Genie Knows Best (18 page)

When the gold smoke cleared, Albert let out a
whoop!
Home sweet home.

With a dragon dangling off his bloody finger.

He didn’t give a damn. He was just glad to be back in his bedroom in his apartment, and, more importantly, glad that he’d figured out how the coin worked.

He patted it again. “I wish I was in my kitchen.”

More gold smoke blew around him and there he was—in his kitchen. With his little nipper of an appendage still attached.

He tried prying the dragon loose, but it wouldn’t let go, so he set it in the sink and turned on the water. Yep, cold water had the same effect on dragons as it did on dogs. It let go and leapt out of the cold stream, its scrawny legs backpedaling to keep it from heading down the drain.

Albert cleaned his finger and wrapped it with a paper towel. He didn’t want to risk losing the dragon by leaving it for the time he’d need to run to his bathroom for a bandage.

Ah, but he didn’t have to be gone all that long…

“I wish to be in my bathroom.”

Before this round of smoke cleared, Albert had grabbed the bandages and wished himself back into the kitchen where the dragon was still fighting the stainless steel slope in the sink, its claws clattering up a storm without it budging an inch.

Perfect. Just what he needed.

Albert quickly replaced the paper towel with a bandage, placed the broiling pan on top of the sink to make sure the dragon would be there when he got back, and said, “I wish to be in a vacant aisle in the pet store at the mall.”

Six and a half minutes later—the coin couldn’t make store clerks move any faster—Albert was standing back in his kitchen with the bird cage and lizard food he’d swiped out from under the teenaged salesclerks’ noses, figuring they’d put his disappearing act down to whatever they were smoking these days.

Back in his kitchen, the dragon was still in the sink, its claws making a god-awful noise on the steel. Not that Albert cared; that noise was music to his ears. If he didn’t have other plans for the dragon, he could make a killing with it—and avoid that same fate.

Ah, well, Henley would have his money soon enough.

Albert grabbed a spoon, positioned the open cage at just the right height, moved the broiler pan out of the way, and scooped the little
jackpot
inside.

Two seconds after he’d locked the door, ol’ Jack started chirping and banging its head against the bars. Shit! Couldn’t have that. Didn’t need anyone coming to investigate the noise, and he certainly didn’t want his meal ticket to kill itself.

Grabbing the packet of bird accessories he’d pulled from the cage, Albert found a mirror and fastened it to the side.

Jack took one look and fell in love.

Albert filled the water container, set out some of the worm-like things the pet store worker said lizards loved to eat, draped a few dish towels over the cage, then carried the contraption into the living room and set it on the coffee table. Then he put his feet up in the massager/recliner he’d recently splurged on for himself and lay back.

And not a moment too soon. With all the adrenaline that’d been coursing through him now crashing, Albert was exhausted. He and Jack would catch a few hours of sleep, then back to the genie’s hideout he’d go—
after
he packed up a few necessities and crafted the perfect ransom note.

Samantha had no idea what she’d expected a dragon’s lair to look like, but it definitely wasn’t this Tim Burton version of
Martha
Stewart
Living
.

The Hershey Kiss–shaped building was covered in silver plating that could have used Martha’s special brand of polish, and faded, brick-red shutters hung lopsidedly from some of the windows. Others had no shutters at all. A shredded flag hung off the top of the pole in the conical roof, and dead purple flowers flanked the cracked mosaic tile path leading to the front door like shag carpeting from the ’70s—and was in as bad a shape as if it’d been there since the ’70s.

Samantha’s first impression of the central room was chaos. She could see the possibilities with its minimalist Middle Eastern decor, but everything was covered in layers of newspaper.

And then she saw why.

More than a dozen winged creatures flew around the inside of the cone like a living, breathing kaleidoscope. Each about the size of her palm, they dipped and soared, climbed and dived like the sea monkeys she’d had as pets as a child. The papers were there to catch their, er, well, what needed to be caught.

“Curt!” Maille ran into the room, waving her hands. That only made the babies fly higher. “Leave Lisa alone! And Gretchen, off the corbel, please. I know what you’re doing up there, and that’s not where we do it. You know better than that. Hank, don’t pull on Martha’s wings. Remember the tear you made in Bridget’s yesterday and now she can’t fly? What did I say would happen to you if you did that again?”

A navy-blue dragon spiraled out of the sky. Bart shot out his hand and caught him before he hit the floor.

Maille shook a finger at the red dragon who’d followed the blue one down and was grinning a few feet above their heads—just out of reach. “Hank, I told you no fire! It’s not fair to scorch your brothers and sisters until they can do it back. Look what you’ve done to poor Freddy.” She took the injured one from Bart and held him against her cheek.

Within seconds, the little guy was off and flying, not a mark on him.

“Dragon tears are a great cure-all,” Kal whispered to Samantha before she asked the question.

“Tell me you didn’t leave the children here by themselves this morning,” Bart said.

“Of course not. Maisey’s here. Probably preparing lunch.”

Bart cursed. “Or sleeping off a hangover. Leaving them with that dodo is worse than leaving them unattended.”

“Don’t stand there and tell me how to parent, brat. If you’d been here instead of gallivanting all over the place, you’d see what I went through. But, no, you had to have your fun. You don’t get to come in now and tell me what to do with them. Maisey’s good in a pinch, she’s sober, and I was planning to be right back.
With
Laszlo. I didn’t think I’d run into an issue with Kal and his master.”

Samantha bit her lip. It wasn’t as if she’d known Albert would stoop to these levels; he’d never given any indication when they were together. Of course, now she realized he’d just been playacting. He’d seen dollar signs every time he’d looked at her. Or gold coins, rather. Copper lanterns, flying carpets, whatever he wanted.

Which wasn’t her.

All along, she’d wanted to believe in a fairy tale that hadn’t existed, while he’d been after a real one right under her nose—or rather, behind the combination to the safe.

Well, she wasn’t going to sit around and wait for Prince Charming to ride in on his white horse and fix this, because there was no such thing. With Kal’s magic basically useless to her, she was going to have to figure out a way to save not only herself, but the baby dragon, too.

She wanted a chance to be more than window dressing? This was it. She knew Albert better than anyone here. If he was, indeed, the one who’d taken Laszlo, it was time to put that knowledge to use.

She looked at the eagle Kal wore around his neck. Maybe this was what the Oracle had meant about her destiny. “I’d like to take a look at the nest, Maille. See if Albert left anything behind that I might recognize.”

“I’m not so sure that your ex
was
here, Samantha.” Lexy stepped out from behind Kal’s legs. “I’ve done a preliminary scan of the doorway and am unable to detect any mortal presence other than yours.”

“But if he used the magic amulet, wouldn’t that cover his tracks?”

Lexy tapped the floor with a claw. “The amulet wouldn’t, per se, but its Glimmer might have.” She looked at Dirham. “Dirham, perhaps you could start on the opposite side of the room and work your way in toward the middle to double check my results.”

“Me?” Dirham squeaked. “Double check? Sure, I can do that.” He looked over his shoulder to the lavender dragon hanging on to his back like a possum. “Uh, kid? You want to let go?”

The dragon wrapped her claws more firmly into his fur and snuggled in. Dirham shrugged and disappeared beneath the furniture.

Samantha investigated the nest, a mass of intertwined branches and bits of leather, but found nothing, not even a dragon’s eggshell. Those were on the floor, presumably because of Maille pawing through the nest first. Whatever Albert might have left behind was gone.

Kal and Bart made a higher level reconnaissance of the room, while Maille shooed all the babies into the nursery next door—except for Dirham’s hitchhiker and the one on the corbel. That one wasn’t cooperating.

“Gretchen, I said to come here now,” said her mother.

The little dragon shook her head and walked closer to the wall where they couldn’t see her.

“I mean it, Gretchen. You come down or you’re grounded until you’re five hundred.”

“There’s a threat,” Bart muttered.

Maille gave him the Evil Eye. “Gretchen, come here this instant.”

The little dragon peered over the edge with her pointed beak. She looked like she was enjoying thwarting her mother.

“Are you going to come down?”

Gretchen shook her head. “Pretty!”

The scowl on Maille’s face transformed itself into an awestruck smile. “She spoke! My baby spoke her first word.”

“Figures she’d go for something as shallow and vacuous as ‘pretty,’” Bart said. “She’s her mother’s daughter.”

“Can you just let me enjoy the moment, already? Why do you have to ruin everything?”

“Why should you have all the fun?”

Samantha dragged one of the mushroom-shaped stools beneath the corbel. “Maille, how about you try to get her to come to you now?”

With one more black look at her mate, Maille climbed atop the stool and held up her hand. “Come to Mommy, Gretchen. I’ll give you lots of pretty shiny things if you do.”

“Sure. Bribery. Why not?” Bart said, sarcastically.

“Hey, if you have any ideas, I’m listening, but so far all I’ve gotten from you is sarcasm. It’d be different if I could fly up there, but
someone
had to go and open her big mouth.”

“I said I was sorry. I can’t change the past.” Samantha was getting sick of having to apologize. “If I could, I would. Trust me. There’s nothing I’d like more than to go back and pretend this never happened.”

“Me, too,” Maille grumbled.

Kal aimed his fingers at her. For a second, Samantha thought he was going to unleash some magic.

Maille did, too. She took a step back and almost teetered off the stool.

But Kal unleashed anger instead. “Let’s get one thing straight, Maille. We’re here out of the goodness of Samantha’s heart, not because she owes you anything. She’s not responsible for Albert’s actions, nor the fact that she has my lantern. None of this is Samantha’s fault, so don’t go throwing her help back in her face. Got it?”

Even Bart took a step back at the vehemence in Kal’s voice.

“Pretty!”

“Not now, Gretchen.” Maille waved her hand, dismissively.

So Gretchen dropped something onto her head. Something rectangular, orange, and hard enough to elicit a blast of steam from her mother.

A crystal.

It bounced off Maille’s head and landed at Samantha’s feet.

“Kal! She found it!” Dirham started bouncing faster than Samantha had seen him do so far. Good thing the lavender dragon had such a tight hold. “Gretchen found your crystal!”

Samantha picked it up. Shaped like an obelisk and about six inches long, the crystal didn’t look like anything special.

“What does it do?” she asked.

“Wave it,” said Kal.

When she did, orange glitter formed Kal’s outline in front of him.

“Now sweep it around the room where I walked.”

Orange glitter shimmered all over the place.

“It’s a bio-transmitter,” said Lexy. “A mechanism for the High Master’s vizier to use to track djinn. Or rather, that’s what they were used for until a certain rogue genie—”

“She wasn’t rogue,” said Dirham, handing the lavender dragon off to her mother.

“I beg to differ, Dirham.” Lexy sat and curled her tail around her front paws, her nose raised a degree or two more than perpendicular. “Eden’s actions qualified her to be considered rogue, but that’s neither here nor there. She was responsible for returning the crystals to every djinni in The Service, which was how this came to be in Kal’s possession. She was a hero, if you will.”

Samantha “willed;”
hero
beat
window
dressing
hands down. She handed the crystal to Kal. “So this is how he expects to find you?”

Kal took it and glitter scattered all over the place. “Not only that, but it proves he was here and has the amulet. And since we aren’t able to detect his scent or the amulet’s Glimmer, that means he was here long enough ago that all traces have disappeared. That worries me. Albert’s a newcomer to Izaaz. Where’s he been hiding all these hours? And with a baby dragon, no less. We all know they aren’t exactly the easiest creatures to control.”

Four pairs of human eyes, and two vulpine, looked up at the corbel.

Gretchen smiled down at them and chirruped.

“So now what?” huffed Bart. “We found the damned crystal, but the prick still has my kid.”

“
Now
you decide to care,” sneered Maille.

A raised eyebrow was Bart’s only reaction. “Can we get a reverse lookup on that thing?” He nodded to the crystal. “Since he’s touched it, it has to have captured some of his essence, right? We should be able to trace that back to him and find Laszlo.”

Kal shook his head. “Crystals are imprinted on only one person. In this case, me. The good news is that without this, Albert can’t pinpoint where I am. The amulet does an approximation unless you specify the exact location.” He tucked it into the side pocket of his pants. “But the bad news is that we still have to figure out where he is without him knowing we’re on to him. With him having the amulet, that’s going to be tougher than I’d like.”

“Unless…” Maille climbed off the stool and tossed her hair over her shoulder. Part of the gray stripe lingered. “There’s someone who knows how to find people without being found.”

“Oh no. No way,” Bart growled. “Don’t even say his name, Maille.”

“Harv.”

No one said a word.

Except Gretchen.

“Pretty!”

Then Kal spoke—another curse in another language that needed no translation.

Bart, on the other hand, cursed in perfectly good English. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you, Maille? Let your old boyfriend save the day.”

“You seriously need to get over that, Bart. It was eons ago.”

Samantha didn’t want to know how many. “Can you two knock off the bickering? We have more important things to worry about.” She looked at Kal. “Who’s Harv?”

Troll? Ogre? Abominable snowman? Grim reaper? Anything was possible.

“Harv is delusional,” Bart said.

Maille threw up her hands. “You’re just jealous because he’s got the
huevos
to back up his bad-ass reputation that you don’t.”

“I am not jealous of Harv. You’d really get off on it if I were, wouldn’t you?”

Kal answered Samantha. “Harv’s sort of the unofficial gatekeeper for Izaaz. Has his finger on the pulse of the town and knows the minute anyone shows up who’s not supposed to be here.”

“That’s ’cause he wants them for lunch,” said Dirham. “Usually as the main course. Your boyfriend’s going to be in big trouble.”

Samantha didn’t bother correcting him. Semantics were the least of her worries, though it seemed like this Harv guy would be Albert’s biggest.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually considering this.” Bart leaned against the armoire. “Oh for gods’ sakes, you’re all just as delusional as Harv. You’re leaving the fate of my hatchling in his hands, Maille, and you call me an unfit parent?”

“Harv has nothing to do with why you’re unfit,” Maille spat back.

“Actually, Maille has a point. Well, about Harv,” said Kal. “And we really don’t have a choice. With my hands tied, magically speaking, Harv’s the best chance we have for finding Albert. And maybe even doing something about it. There’s nothing worse for a thief than coming face to face with the mother of them all.”

Dirham cocked his head. “Don’t you mean father? Harv’s a boy.”

“Good point, Dir. Thanks.”

“No problem. Anything to be helpful.”

Because that’s what Dirham did.

Now if only the fox could help her figure out some way to get the magic back. Then she could fix this, shed her window-dressing image, and save Laszlo.