Genie for Hire (31 page)

Though Biff had witnessed similar transformations in his
centuries on earth, he was still awestruck. Laskin, on the other hand, had
clearly never seen anything like Petrov’s escape. He stood beside the bodega,
his body frozen with horror.

Biff severed a dozen of the hanging tendrils of the banyan and
manipulated them in sinuous ropes that curled across the parking lot and wrapped
themselves around Igor Laskin’s body.

The bodybuilder tried to protest, but too late. By the time
he thought to raise his powerful arms in defense, the makeshift ropes had
already bound his arms to his body. Then Biff emerged from the shadows.

“Bill!” Laskin cried. “You must help me. There are evil
things in the air tonight. I will pay you anything you want if you help me
escape.”

“There is something I want,” Biff said. He knew that
Farishta’s amulet had to be relinquished voluntarily.

“Anything!”

“The coin you wear around your neck.”

“Please! Take it. Take anything.”

Biff felt the lamp rustling against his back, and he reached
around and removed it from the pack. He held it toward Laskin, and it glowed
with an internal fire similar to what had happened with Petrov.

The lamp had been in Biff’s possession for centuries, and until
then he had never seen it appear to have a mind of its own. It gave off a
magnetic energy, reaching through the charged air toward Laskin.

The gold coin glowed dully, and Biff could feel it resisting
the lamp’s pull. Slowly, though, the chain began to rise from the Russian’s
neck. As Laskin stood motionless, gripped by terror, the coin scraped against his
neck, struggling to remain in contact with his body against the forces that
pulled it away.

The coin was dragged over his lips, his nose, his eyebrows. Biff
could feel the struggle between the lamp and the coin. It was clear that the
amulet preferred a human host it could control.

Laskin’s eyes were filled with panic. Too many strange
things had happened to him for a human brain to process.

The lamp and the amulet fought their battle to what seemed
to Biff to be a standoff – the amulet plastered to Laskin’s forehead. He knew
he had to help somehow. He concentrated on his love for Farishta. For a moment
the chain hung suspended in the air above Laskin, the coin still pressed
against his forehead. With a final jerk, the coin released its hold. In less
than a second, it sped through the air toward Biff.

He was almost as startled as Laskin. The coin hovered over
the lamp’s spout for a fraction of a second, shimmering in golden light, then
dissolved into sparkles and was sucked into the lamp through its spout.

The lamp felt both lighter and heavier than usual, though it
continued to glow with a dull, burnished light. He hoped that Farishta would be
able to coax the amulet out of the lamp; he didn’t want the responsibility for
it.

As Biff and Laskin stood in the parking lot, both of them
momentarily stunned by the amulet’s actions, the air was rent by a huge bolt of
lightning, followed almost immediately by a deafening crack of thunder. Biff
looked up at the sky and realized it was about to pour just as rain began to
pelt down on them.

Biff gritted his teeth as the water hit him—but he felt
nothing, other than a pleasing sensation of spray. He couldn’t stop to think
about it or how oddly the water rejuvenated him. It was cool and fresh and
wiped away the residue of the Div-e Sepid’s evil energy.

“Please, Bill!” Laskin begged, immobilized by the banyan
tendrils, the rain sluicing down over him as if he stood under a faucet.

Biff stood in the middle of the downpour and pulled out his
cell phone, pressing Jimmy Stein’s number. “Send a car over to this address,”
Biff said, and recited it. “Laskin’s in the parking lot. Better get here fast,
though, because he’s getting soaked.”

“We’ve had a dozen cops combing the area. How did you find
him?”

“The world is full of strange and wonderful things, Jimmy.”

Biff waited in the shadows of the banyan as the rain
continued its relentless sheeting. Then a police car arrived, lights blazing,
and he watched the two cops who emerged stare at Laskin in amazement. One of
them retrieved a machete from the trunk of the patrol car, an “only in Miami”
accessory for police work, and began to saw at the roots, and Biff helped them
along by releasing the power that kept them bound.

The roots fell away, and both cops jumped backward in
surprise. Laskin tried to flee, but one of them tackled him and cuffed him.
Then he and his partner bundled Laskin into the back of the patrol car.

Biff put the lamp into the backpack and hoisted it over his
shoulder. Then he walked back across the street to where Raki huddled, wet and
miserable, in the shelter of an oak tree. He held his hand out, and the
squirrel jumped down to him. Biff thought about his car, warm and dry back by
the river’s edge, and before he knew what was happening he was transformed into
one of Farishta’s tiny whirlwinds, landing almost immediately back by his car,
the soggy squirrel still in his hand. It wasn’t even raining there.

He was too tired to take it all in – his sudden
imperviousness to water, his ability to fly like Farishta. It had to be the
power of the amulet. But would it last once he returned it to her – if indeed
it wasn’t too late?

Biff thought about going back to the place where he had
released Farishta into the water. But he knew that she was no longer there; the
ocean had taken her somewhere she could heal. Or at least he hoped it had.

He ran a couple of yellow lights and darted onto the highway.
Raki curled up between the passenger seat and the door and chirped nervously.

“I know,” Biff said. “I’m worried too.”

Where was Farishta? Was there still enough of her essence
left to respond to the call of the amulet? He shuddered to think that it would
bond with him instead—he had enough power with the lamp, and he sensed that he
would not be able to control the amulet the way Farishta might. Could it force
him to do something he didn’t want to? Danger accompanied any power, and Biff
had no desire to have that much magic at his command. Or would the amulet bond
with him the way it had with Laskin, making it more difficult for him to return
it to Farishta?

What had happened to Viktor Petrov? Would he resume human
form? Or had the Div-e Sepid overtaken him completely, obliterating any trace
of his humanity? And Laskin—would Jimmy be able to tie him to any of his crimes
so he could be prosecuted?

Biff drove like a maniac up I-95—which put him in league
with most of the other drivers. He felt the power of the amulet pulsing through
the backpack on the seat beside him. He didn’t know what was happening but he
knew he had to get that coin out of his lamp as soon as possible. The more time
he spent in a small, closed space with the amulet the more trouble he could be
in. He had to get the amulet home and stow it somewhere, away from his physical
presence.

He drummed his fingers impatiently at every light between
the highway exit and the gated entrance to his community, his hands shaking as
he waited for the gate to rise. Then he barreled around a corner and pulled up
at the townhouse. Raki was out of the car like a flash, scampering up to the
front door. Biff grabbed the backpack, which was curiously heavy, and dragged
it up the walkway. He unlocked the door and stopped for a moment, marshaling
his strength to drag the pack into the house.

When he did, he looked into the living room. And there,
resting on a divan, was Farishta.

Raki chittered happily and rushed to her side. She looked healthier
than she had the last time Biff saw her, though her hair was grayer and there
were more lines around her face. “You have retrieved it!” she cried, jumping
up.

He could barely push the backpack toward her, it had become
so heavy. She opened it eagerly and pulled out the lamp. The coin shot out of
the spout, trailing its gold rope chain, and Farishta grasped it and closed her
eyes.

As Biff watched, the years seemed to strip away from her.
Her lavish curls darkened, and the bags under her eyes faded. Her skin smoothed,
and a rosy blush bloomed on her cheeks. The coin glowed in her hands, and the
gold rope chain hung over her arm like the sinuous folds of a snake.

Biff picked up the lamp. Its power felt changed, yet in a
good way. He rubbed his hands over the polished brass and felt the charge
singing through his veins.

When Farishta opened her eyes, she was like a new woman—or
rather, like the one he had fallen in love with so many centuries before. Raki
chittered madly, jumping up and down on the tile floor, his tiny nails clicking
like castanets.

“You retrieved my amulet for me,” she said. “Though you knew
it meant I might leave you again.”

“I love you. I can only do what’s right for you. Even if
means you disappear on me.”

“I may, sometime. But for now I think I will stay and play
here in Florida. There is so much water, and so much opportunity for mischief.”

She reached down to the squirrel, who raced up her arm,
jumped to her head, and then leapt to the staircase. He sprinted up the steps.

“Will you police me, my Bivas?” Farishta said, smiling
coquettishly at him.

“That’s a big task,” Biff said, taking her hand and pulling
her down next to him on the divan. “But if anyone’s man enough for it, that’s
me.” He leaned over and kissed her, and all thoughts of Viktor Petrov and the
Div-e Sepid, and the mischief Farishta could get up to now that she had her
power again, faded away.