Djinn and Bear It (Providence Paranormal College Book 5) Read online

  “Hmm?” She paused with her knife about to pierce the crusty, seeded hide of choreg again.

  “The Boston Internment.” I sipped, the brew frothy and bitter. It was time to hear a tale of the sort of survival I’d run from enduring, time to look the sins of my past in the face and stare them down. “Tell me everything.”

  Chapter Seven

  Jeannie

  “Okay, then.” I set my fork down, laid the knife aside. With one hand, I turned my water glass in a circle, then took a deep breath. “You know how the Reveal happened, right?”

  “I know the version they teach at The Academy.”

  “Then you know enough about that.” What a relief. “Good. About a year after all the chaos, Registry laws went into effect. They started registration, getting a database together of all the Extrahumans. The Magi and Psychics did it freely for the most part. When you can hurl fireballs or make people forget you exist, having people know what you are isn’t such a big deal. Most of the Faeries felt the same, especially the Seelies. They like their rules, and there’s always the Under to escape to. But it was different for shifters and vampires, some of the Psychics, too.”

  “I remember overhearing a conversation about Psychics denying their abilities during the Registry. Something Kimiko spoke about with a Psychic vampire?”

  “Oh, that’d be Henry Baxter.” I smiled, remembering how good an influence he’d been on his girlfriend Maddie since they got together. “Yeah. They did. It’s how they managed to help some of the most vulnerable Extrahumans survive the Reveal. But they could do that because there isn’t a way to test a Psychic except by what they say. Only the Summoners are really noticeable. But anyway, that’s not something shifters can get away with. There’s a physical test for that, scientific, where they take a sample and know what we are in under a minute, no matter how sneaky we’re trying to be about it.”

  “Did many shifters try to hide, though?” Ismail tented his fingers around the little coffee cup, gazing into it before taking another sip.

  “Lots, especially in the southern half of the country.” I stopped spinning my water glass, then dried my fingers on the napkin in my lap. “There was a ton of intolerance and backlash down there back then. My cousin Bobby’s parents took off and lived out of a truck in the Ozarks for three years. But Boston was different, like most of the Northeast.” I sighed. “Or so we thought.”

  Ismail stilled, reacting to something. I glanced around, trying to figure out what it could be. Tithed Faeries sensed all kinds of magic, so there could be danger nearby. I flared my nostrils and tilted my head, trying to scent or listen for any threat. But there was nothing. And then, I noticed his eyes were locked on me. Something about me or the story I told had alarmed him. I should have known. He was another survivor, after all. And now I understood the real reason an Extrahuman Social Services worker shouldn’t talk about her personal troubles with clients. It wasn’t for privacy, but so we wouldn’t cause more harm than good.

  “Are you all right, Ismail?”

  “I will be.” He set his coffee down in the saucer, then put his hands on the table. “Please continue.”

  “Okay.” But I wasn’t sure I could. I closed my eyes. “What should I tell you about first? How we thought it was perfectly reasonable for the Mayor to ask all the shifters to move into temporary housing on barges in Boston Harbor? How about when he had a Boston PD task force guarding us for our own safety? I was seven and thought the police were our friends, just like I’d been taught. We were like frogs in a pan on a slowly heating stovetop, and then we were like fish in a barrel.”

  “What do you mean?” Ismail had leaned forward until he was on the edge of his seat. He didn’t blink, something I thought was impossible for anyone but dragon shifters.

  “I mean there wasn’t much we could do when people on the barges started disappearing. But my mom and dad had some ideas. They started a resistance, teamed up with some otter and walrus shifters. They snuck out and contacted Kelpies and Selkies. With that much Water magic, we would have been able to defend the barges and also find out where the missing people went. It would have been the first time since the Faerie Wars that many from both sides worked together too. Mom and Dad had what seemed like an ocean of hope. They thought for sure we’d get the lost shifters back.”

  “You didn’t, of course.” Ismail tilted his head, his steady stare interrupted by a sheen of tears and one long blink.

  “No. The Kelpies and Selkies never made it. The Queen didn’t want her people to help. She stopped them instead.”

  “But why?”

  “She refused to risk her Selkies, so she locked them all in the Under until the Internment was over. Even worse, she put up a Ban to keep the Kelpies out. Without them, half the Extrahumans on the barges disappeared before the President sent the National Guard to stop the Internment.”

  “How did she find out, though?”

  “I told her, of course. That’s how it was all my fault.” I shook my head, hiding all traces of guilt from my face by picking at the napkin under the table instead where Ismail couldn’t see. “I sent her a message in a bottle, dropped it off the side of our barge. Because I thought she’d help us.”

  “Her decision is hardly your fault.”

  It was my turn to sit still. The napkin I’d let go of fluttered to the floor, and for once, I didn’t lean down to pick it up. And just as he had earlier, Ismail turned his head, scanning the room for threats. I studied his face again, noticing things I hadn’t the first time I’d seen him in Newport. Faint lines marked the corners of his eyes and the space between his brows and traveled the breadth of his forehead. The jet curls just above his ears mingled with scant silver strands. They matched what I saw in the mirror every morning, adornments etched by guilt and the yarn of penance spun from my life since I squealed on my parents.

  Ismail didn’t ask how I was. Instead, he retrieved my fallen napkin, placing it on the table between us like a white flag or a peace offering. He left his hand beside it instead of drawing away again. He waited until I met his eyes again, then turned his palm up. I reached across and took his hand, not caring about how it was still slightly sticky from the choreg.

  “Well, now you know the worst thing I’ve ever done. Thank you.”

  “For what? Surely you’ve told this story before.”

  “Yes, I have. But no one I’ve told it to so far extended their hand to me afterward like you just did.” I squeezed it. “So, thanks.”

  “I still wonder one thing.” He looked down at our hands, then squeezed back. “What happened to the missing people?”

  “You remember how I said we thought the police were protecting us?”

  “Yes.” He nodded once.

  “There actually was a threat. Extrahuman trafficking.” I took a deep breath before continuing. “Many of the families on those barges were found later in circuses, zoos, mines, factories, tourist attractions. Some of them were even okay afterward. But the rest they only found records of. Laboratory records. And ashes. Can’t forget those.”

  “I’m sorry.” Ismail reached across and placed his other hand over mine.

  “You shouldn’t be.” I sniffed, shaking my head as the corners of my eyes leaked. “You couldn’t have done anything.”

  “I should have asked Wilfred to pass my lamp to someone else.”

  “You were in The Academy by choice?”

  “Yes.” Ismail’s grasp loosened, as though he expected me to pull away. “I didn’t want a second or third master for my lamp. I wanted nothing more to do with people anymore, Extrahuman or not.”

  “I understand.” I knew what he’d have to say to that. Even though no one else I’d shared this story with ever made it this far, I’d been where Ismail was right then. I had to decide how much I wanted to tell him.

  “How could you?” He blinked. “What happened next for you was the opposite of my— well, I guess you could call it a life. But you devoted your life to helping oth
ers after making that mistake.”

  “Because I wanted to curl up and hide.” I closed my eyes, taking a leap of faith in this Djinn I’d only just met yet felt like I’d known forever. “I had a whole plan about heading up to the Arctic circle and just hibernating until I didn’t wake up.” I kept my eyes closed, expecting the worst, since that was what I’d told him.

  Ismail let go of my hand. I heard the scrape of the chair on tile as he stood. I tried not to listen for his footsteps, but my enhanced hearing got nothing, anyway. He’d Vanished himself, then. I knew I shouldn’t tell anyone but a psychiatrist about contemplating suicide. I’d gone and scared him off like a jerk after promising to help him.

  “Yes, you do understand.” His words startled my eyes open. He sat beside me, in the chair he’d pulled around the table. “I’m sorry for doubting you, Jeannie.”

  My mouth dropped open. I could hardly believe he was apologizing to me when I’d gone and been inappropriate. He put his elbows on his knees, then folded his hands and leaned forward and gazed into my eyes. How had I failed to notice his, how they were brown but shot through with amber? Was that a Djinn thing? Why did I care about something like that when I’d decided to treat Ismail the same way I would a client?

  But I hadn’t been the same with him as with Mr. Kazynski or Mrs. Donato. Ismail wasn’t like them even though he was technically older than either. He looked my age even though his mannerisms were from a different era and he talked like a high-society Harcourt. I wondered what he thought of me, but didn’t dare ask, not while we locked gazes like this.

  For once, I wasn’t sure what to do or say. Usually, I was the one to break the ice or help people shake off their shock and the inaction that went with it. I thought back to catching Josh Dennison and Nox Phillips snogging in the dorm laundry, how I’d moved them along and given Nox a place to stay. Instead of the usual snickering that memory inspired, I got chills and shivered like it was December instead of the end of April.

  Ismail reached out, pushing a lock of hair aside that had fallen out from behind my ear. His touch lingered as his fingertips brushed the side of my ear. Maybe it was an accident, maybe something else. His gaze was intense, penetrating. I’d spent the entire afternoon trying to get through to him so that I could help, and now he sat beside me, looking at me like a desert traveler might gaze at a glass of water. I knew I was looking at him exactly the same way. This kind of thing had happened to me before, but it had been one-sided. I took a breath again, trying not to prepare whatever words might come out with it and just speak to him in the moment. But the words didn’t make it in time.

  “Did you enjoy your choreg and coffee?” The woman from behind the counter shuttled our empty plates from the table to a large round tray.

  “Very much, thank you.” Ismail turned his head to smile at the woman. Had he smiled before this? I couldn’t remember because that expression looked so natural on him. Familiar too, like I’d seen it before somewhere. I definitely had. Where, though? It was right on the tip of my brain but took off like a tomcat leaping down from the top of a fence.

  I sat in silence, collecting my thoughts as Ismail chatted with the woman about choreg recipes in Armenian. She handed him a coupon card, the kind where you collect stamps each time you visit to exchange for a discount later. She’d filled half the spaces up for us already. After that, she faded back into the duties of running the cafe and left us to each other’s company again.

  “Would you walk with me for a while, Jeannie?” Ismail had stood and extended his hand to help me up. I took it, but couldn’t take him up on his offer.

  I explained that I had a meeting with my adviser and then a class. When he asked when we could talk again, I gave him a time later that night after dinner. His smile was the last thing to vanish as he went back into his lamp. Even though the bus back to Kennedy Plaza passed by some lovely spring scenery, all I could see was that last smile. It had touched his eyes, genuine.

  Chapter Eight

  Ismail

  The only place a Djinn could go for advice besides whoever his master trusted was either his Monarch or the Under. Technically, that wasn’t true. I couldn’t leave the lamp unless she called me out of it, but I could communicate with anyone I knew who was in the realm opposite this one. I stood in front of the silver-backed mirror on the north wall of my lamp and willed it into a window. After that, all I had to do was imagine Neil Redford, and he’d appear on the other side of the glass—as long as he wasn’t in the earthly realm, at least.

  “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. Ismail! How you doing, old buddy?” Neil flashed his perfect teeth. Perfectly white, that is. They were sharp, almost like a shark’s, double row included. Seeing any Faerie in the Under meant you got the real them without their glamour. Redcaps all had teeth like that, plus pointy ears and gray skin. I could also see Neil’s mantle, the sign of rank in the Goblin King’s Court.

  “You’ve moved up in the court, I see.” I smiled back. “Congratulations.”

  “I’d say thanks, but really you ought to compliment my son, Fred.” Neil turned his smile down to a grin. “If he hadn’t helped me fix the King’s cleaning contraption, I’d never have made it past Marquess to Duke.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re not still a Page after all this time” I’d met Neil because that’s what we both were during that first year and a day in the Under. Neil had been a pioneer on America’s western frontier, but in the other realm, mortal nations and geography didn’t matter. I'd been sent to help him out there on occasion. Only one thing divided Faerie, the rift between the King and his counterpart.

  “Well, shoot. Has it really been that long?” He shook his head, a forelock of sandy blond hair streaked liberally with gray flopping over one of his gleaming red eyes. “You don’t look like you’ve aged a day. But then, you’ve been in a lamp all this time, right?”

  “Right.”

  “That’s a bum deal, buddy.”

  “It has its bumless moments, however.” I smiled and gestured at the opulent surroundings behind me.

  Neil threw back his head and laughed. No, he guffawed. I had to wait nearly two minutes for him to compose himself again and by then his knees were sore from slapping. Watching a Redcap laugh would have been sheer terror for most mortals, but I wasn’t one. Even though the insatiable maw he’d opened could have devoured my lamp, items ensorcelled by the Monarchs persisted. Because I’d tithed to the King, no Unseelie creature could truly destroy it. I was another matter entirely.

  “So, you’ve been in there all this time. You didn’t call, you didn’t write, you didn’t Magic Mirror your way over to see me.” Neil narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  “I was tired.” I shook my head. “Shell-shocked. That sounds like what you’d call yellow-bellied, I know.”

  “Now you look here.” Neil set his jaw to the point where it was squarer than I’d thought it possible for jaws to get. “You’ve seen two wars up close and personal, and a couple of gunfights besides. These days, they call what had you in its teeth PTSD. It’s serious enough to get any fighting man an honorable discharge. I won’t hear you calling yourself yellow-bellied over hiding again.”

  “Fine. How about if I call myself a coward for agreeing to the lamp life to begin with?”

  “I always thought you did it to protect your family.”

  “I wish it were that simple.”

  “Well, shoot.” This time, Neil didn’t laugh. “So why chew the fat about it with me now, after all this time? You join Alcoholics Anonymous or something?”

  “I thought Prohibition ended eighty years ago?” The quip came automatically, with no wind in its sails. “As to why, I met someone important.”

  “Woah now there, Izzy.” Neil’s hands went up like he’d been outmatched on a dusty Main Street at high noon. “What did you do, meet another Djinn through this magic mirror thing like some kind of Under dating service?”

  “No. And I think you’ve got the wrong idea. Maybe.�
� I tried to shake off the memory of Jeannie’s hand in mine. “I met my lamp’s third master.”

  “Let me guess—you have no idea where any of your descendants are, or whether any of them are tithed.”

  “Correct.” I didn’t need to explain to Neil that I was facing eternity in this lamp.

  “Does this new master know?”

  “Yes, and it’s not good. She’s taking her time with wishing, and she wants to help me track down my family.”

  “Well then, how’s that bad?”

  “I don’t know. It seems like it shouldn’t be, but for some reason, I just can’t shake the idea that something’s not right.”

  “So is it the situation or the lady who’s giving you that there case of the heebie-jeebies?”

  “The lady is one of the most altruistic people I’ve ever met. It’s the situation.” I took a deep breath, figuring bluntness would be best. “I sense coincidence at work here.”

  “Shi—” A gong sounded somewhere off in the distance on Neil’s side. He waited until it rang thirteen times. “Look, I gotta run. Duke duties over at formal court with His Majesty. But just so you know, it’s not just you. Coincidence has been flapping its butterfly wings all over Providence for months now. We’ll talk some other time, but I’m gonna give my oldest kid Fred a heads up. He’ll have the time to help you out over the next week or two. Who’s your master lady so I can put him in touch?”

  “The bear shifter, Jeannie La Montagne, from Boston.” I studied Neil’s face, which had gone uncharacteristically blank and chalky-pale under the gray.

  “Noted. You’ll hear from him tonight. He’s got some friends with time most of the rest of us don’t have. They’ll fill you in.” My old friend was in such a hurry that he turned his back before the mirror had silvered back over.