Master of None (16 page)

The bastard really had been following me for a while, at least since the day after I lifted it. Maybe longer. Shock prevented me from taking any sudden actions, which probably would have included kicking the shit out of him, if I thought it’d do any good.

Ian pushed himself into a seated position. He didn’t say anything. A smart move on his part.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You must have known
this is what Trevor’s after. None of this would have happened if you’d just left me alone. Now Jazz is who knows where, and maybe they’ll kill her and my son. And I’m stuck here with you.”

Ian didn’t interrupt or try to defend himself. I barely knew what I was saying. Pacing away, stalking the length of the room, I inspected the knife again: a standard utility piece, plain and unremarkable, housed in a tarnished iron sheath. Heavy and practically useless. The blade probably wasn’t even sharp. I drew it out and proved myself wrong. It was definitely unusual—I’d never seen a copper knife before. Like the pendant Trevor wore, it seemed ancient, but the blade gleamed as if time had never touched its surface.

“Why did you take it?” I demanded. “I don’t even know why Trevor wanted this worthless piece of . . .” I stopped. Stared at him. I may not have read the classics, but I’d seen the Disney version of Aladdin. “This is your tether.”

“Yes.”

“Trevor wants me, so he can get to you.”

“Yes.”

I sat down. Didn’t care where I landed. It happened to be the floor. “Shit.”

“Agreed.” Ian eased his legs over the side of the bed and leaned forward, arms propped on his thighs. “Though I do not expect you will believe it, I am truly sorry for the deception. I saw no other way to slow them down.”

“But what are they doing? And who’s they? I don’t understand any of this.” I managed to stand and make my way to the other bed. “Tell you what. You level with me, right now, and I’ll believe your apology. Hell, I’ll even forgive you. I’m feeling magnanimous.”

“Are you, now?” Ian sighed. “Very well.
They
are the Morai. They wish to rule my realm. And yours.”

“What? Wait a minute. They’re trying to take over the world?”

“More or less.”

“Jesus Christ. I need a cigarette.” I patted my pockets to make sure I still had some and scanned the room for something that’d work for an ashtray.

Ian gave me a dry look. “I believe this is a nonsmoking room.”

“Criminal. Don’t care.” I did care, under normal circumstances, but my nerves were already shot from sending Jazz and Cyrus over to Wonderland. Hearing that a bunch of evil djinn wanted to rule the world definitely did not help. I grabbed the ice bucket off the desk, sat back down, and lit up. “Okay. If these assholes want to take over the world, why haven’t they just done it? I mean, we’re human. They’re not. They’re magic, and we can’t kill them.”

“They dare not risk the wrath of the Council. They must control the djinn realm first.”

“Kemosiri said something about the Council. I take it they’re your government.”

“Yes. The ruling body of the djinn.” The disgust in Ian’s voice could’ve curdled milk. “Only the noble clans are permitted to seat the Council. The Morai are not among them. Nor are the Dehbei. And Kemosiri occupies the highest seat.”

“That bastard’s in charge of all the djinn?”

Ian nodded slowly. “The Council is rife with corruption. They can be bought, or silenced, with favors and wealth. It has been so for thousands of years. Kemosiri is the worst of them.”

“And he’s your father-in-law.” I flicked ash and took a new drag. “Lucky you.”

“Indeed. He has never been pleased that his daughter is bonded with a barbarian.”

“Ouch.” I had a feeling that
not pleased
was an understatement.
Barbarian
didn’t sound like a friendly insult. “So, your Council makes sure none of the djinn tries to conquer the humans.”

“It is among their concerns, yes.” He crossed his arms and stared at his feet. “That is why the Morai seek to gain control. They would once again be able to do as they please—there and here.”

I picked up on the important word in that statement. “What do you mean, again?”

“They have tasted power in your realm before.” He looked up, his features grim. “The Morai were once gods among humans. Your Greeks and Romans worshipped them. Feared them. And with good cause.”

“Are you saying Zeus and Apollo and those guys were
Morai
?”

“I am.”

“Christ.” A cigarette wasn’t going to cut it. “Got a beer on you?”

“Not this time, thief.”

I scowled and dragged on my smoke. This was crazy. All that fate-of-the-world crap belonged in stories about prophecies and ancient evil, not out here cutting takeover deals with nutjob fences like Trevor.

Then again, so did the djinn.

“All right,” I said. “How’d they stop them last time?”

Ian shook his head as if he didn’t want to tell me. “With the
Morai playing at gods and other clans inciting . . . certain incidents of massive destruction among humans, the Council sent the combined forces of several clans here to bring every djinn back. They then forbade the use of tethers to travel between realms. Except, of course, for certain members of the noble clans who were permitted under the guise of research.” The contempt he infused the last word with suggested that they meant research in the same way Victor Frankenstein meant to cure death.

I frowned. “But they’re here now. Did they just decide to ignore the whole forbidden thing, or what?”

“No. Without the backing of the Council, it is nearly impossible to move between realms. The creation of a tether involves air magic, a strength of the Bahari. The Morai use fire magic. They can perform the binding spell for a tether, but it is temporary, and should the spell break down while a djinn is still in this realm, that djinn dies.”

Now things really didn’t make sense. “So how’d they do it?”

Ian’s jaw clenched. “The Council banished them here.”

“What the hell? Why would they do that, after they pulled them out for fucking everything up?”

“Because of the clan wars.”

“Clan wars,” I repeated. “Do I even want to know?”

Something that looked a lot like pain flashed in his eyes. “The Morai felt they had been humiliated by the Council when they were forcibly removed from this realm. At the time, they could not retaliate, but they spent centuries preparing for revenge. They practiced inbreeding to produce more offspring. They trained every member of their clan, male and female, from birth as soldiers. They developed and perfected powerful spells intended to cripple and to kill. And they planned a massive assault on the noble clans.”

Patient bastards. But with the djinn’s ridiculously long life spans, maybe centuries wasn’t such a long time. “I take it they lost.”

“In a manner of speaking.” Ian lowered his arms, and his hands clenched hard enough to whiten his knuckles. “They were defeated but not without great losses to . . . other clans.”

I hated to ask, but I had to. “What other clans?”

For a moment, Ian didn’t answer. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. “Geographically, my clan, the Dehbei, was nearest to the Morai. We did not trust them and frequently sent spies to ensure that they would not attempt to conquer our village, as they had others. We learned of their plans to attack the nobles mere days before they intended to mobilize.” A muscle jumped along his jaw. “The Dehbei leader, Omari-el, insisted that we warn the Council. Twenty of us set out immediately for the palace.”

“When you say us, did that include you?”

“Yes. I was among them, as was Omari-el.” He looked at me, and his eyes blazed with anguish. “The Morai also had spies. When they discovered we had gone to warn the nobles, they . . .” His breath hitched. “They diverted to our village on their way to the central lands. They slaughtered everyone there. Male, female, child. And then burned what remained to the ground.”

“Jesus, Ian. I . . .” No wonder he hated them so much. “I’m sorry.”

He made a weak, dismissive gesture. “Our party did reach the palace first. Some of the Council, Kemosiri in particular, refused to believe us. The word of barbarians meant little to those bloated and pampered louts. Only when another noble clan, the Kelimei, reported seeing the army of Morai did they
decide to prepare. It was nearly not enough. Both sides suffered heavy casualties.” He shifted on the bed, and his shoulders slumped. “But they were defeated, and those Morai who survived were sealed inside tethers and sent here.”

“Well, that was fucking brilliant of them.” My forgotten cigarette had burned out. I dropped it into the ice bucket and fired up a fresh one. “They didn’t want the dangerous clan over there, so they dropped them on a world full of defenseless humans. Remind me to thank Kemosiri. Preferably by breaking something important, like his skull.”

“It was a terrible decision. However, the tethers were supposed to have remained sealed. I will not excuse the actions of the Council, but if it were not for the greed of humans, the insatiable lust for power, the Morai would not have been unleashed.”

“Come on, Ian. You really expect me to believe humans somehow let a bunch of djinn out of their tethers? We don’t do magic. Well, I guess I do, sort of, but . . . hold on.” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of this before. “How many descendants are running around here?”

Ian gave a bitter laugh. “Descendants did not release the Morai. It is a complicated process that requires a great deal of power. Not so simple as rubbing a lamp.” He smirked. “There was magic here, long ago. Earth magic. And there were human sorcerers who had learned to wield it. They released the first of the Morai and attempted to enslave them, to use them as familiars. They failed.”

“Uh-huh. Like Merlin and shit.”

“Merlin, though that was not his true name. Nicolas Flamel. Rasputin, the last great sorcerer. A few others. But once a handful of Morai had been loosed, they no longer needed the
human mages. They developed ways to free their kin themselves, mostly through blood spells. They formed human cults and demanded mass sacrifices. Eventually, your world forgot its own magic, but it no longer mattered. The Morai had already gained a hold. And they have been growing in strength since.”

I shook my head. I’d always known the world was a messed-up place, but this was beyond bizarre.
Twilight Zone
stuff. I couldn’t exactly refuse to accept it, because I’d seen plenty of evidence—but that didn’t mean I had to like it. “So basically,” I said, “you came here to save the world. Right?”

All of the exhaustion vanished from him and left pure rage. “I am here because of Kemosiri,” he said through gritted teeth. “When the worm finally realized we spoke the truth about the Morai coming to attack the Council, coward that he is, he panicked. The Bahari fancy themselves scholars, while the Dehbei are warriors. Omari-el would have given our assistance anyway. But Kemosiri deemed it necessary to force us into his service.” He paused and shuddered with fury. “He cast a powerful enchantment on Omari-el. A curse, called the
ham’tari
. It is a truth spell that binds the bearer to a promise, on pain of death. And the promise he extracted was the complete destruction of the Morai at the hands of the Dehbei.”

“My God,” I said. “What an utter dick.”

Ian nodded in terse agreement. “Omari-el was killed during the battle. The Morai general, Lenka, murdered him when Omari-el attempted to negotiate for Kemosiri’s life. However, the great Council leader still held us to the terms of the
ham’tari
. Only twelve Dehbei survived the clan wars, and when the djinn learned that the Morai had escaped their tethers in this realm, Kemosiri had us banished here to finish the task he could not. He did deign to send a small contingent of Bahari
to assist us. All of them young and inexperienced. Shamil and Taregan were among them.”

I remembered Shamil. The battered shell Trevor kept chained in his basement. “Who’s Taregan?”

“He was a friend, once. He and I had a . . . parting of ways.”

I opened my mouth to ask what happened and got interrupted by a Gestapo-style pounding on the door of the hotel room.

My gut told me that whoever was out there wasn’t the smoking police.

I needed a weapon. I grabbed Ian’s tether first, but a gut feeling told me that was a bad idea. So I did something even worse—I handed it back to him.

He accepted it with a doubtful expression, as if he suspected treachery. No time to explain that I did, too. “You should disappear,” I whispered.

Ian nodded and vanished.

The knocking repeated. I crept toward the door with one hand in my pocket, closing around the knife formerly known as Pope’s. A look through the peephole revealed a blue-clad motel employee bearing a clipboard. Early thirties, brown hair and blue eyes. The name stitched on his shirt was George.

I didn’t trust him. He lacked that certain minimum-wage-isn’t-enough-to-put-up-with-this-shit vibe most third-rate-motel staff put out.

He knocked again. “Mr. Davis?” He used the name I’d given at the front desk to check in. “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir. We need your signature for the deposit agreement.”

That almost sounded credible. I hadn’t signed anything
when we got here. Maybe he was just an employee—they probably weren’t used to people paying in cash.

But I still wasn’t going to open the door.

I kept my grip on the knife and moved back, hoping he’d go away. There was a longer pause, then more knocking. “Mr. Davis?”

Just when I’d decided to say something brilliant, like I’d go to the office and sign the damn thing later, the door emitted the distinctive electronic bleat that said it’d just been unlocked. It opened fast, and the guy strode in brandishing his clipboard at me.

I almost laughed—until I saw the muzzle of a gun under the board.

Crud. Another smart thug. He stood less than five feet from me, and he’d already closed the door behind him. No way I could pull the knife before I got shot. I settled for glaring at him and hoping Ian could come up with a brilliant idea. Preferably one that didn’t involve me bleeding.