Djinn: Cursed (15 page)

I banked hard, my mini shadow following as I circled around behind the men and about a hundred yards up.  I growled, they wouldn't even see me coming.  My heart quickened as they approached her hiding spot and a man raised a rifle.  She raised her hands and backed to the edge of the roof.

Xerxes was saying something to her and to Kanton as they reached her.  Baldy lowered his rifle to her chest as I swooped, gaining speed.  Xerxes was yelling at her, waving his pistol around.  Come on, keep talking you... you asswaffle.

I dropped the radio as I gained more speed as I swooped to just above the roof coming at the four men from behind. I ripped past the roof access, the air pressure buffeting me from my close passing.  Hailey rolled out and fired her shotgun twice, sending the two other men spinning back to hit the rooftop, unmoving in a mist of red.

It was like the whole world just slowed down in that instant.  Kanton started twisting back toward the shots as Dorian's eyes got wide when she saw me.  She smiled and raised her hands higher, making a gripping motion.

I flipped my feet forward and then tucked my wings tight to my back and hit Mr. Kanton solidly in the jaw, feet first, like an Angelina shaped wrecking ball.  It felt like hitting a wall, and it hurt like hell like I had tried jumping out of a second-story window to land on my feet.

I snapped my wings wide and absorbed some of my momentum as I was carried past the bald mercenary to wrap both my arms and legs around Dori.  She latched onto me for dear life as the rest of my momentum took us over the edge of the roof.

I looked back as I fought to keep us aloft with powerful flaps of my wings.  To my horror, I saw Kanton stumble and fall over the edge of the roof.  I felt sick as bile rose in my throat.  I had... killed someone.

My hawk friend was in Xerxes' face, and the man was frantically flailing his arms to get it away as he stumbled over the parapet and followed his mercenary to a bloody death on the pavement five stories below.  My hawk soared off.

I, in the meantime, felt as if my wings were going to tear off of my back while I screamed in defiance as I stained under the added weight of Dori, who I refused to let go of, even if it cost my own life.  I heaved with the downstrokes to stabilize us and tried for the adjoining roof but couldn't maintain altitude.

I yelled, “Hang on!” Then I wrapped my wings around her to protect her as we slammed into the fourth story window of the building.  Glass shattered, and we were tumbling across an office floor.

My head was buzzing, my ears were ringing, and I hurt everywhere.  I unwrapped my girl who looked both terrified and elated.  We were alive!  I smiled at her and gave our traditional greeting, “Hi.”

She just leaned up and laid a hot, desperate lip-lock on me.  My body was buzzing for another reason at that.  I must have had a dopey smile on my face.  Then we heard more sirens arriving and she looked around, there was a terrified woman cowering in the corner of the office.

Dorian said, “We're ok now.  Get out of here, Angel.  It's over, and that bastard is dead now.  We'll handle the police.  See you at the club.”

I went to argue, but she pointed at the window expectantly and said, “Stacy says not to be a fool.  Go.”  She gave me a peck on the lips, and I grinned and shook the glass shards out of my feathers as I blushed at her.  I moved a lock of the black hair, which I still wasn't used to, out of my eyes and behind my ear then simply dove out the window.

It struck me again how natural it felt not to be afraid of plummeting to my doom when I did that.  I felt like I was abandoning the brown eyed, amazing girl, and Hailey, but I understood and couldn't argue their logic.  I just hoped that this wouldn't be the final straw with the police and the girls were about to get put through the meat grinder this time.

I started flapping immediately heading toward the Bay.  I glanced over when I vaulted over the rooftops and saw Hailey down on her knees with her hands laced behind her head even before the police officers started streaming onto the roof.

She looked up, and I swear the cocky woman winked at me.  Whether she actually did or not, I found myself blushing.  The smile on my face was wiped away when I saw the alley flash by.  Kanton's body wasn't far from where the other man had died, police surrounding both.  But... Xerxes was on his knees, hands behind his head just like Hailey as the police swarmed around him, weapons drawn.  How the fuck had he survived that fall?

I cursed a string of profanities as I flew off, weaving between buildings, trying to get out of the sightline of the general public as I worried about my girls.

I wound up approaching the place where it all began on the backroads, and I alighted on the roof of the Coit Tower.  I laid on my back just staring at the sky, my wings spread wide on the warm roof, and just let my mind wander.  I didn't want to think just then.

I smiled when my hawk landed on the edge of the roof to stare out over the Golden Gate City, and I sighed.  Even if Xerxes went away for his involvement in this mess, his descendants were still out there, still looking for me.  This felt more like a breather than the end to me, and it pissed me the hell off.

A moment later I wasn’t thinking about anything as I was hit by a wave of wishes that held me on the brink of insanity until I wasn't thinking at all when consciousness faded from me.  Was this my life now?

It was the middle of the next day when I finally saw movement in the apartment above the club from my vantage point on the roof across the street.

After I had regained consciousness, I hadn't slept, I hadn't eaten.  Keeping out of sight of the public as I staked out Hailey's club, hoping for their return.

I was starting to think that maybe they were going to be going away for a long time.  I can't believe the wave of relief I felt when I saw a light turn on.  The sun had just set and the twilight that sort of cloaked the city for those few minutes between the sun sinking under the ocean and true nighttime settled in, cast long shadows on the streets as the streetlights started winking on.

Dorian pulled the curtains aside and looked out the window.  I could see Hailey moving around inside.  The grin I had on my face turned into a smile as she scanned the sky, before opening the window and moving away.

I padded across the rooftop and said to the hawk who was gliding along above me, “Bye lady, thanks for keeping me company.” I dove off the roof and gracefully extended my wings and just glided to the window.  I swung my feet forward as I back-winged and alighted on the sill, grasping it with both hands.

I smiled at Dorian, who was starting to fix a meal while Hailey was stripping off her shirt from the other day as she headed to the bathroom.  I asked, “Mind if I join you, ladies?”

Dori squeaked in surprise and glee as she ran to me and dragged me through the window to hug me.  I couldn't get a word out because she was kissing me in desperation.  A happy fog enveloped me.  I could get used to that.

Hailey was grinning at the reunion, her shirt three-quarters off and still wrapped around her forearms as she said, “Welcome home darlin'.”

I blushed at the woman standing there in her bra.  Showing off all the interestingly tantalizing muscles and tattoos that made you just cock an eyebrow and drool.  I swallowed, “Ummm... you're...”

She looked down then back at us and winked and said, “They're just breasts, I'm pretty sure you have a pair yourself.”

She chuckled and almost sauntered into the bathroom.  Calling out as she shut the door, “Let me get some of this stench off me and then we can debrief.”

Dori was blinking at her with a silly grin as she said, “Oh I'll debrief her.”

I started to nod my agreement then snapped out of drool mode.  I blurted out as I shoved her shoulder, “Hey!”

She chuckled and then pulled me into anther tight hug.  She whispered, “We were so worried.”

I nodded. “So was I, Dor.  So was I.”

She said, “It probably isn't over.  But it is for now.  There was a money trail from Baldy to Xerxes.  They know he hired the men who killed Stacy, so we have a breather until his family can figure out what to do next.”

I nodded.  Good.  I doubted they would be able to make anything stick, he had centuries of practice being a slippery worm.  But as she said, this will at least give us a breather.  If it were months or even weeks, we'd be ready now that we know they are out there.

I exhaled and asked, “You cooking?  I'm starved.”

She sighed, recognizing that I was putting things off for now, and then just nodded and headed to the kitchen.

Once Hailey rejoined us, we shared what had happened over the prior twenty-four hours.  They released Dori after taking her statement since she was the 'victim' in all of this.  They put pressure on Hai for hours on end but the story she stuck to was that she got a call from her friend Dorian that some men were after her for some reason, and when she arrived at the Regency, she found the same men who had attacked her club twice, the men who had killed one woman, maimed another, and kidnapped poor Angelina.   Who was still missing.

None of the men were left alive to contradict her version of events, and for the most part, it held a lot of truth.  The only one to survive, Xerxes himself, wasn't talking.  So they had to release her, though they have confiscated her firearms until the case is closed and Xerxes trial is over.

The news media has been abuzz about the flying woman seen in the area of the gunfight.  There was tons of grainy footage from cell phones.  It was being discounted as a hoax someone was playing on the public or some elaborate stunt for an upcoming movie.

I had to smile when the two woman got into an argument, and Dorian held her middle finger in front of Hailey's face, and Hai's death glare turned into a smile as she shook her head then pulled the Mouse into a quick hug.  “You know.  You're ok for a street rat.”

My girl beamed at that as she answered with a sly smile, “You're ok for a MILF too.”

We shared a chuckle, and I had to retire.  I was so beyond exhausted and needed to sleep before I collapsed.

***

That's how I found myself at the hospital the following day with them.  My wings held tight to my back under an overcoat, my violet contacts, and my black hair now half electric blue, and half cotton candy pink after they bleached it that morning.  Radically changing my appearance yet again.  I looked nothing like what people were calling, the raptor-woman, nor did I look remotely like the Angelina Drake I knew.

The police protection for Billie had been recalled since the threat was apparently over now that the man responsible for the violence was in custody and the one on the club's surveillance video was dead.

We stepped up to the nurse's station at the ICU and Hailey asked, “Hello, I called earlier, Hailey Frost.  I was told I could visit with Willamina Beaumont for a few minutes.”

The nurse's curious look was replaced with one of genuine concern as he said, “Oh. You haven't heard?”

It felt like I had a stone that was growing in the pit of my stomach at his tone.  It was genuine regret.  Had Billie...  had she?

He said as he looked back at the room, “She coded about an hour ago.  They were able to revive her and get her stabilized.  Her subdural hematoma had caused more intracranial pressure than anticipated …  she's.”

I was looking all around his desk, looking for a chart as I was just peripherally aware of his words as he said, “They have her hooked up to life support until her parents can get here from their missionary retreat in Zimbabwe, but there is no detectable brain activity.  We are just waiting to hear from next of kin.”

I said in a hoarse voice,  “She's my friend.  I have to see her.”

I laid a hand on him in my desperation, and I swayed as I heard in a dozen voices speaking, all of them his, “I wish I didn't have to give bad news like this, why the hell can't the doctors do it?”

He nodded as I shook my head to clear it of the need to do something to help the man get his wish.  I hated touching people now.  I didn't want to be privy to their inner thoughts.  It made me feel, dirty, soiled.

He sighed and said as he looked around, “I'm not really supposed to, but I really like your tats.  So, just one minute.”  I absently raised a hand to the now more prominent and plentiful chain of tattoos that Hailey had drawn on the side of my face and neck.  His eyes kept flicking to the 'hump' on my back, and I realized he was trying to be nice to the apparently 'disabled girl.'  I was ok with that if it got me in to see Billie.  I had lost Stacy, now her.  If there was no brainwave activity, then the machines were all that was keeping her alive.

I looked pleadingly at Dorian as we walked to the door.  She shook her head and said hopefully, “She's not with me.  Stacy is out of her mind with worry right now.”  I nodded, I understood.

We slipped into the room, the lights were low, and it felt unoccupied even with my friend laid out on the bed in front of me.  The only sounds were the monitors and the bellows in the ventilator as they kept her lungs and organs operating.

I sat beside her and grabbed her hand.  It felt so cold and clammy.  I tried to will her to wake up to tell us it was all just a mistake.  She had been joking and smiling when I last saw her here.  I reached over and looked at her chart and then studied the EEG.  It was basically flatlined except the normal, abnormal blips you got from randomly firing neurons in cases like this.

I knew it was irreversible, and I hated the world.  I hated any gods that may exist for letting this kind of thing happen.

I violently wiped a tear from my cheek as I straightened in resolve.  Dorian saw this and stared forward to stop me as I made my decision.  If one more chain on my soul was the price... I would pay that price.

My voice reverberated with power that seemed to shake the very foundations of creation as I reached for the power as I said the first two words that seemed to come from both a place of darkness and a place of such light and joy, “I wish...”

Millions of whispers tempted me with more once I did this, dangling seductive power in front of me, telling me not to stop with this wish.  It was so much worse than the first two times, it seemed to get more intense with each wish.  All the voices were mine, young and old, male and female, from every corner of time and space as I growled out, “I wish that Billie would have a miraculous recovery.”

My ears were starting to bleed from the sheer volume of the whispers which were too quiet to hear.  I fell forward as my vision dimmed but felt two sets of hands steady me, one set soft and comforting, and one set strong, like an iron vice.

I gasped for a breath of air as it all passed and I wiped my eyes, seeing blood smears on my sleeve.  My eyes were bleeding too.  I knew somehow that that wish was teetering on the boundary between being possible, and being the providence of the powers of creation that were beyond the reach of the curse, beyond that of the Djinn.

I turned to Billie.  Her dark skin looking so pale to me, with no vitality.  Then she suddenly opened her eyes and started to claw at the intubation tube that was down her esophagus, feeding her lungs with air.

I started sobbing as I grabbed her hands. “It's ok Billie.  Don’t touch it.  You're going to be fine now.”  I saw her panic receding and then her eyes locked on me, I saw a moment of confusion before they widened in recognition and she smiled around the breathing tube.

I was just yelling past the two women who were just staring in amazement, their hands pressed together against their lips like silent prayers, “Nurse!”

I turned back and laughed through my tears.  I was one step closer to my own end, but Billie was ok.  That was something I could definitely live with.  Especially with Dorian and Hailey by my side.