Djinn City, page 39
“He’s got big guys,” Boss Kid pointed out. His own boys, while tough, ranged from twelve to four. The four-year-old was particularly mean.
“I’m a djinn.”
“Four big guys. One pistol. You little blind djinn.”
Indelbed made a small flame dance on top of his palm. “I’m enough.”
Boss Kid shrugged.
The massacre at the pump was not like the night market. Indelbed had been practicing. He did not intend to lose control like that again. Killing random people made him weepy afterward. They planned the ambush meticulously. The pump operator and his men did not expect anything, least of all from Boss Kid, who was their most reliable ally. In actuality, while they had all peddled in violence years ago, these days it was more the bluster of force, with their vests and truncheons, brass knuckles visible in their breast pockets, the single revolver held prominently in a holster beneath a see-through shirt. These men were used to pushing and shoving, open-handed slaps, a few choice words: bullies rather than soldiers, their single prized weapon destined to remain unfired.
Indelbed was rigged out as a blind beggar, with Boss Kid as his helper guide. This was a common sight on the streets, duos of cripple and child roaming in tandem, pulling at heart strings and wallets. Indelbed had his field out, tendril thin like his master had taught him, and in his fist he held five coins, the edges lovingly sharpened by Boss Kid.
“Oyo, Boss Kid, you’re leading the blind now?” the day operator said, when they hobbled into the yard. He peered at them. “Is it the kid from the pipes?”
“My retarded cousin. From the village,” Boss Kid said.
“Born blind, or did you help him along?” The operator laughed, because this was the sort of thing he found funny.
“Born blind,” Boss Kid said. “Going to be beggar champion.”
“Oyo, Boss Kid, he doesn’t even have a bowl.”
“But I have some coins,” Indelbed whispered. The serrated coins flew out of his palm. The operator looked puzzled for a second as he toppled over, the metal slicing through his trachea before lodging entirely into his spine, popping out a vertebra and slotting neatly into its place. Two of the guards had been in their customary seats, and both died sitting down, throats slit. Two more were sleeping inside the pump house. Their deaths were messier. Indelbed had to fly the coins in through the window, around distances he couldn’t really judge properly, so he ended up sawing at the guards’ necks with them, spinning them back and forth, opening up everything with great gouts of blood.
It was over in less than thirty seconds, over before the operator’s body had stopped twitching on the ground. Indelbed and Boss Kid stood still the entire time, hands out, staring in apparent astonishment as the men keeled over. Finally, the screaming started, as the more alert bottlers began to notice the five simultaneous deaths by coin. By the time the pandemonium had subsided, Boss Kid’s boys were in firm control of the site, having appropriated the gun, occupied the pump house, and secured the body of the operator, who had the keys to all the locks and a cell phone full of useful numbers.
Boss Kid was a thinking kid. He had added his own flourish to Indelbed’s plan. They had left alive one last person of authority, the foreman of the factory, a man universally hated by all, but especially by Boss Kid, because he was also a child trafficker who would bring girls from remote villages to the city, before sending them north to “work” in India. Sometimes he would break them in, in the pump house. This man, also sleeping, suddenly woke to find himself covered in blood, his mouth gagged and his hands bound, being led like a dog outside by a couple of urchins, scraping on his hands and knees.
Here, he shook with outrage as Boss Kid told all the gathered workers that this man, their hated foreman, had in fact killed all the others using the bloody knife found in his hands, the very knife he normally carried on his belt and had used more than once upon his fellows with sadistic flare. They took his gag off and commanded him to speak. At the same time, Indelbed sent a fist of air into his mouth, preventing this very thing. The foreman strained until blood vessels in his eyes popped, but he couldn’t get a word out, nor could he get loose as fists and sticks and feet mobbed him, the workers baying, a rough and ready execution for the perceived murder of five men in broad daylight. Boss Kid simply stepped out of the way and watched with his normal lack of expression. Old scores were rarely settled so smoothly.
When naught but pulp remained, the boys gathered up all the dead bodies into jute sacks found miraculously at hand. It was, in fact, very easy for Boss Kid to take charge, seeing as how the bottlers were by and large a docile lot, and Boss Kid had a natural authority and was known among the drudges as a mover and a shaker. Moreover, the workers were scared. Their protectors were gone, and they had just beaten a man to death. Many were inclined to run away at this point, but Boss Kid calmed everything down by handing out the daily wages in cash, ordering a round of hot, milky tea for everyone, and then informing them that it was going to be business as usual. By lunchtime, the blood was scrubbed out, the coins were back in Indelbed’s pocket, and everyone was diluting phensedyl and capping bottles. Productivity for the rest of the day went up by 10 percent, in fact.
“Aren’t they going to send someone?” Indelbed asked, as they relaxed in their new rattan chairs, slightly speckled with blood, but who cared about that?
“Three days till the next resupply,” Boss Kid said. “We do bumper production. Explain to the big man. Ask for the job. Production plus distribution, one shop. Easy.”
“And the new pump operator?”
“We cut him out. New guy comes, he operates pump. We pay rent. He keeps mouth shut. He want anything more, you coin him.”
“Good. What are you doing with the bodies?”
“Construction site. We put in cement.”
“I have a better idea. I want to try something with them.”
“You eat them?”
“No!” Indelbed said. “I want to put them in my jar.”
“Burn them?”
“No, by folding them really small. There is a way. I’m trying to learn the technique. I need bodies to practice on.”
“How many you fit inside jar?” Boss Kid asked, dubious.
“Well, they won’t stay there long. I have a foolproof method of disposal on the other end.”
“Okay, we try. New business. They pay big money to get rid of bodies. You get rid of body, we bring five, ten every week, how much you want.”
“Good. I have a giant wyrm in there to feed.”
This information did not faze Boss Kid. “You good djinn.” Boss Kid patted his arm.
A week later, they had, indeed, negotiated a reprieve. The MP’s nephew did not care who exactly ran his factories as long as the money rolled in. There were three other layers between him and Boss Kid. Boss Kid simply paid his money up, greased everyone a bit more, and people just forgot about the six missing men. The workers were happier, because the foreman had been a bastard, while Boss Kid was merely a frightening robot, someone who left them alone unless production fell.
“We need to make the gang bigger,” Indelbed said at the next resupply, when the yard was again crawling with kids.
“Bigger.”
“Every kid in Wari. So we can take over all the phensedyl bottling in the area.” He clinked the coins in his hand. “Same way.”
“Three factories in Wari. No one rule all three. Two bosses tried. Both dead. We try, we dead too,” Boss Kid said. The prospect didn’t seem to bother him too much.
“They didn’t have a djinn, did they?” asked Indelbed.
“No.”
“So we can do it.”
“Kill too many, police, RAB, come fatafat.”
“People disappear all the time. No bodies, no murder. Who’s going to suspect a blind boy and a ten-year-old?”
“Twelve and a half.”
“I’m going to make you rich, Boss Kid.”
“Rich and dead.” Boss Kid seemed to find this funny.
“And start recruiting adults. We’re going to need more than eight-year-olds for what we have to do.”
“Oldies? Why you want?”
“Cannon fodder. You understand cannon fodder?”
“Them that die first.” Boss Kid grinned. “Why you want cannon fodder?”
“There’s an old house there on road eight,” Indelbed said.
“Khan Rahman house.”
“You know it?”
“Everyone know it. Old house. Haunted.”
“It’s well guarded,” Indelbed said.
“Police, RAB, everything.”
“Also there’s a djinn in it.”
“Your friend?”
“No. I’m going to kill him.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s my house.”
“I heard djinn don’t kill djinn.”
“I’m not a djinn. I’m a motherfucking dragon.”
CHAPTER 47
Kaikobad
Kaikobad slammed back into clarity. It was like being dragged through very cold water.
“Thoth!” he shouted. “Are you still here?”
“Yes,” his friend said. “I had feared you lost.”
“I think I know where we are,” Kaikobad said, once he had collected himself.
“We are in a dark river with no markers,” Thoth said. “I am glad you have returned.”
“I saw it, Thoth. I saw him complete the spell.”
“You saw Kartiryan? At the end?”
“I believe he permitted me to watch,” Kaikobad said. “Look, you told me that these were visions, or memories from the gate. I don’t think so. I think we are somehow experiencing the real events as they occur. This place is timeless, so the actual sequence of events doesn’t matter.”
“You believed earlier that we were ghosts in the field,” Thoth said.
“I was wrong,” Kaikobad said. “I think we have somehow stumbled into the nuts and bolts part of the universe. I think the world we lived in, the physical world, is a projection of this one, a kind of skin or surface. This is the layer beneath, the working part.”
“A skin? What does that make men and djinns?”
“I don’t know,” Kaikobad said. “Bugs crawling on a piece of fruit? Specks of dust? I don’t know. This place is fundamental. When we access the surface projection from here, we are literally experiencing life on earth. I think we could alter everything out there, even the laws of physics, from here.”
“Are we then inside the mind of God?”
“Thoth, I never knew you were a deist,” Kaikobad said. “Even here, you believe?”
“Belief does not depend on circumstance,” Thoth said stiffly. “I would have lost hope long ago otherwise. Have you learned how to escape this place, how to unlock the gate?”
“I think the gate is a hole, a pinprick in creation,” Kaikobad said. “I was on the other side of it. I believe that was the field, that my mind was somehow translated onto it. See, I used to study the science of distortion. My theory is that the field actually records the existing states on the surface world, and distortion is a kind of rewriting of that data. This place is something else. If the field particles are like strings, perhaps this is the bottom end of the string. I believe this part is supposed to be inaccessible to the surface dwellers. I believe conditions here determine the nature of the field and in turn the laws of physics on the surface world itself, the very interactions of what we believe to be fundamental matter.
“These two layers should be discrete. The gate is artificial, it shouldn’t be here. Thoth, I don’t know how to say this, but I think you are the gate.”
“What?”
“You’re locked in place,” Kaikobad said. “I saw the High King punching the hole. But he had to keep it open somehow. I think he used you. Do you remember nothing?”
“I remember the city,” Thoth said sadly. “And the road. I don’t know. Did I dream my whole life?”
“I want to explore this place,” Kaikobad said. “I think there are deeper layers here with actual physical stuff. We haven’t gotten to the bones of the universe yet. We can find your road here somewhere. In fact, I think I can find that bastard Kartiryan here, and he’s the only one who can show me how to get back.”
“You are determined to return then? We have the chance of learning the true nature of reality itself.”
“My son is still there, somewhere on the surface,” Kaikobad said.
“If what you say is true, then the world out there is just a projection. Is your son even real? Is anyone up there real? What if the universe dreams, and the world is just that?”
“We are real.”
“According to you, only because our minds have somehow been translated onto the field,” Thoth said.
“This isn’t the right question,” Kaikobad said. “We are real because we believe it. In this place, the energy shifts to our will. We have agency. Indelbed is real to me. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive, but I have to find him. Matteras put me here by accident, I think, and unwittingly, he’s increased my power tenfold. I’m the ghost in the machine, and I’m going to find a way to wreck him.”
CHAPTER 48
Siege
They flew low across the Sakha Republic, through cloudless skies, with miles of taiga forest below, endless gray larch broken by the occasional glinting stream, emerald seams in a giant’s scalp. It was easy to imagine that this land had stood still for thousands of years. Their path would take them farther north, into the subarctic tundra, and then finally to the true arctic permafrost, vast uninhabited lands, a virtual continent encased in ice and ancient secrets. Kuriken’s castle was marked on their oldest chart, drafted on vellum over two thousand years ago, the last time the great djinn had officially entertained visitors. Even more than most elder djinn, he was known for a pathological desire to be left alone.
It was cold now, well below zero, and they huddled in their cabins, Maria bundled in furs, flicking endlessly with her knife, slicing apples. The wonder of the airship had largely worn off for everyone. Golgoras was going fast, but not too fast. He was in a bit of a dilemma. Finally convinced that it was Matteras they were pursuing, he was honor bound to try to rescue his patron. At the same time, he had no desire to actually catch the dreadnought and precipitate an airborne battle that he was pretty sure of losing. Thus he scanned the skies with his instruments all day, and any stray bird or threatening-looking cloud made him take ludicrous evasive measures.
Eventually the forests ran out, and there was just permafrost: a featureless, dreary, soul-sapping whiteness, devoid of landmarks. It was here they finally approached the castle, and in the end, despite their fears of getting lost, it was not that hard to find, for the entire structure was encased in a glowing bright blue force field, visible for miles as a pinprick of winking light, like some fallen star.
“I don’t know what the hell is happening. We go down slow,” Golgoras hissed.
Roger, now fully versed in the workings of the ship, began turning on the compressors. Slowly, the dirigible started to sink. As they got lower, he cut the engines, and everything went quiet.
They were on battery power, which fueled only the command center and air ventilation. The heat from the engines, used to control the climate throughout the ship, began to dissipate, plunging them into an icy hell. Pretty soon they were all huddled in the cockpit, shivering in their furs, miserable and buffeted by drafts. Golgoras had his lone eye glued to the main telescope, an ornate djinn-powered device crowded thick with successive layers of enchantments put on by various captains. It had originally belonged to Sinbad the Sailor, apparently, and was a prized artifact that Golgoras had “salvaged” from a downed airship.
“I can see the dreadnought,” he said finally. “Airborne over the castle. Why is she not moored?”
“What?” Rais crowded him. He had his own mini-telescope, but he couldn’t see shit. The Sublime Porte was only a speck in the air from this far away, and the castle a blue smear on the ice.
“It looks like she’s firing a broadside. I can see flashes of powder. Those cannons haven’t been fired in a hundred years…” Golgoras said. He frowned. “Why are they shooting at the castle?”
Rais finally got a look through the big telescope.
“They’re definitely pounding the castle,” he said. “That blue thing is a shield of some sort.”
“Why, hmm? Why is Matteras hitting his closest ally?” Golgoras thrust his face into Rais’s. “Something very screwy is going on here. I’m not going near that thing with the Sephiroth.”
“We have to investigate,” Rais said.
“That dreadnought has one gun turret fore, two aft, and three broadside. At our current angle of approach she can hit us with at least five turrets,” Golgoras said. “That’s twenty fourteen-inch bores. We only have twelve-inch bores. She’s got range and size on us. If she gets off even one salvo, she’ll shred us before we can even get within firing range.”
“So then what’s your plan? I’m pretty sure Memmion is in that ship…”
“Those guns have an effective range of maybe three kilometers. We put the Sephiroth down, offload you there, and get back up. You Humes can walk over to the castle and investigate all you want.”
“What? Come on, Golgoras, I need a ranking djinn. They’ll blow us to pieces otherwise.”
“I’m not taking my ship into firing range until you confirm what’s going on.”
“How about we park the ship out of sight and all go? You are sort of honor bound to rescue Memmion, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean park the ship?”
“We put it down on the ground with the power off and stealth tech on, so no one can find her.”
“And leave her all alone?!”
“It’s the fucking arctic! There’s no one else here. Tenoch’s men can keep watch. The rest of us wave a white flag and trek over.”
Golgoras pulled him aside. “You want me to leave her unguarded with a bunch of drug dealers?” he asked in a furious whisper.
