All Your Wishes Read online

  Stationed at regular intervals on the shelves, the ancient jars were absolutely gorgeous. They varied in size, each one a completely unique and beautiful cloisonné creation, tiny jewels set with shining gold or silver wire to form unmistakable patterns on each individual jar. A large jewel sealed each vessel—precious rubies, diamonds, and sapphires, at least the size of my fist, being used as stoppers to keep über-powerful creatures trapped inside. The jewels were sealed in place with black wax delicately inscribed in runes, and while I knew I was looking at a projection, I would swear I could feel the power of their magic pounding at me hard enough to give me a blinding headache.

  The air in the room had that stale, canned quality that you get when a place is biosealed and the air is filtered and recycled repeatedly. The ambient light was gentle, but bright enough to see clearly, and, since I couldn’t see any source, I assumed it was magically generated.

  I looked carefully around the room, my stomach knotting in dread as I counted more and more jars. Then I saw what had brought Patel to my door.

  One jar was not where it was supposed to be. Two feet tall, patterned in smoky gray, dull red, and bright orange with brass, it lay on its side on the white tile floor, its seal broken, the stopper gem missing. I shuddered at the realization of just how big a problem that might be.

  “His name is Hasan.” Rahim Patel pronounced the name in a tone fraught with … well, it sounds melodramatic, but “doom” was the word that sprang to mind.

  I didn’t answer or react, mainly because the name meant absolutely nothing to me.

  “Hasan is one of the most ancient and powerful of the beings which my family guards. There are tales—” he stopped speaking and I heard him swallow hard before he resumed. “It is my duty to protect the world from the creatures contained in those urns. I have failed. Because the urn itself is still secure, there is … hope. I may be able to recapture him—to fix this. But I must live long enough to do so. If I die, my replacement will be my ten-year-old son. He is a good boy, but he has not learned all that he needs to serve as Guardian even of the jars contained in the vault. My family will help him, but he has nowhere near the knowledge and skill required to contain this disaster. I must recapture Hasan before the unthinkable happens.”

  “Why do you think you can recapture him?” Dawna’s tone was businesslike. If the thought of dealing with the djinn spooked her, you certainly couldn’t tell.

  “I have the jar. They tried to steal it, but they were unable to get past the perimeter. They tried to destroy it—there is evidence of that farther along in the video. They were unable to do so. The worst they were able to manage was to free him. They took the jewel, which means that they have a bond with him, but they will not be able to control him. Not,” he added quickly, “that anyone has ever truly controlled a djinn. A djinn must grant the human’s wishes, but they always twist the granting to do the most possible harm to the person manipulating them—and that is the best of them, a genie. An ifrit of Hasan’s power…” Again, he stopped talking. I stared through the projection and saw Patel shudder.

  “Why would Hasan kill you?” I asked.

  “Three reasons: First, because I am the Guardian; I am the only one with the knowledge and power to trap him, to seal him away again and render him helpless to do harm. He hates being imprisoned. Second, he hates me personally for being from the line of the man who originally ensnared him. He is an eternal being. His hatred is eternal as well.”

  “And the third reason?” I asked.

  “Power. Ifrits lose power during the term of their imprisonment. The stones which serve as a stopper on the jar drain them until, eventually, they are … neutered, for lack of a better term. If freed before that happens, they try to replenish their magic by draining it from other sources. Places, things … people. Given the opportunity, Hasan will gladly drain me dry.”

  I’d seen a mage drained once before. An ancient artifact, the Isis Collar, fell into the wrong hands and was used against a friend of mine. If Bruno hadn’t stepped in, John Creede, one of the most powerful mages in the world, would have lost his magical abilities permanently, and might even have died.

  As I focused on the jar it came into sharper focus. It was a lovely thing. Glossy black at the bottom of the round, lower portion of the jar. Red and orange flames had been worked into the brass in a pattern of flames that actually seemed to flicker upward to an indentation, before bowing out and up to a long, narrow neck that was colored with the grays of smoke.

  Still, beautiful as it was, I wouldn’t have wanted to touch it. Not for a million bucks. It just reeked of bad mojo.

  I tore my eyes away from the jar long enough to meet Patel’s gaze. “I don’t see any way that we can protect you from a being like that.” I didn’t like admitting it, but it was the truth. I knew my limits. This was beyond them. It was a damned shame, but he was screwed.

  He gave me a sad smile. “I know. Nor do I expect you to. There are certain … measures … things that have been done that protect members of my family—for the most part—from the ifrit we guard.”

  “But—”

  He interrupted me. “I will have to lower those protections to recapture Hasan. It is the only way. I ask that, if for any reason I am unable to, you safely transport the jar with him in it to my wife and son. They will return him to the vault.”

  “So—”

  Again he interrupted. He was either very stressed, very arrogant, or both. I stifled my irritation before he could notice. “I would have you guard me from the people who tried to steal the jar, who released the ifrit. My protections are against actions by the spirit itself. But he can, and will, manipulate humans against me—and them I have no shield against. A small group of intelligent, magically powerful people managed to get through the vault’s defenses and to that specific jar. They knew exactly which jar they wanted—none of the others were touched. Whoever those people are, they will be your opponents.”

  “Well, then,” Dawna said reasonably, “the first logical question is, who are we up against? We need to concentrate on finding out who tried to steal the jar.” Her fingers moved swiftly across the surface of the little computer.

  “No. That is not your problem. My family is taking care of it. I don’t want you interfering or wasting time looking into it.”

  Wrong answer, bucko, I thought, but kept my mouth shut.

  Dawna simply gave him a sweet smile and said, “Actually, it is our problem. We can’t manage the logistics of this without knowing who we’re up against and what they are capable of.” She continued, “Obviously, they are very powerful and well connected. I assume the existence of your vault is not common knowledge, let alone its location and the specifications of your protections. And yet your enemies managed to find it, got in, and very nearly managed to remove one of the jars. From the look of it, they even knew which jar contained the particular djinn they wanted.”

  He glared at her. She pretended not to notice.

  “It sounds to me as if someone is feeding them inside information,” I said.

  This time I got the glare.

  “And then there is the problem of what they’re going to be doing with him,” Dawna continued. “It’s not as if anyone can actually control an ifrit. He’ll be wreaking havoc.”

  She was right, of course. It wasn’t like we could expect Hasan to sit around twiddling his incorporeal thumbs while we moved against him.

  “My people are taking steps that will keep Hasan occupied.”

  “And if there is a traitor in your camp, the people who liberated him will be taking countermeasures.” Dawna responded.

  It was interesting watching the ever-so-polite battle of wills. Dawna is so much more diplomatic than I am that it isn’t even funny. That meant that in situations like this, she got to do the bulk of the talking.

  I sat silently, listening and thinking. We should turn down the job. I knew we should. It was such bad news. But I remembered case studies I’d read back in c
ollege, reports of what an ifrit had done.

  Hasan needed to be captured. If he wasn’t … well, that didn’t bear thinking too closely about.

  “Is there anyone in your organization who might have a grudge against you? Someone with a personal axe to grind?” I asked when there was a pause in the conversation.

  Rahim Patel looked at me with his mouth slightly open. I could almost see the gears grinding as his personal feelings warred with what was obviously a very logical and necessary question.

  “I trust all of the members of my family implicitly,” he said, but his tone, and the flicker of doubt I saw pass through his eyes, told me otherwise. On the other hand, it looked like pushing him would get me absolutely nowhere.

  “What about outside the family? Anybody else have access to the vault or know what you keep there?”

  “No.” His eyes had narrowed, darkening until they were nearly black. I could see he was clenching his jaw. He was getting pissed.

  “So you want me to keep you alive long enough to capture Hasan, and if you die in the process, I’m to transport the hopefully filled jar back to your wife and son. Is that it?”

  “Exactly,” he said, and pressed the button that shut off the recorder. My office was once again an office.

  That it was more of a relief than it should have been told me just how afraid I was. The job sounded simple. But simple is not the same as easy. I met Patel’s gaze across the desk. Beneath the calm veneer I could sense a level of fear and desperation. But I didn’t think it was for himself: for his son, perhaps, and the rest of us.

  I traded looks with Dawna. Since my siren heritage gives me a limited ability to speak mind-to-mind, I sometimes talk to her that way when there are things I don’t want the client to overhear, but we’ve known each other for so long that I often don’t even need to.

  If we took this case, and that was still a big if, we’d work it on our own terms. If the client didn’t like that, he could damned well fire us.

  I was afraid. I did not want to do this. But if I didn’t, and Patel failed, I would never forgive myself. Every death, every injury would be on my conscience.

  “When would we start?”

  “Now would be good. Abha insisted I retain you before I even begin working the tracking spells.” His voice grew annoyed, and his face showed apparent frustration. “I do not know why.”

  That was a seer for you. Tell you what they wanted you to do, then clam up tight about anything else. If you pressed, they’d give you a lecture about “changing the possible futures.” That was so annoying. I loved Dottie and Emma, and Vicki Cooper had been my best friend up until her death. But there were times when I’d wanted to throttle each of them for doing to me what Abha had apparently done to her husband.

  “When we finish our negotiations, you’re welcome to use our casting circle. It’s brand new, so there’s no chance of any residual magic fouling your work.” Not that I’d let Tim get away with using the circle without cleansing it after—or that he’d even try. He wasn’t stupid, or, as far as I could tell, lazy. If he had been, we wouldn’t have hired him.

  “Thank you. I wish to get moving on this as soon as I possibly can.”

  “Fine by me,” I agreed, then continued. “Now, is this a short-term job, or long-term? If it’s long-term, we normally work with at least a three-person team.”

  He shook his head, jaw set like granite, lips compressed into a thin line. “It should not take long. I would not even have involved you if my wife had not insisted.” He was obviously unhappy. “It took time to get here—time I did not believe I had to spare.”

  “But you did it.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t say, “Duh,” but the look he gave me implied it.

  “Which may mean there’s more to the situation than you originally thought,” Dawna added. “So we should probably consider a long-term plan, just in case.”

  “No team. Just you,” he said flatly, pointing to me.

  I sighed, but kept my voice free of the irritation that was starting to build within me. “There are physical limitations involved. A person needs to sleep, eat, go to the bathroom. It’s very hard to protect somebody when you’re taking care of your own bodily functions. I can go without sleep for a while, same with food and other things. But eventually your body’s demands can’t be ignored, and that will ruin your effectiveness.”

  “I can stretch my power to protect myself and one other from the magic of the ifrit. Only one.”

  “One person will be guarding you each shift. You won’t need to protect the two who are not on duty.” I kept my tone calm, reasonable. I didn’t want to. I absolutely hate it when amateurs try to tell me how to do my job. It could get them killed. It’s even more likely to get me killed. And while Bruno had accused me of having a death wish when we were arguing, I really don’t.

  “Not acceptable.”

  I came this close to telling Patel to take a hike. I’d actually opened my mouth to say the words, when the intercom buzzed. “Excuse me, this must be important. Dottie wouldn’t interrupt otherwise.”

  “Of course.”

  I picked up the line. “What?” I sounded more annoyed than I intended.

  Dottie’s voice had the far-away quality it gets when she’s in the middle of a vision. A powerful clairvoyant, she’s guided me through seriously dangerous waters and I’m still here to tell the tale. Because I listen—most of the time.

  “You need to do this. It’s important.”

  Well, crap. “Dottie…” I started to argue, though I knew it was pointless.

  “Your future depends on it as much as his.” She hung up.

  Shit.

  4

  When we’d finished the paperwork and gotten a retainer, I escorted Patel to his car, where he retrieved a worn leather medical bag that was stowed next to a duffel. The medical bag, I guessed, held his magical gear, while the duffel was probably clothes. Then I showed him to the circle.

  He examined it closely, walking over every inch, nodding with satisfaction when he was done. And well he should. It was a very nice circle.

  The very day we’d closed on the property I’d had specialists come and install the circle under Bruno’s direct supervision. It took up the north half of the parking lot, and while we could probably park on top of it, nobody ever did. It wasn’t silver—too expensive and not suited to being out in the elements. But I’d invested in good-quality silversteel, which was practically indestructible, wouldn’t tarnish, and wasn’t valuable enough for thieves to dig out of the concrete.

  It had been interesting, watching the construction team set the connecting plates of silversteel into the concrete. Each plate was engraved with runes and sigils that enhanced the metal’s ability to both amplify and contain magic. I’d actually felt the power snap into place when the last plate was set. I’d winced at the cost, but paid it willingly. In the long term, good equipment is a good investment.

  I leaned against my SUV, in the shade, watching Patel work. First he stripped off his suit jacket and set it aside, then rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. Next, he used a whisk broom to sweep the metal and the concrete around it perfectly clean. He swept the debris into a dustpan and emptied it into a white plastic trash bag he’d brought with him.

  That was when I learned just how meticulous, or anal, Rahim Patel actually was. Most people would’ve considered the clean sweep enough. Bruno, John, and Isaac were the only three people I knew who would have done what Patel did next.

  He took a box of sea salt from the medical bag and sprinkled a trail of it all around the circle, being meticulously careful not to miss a spot. Then he swept up every last grain. The used salt went into the same white trash bag, which he then stowed in the trunk of his car.

  Next he used a spray bottle to spray holy water over every inch of the circle—something even my three guys wouldn’t have done.

  When he was finally satisfied with the state of the circle, Patel took five votive-style c
andles from his bag. Using a compass to determine the precise location of each of the prime compass points, he placed a white candle at each spot. The fifth candle, which was the color of old blood and was visibly flecked with what looked like herbs, he set at the precise center of the circle.

  Walking clockwise from due north, Patel began muttering a spell in a language I didn’t recognize, the words rolling fluidly off his tongue. One by one, he lit the outer candles. Each time he did, I felt a surge of pure power wash across my othersense. When he went to his knees and lit the red candle, power roared to life, filling the circle with shimmering light that cast actual rainbows and was so bright it was physically painful to look at.

  His preparations had been good enough, thorough enough, that not even a frisson of power bled out past the metal of the circle. The heat within it might have been as intense as a bonfire, but that heat was contained and controlled. As the power built to a crescendo, the air almost seemed to thicken, as if I were watching what was happening through a thick pane of old, wavy glass, or clear Jell-O.

  That was an impressive amount of power. I’d seen one or two people who could do as much, but not easily, and Patel didn’t even seem to be working up a sweat. Then he surprised me again.

  I would’ve expected him to use something connected with Hasan as a focus, maybe wax from the seal that had held the stopper in his jar, or a scraping of paint from the jar itself. But he didn’t. Instead, Patel drew a knife from his pocket, flicked it open, and drew the blade up the inside of his forearm, making a shallow incision about five inches long in his smooth brown skin. Blood welled rapidly to the surface, staining the knife, then dripping onto the ground with the same sizzling sound bacon makes in a hot frying pan.

  Patel’s voice rose to a crescendo as he called out Hasan’s name, once, twice, and the final third time. The word rang out clear as a bell, seeming to spread in echoing waves out from the circle, the force of it felt as much as heard as it moved across the ethereal plain.

  And that was when things went spectacularly wrong.