Of course, he could destroy the djinn. With magic. That pissed her off, too.
“Don’t,” he murmured. “I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need this guy.”
“Why? You planning to make a coat out of him?”
“Let’s keep walking.” He tried to guide her ahead. She resisted. He frowned. “Jazz, please. Trust me.”
Right. Trust the man who couldn’t plan a takeout dinner without an instruction book and a personal coach. The man who’d ditched her, almost gotten her arrested, left her alone and pregnant, then damn near gotten her killed when he popped back into her life like nothing had happened.
The man who saved my life, and Cy‘s, when a djinn tried to kill us. The man I was just crying over a few hours ago when I thought he was dead.
Damn it. Maybe she did love him.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll trust you. This time.”
“Your confidence is overwhelming.” He led her back to the faded thread of the path, and lowered his voice to a whisper while they walked. “Listen, I don’t want him to know about my. . uh, abilities yet,” he said. “I think we’re gonna have to outsmart this guy.”
“Great. We’re dead, then.”
“Thanks a lot.” He scowled, but the expression changed to a smile when he caught the laughter in her eyes. “Anyway, I’ve got an idea. Hopefully it’ll stop us from walking in circles.”
“I hope it works fast,” she muttered. “We’re losing daylight, and—” Something rustled behind them. Jazz whirled around, reflexively bringing the poker back over her shoulder, ready to swing.
The fox sat on the path, twenty feet away, watching them with glittering eyes and a grin that was almost human. The thing was so big, it made her head hurt. There weren’t any foxes the size of Saint Bernards. The longer she stared at it, the more she wanted to. .
Go to him. Stroke his fur. Lie down on the cool ground and let him warm you, soothe you.
“Wrong way, babe.” Donatti’s low, urgent voice snapped her back. “Keep moving. Don’t look at it.”
For a few seconds her feet wouldn’t obey the command to walk. She managed a step, then another, and the small victories shattered the remains of the trance. She moved. But she couldn’t resist a quick glance behind them.
The fox was gone.
She shuddered. Should’ve been used to things disappearing by now, but it still creeped her out. “So, what are we doing?” she whispered.
“Well.” He stared straight ahead, like he didn’t want to tell her. “Djinn magic works on need, right? So I figured if I really needed to find the car, we’d find it.”
“That’s your big idea?”
“Yeah. You got a better one?”
She sighed. “No. Unless you’ve got a helicopter up your ass.”
“I keep telling Ian we need one of those, but he won’t listen. Maybe you can talk him into it.”
“Right. And maybe I could convince Charles Manson to take up knitting.” Ian had been royalty or something, back in the djinn realm before he came here. Nobody talked him into anything. Except Akila, and even she didn’t win half the time.
They walked in silence while the sun slipped low and stuffed the woods full of deeper shadows. Still no sign of the road, or any indication of a break in the forest, but at least they didn’t seem to be passing the same places. Maybe Donatti’s crazy idea was working.
“Poor little lost rabbits.”
Seth’s voice broke the stillness. At least it wasn’t a booming echo this time. Jazz glanced around, didn’t see him anywhere. Then she faced forward and spotted him standing on a thick branch, halfway up a tree loaded with blazing red leaves. “We’re not lost, asshole,” she said.
Donatti elbowed her. “On’t-day alk-tay im-hay,” he muttered.
She gaped at him. “You’re not serious. Pig latin?”
“Shh.”
She rolled her eyes and shut her mouth. Looked back at the tree. No Seth.
“Oh, but you are.”
This time the voice came from the right, and Seth popped into view perched on a moss-covered boulder. He laughed. “By all means, keep going this way. Have fun when you get to the gorge.”
He was fucking with them. Had to be.
Didn’t he?
“Jazz.” Behind them now, his voice a seductive swirl. “You don’t have to die out here with him. Come with me. I’ll take care of you.”
Donatti squeezed her hand. She kept walking. Didn’t look back.
Seth materialized ahead of them. Grinning. “It’s a long drop down the gorge,” he said. “You won’t see it in the dark. If you survive the fall, I hope you can swim.”
“Fuck off,” Donatti snarled.
Seth’s mouth opened, and laughter oozed out like blood. He faded into nothing.
Jazz waited a few minutes. “I thought you said don’t talk to him.”
“So sue me.”
“You’re cute when you’re jealous.”
“Hmph.” He coughed once, slowed and pointed ahead. A grin eased on to his lips. “I’m cuter when I’m right.”
She followed the gesture — and saw the wide swath cutting through the trees, just visible in the fading light. It had to be the road. “I’ll be damned,” she said. “It worked.”
“You can thank me later.”
They made their way to the clearing. No stretch of pavement ever looked so beautiful. She would’ve knelt down and kissed asphalt if there wasn’t a witness. “So the bastard was just trying to confuse us,” she said. “Gorge, my—”
A strangled gasp from Donatti cut her mid-curse. She followed his stricken gaze, and saw the obliterated wreck down the shoulder on the opposite side of the road. Not the sedan, but a mid-1960s Impala, weathered and weed-choked. And bursting from the shattered windshield, lying spread-eagled on the hood with legs still inside the car, was an aged and decimated human corpse.
Jazz stared at her feet until she was sure she wouldn’t vomit. “Well,” she said in a choked rasp. “You did find a car.”
They still had to get to the sedan. It was on the road somewhere. Even if there might’ve been a chance at finding something useful in the Impala, Jazz wasn’t about to go looking through it. This time, she let Donatti pick the direction.
Of course, he decided they had to go past the dead guy.
As they walked past the wreck, Donatti wore a look she recognized, and wasn’t too happy about. It was an echo of the look of furious determination Ian always wore right before the two of them headed off to destroy one of the evil snake djinn, the Morai. On such missions there was always a chance they wouldn’t come back alive.
“You’re thinking about being a hero, aren’t you?” she said.
His mouth slashed a firm line. “He’s killing people up here. We have to stop him.”
“By ourselves?” It wasn’t like she’d been opposed to the whole Morai extermination thing. She’d seen what they were capable of doing, to humans and to other djinn. Plus, they turned into snakes. She hated snakes. Hell, she’d more or less encouraged Donatti to help Ian when it turned out he was the only one who could. But Ian’s magic was a lot stronger and more reliable. Of the few things Donatti could do, he’d only perfected invisibility. None of his spells ever went the way he planned them. “Maybe we should get Ian before we try to take this guy on,” she said.
He didn’t answer right away, but she could feel the anger radiating from him. Finally, he sighed and said, “I guess you’re right.”
She offered a sympathetic grimace. “You know, Donatti, I understand how it feels.”
“What, chicks get penis envy too?”
She laughed. “Not exactly. I meant. . being helpless. Not having what it takes and knowing it. It’s frustrating as hell.”