It’s just that he’s taken his shirt off and he’s lying on the piano and singing Beyoncé songs.”
“You can keep him for seventy lakhs.”
CHAPTER 27
Mata Hari
Maria was not, in fact, impressed with the ancestral home. She didn’t like the fetid parking spot on the road, or the long, dusty walk through hawkers on plastic sheets and tea stalls peopled by undesirables who stared at her. She most certainly did not like the dilapidated disaster that was the front of the mansion, barely lit by naked yellow bulbs, if anything even more depressing at night.
They went inside, and Rais led her wordlessly to his uncle’s suite, which consisted of the bedroom, a small living room, and a balcony, sparsely furnished, but the most heavily warded part of the house and therefore the safest, even though there was a large gash in the defenses where the intruder had struck, which was, miraculously, slowly healing.
“Well, at least you can tell that it was a grand house at some point,” Maria said after a few minutes of awkward silence, which was strange because Rais had had many imaginary conversations lined up for just such a moment, yet nothing came out.
“Yeah, I might have exaggerated the grandeur of it a bit,” he said.
“You think? It’s a dump. Why the hell don’t you bulldoze it and build apartments?”
“There’s something in the will that prevents that,” Rais said. “Gotta go to the next male heir intact, or whatever. In fact, I might even be the legal inheritor of this edifice, until my cousin pops up.”
“Rais, he’s been gone for like ten years.” Her face softened a bit. “I don’t think he’ll be turning up anywhere. You’ve got to let that shit go, dude. What was he like anyway?”
“He thought he was a sterile mongloid freak,” Rais said, and smiled. “He was just a regular boy. Never complained much, despite the shit people put him through. Anyway, to business. You want a drink? I stole a bottle of vodka from Moffat.”
“Ugh. No.”
“So here, put these glasses on.”
“No.”
“Humor me.”
“I’ll look hideous, Rais.”
“Just look through them for god’s sake.”
“What the fuck? The room is full of spiderwebs! What is that shit? Invisible ink?”
“Spells,” Rais said. “Made of dark energy or matter or whatever. Djinn stuff. This is one of the artifacts my uncle left. You can see all the hidden stuff with this.”
“Wow. This place still looks like a dump.”
“Look, it would be easier if you just believed me.”
“Yeah, it would.”
“Um, here, take a toke of this pipe.”
“Hmm, not bad shisha.”
“Now look inside, see, it’s empty. I’m showing you actual magic. This is the Never-Ending Pipe. It steals smoke from the nearest living smoker. You’re lucky with the shisha, by the way. Most of the time, in this house, I just get Bangla Fives. You ever smoked a Bangla Five? It’s the harshest cigarette ever.”
“Okay, that’s interesting.” Maria tossed the priceless pipe aside. “Look, Rais…”
Rais, fortunately, had thought of this eventuality, that one day someone would question his sanity and evidence would have to be furnished to back up any wild claims of flying djinns and underwater monsters. There were pictures on his phone, of Barabas leaning out of the airship, capering around the cockpit; of the aeronaut Golgoras in his bestial glory; even one of himself posing with the three hairy Ghuls. These were not hazy action shots in bad light, but rather well-composed selfies in full ten-megapixel close-up, where it was possible to distinguish each oily pore on Barabas’s nose. The album was long, because Rais had been surreptitiously documenting his entire adventure, giant squid and all.
She went through them one by one, and her expressions told the tale, mocking at first, then frowning disbelief, and finally wide-eyed wonderment, an expression so unnatural to her face that Rais almost couldn’t recognize her. She hadn’t been impressed by anything since she was ten years old. He felt a rush of affection for her.
“So it’s real,” she said finally.
“Yes.”
“And you are… what? Being haunted by them? Possessed?”
“My uncle, whose armchair you’re sitting on, by the way, was an emissary. He’s been in a coma for the past ten years. Emissaries are kind of like human ambassadors to the djinn,” Rais said.
“And you’re one of them?”
“I am trying to take my uncle’s post. It is normally hereditary, but has to be ratified by a patron and a whole bunch of other courts and rules. Djinns love legal stuff. So I guess I’m an intern of sorts.” Rais paused. “Oh, and my aunt was a djinn apparently. She died giving birth to Indelbed.”
“A fine bunch of freaks in your family,” Maria said. “You’re the reason I’m in this mess—how’re you going to fix it?”
“The man who’s got your pictures,” he said. “He’s the one who took Indelbed. He knows what happened to him.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I’m not going to help you. Just fix this. I just want to get out of your whole sorry world once and for all.”
“Maria, this man is a traitor and a murderer. He probably works for Matteras, the most powerful djinn in existence. Do you think he’s just going to let it go at some dirty pictures? The second he thinks you’re messing around, he’ll torture and kill you.”
“I’ll just leave,” Maria said. She was shaking, either from rage or fear. Almost certainly rage. “My aunt lives in London. I’ll just take a flight out—you can have your stupid djinns all to yourself.”
“What about your parents? Your little sister? Will they be willing to leave too? Will they even believe you? This is a man who kidnapped and almost certainly killed a ten-year-old child—a child who was half djinn. Do you think he’ll hesitate to peel your dad’s skin off and wear it as a cape?”
“That’s sick.”
“They’re djinns we’re dealing with, Maria!” Rais said, frustrated. “They don’t follow any rules. And they don’t care about humans.”
“Okay, what’s your plan then? When am I getting out of this mess?”
“When I do,” Rais said.
“How, Rais? What am I supposed to do? Do you even have a clue?”
“I don’t know, just play along,” Rais said. “Try to find out more about him, where he lives, what he’s doing here. If I could just get him alone, I could find out what happened to Indelbed, and maybe it would all make sense.”
“What, you’d like ambush him?” Maria scoffed. “He’d kick your ass.”
“Yeah,” Rais said with a smile. “Probably.”
“What am I supposed to tell him? He’s going to want a fucking report.”
“Just tell him you’ve managed, with great difficulty, to get me into bed…”
“Gross. You’re enjoying this.”
“Sorry, I really am. I would never wish you harm, no matter what, you must know that,” Rais said. “I’m grateful you told me the truth.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” Maria said. “I mean, I’m not a liar.”
“Look, buy some time. We can figure this out. Tell him I’m hanging with Barabas.”
“The creep you brought to the party? He’s a djinn?”
“Yeah.”
“God. Why am I always stuck with losers? Where are all the cool fucking djinns?”
“Ah, so, you can sleep over if you like. I’ll take Indelbed’s room.”
“I’d rather sleep on the pavement. Just drop me off at home, asshole.”
CHAPTER 28
Brokers
“A billion billion worlds spin like tops all throughout the darkness, according to your own science,” Givaras was saying, as he dripped water into Indelbed’s cracked, parted lips.
Indelbed had achieved consciousness through a haze of delirium, guided by the drone of his master’s lecture. He felt as if he had come out on the other side of death. Memories were tenuous, his understanding shaky. The pain had abated somewhat from before, at least in his brain, which throbbed and twinged still, but with less urgency. His other great realization was that he was paralyzed from the neck down, and something was horribly wrong inside his mouth and throat; specifically his tongue was gone, leaving blinking and eye swiveling as his only method of communication.
“Who knows, then, how many awful things have arisen?” Givaras continued. “How many terrible random creations, how many old horrors lurking in corners? When I realized that we ourselves are an accident of mutation, then what other fantastical powers could elsewhere arise? Hmm? And what would be our defense? Look here, our abilities are manifold compared to the rest of unitary life that has developed on this world, making us superior beyond comparison. But what of other worlds, other dimensions, hmm? Would we, similarly, be outmatched one day? Crushed beneath foot like a cockroach? And let me remind you that the basic study of evolution reveals a constant natural struggle between life-forms for scarce resources, often leading to the outright extinction of the losers. What then awaits us? And remember, we were never numerous. The most successful forms of life can replicate quickly and continuously. Complex, long-lived creatures like us are prone to extinction.”
Indelbed, who had heard much of this before, tried to communicate that he was now conscious and extremely concerned. Givaras eventually noticed his frantic blinking and smiled down benevolently.
“Yes, your tongue, unfortunately, had to be removed. Something was changing in the structure of your throat, and I was afraid you’d choke,” the mad djinn said. “And subsequently, really impressive changes occurred inside your trunk, which put you in convulsions, caused by pain possibly, which I feared would kill you, so I took the precaution of paralyzing you by breaking your spine.”
At this point Indelbed, knowing full well that Givaras was not joking, nearly ruptured his eyelids trying to voice his extreme distress at these remedies.
“I suspect by now you would have gone mad from the suffering had I not paralyzed you. I will keep you in this state until I am certain the worst is gone. Of course this method of pain control is extreme and not precise. Please let me know if you start feeling things again.”
Givaras pottered around somewhere and then returned. “You’re wondering whether I can reverse the process and fix your spine, no doubt. I have had extensive experience, I’m afraid, in grafting tissue and healing various injuries. Part of my time has been spent as a zoologist. I have, of course, experimented on hybrid creatures before, but never one such as you. Human-djinn offspring are regrettably few and far between, and your lineage is particularly interesting. Also, not many of you consent to my little experiments. Now no more conversation, dear, I must concentrate.”
Whatever Givaras was doing didn’t hurt, and as Indelbed couldn’t see anything anyway, he was, after a period, in the bizarre situation of actually being bored while in the middle of what was possibly the most horrible medical procedure in the history of man or djinn. As the panic died away, he entered a period of calm where he accepted that it was better to be paralyzed than tortured, and if the next remaining step was a painless death, it was not such a bad thing. He was just drifting off into a Zen-like state when Givaras again prodded him awake with further news, demonstrating conclusively his ability to torture with his voice alone.
“Of course, you’re lucky that I am prepared with instruments,” the djinn said, waving wyrm bone utensils that, horrific enough to begin with, were rendered even more nightmarish by the gore dripping off them—gore that had up to this point existed peacefully inside Indelbed.
Indelbed blinked his assent to how lucky he was.
“I’m afraid I’ve not been candid with you,” Givaras continued. “You may be wondering how I have magicked such equipment out of the blue. When my colleague Risal was expiring, it was in fact a long and drawn-out affair. Marids, you know… very difficult to finish off. I tried to save her, indeed I did. My knowledge of the wyrms was limited then. I tried to introduce their bile into her system, to see if I could balance the humors. It did not work, of course. She was terribly weak, not healthy like you. Also of course, I had no knowledge of or access to the wonderful hormones of a growing wyrm. Still, I believe I have learned a lot from my failure. There are now poisons building in your blood, which will eventually destroy your organs. It is necessary to purge them from time to time. I made the error of bleeding Risal. In her weakened state, she went into a coma. After that she was never quite the same. I believe now that we have to burn the poison out. I will try a technique of heating your blood, essentially boiling it. The pain is going to be rather horrid; I think some of the sensations will get through despite your damaged spine. However, you should survive, which is the main thing. It’s only pain, eh?”
Indelbed, who had at this point given up on survival as anything to be thankful for, blinked a few times and tried to add a silent scream to the discourse for good measure: No. No! NO! No, it hurts, it hurts, ow, ow, ow, stop… Givaras was not one to wait around with scientific endeavors, and once the blood started boiling, the pain indeed managed to overcome the block and once again flood Indelbed’s neurons. Instinctively, spurred into concentration by agony, he tried to pull together his distortion field, if for no other reason than to smash Givaras into atoms, but in this too he failed miserably, leaving him with no other option but to lie back and pray for the oblivion he had so foolishly left behind.
Rais woke up saturated with nightmares. It was as if Givaras’s book had opened some kind of door in his brain and destroyed some filter, allowing a torrent of random, horrible things to assault him. This dread followed him throughout the morning. He wandered around the veranda aimlessly, brushing his teeth, drinking cold water and trying not to puke it back up. Hangovers were getting much worse. He tried to recall the conversations with Maria, whether he’d made an ass of himself. Some of the memories made him cringe. On the whole it was nice having her back in his life, even though she had left in a huff.
The bell rang soon, and Butloo scurried to open the door. It was a messenger, Moffat’s old driver, another hoary family retainer with three dozen years of service. He and Butloo knew each other somehow—they had a few quick words—and Moffat’s man was content to leave the package with him.
“Moffat Sahib sent this,” Butloo said, and handed over a paper bag. It was filled with ten bricks of cash, new notes in the original bank rubber bands. “He said the gold was very pure. If you have more, he will take it.”
“Good.” Rais took the packet. He threw one of the bundles at the butler. “You haven’t been paid lately, have you, Butloo?”
“No time in the past twenty years, sir,” Butloo said.
“Oh,” Rais said.
“Nor has any of the bills, sir,” Butloo said. “They do not cut the electric or water lines because they are afraid of the house, sir.”
Rais kept a bundle and handed over the rest. “You better keep it then. Just pay out as little as you can, I don’t know when I can get more. Buy some decent food for us, for god’s sake.”
Butloo blinked in surprise. Kaikobad had never even attempted to pay his bills. It seemed an insult to his memory to start throwing money around. “This is far more than enough.”
Rais’s next visitor was not so welcome. He had barely finished lunch when Golgoras stomped in, his disguise imperfectly placed so that Rais could see half a tusk each superimposed on his otherwise unremarkable bottom lip. Barabas followed him, looking disgustingly healthy and rather smug. Rais blinked, trying to clear his vision. His eyes were always tired now; it felt like Kaikobad’s glasses were rotting his brain.
“Get ready,” Golgoras said. “You’re coming with us.”
“I’m sick,” Rais said. Hangover and distortion field were combining for a very unpleasant feeling.
“These humans are so weak.” Golgoras glared at Barabas.
“It’s not my fault,” Barabas said. “Kaikobad was the real thing. This one won’t last very long.”
“Okay, guys, what’s the big rush?”
“Captain Golgoras here has joined the team!” Barabas beamed. “We are like the three muskets!”
“Musketeers,” Rais said.
Golgoras held up a hand. “I have been chartered by the Royal Aeronautics Society to formally investigate the disappearance of the Marid Risal.
That’s all. It’s a stretch. As a sky dweller, she could be considered a de facto member of the society.”
“Won’t hold up,” Barabas said knowingly. “Society rules only apply to moving vehicles.”
“Ordinarily, yes, but the sky tunnel was unmoored and therefore drifting…”
“Okay, guys, please,” Rais interjected. He knew these conversations could carry on for hours. “I’ve found the missing emissary. Or rather, he’s found me…”
“The one who took Kaikobad’s son?” Barabas suddenly looked rather keen.
“The minor hunt boy?” Golgoras asked. “I remember that. I tried to get him myself. No one claimed the reward in the end.”
“We can finally find out what happened,” Rais said. “Help me capture the emissary Dargoman, and Barabas can torture him until he talks.”
“You can’t just kidnap emissaries left and right,” Barabas said. “Bad form. Of course, if you really want to…”
“Later,” Golgoras said. “We have bigger squid to grill. Matteras is having an Assembly. I will attend, as the ranking member of the RAS in this area. I got the invitation last night. You two will accompany me. This is important. It might be our last chance to gauge the mood before he goes ahead and does what he’s been threatening.”
“Well, it’s so rude not to invite me, seeing as I am Bahamut’s most particular client…” Barabas was huffing.
“Bahamut ain’t what he used to be,” Golgoras said. “Get ready, Hume. You’re the closest thing we have to an emissary. I believe the Hume point of view will be in short supply.”
