Bad Luck Genie: An Urban Fantasy Folly Read online

  Ray was a light djinni, meaning he was skilled at controlling light and darkness. Some light djinni could even bend it around them to make them invisible, but Ray never boasted about that. He smirked. “Ganger is moving me to the Realty Team for backup. I’ll be the information guy. Told me to pass it off to you.”

  Jealousy burned beneath my breastbone. I turned around and blindly glared at the terminals on my monitor. I’ve worked in the Crimes Against Djinnis Division for a few years now. The CADD sought and destroyed those who revealed the Faelands to mortals through abusing djinni. I’d torn down community after community on the dark web just waiting for my chance to go out into the field. And shit-for-brains Ray gets to be the guy whispering info to an established team after transferring to the department only eight months ago? Bullshit.

  I pulled up the site and examined the server information. “They’re using an outdated version of Apache. I’ve got an exploit to—”

  “I don’t need to hear every step,” Ray said. “Just get on the server and copy the database.”

  I pulled up the terminal and worked on typing in the correct commands. It would only take me twenty minutes to gain root access. There wasn’t a need to pass this job off to me, but my colleagues seemed to think it was my specialty because of my first name—Malware. Fae parents thought it was clever to pick a dominant trait to act as a name. My fae mother wanted me to hide in plain sight; to do good from the shadows.

  Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I’m a white hat hacker—one of the good guys. I was just glad Mother hadn’t named me Knight or Gallant like some unfortunate djinnis.

  Her name choice had probably propelled me to become a lightlighter. I serve the Lantern Court as a knight. The term was bastardized from lamplighters since we “shine light on justice.”

  Twenty minutes later, I extracted the database, left behind my signature glyph of a knighted penguin—thank you Linux for inspiration—and forwarded it to the respective team members, copying Ray in the email.

  Doors opened and closed to my department, and footsteps hurried down the forested lane between cubicles. The fae love their trees and grow them everywhere. I lifted my eyes. Ganger, my supervisor, hurried by. He nodded to Ray, but he hadn’t seen me.

  Ray rolled his chair close to mine and pitched his voice low. “Ganger still won’t talk to me about Hunter. She still hasn’t returned.” Ray wouldn’t stop bringing this up, and I suspected he and Hunter were dating.

  I suppressed a sigh. “She’s in the Summer Court to meet with the director.”

  “Can’t you”—he wiggled his fingers at my monitor—“see if her hearing has been scheduled?”

  “I’m not hacking the director.”

  “But it’s been six weeks.” The worry in Ray’s voice was thick.

  I pursed my lips. “The FBI isn’t the director’s sole responsibility. He’s a noble. I doubt reprimanding a djinni for misconduct rates high.”

  “It’s bullshit,” he hissed. “Frankie and Penny Avalon ran from her. It wasn’t Hunter’s fault Frankie died.”

  “Her mission was to uncover evidence of them stealing good luck charms from the fae and bring them in alive. Now he’s dead, and Penny Avalon has disappeared. They betrayed us, and she let Penny go.”

  Ray’s eyes narrowed. “I know, I know. They betrayed the FBI, but you know what else I heard?” He leaned closer, his breath barely giving substance to his words. “I heard the director bottles djinnis who ‘failed’ as badly as Hunter.”

  This wasn’t the first time I’d heard that rumor, and apprehension curdled in my stomach. Once a djinni was bottled, they were trapped. Slaves to gold and masters, granting dreams with the power of wishes. A bottle could have unlimited masters, and each new master received three wishes. Yet it took the force of all three wishes combined to grant a djinni their freedom, and no master had ever resisted using one single wish. It was taboo for djinni to be masters of a bottle, and lightlighters like me vowed to never become one. But it didn’t stop the fae from taking mastery of a bottle. The fae were our leaders; they knew better than us.

  “Rumors like that don’t help,” I muttered.

  The door to Ganger’s office opened, and a pixie fluttered among the cubicles, her violet wings sprinkling pixie dust. She called everyone in for a meeting. The only thing allowing us to hear her tiny voice was the megaphone. She overlooked me but I knew better than to ditch the gathering. I followed Ray down the aisle, the living trees stretching around us, their boughs—barren branches, spring buds, full leafy greens, and autumn leaves—spread among the enchanted ceiling symbolizing the four courts.

  The lightlighter vow was inscribed above the doors to Ganger’s office. “Master of none; Knights of all.” That wasn’t the entire motto, but it was the oath of every lightlighter. Djinni served, we protected, and we never enslaved each other.

  Photos of the most wanted djinni and fae lined the wall beside the door. Frankie Avalon’s picture had a black ribbon stretched across his face, showing he was deceased. Even though he and his wife had betrayed the FBI, they still weren’t nearly as wanted as some other djinni like the Curator for holding illegal auctions; Sigvald Strause, suspected of stealing other djinni’s powers; Roddenhaim for human trafficking; the Hag for her black curses. Not every fae or djinni was benevolent.

  I stepped inside the office, stood out of the way next to a potted plant, and took in my fellow agents. Aside from Ray, Cullen and Rory were present, both illusion djinnis, as well as half a dozen other djinni with powers ranging from fortune to green thumbs. Ganger, a brown-skinned djinni with fair hair, stood beside his desk with his hands clasped behind his back.

  “We have leads on Sigvald Strause,” Ganger began without preamble. “Two broken djinni bottles were discovered two hours ago in Eastern Europe. Cullen and Rory, you’re to take point.”

  The large djinnis, who looked like they could crush a boulder in their hands, nodded.

  Ganger continued, “You’re to infiltrate his group, discover what he’s after, and sabotage him. Bring him in alive.”

  The broken djinni bottles were worrisome. We suspected whenever Sigvald stole djinni powers, it broke their bottle, leaving the djinni powerless—mortal. The FBI had never recovered a djinni with a broken bottle and the fae were always vague with their answers on whether those djinnis could be saved. A broken bottle, it was unheard of.

  “Ray, the door to Realty Lane is open.” Ganger placed a realtor’s business card—charmed to act as a skeleton key—on the desk. “You’ll back up Charming while he infiltrates the trafficking ring with any information he needs to keep cover. This assignment should reveal affiliates with Roddenhaim.”

  Ray scooped up the business card and placed his fist to his chest. Charming wasn’t in the office; he was already undercover. I waited while Ganger went through other assignments and djinnis filed out of the office after each one. Finally, it was only me, Ganger, and his pixie assistant in the office.

  “Where the hell is Tanaka?” Ganger muttered as he sat.

  “I’m still here, sir,” I said.

  He startled, his eyes finally seeing me instead of looking through me. “Smoke and mirrors, Tanaka. You need to move more.”

  The pixie tittered, purple dust sifting to the floor.

  “Was there something you needed from me?” I asked.

  Ganger chuckled. “You really are the perfect djinni for this assignment.”

  My heart picked up speed. My blending powers were mostly passive, so it wasn’t Ganger’s fault he’d overlooked me. Some looked down on my mostly passive power, but I worked with what I had. At least Ganger could see the benefit in it.

  I approached the desk.

  “There’s a rumor spreading that the Pit Boss is working with the Curator,” he said. “I need you to infiltrate the Pit Boss’s circle. Now that the Curator has been outed as the mastermind behind djinni trafficking, his museums are locked down. We’ve got that scum scrambling for a new venue for
his black auctions.”

  Ganger held out the file. He hadn’t briefed me ahead of time like the other lightlighters. I guessed I was too hard to find.

  I took the folder, opened it, and read the file on the Curator first. He was the number one djinni who illegally supplied bottled djinni to the fae and djinni mafia, who were looking for specific powers, like fortune, charm, light, and even luck djinni. They stole most of those bottled from their masters, gave favors in exchange for a djinni’s freedom, or worse, tricked djinnis into wearing gold slave cuffs. The least we could do was stop the auctions.

  I moved on to the Pit Boss. He controlled gambling dens—the eyes and ears of casinos, speakeasies, and all vices of chance within the lower forty-eight of the United States in the Iron Realm. He had an army of underlings—the perfect shield and venue for the Curator to host his black markets.

  Ganger steepled his fingers. “You need to be at the Curator’s next auction. As soon as he sells one djinni, you arrest him.”

  “I’m doing this alone?” I asked.

  “Yes. Contact will be minimal. You cannot be suspected. You have to be alone.”

  “What about a skeleton key?”

  Ganger shook his head. “A skeleton key is too risky. We’ll supply you with an earpiece to record conversations, but that's as much risk as we're willing to take. You’re the best person for this job.”

  My first big break, and it was a doozy. Personally, I felt the recording device was riskier than a skeleton key, but I understood. It was one or the other, and they needed evidence. This job required me blending in seamlessly with the Pit Boss’s operation, and Ganger was right. With my blending powers, no one would notice anything out of the ordinary with me. “When do I start?”

  “As soon as possible,” Ganger said. “I understand your human father is still alive?”

  I nodded. Pops was still alive, but death was starting to knock on his door.

  “Take a day with him, then move to Las Vegas, Nevada.” Ganger lifted a pen and jotted a note on a piece of paper. “This is deep undercover, Malware. It could be years—decades—before you can return home.”

  So he was telling me to say goodbye to Pops and set myself up as a distant relative if I wanted to keep ties with my human family. Once this assignment was over, there might be nothing left for me in the Iron Realm, unless one of my human siblings who knew the truth told stories about a cousin or a nephew living in another country.

  I swallowed. I hated the idea that Pops might die while I was gone, but the Curator needed to be stopped. Pops would understand. “I’ll be in Vegas in twenty-four hours.”

  “Shine light on corruption, Malware Tanaka.”

  “Light fill me with justice,” I answered.

  I left the office, folder in hand, and summoned my bottle—clear and corked. By convincing the bottle it was big enough, I stored the assignment file and my laptop inside. Then I headed for the cluster of doors leading to Lantern roads.

  Some humans, especially those educated in folklore, believe there are only four courts of the Faelands—Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall—but they’re wrong. The Lantern is the fifth court, a djinni realm between the Faelands and the Iron Realm of mortals. Knights of the four courts established the Lantern as a barrier against the Iron Realm first, but it also acted as an expressway between the worlds. Over the centuries, the Lantern focused more on enforcing fae canons and concealing magic from humans.

  I walked down the long corridor of doors in the FBI building, passing the one marked Thrill Street because I didn’t need to travel between amusement parks. Then I passed the one for Realty Lane since I sure as hell didn’t want to run into the djinni mafia patrolling the road of property for sale.

  I opened the door to Enforcer Highway, stepped into the Lantern, and onto hard asphalt lined with police tape and steel cages. I worked my jaw to relieve the pressure that had built up in my ears from the transition from the FBI building to the highway. I shifted into a twist of green and tan smoke that spoke of my blending ability and zipped down the highway, moving faster than horses, cars, boats, and even the fae.

  The police tape and cages blurred while I headed for the door that’d take me into the Iron Realm—specifically, the Council Bluffs Police Station in Iowa. It was the closest stop to the house I shared with Pops. In three blinks of an eye, I ducked under the tape, my ears popping as I entered the mortal Iron Realm, and stepped into a parking space cordoned off by police tape and traffic cones.

  Dusk was falling, and the first hint of fall carried to me on the breeze. The trees were only starting to change color, but it was early October, and second summer still gripped the Midwest. I jogged to my beige Honda Civic, unlocked the door, and climbed in.

  As a half-blood djinni, I was considered fortunate. Pops and my step-family hadn’t rejected me. They kept me, and even created a new cover story when they couldn’t explain away my perpetual youth while my siblings aged. I understood humans, I lived as a human, and I loved my human family. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye, but I also wanted to save djinni from slavery. If going undercover for decades did that, Pops would be proud of me and give his support. He always had.

  I was lucky.

  Chapter 3

  I yanked on the chains, but the cuffs on my wrists wouldn’t budge. The sensation that my skin was boiling had reduced to a simmer and overpowered the dull ache from the stitches.

  Reese’s laughter was oversized. Like he was a giant, and I was poor Jack, waiting for him to fall asleep so I could escape. Oh, shit. What did he do to me? I couldn’t breathe. Squeezing pain bloomed in the left side of my chest.

  “Help,” I wheezed, then sucked in another shallow breath. “Help!”

  I gulped, glancing around. The room was bare except for the pole the chains latched to, but there was something else going on inside me. I wasn’t sure what it could be, a presence maybe? I didn’t hear voices, but there was some kind of new power inside me. I didn’t understand what was happening, but it felt like I could do anything if I weren’t chained to a freaking pole in a—in a—Where the hell was I, anyway?

  The room swayed, and my view of our bedroom shifted as if I was being carried. I fell against the glass, and through purple-tinted windows, I realized Reese had picked up the prison he’d locked me in. His hand rubbed the windows, and the squeak grated on my nerves. If he thought he could summon me like Major Nelson did Jeannie, then he had another think coming.

  Blue smoke flooded the room, but didn’t choke me. Once more, that hot, prickling sensation ripped through me and I was lifted off my feet. The air grew tight. I was sure my eardrums would burst at any moment. I screamed. I couldn’t help it. Fresh air blew hair from my face and dried my tears as I fell to my hands and knees in the bedroom.

  I stared at the gold chains attached to the bangles on my wrist leading to the bottle in Reese’s hand as he set it on the dresser. Oh. My. God. Was I inside that? A sensation quivered beneath my breastbone, and I just knew it was the bottle confirming my thoughts. My stomach turned watery. Impossible!

  “Wow!” Reese chuckled and lifted his hands like he was framing me in a picture. “It’s really true. Here. Put this on.” He pulled me to my feet and handed me the tiny fez and veil.

  “Fu—” Something overtook me. For lack of better words, it felt like the chains attached to my wrists were also inside me, and they tricked my vocal cords. My spine stiffened, my shoulders squared, and my eyes widened. “You have entered into a contract with this bottle. In no uncertain terms may you negotiate with this bottle and the power of the djinni within.”

  Reese’s smile was dazzling. “This is so cool!”

  “I hate—”

  Invisible chains gripped my vocal cords again, and the bottle took over. “The conditions are simple. One: Wishes require power, and you may only have the power of three—combined or separated. Two: A wish cannot kill or bring one back from the dead. Nor can a wish create life. Three: Wishes cannot impact the emotions
of others.”

  The chains on my throat released me, and I sagged. Reese regarded me with narrowed eyes while he rubbed his chin. I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. Spots formed in front of my eyes. I had to get out of here. I spun and ran for the apartment door. Just as my hand wrapped around the knob, the chains grew taut, and I couldn’t move my arms forward.

  No, no, no, this can’t be happening! I whirled, gripped the golden links, and tugged. Nothing happened. My heart jackhammered in my ears.

  Reese sauntered into the living room carrying the purple metallic bottle and cocked a brow. “What’re you doing?”

  The tautness in the chains didn’t slacken. They only seemed to dial in like a retractable cord to an appliance.

  I lifted my fists, brandishing the cuffs. “The chains, you asshole!”

  His face scrunched together. “What chains?”

  “The ones leading from the bottle to my wrists.” I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to still my galloping heart. This couldn’t be happening. He must’ve slipped me some kind of drug.

  “Oh, right.” He nodded. “Rex said genies reacted funny to gold.”

  “Rex?”

  “Yeah. He owns the Valley of Kings store downtown. I picked up some shisha there yesterday and saw an engagement ring that reminded me of you, but it was gold. And you’re”—he curled his fingers in air quotes—“allergic to gold.”

  “I am allergic to gold. These bracelets hurt.” I gripped one cuff and squeezed, twisted, and tugged, but it didn’t budge. I tried to wedge my fingertips beneath the bangle, rapidly blinking my eyes. If I cried, I’d lose all self-control. “Help me take them off.”

  Don’t be a moron, Lucy. Why would he help me when he did this to me? What the hell am I?

  “No one is fucking allergic to gold. I looked it up. It’s hypo-allergic.”

  “Hypoallergenic.”

  He glared. I used to find that expression sexy. It’d attracted him to me in the first place, but not now. I didn’t recognize him anymore. Parts of my heart shriveled and broke apart. How had we ended up here? Maybe I’d corrected his words one too many times. Maybe I should’ve been more accepting of his attitude lately. Maybe I shouldn’t have trusted him.