King of Babylon, Chapter 5

King of Babylon

Dark Sploosh

Chapter 5: The Road to Chicago

I was awoken by someone poking me in the forehead. Well, not really. Actually, I woke up with my eyes closed, and pretended someone poked me in the forehead.

“You forgot me,” she said.

Frowning, I brushed her hand away and rolled over, but I wasn’t tired enough to go back to sleep.

“Awake?”

That voice, nearly a growl but feminine all the same, was not one I felt self ignoring. Opening one eye, I saw Shanzi standing over me, a frown on her ashen face. Right behind her was my girl, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed.

“Yeah, I guess,” I grumbled, forcing myself to sit up. As I yawned and stretched, I noticed something was very wrong. I wasn’t lying on carpet, but grass. We weren’t in the hotel room anymore. It looked like we were in some kind of park or garden, but it wasn’t very big. A few small trees with thin branches that flowered with blue blossoms were the defining feature of this small place.

And all around the garden was, in a word, nothing. An endless, yellow plain spread out around us on all sides, disappearing only at the horizon. I could see a few mountains in the distance, but other than that, the land here was dominated by a tall, almost golden grass. It looked like an African savannah.

“Where are we?” I asked, grabbing one of the low handing branches to help myself up.

“Kanaka,” Shanzi said, and she didn’t join me in marveling at the sight. “Seem to have fake girl with us.”

“Hey, shut up!” the girl said, backing away from Shanzi. “Don’t rub that in.”

I tore my eyes away from the golden plains and looked back at the half imaginary confrontation.

“So it’s not just Jinn who can see her?” I asked. I had figured as much, but being as this was the first time the girl had showed up around Shanzi, I hadn’t been sure.

“Yes,” Shanzi said, looking away from the girl. “Understood only children humans make fake people.” She grinned and shot me a sideways glance. “Or crazy ones.”

I wanted to argue, but the look on her face made me feel defeated already. Shrugging, I looked around and realized for the first time that Jinn and Anna were gone. I had been too entranced by the savannah to notice before.

“Jinn went for food,” Shanzi said. “Anna’s sleeping.”

She pointed over to one of the trees. Anna was lying on the other side, her hair blending in with the grass.

“Oh,” I said, and then I realized I hadn’t even asked the question. “Do djinni read minds too?”

Once again, Shanzi gave me that grin that I was really starting to hate.

“No. Look on your face like lost baby told me.”

I rolled my eyes, something I didn’t like to do if I could help it, but my burning face made it hard to focus.

“Anyway,” I said through grit teeth, “where did you say we were again?”

“Kanaka,” she repeated. The look on my face must have asked her to explain. “Djinni side. Got hungry, Jinn didn’t want to go look for bones on human side without you. So shifted to Kanakas to go hunt.”

I wasn’t sure whether it was because of her broken English or because I was still waking up, but I had no idea what she meant beyond the hunting part, and that we had somehow gotten to the djinni world that Jinn had told me about. Something told me it wouldn’t be a good idea to make her clarify, so I just nodded and sat down. Whenever Jinn got back, I would just ask him.

As I sat back down, someone came up behind me. I could imagine her there.

“You forgot me,” she said.

I didn’t need to look at her.

“You said that when I woke up,” I told her. Shanzi sat down and watched us, keeping her face in check.

“Last night was the first time you fell asleep without me,” she said. Shanzi raised one eyebrow, and the simple gesture made me feel sick.

“That’s not true,” I said. “I must have done it before.”

The girl sat down in the grass next to me. She rested her head on my shoulder, exhaling gently. It tickled my neck.

“You must have a lot on your mind,” she said, reaching up to flick my earlobe. “Djinni and all that.”

Then she wrapped her arms around me, giving me the warm and gentle hug that usually meant I was forgiven.

Shanzi coughed.

“Yes?” I said, and the girl looked up at her.

“Well,” Shanzi said, making a big show of shrugging, “just my opinion, but real girl wouldn’t forgive so easy.”

I could see the signs of that grin tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Yeah, I know,” I sighed, looking down at the grass. “So what? She’s not real, so she can do whatever I want her to.”

A tiny chuckle bubbled from within Shanzi’s throat.

“Sure about that?” she said, moving her hand to her mouth. Her tongue slid out, licking the tips of her razor sharp fingers. “Can think of very important thing she could never do for you.”

I looked away, growling despite myself. A very old and poorly healed wound, one I hadn’t thought of at all since Jinn found me, started to bleed again.

“Relax,” Shanzi said, clicking her nails together. “Anyway, will have no problems with that once at destination.”

My gaze snapped back over to her as I realized what she said.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. Her only response was that damn grin.

“Why spoil surprise?” she said, and then her smile faded in an instant, her eyes looking at something to the side. “Stupid djinni slato anyway.”

More stuff I couldn’t understand. All I could do was grin and fall back onto the grass. The girl lay down with me, and Shanzi didn’t say anything this time. I was too awake to sleep, so I just stared up through the sapphire petals on the tree branches, watching them sway in the gentle wind that rolled over me. They were no kind of flowers that existed in the world I knew, that was for sure.

I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but eventually Shanzi stood up and stared at something behind me, so I rolled over to get a good look. Jinn appeared from the plains, his pure black skin materializing from the golden grass. There was some kind of massive dead animal slung over his shoulder. It looked like a wolf, only bigger, and fresh blood dripped from its maw. Jinn smiled when he reached us, tossing the creature down onto the grass at my feet.

“Breakfast,” he said. Then, getting down on one knee, he plunged his fist into the creature’s side. A wet cracking noise turned my stomach as Jinn moved his arm around inside the dead animal, as if he was searching for something. A smile appeared on his face as he drew back, one last loud crack sounding out. His bloody hand held what looked like one of the creature’s ribs up to the light.

A thick, rusty smell overflowed my senses, and I covered my nose as I choked back the stench. Jinn frowned as he picked the excess meat off the rib and bit down on it.

“What stinks?”

We all turned to Anna as she walked out from behind her tree, covering her nose with her sleeve. Jinn smiled at her and lifted the rib again.

“Food,” he said.

“Great,” Anna said, sitting down next to Shanzi. “What about the humans here?”

Jinn shrugged. “Humans eat meat, right? Go try.”

“We usually have to cook it first, Jinn,” I explained. Jinn nodded, looking pleased as he took another bite.

“Toss me one,” Shanzi said. As Jinn dug back into the corpse to oblige her, my stomach rumbled, which felt weird considering the smell.

“Jinn?” I said.

“Hey,” Jinn said, swallowing the rest of the rib, “haven’t made any real wishes yet. Wish for meat to cook. ‘Less you wanna’ build fire.”

“Would that be a small wish?”

Jinn nodded, so I exhaled and thought about the exact wording I would use. Although Jinn seemed like he would have told me if it was the case, I wasn’t sure exactly how literally my wishes would be taken. The last thing I wanted was to wish for Jinn to “make me some cooked meat” only for him to transform me into a delicious steak.

I shouldn’t have taken as long as I did, but I was a bit nervous. Finally, I said, “Jinn, I wish enough of the meat from this animal was correctly cooked and prepared so Anna and I can eat until we aren’t hungry anymore.”

Jinn nodded, reached down and prodded the side of the carcass with his finger. A few seconds later, I heard a low crackling sound coming from inside the animal, and an orange light flared out of the hole in its side. Two chunks of meat rose up from the wound, hovering in the air above it. Before my eyes the red meat darkened until it was brown, and then one of the chunks crossed the space between Jinn and I and hung in the air in front of me. I couldn’t help chuckling as I grabbed the meat out of the air. It was juicy and warm, but not too hot. I bit into it, and a flavor like pork, only gamier flooded my mouth. It wasn’t the best, but it was still good, and I felt proud about having wished right.

I looked over at Anna to let her know it was okay to eat, but her piece of meat was already half gone, the brown juices staining her cheeks as she tore into it.

“Good job,” Jinn said as he fished another bone from the carcass. “Didn’t need to be so specific, though.”

I nodded, eating more of the meat. We all dined in silence for a few minutes, but I was eager to get done and ask Jinn the questions that Shanzi had been so vague on.

After the last bite slid down my throat and I licked the juices off my lips, I turned to Jinn and opened my mouth to speak.

“Should get back,” Shanzi cut in.

Jinn nodded, looking at Anna.

“Ust a shecond,” she said, gulping down the last of her meat. “Okay! Shanzi, I wish the four of us were back on the human side.”

At her words, I expected the golden light and the wave to wash over me like the last time, but that didn’t happen at all. Instead, the trees around me started stretching, growing taller and wider. The blue flowers faded to a dull grey, and the grass around us bled until it was red. The trees were no longer trees, but walls and a ceiling, and the sky disappeared except for a large window to my right. A chair had popped up next to me, and a large, messy bed rose up beneath Shanzi and Anna. The dead wolf creature sunk into the floor, vanishing like water down an invisible drain.

And we were back in the hotel room.

“That was pretty cool,” I said, rising to my feet and noticing the grass felt like carpet once more. “So that was how we got to the djinni world while I was asleep?”

“Yep,” Anna said. “Jinn woke me up and told me he was hungry and he needed me to wish us to the djinni side.”

“Oh, so that’s the same size as a traveling wish?”

“Yes,” Shanzi said, getting off the bed and reaching underneath it. She drew out a long black cloak of some kind and wrapped herself in it.

“So you want to leave?” I asked.

“Rather stay here?” Shanzi asked, but I felt as if the question was directed more at Jinn than me. He shrugged, tapping his toes on the carpet. They still made a dull click, digging through the carpet to hit floor beneath.

“Expected to have more fun first,” he said. “Akasl can wait. Djinni too. Have waited five hundred years. Few days won’t matter.”

“Have a responsibility, you know,” Shanzi said, turning around. The look she gave Jinn was scary. “We’re important.”

I raised one eye towards Jinn, and his carefree smile faded.

“Fine,” he said, waving his hand in dismissal. “Get going then.”

Shanzi scowled at Jinn and approached me. She got really close to my face, forcing me back a bit. She was intimidating, but she was also kind of attractive, which didn’t help.

“Need a map of human world,” she said.

“O-okay,” I said, easing away from her. I started to look for my computer, but that made me realize something I somehow had missed before. I turned back to Jinn, feeling sick at the thought.

“We left all my stuff back at that restaurant,” I said. “My computer was there too.”

Jinn looked at me with puzzlement, and I could tell he had trouble sympathizing with me. I didn’t expect him to understand what losing your laptop felt like.

“Wish for it,” he said simply. “Won’t be much more than cooked meat.”

I really didn’t want to, but I had a lot of important stuff in that computer. One thing in particular than I absolutely couldn’t lose.

“I wish I had my laptop back,” I said. Jinn held up his hand and an orange light flashed in his grasp. A second later my laptop was just there in his hand. I took it from him, scared he would hold it too tight and damage it.

“Thanks,” I said, flipping it open and turning it on. I was worried it was somehow not really mine, but as I checked through it, it was definitely mine. All my files and documents were still there, in all the right places. Including the one I needed more than anything else.

I breathed as relief flooded my body.

“Are you okay?” Anna asked. “You look pale.”

“I’m fine,” I said, looking for my copy of the world map. “I just… there’s something very important to me in here, that’s all. I couldn’t lose it.”

Anna seemed satisfied with that, because she didn’t press it. A few moments later I pulled up a full map of the world and turned the laptop so Shanzi could see it. I was curious to see where she wanted to go.

She pointed to somewhere in the American Midwest. I winced as her nail tapped the screen, but it didn’t seem damaged. “What human city near here?”

I zoomed in closer, and she adjusted her finger. She pointed to some place just south of Chicago, but her finger hovered as if she only knew the general area.

“What’s there?” I asked her.

“On djinni side there is Kanaka capital. Must go.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, looking at Jinn. He smiled nervously, and his eyes didn’t exactly meet mine when he spoke.

“Djinni been waiting for day humans and djinni could meet again. Is expected first djinni who finds human take to home city to celebrate.”

“Celebrate?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around that. “Why didn’t you mention that before?”

Jinn didn’t say anything. He just shrugged and looked at Shanzi.

“Not responsible,” she said, the distaste in her voice paralyzing. “Would rather go on childish adventures with human instead of give djinni something to be happy for.”

“Oh,” Jinn said, laughing under his breath. “Anna wanting to see world not childish adventures? Sorry.”

I could see a fight between them getting ready to explode again, so I held up my hands in protest. Besides, I had a few more questions about this whole situation.

“Why can’t Anna just shift us back to the djinni world and then wish us to this capital?” I asked.

Anna raised her hand.

“I can answer that one. I found out pretty early on that I can only wish for us to be teleported specifically to a place I already know about, at least from reading about it or something. Otherwise it counts as a vaguer and bigger wish. If I wished us right there, I’d either need to use a bigger wish and have us lose our teleporting, or use my last free wish. And Shanzi’s sort of forbidden me from doing that.”

“Exactly,” Shanzi said, giving me an impatient look. “Satisfied?”

“I guess,” I said, although I really wasn’t. “Anna, do you know enough about Chicago to get us there?”

“Well, yeah,” she said, fidgeting behind her back. “It was one of the places I was going to visit eventually, so I read up on it a bit.”

Before I could wonder if that was good enough, Shanzi pointed at my laptop.

“Hold onto that,” she said as she turned to Anna and gave her a nod.

“Okay then,” Anna said, leaping down off the bed. “I wish the four of us were in a nice, empty hotel room in Chicago!”

I glanced over at Jinn and caught a last look of him staring at Shanzi with dark eyes before she burst into overwhelming gold light. Gasping, I clutched my laptop to my chest as that strange wave came out of nowhere and knocked me off my feet. I tumbled head over heels in the ethereal water, not letting go of my computer the whole time.

And then the water was gone, and I was standing on my feet in a very nice room, my laptop still with me.

“Ah, this place is even better!” Anna appeared at my side, giggling as she threw herself onto the large red bed in front of me.

“No. Have to go.”

I turned around to see Shanzi standing in the open door of the room, Jinn behind her. Anna grumbled something, but she pulled herself off the bed and went for the door. As she passed me, she grabbed my hand and dragged me behind her. I went along with it, mostly because some part of me found it funny.

Out in the hallway Anna marched us towards the nearest elevator, but I shook my head and pointed to the stairs instead.

“Oh really?” she said, pouting.

“Yes really. Look at these two,” I said, nodding towards our djinni. “Everyone else can’t see them, but they might see the glow. It’ll draw attention to us.”

“Shanzi’s cloak will just make her look like some hooded person,” Anna insisted.

“That still looks weird, and besides, Jinn doesn’t have that luxury. We left the sweaters and bandages I used to cover him up back at that restaurant. He’ll look like a pair of pants going down the street out there.”

“Actually,” Jinn cut in, “these same pants I had when we met. Made from djinni materials, so humans won’t see.”

“Your chest will still glow a bit, won’t it?”

“Not in daylight.”

“And if a cloud goes over the sun?”

For once, Jinn looked fed up with me. “Deal with it. Humans won’t say anything. Don’t want others think they’re crazy.”

Embarrassed by his rebuttal, I made up my mind. Before Anna could argue any more, I pulled free from her hand and grabbed her wrist, dragging her behind me into the stairwell.

“Oh come on Lachlan!” she whined, but I wasn’t going to let her win. I was nineteen, she was twelve. I needed to show some backbone here! Luckily, Shanzi must have been a bit more concerned about us getting a move on than Anna’s personal preferences, because she and Jinn followed behind without complaint.

After the first flight of steps Anna got free of me and ran ahead, making great stomping sounds as she did so. She wasn’t laughing, but I could almost feel the childish scorn rolling off her.

Taking the opportunity, I fell back to the djinni, hoping I could ask a few more questions. But just as I opened my mouth, Shanzi picked up her pace and left Jinn and I behind.

“Annoying?” Jinn said. I shrugged, not really wanting to talk about her. Rather, it was something she had said that was bothering me.

“Think it’s strange?” Jinn asked.

I was getting tired of being stopped before I could ask my questions, but I swallowed my ego and asked, “What?”

“We’re supposed to be first human and djinni pair in five hundred years,” he said, his voice hardening. “What are chances Shanzi finds Anna at nearly same time? Maybe even before?”

That was something that hadn’t occurred to me at all.

“You’re right. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Something strange going on.”

“You’re saying we shouldn’t trust Shanzi?” I asked. “You agreed to let them come with us in the first place.”

“Not saying that,” he clarified, although his face didn’t look so sure. “But maybe you should ask her when get chance. Won’t tell me. Certain.”

“Yeah, she doesn’t really seem to like you that much,” I agreed.

“Don’t remind,” Jinn grumbled. He started murmuring stuff under his breath that I didn’t really understand, and that reminded me of my question.

“Jinn,” I asked, “what does slato mean?”

I swear I saw Jinn’s pointy ears perk up at the word. His smile returned as he gave me a sideways glance that I wasn’t so sure was a good sign.

“Where you hear that?” he asked me.

“Um, Shanzi mentioned it.” I wasn’t so sure I should mention the context of the conversation the word had sprung up in. Magical trust or no, I wasn’t stupid enough to embarrass myself more than I had to.

“Sad to miss that,” Jinn said. “Slato is word from Shanzi’s language.”

“You mean she doesn’t speak the same language you do?”

“Do humans speak same language?”

I guess I should have seen that one coming.

“Shanzi’s Chikato djinni,” Jinn continued. “Chikat across ocean from my home, Kanaka. So I’m Kanakas djinn and speak Kanakas language. Understand Kanakas because of me. Shanzi just speaks in Kanakas often, but sometimes slips into Chikato.”

“Okay… so, um, what does slato mean again?”

“Oh, right. Uh, slato means mating.”

I nearly tripped on the stairs right there.

“Just one translation,” Jinn chuckled. “Slang term, I think. Can also mean marriage, or prostitution, slavery… basically anything related to mating.”

“Uh, I see,” I said, unable to focus on the stairs. I suddenly couldn’t stop thinking of what Shanzi had said earlier. Exactly why wouldn’t I have problems with that after we got to the Kanaka capital?

“What the hell are you thinking about?”

The girl was suddenly on the steps in front of me, giving me a rather nasty look.

“Oh, hi mistress,” Jinn said with a wave.

“Mistress?” she asked, suddenly blushing with a fervor that some part of me knew real girls couldn’t.

“Yes. Master’s wife is the mistress.”

“Oh my,” the girl said, nervously messing with her hair, “thank you, Jinn.”

“Please stop talking to the hallucination,” I told Jinn, walking right through the girl and leaving her behind.

“Lachlan,” she shouted, running down after me. “Just because I’m not real doesn’t mean you can mistreat me.”

“That’s exactly what it means,” I said, trying to pull ahead of her. Running from my own imagination. If I had been an observer, I would have been loving it.

“Sound like a jerk, master,” Jinn said.

“Don’t be a smartass,” I grumbled. “Anyway, girl, in case you haven’t noticed, you’re my coping mechanism. I can do whatever I want to you.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Besides slato.”

I was about to take off at a run, but at that moment we reached the bottom of the stairwell. Shanzi and Anna were waiting for us by the door.

“Problem,” Shanzi said.

“What now?” I asked. Shanzi gave Jinn a look and nodded towards the window in the door. Jinn peered through it for a moment, and his face grew grim.

“Not good,” he said. “Daskann. Damn.”

Confused, I stood next to Jinn and looked out the window with him. Most of what I could see was an empty hallway, but I could also see a bit of the lobby to the left. It didn’t take long to spot what had the djinni so concerned.

Three tall figures stood by the front doors of the lobby, their huge, dark coats covering their whole bodies. Only their heads were unclothed, and they were glowing in the dim light.

Before I could ask Jinn who they were, one of them reached out to the nearest human walking past. For no reason, he grabbed a man in a business suit by the throat, lifted him into the air like a puppet, and tossed him through the doors. The glass shattered as the man went sailing outside and disappeared. As a fury of screams erupted from the lobby, the three djinni threw their coats off and ran forward. Three super powered beings glowing pale red tore through the humans before them as if they were grass.

Not good was a bit of an understatement at this point.