Of course they did. Imps liked cool weather and isolated forests—everyone knew that. But I’d had no idea they were so fucking childish and irritating.
Ten minutes later, we’d left both the forest and its inhabitants behind and were halfway down the steep footpath. I was freezing, exhausted, and ready for a soft, warm bed and a cold, stiff drink. And I was far from happy about the six-foot-plus djinni shadowing my every move.
So far, Orthus had shown no interest in the djinni at all. Unfortunately, the reverse did not hold true. Xaphan was fascinated by the hellhound. He wanted to inspect Orthus’s teeth and his huge paws. He wanted to know what the dog ate—not that I could tell him—and where he slept, and where I’d found him. He even tried to convince Cale to call forth a storm, so he could see Orthus’s skull-and-bones trick in the lightening.
Cale ignored the djinni, but no matter how terse my own replies became, Xaphan couldn’t take a hint. Or, he understood that I didn’t want to talk to him, but he just didn’t give a damn.
We couldn’t stuff djinni back into his bottle fast enough to suit me.
“Any idea what we should do with Barbara Eden, here?” I asked Cale, tossing my head toward Xaphan, who’d wandered past us to observe the hellhound up close.
Cale shook his head. “I’m hoping my mother will have a suggestion. I’ll call her when we get back to the mainland. But whatever we do, we have to get rid of him before we can address the second part of our problem.” Devich, of course. “Those two mix about as well as imps and trolls.”
“Will your mother take him off our hands?”
“She can’t.” Cale took his frustration out on a small stone in his path, kicking it past the dog and the djinni, and all the way down the gravel slope. “He can’t leave you until he’s granted your wish. Or until we figure out how to seal him into the nearest empty soda bottle.”
Now there’s an idea…
“Can’t leave me? What does that mean, exactly?” Dread took the form of a lump in my throat. “He’s gonna hang around my office all day?”I don’t even like it whenLaceydoes that.
Cale chuckled as he turned toward the moon-lit beach at the end of the foot trail. “Frankly, you’ll be lucky if you can get him to sleep on your couch, instead of at the foot of your bed. Where you go, he goes, and he’ll do whatever he can to get you to make a wish. Flattery, bargaining, threatening, you name it. He can’t actually hurt you, but if you have any pet peeves, I’d keep them to myself if I were you. Otherwise, he’s likely to drive you nuts popping his fingers or smacking his gum until you relent and make your wish.”
“That doesn’t sound very scary, for a big, bad djinni.”
“You might reconsider, after twelve straight hours of ‘Freebird’ played on a nose harp.”
Um, yes, I probably would. “I guess I was just expecting something a little more…sinisterfrom the man who burned down the library at Alexandria.”
“He’s not a man, he’s a djinni,” Cale insisted, and I knew from his serious tone that he wasn’t just picking on my word choice. Evidently the distinction was very real. “He’s doing his child-on-Christmas-morning routine because he hasn’t seen the outside of that urn in more than four hundred years. All his toys are still shiny and new right now, but he’ll get tired of them very quickly and start looking for other forms of entertainment. And those will be about as disturbing as they come.”
“Great.”
Cale nodded gravely. “Donotunderestimate him. He’s biding his time. Testing you to see how much resistance you’ll put up. But he’ll start pushing you for real, soon, and you probably won’t even see it coming.”
The hell I won’t. I wasn’t born yesterday.
“Donotask him foranything, no matter what he says he can get for you. Don’t ask him for advice, don’t ask if him for the time, and don’t ask him who really shot JFK. Don’t even ask him to pass the fucking salt, because he’ll interpret that as your wish. Once he grants your wish, he goes free.”
“I didnotsign on for this shit,” I mumbled running one hand over the butt of my gun out of habit. Who’d have thought saving the world would involve so little gunfire and so damn many rules?
“I know. I’m sorry.”
When we reached the beach, Xaphan investigated the modern miracle of garbage, poking through litter that had washed up on the sand while Cale stripped down to his boxer briefs twenty yards away. I didn’t eventrynot to look at the goods; moonlight was the only garment that man should ever wear. Besides, a sneak peek was the least I deserved, considering it was his fault I’d be connected at the hip to the walking torch until further notice.
“Don’t listen to anything he says,” Cale whispered, folding his jeans neatly. “Djinnis can’t actually lie, but they can get very creative with the truth.” He handed me his pants, then bent to retrieve his shoes, giving me a priceless view of his tight, narrow rear.
“He can’t lie?” That little nugget of information might come in handy…
“No, but he can tell half-truths, and twisted truths, and out-of-context truths. And he can just plain refuse to answer.”
That’s no different than any man I’ve ever met, I thought, barely clamping my lips shut on the words before they poured from my mouth. Cale didnotneed any more glimpses into my private life. “Don’t talk to him, and don’t listen to him. Got it.”
He smiled. “Good. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes with the boat.” Frowning, he hesitated instead of jumping into the water. “I’m really sorry about this, Lex. I never meant for either of us to actually lay eyes on the djinni.Anydjinni, but this one in particular.”
“I know. Let’s just get out of here and figure out how to get Thing One locked up, so we can go after Thing Two.”
“What?”
