My speech did not have the intended effect. Instead of the fear and disappointment I’d hoped to see on his face, Xaphan watched me in mounting wonder and excitement, his smile broadening with each passing second. “Thank you for the primer, Lex.”
Anticipation, I thought, finally able to name his expression. Xaphan thought I’d laid out a challenge, and he was eager to rise to the occasion.
Just. Fucking. Great.
TWENTY-SIX
Before I could figure out how to stuff my second foot into my mouth, Orthus barked from down the beach. I glanced up to find him standing in several inches of water, beside the borrowed boat.
“There’s no need for the vessel,” Xaphan called after me as I jogged across the narrow, pebbled beach. “At your word, I can take us anywhere you want to go.”
I glanced back to find the djinni following me reluctantly, his expression completely blank, which seemed to indicate strong emotions, rather than the absence of any. “No, thanks. The boat’s just fine.” I suppressed a smile at the realization that Xaphan was nervous about getting in the water. Maybe even afraid. Cale had said the water interrupted his power, effectively crippling him. Suddenly I was feeling very fond of the ocean…
As I handed Cale’s clothes back to him, I nodded pointedly at the djinni now dressed as his double. Cale scowled, grumbling as he pulled a spare shirt from his bag and tugged it over his head.
Xaphan sat in the bow of the boat, and at a glance, he seemed to be enjoying the ride. His face was smooth and relaxed, his fists unclenched. But he didn’t smile or investigate any of the new technology on board. Nor did he say a word until we were safely on the mainland again.
The sun was rising by the time we tied the boat to the dock, exactly where we’d found it, and a single old man stood hunched over another boat, a hundred yards or so down the beach. If he knew we didn’t belong in the boat, or even in Maine, he showed no sign, but I was eager to get going just the same, before any more locals showed up.
Xaphan sat next to Orthus in the backseat of Cale’s rented Corolla, which was not built to accommodate two such large creatures. They looked about as comfortable as Hulk Hogan on a tricycle. And almost as ridiculous.
After our brief, whispered front-seat consultation, Cale drove us to a local diner, the only place in town serving breakfast. We left Orthus stretched across the back seat, snoring, and I skipped my usual warning for him to stay put. He would go where he damn well chose, no matter what I had to say about it, and frankly, I was starting to respect that.
While the djinni and I ordered—a lengthy process for a man who’d never seen a laminated menu or heard of a “short stack”—Cale paid a visit to the restroom so he could call his mother without Xaphan overhearing the conversation. The djinni already knew we were plotting to get rid of him, but letting him in on the specifics seemed foolish, and since he wouldn’t leave my side, I couldn’t participate on the phone call. I spent that time explaining every single item on the menu to our seventeenth century guest.
By the time Cale returned to the table, our food had arrived, and the djinni was half-way through his second stack of pancakes. He’d also tried a bite of my hash browns—without permission—which was how I discovered that like demons, djinnis couldn’t be injured through ordinary means. Xaphan hadn’t even flinched when my fork went through his hand, leaving four tiny dents in the Formica tabletop. He’d just pulled the clean tines calmly from his flesh and set the utensil beside my plate, as he’d seen the waitress do.
How the hell was I supposed to keep him in line if he couldn’t feel pain?
When Cale slid onto the booth across from me, I glared at him, still seething over the fork incident. “Did you know you can’t hurt this son of a bitch?” To illustrate my point, I slid the blade of my steak knife between the bones of the djinni’s left forearm, leaving the handle protruding from the sleeve of his sweater. Xaphan went on eating with his other hand, completely unfazed. In fact, my irritation seemed to amuse him.
“Damn it, Lex, are youtryingattract attention?” Leaning forward, Cale pulled the knife free and dropped it on the table. Just like with the fork, there was no blood, only spotless steel. “Magic trick,” he said to the man staring at us from the next table. The man went back to his French toast without a word, eating much faster than before.
“He’s a djinni,” Cale hissed. “Ofcourseyou can’t hurt him. That’s why they locked him up in the first place, instead of using him as a fucking pin cushion.”
“That would have been nice to know before I smashed the urn, Cale.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered.” He paused with a bite of omelet halfway to his mouth and glared at Xaphan, who ignored us in favor of his chocolate chip pancakes. Though we knew damn well he was listening. “There was no other choice,” Cale finished. “It was us or them.”
I poured orange juice from the carafe into my glass. “It always is.” I gulped half of the juice, watching Cale chew. “Did you get in touch with her?” I asked, careful not to mention Daphne’s name or her relationship to him.
“Yeah. She’s working on the problem. Hopefully by the time we get there, she’ll have something worked out.”
“Good.” I cut another bite from my fried egg, trying to ignore the murmur of other, likely much more benign conversations going on around us. “When does our flight leave?”
He met my eyes for a moment, then stared down at his plate. “We’re driving.”
I huffed, sure he was joking, though I couldn’t imagine why. But he was serious, as was the firm line of his mouth. “All the way to Memphis? Why—” The waitress stopped at our table to freshen my coffee, and I paused, waiting for her to leave. “That’ll take two days, Cale. We don’t have that kind of time.”
He washed down his last bite of omelet with a sip of ice water. “I’mnotconfining him on an airplane with several hundred humans,” Cale said with a pointed glance at Xaphan, who’d lifted his empty plate to lick up smears of chocolate and syrup. Like a goddamn toddler. “That’saskingfor disaster. Besides, we can be there in twenty-four hours if we take turns and drive straight through. She needs time to set things up, anyway.”
Lovely. Just fucking perfect. Twenty-four hours in a small car with a nymph, a hellhound, and a fucking fire djinni who had no respect for personal space. That felt like the punchline to the colossal joke that was my afterlife.
“Let’s go.” I stood, dropping my napkin on my plate. “We’re wasting time talking.”
Cale started to object, then took one look at my face and stuffed his last sausage link into his mouth whole. He left some cash on the table and followed me across the restaurant and through the front door, Xaphan close on his heels.
We stopped at the nearest convenience store for supplies—Coke, Twinkies, and a packet of beef jerky for Xaphan, who’d just discovered the twenty-first century version of dried meat—then hit the road. Cale took the first shift because I refused. I was exhausted, and if they made me drive, I’d probably run us into the back of a semi, killing those of us who could die and setting Xaphan loose upon the world. Fortunately, Cale saw reason—which bore an uncanny resemblance to the barrel of my gun.
