Dreams and Shadows

chapter FORTY

THE DJINN WHO CRAWLED INTO A BOTTLE

Yashar sat in his usual seat, nestled snugly in the arms of a warm buzz as he knocked back whiskey after whiskey, faster even than Old Scraps could pour them. The Cursed and the Damned was packed, unusual for any night other than that of a fairy’s death. On the rare occasion one did die, the bar filled early and emptied late, a drunken, rambling wake celebrating their passing before the memories of them faded altogether the next morning.

But this was something else.

Few ever mourned the death of a redcap. Their vile dispositions and lack of qualities, redeeming or otherwise, kept them from making many friends. But the death of this redcap was different; this death signified the beginning of a very long day. Everyone knew the tale of Colby Stevens the Child Sorcerer, and how he had freed his young friend from the burden of serving the Tithe. However, few knew, until that night, that this young friend still walked the streets among them. He was not off in the world living out his life; he was here, in their city. And he had killed a fairy.

This death meant a coming retribution. And if fairies were coming for that young man, there was little doubt that Colby Stevens would be standing between them and his friend. Once that happened, all bets were off. The chief reason Colby was allowed to drink in the bar was because it was better to have him as a confidant than to risk offending him. They’d grown to like him, but they had never stopped fearing him.

This night the bar was full not to mourn the passing of a dead fairy, but to mourn the coming loss of their friend Colby Stevens. Either Colby was going to die at the hands of overwhelming odds or he was going to have to do something that would put him at odds with the community once and for all. And for that, they drank all the booze Old Scraps could pour.

And no one was drinking harder than Yashar.

The door squeaked open. The bar became uncomfortably quiet. Yashar didn’t bother to look up. It was the moment he’d been dreading all night; it was the moment he’d been dreading for fourteen years. While every wish he granted ended this way, there was still a surprise in the how and the when of it, and he was about to get a glimpse of both.

“Yashar,” said Colby through the thick, awkward hush. “Can I have a word? Outside?”

Yashar nodded. “Yeah, but are you sure you don’t want a drink first? Scraps, pour this man a shot of your finest.”

Old Scraps shook his head, shrugging. “I don’t think he’s here to drink, Yashar.”

“Well, pour him one anyway. It’ll take the edge off.”

“Yashar, outside.”

Yashar stared into the murky brown of the whiskey in the glass in front of him, rolling it back and forth as if there was something floating in it. He refused to look up. “Don’t get all master-of-the-lamp with me, young man. That’s not how this arrangement works.”

“You’re drunk.”

“You’re perceptive.”

“I don’t think you want to have the conversation we’re about to have in front of everyone here.”

“No,” said Yashar. “If it’s a conversation we have to have, it’s best we have it outside. There just isn’t any whiskey out there.”

“Here. Take the bottle,” said Old Scraps, offering him half a sloshing bottle of fine brown spirits. “Now take it outside, you two.”

Yashar snatched the bottle away from Old Scraps then drunkenly rose to his feet. The djinn staggered across the floor, tripping over imaginary objects, struggling with gravity like a character in a Buster Keaton routine. Friends tried to look away, but sounds of overturned chairs and breaking glass were hard to ignore in the strained silence.

The room let out a collective sigh as the door closed behind them.

Yashar stumbled out into the alley where he uncorked the bottle, taking a long drink from it.

Colby followed closely behind. “When were you going to tell me?”

Yashar finished swallowing a gulp of whiskey and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “Tell you what?”

“About the curse.”

“You knew I was cursed, what kind of question . . .” He trailed off. This was new. “Who told you?”

“Does it matter?” asked Colby.

“No. But somebody did tell you?”

“I should have heard it from you,” said Colby.

“How? What was I supposed to say?” asked Yashar. “Hey, kid, make a wish. No matter what, it’ll turn out shit in the end.”

“That’s not too far off the mark, actually.”

“It’s not like that,” said Yashar.

“It’s exactly like that,” said Colby.

“You’ve seen so much, yet you still understand so little.”

“I had a lousy teacher.”

Yashar angrily poked Colby in the chest. “You f*cking take that back, you little shit.”

“I won’t. You betrayed me; you sold me out for your own well-being.”

“Yeah?” asked Yashar.

“Yeah,” said Colby, turning his back on Yashar.

Yashar took another drink from the bottle. “What do you know?”

“Quite a bit.”

“No,” said Yashar. “I mean about the curse. What do you know?”

“That your wishes are doomed to end badly.”

“Right. Did you hear that all my granted wishes end in death?”

Colby spun around, shocked and angry. “No.”

“That’s because they don’t. Not all of them.” Yashar swayed a bit, then slumped down on the curb, bottle in his lap. He drunkenly waved Colby over, patting the curb beside him.

“No, not this time.”

“Get the f*ck over here. I’m drunk, I’m having trouble standing up, and this is something you need to hear.”

“I’m not sure that I do,” said Colby.

“If you didn’t need to hear it, you wouldn’t be here. You’d be off getting into a fight with a bunch of fairies over a kid who should have died years ago—”

“Whoa,” interrupted Colby. “Should have died?”

“Everyone dies, Colby. For some, it is merely what happens at the end of a life well lived. For others, it is their only purpose. Ewan was born to die. It was his destiny. You robbed him of that when you made your wish. And you’ve spent every day of your life working, in some small way, to push that destiny back a little further. To give him one more miserable day before his fate catches up with him.” Yashar patted the cement next to him once more. “Now, sit down and let me tell you a story.”

“No,” said Colby. “I think I’ll stand.”

“Let me ask you something. When you made your first wish, what did I do?”

“You granted it.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Did I try to talk you out of it first?”

“Well, you . . .” Colby paused for a moment, thinking back. “I, I think we talked about it.”

“No, that’s very dangerous, I said. I forbid it, I said. Those were my words, were they not?”

“I honestly don’t remember,” said Colby, now struggling to recall the moment exactly.

“Well, I do. I remember telling you no. I remember offering you other things. And I remember you calling me on a promise and making me grant you the very wish you’ve spent years bellyaching about.”

Colby looked down at Yashar, memories tugging at him. Yashar was telling the truth.

“Now, sit down and let me tell you a story.” Colby shrugged, nodding, and silently sat down beside Yashar. “Once upon a time there was a young djinn—reckless and greedy, his heart full of wanting. He amassed a great fortune, surrounded himself with beautiful women, and lived the life of a king without bearing the responsibility of one. But he was tricked and one day found himself without his wealth, without his women, and without the life of a king, so he decided to do one good thing for the one person who showed him kindness when he hadn’t a penny to offer.

“That’s how the world gets you, you know. It rewards you for your wickedness and punishes you for your selflessness. That djinn gave that man everything he wanted, which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t really a whole hell of a lot. But men can be barbarous when you take something they believe is theirs, and that young man met with a bad end.”

“I know this story,” said Colby. “And I know it’s yours.”

“But you don’t know the story after, about how that young man’s last wish cursed me to always bring ruin upon all those whose wishes I granted. I wish that all your wishes would end granting all the happiness you’ve brought unto me, he said. What the story leaves out is the hours he spent begging for his young wife’s life as the soldiers ravaged her. How he swore revenge he would never get. How they dragged them behind their horses before finally having mercy enough to kill them.”

“Well, I do now.”

“Do you?” asked Yashar. “Do you know about the years I spent wandering in the desert, living out my last days as the last of the living souls who knew me passed on, to leave me starving? How I tried with all my might to make it through the last fortnight without granting a single wish to save my own life? Do you have any idea what it feels like to starve yourself half to death on principle alone? What happens to your mind and your sense of morality when all you can think about is survival and what you would give, what you would do, to keep going?

“I tried. I really intended to go through with it, but it’s like holding your breath underwater and trying to drown. At some point your instincts override your own sense of self and you fight and claw your way to the surface without even thinking about it. Even if deep in your heart you don’t want to, there you are, swimming and pounding and thrashing as hard and fast as you can for a single breath of air. And then it’s done. You’ve failed. And you have to start over.

“I’ve gotten to that point a dozen times since then, always sure that this was going to be the time it would happen—the time I would finally see death through. But come sunrise of the fourteenth day, I always fail and claw my way to the surface any way I can. Your humanity isn’t lost when you do something heinous for your own gain or enjoyment. On the contrary, that’s distinctly human; that is your humanity. No, you lose your humanity when you can’t think of anything but doing that thing, because you need to do it to survive. That’s when you turn over your soul. I’ve granted terrible wishes, brought horrible misfortunes upon good people who had nothing to do with my curse, only to save my own life. So I did the only thing I could do.”

“You tried to minimize the damage,” said Colby, finally understanding.

Yashar put a finger on the tip of his nose, tapping it to signify Colby’s insight. “Kids. I chose only to grant wishes to kids.”

“Why? If you know it will end badly, why pick on kids?”

“Because they don’t ask for anything awful. At least, they never think it’s awful. With children, it’s always innocent. Martha O’Malley wanted her parents to be rich, never having to work another day of their lives. She was killed by a stray crane swinging from a nearby construction site; they made millions in the settlement. Billy Williamson just wanted a puppy. A German shepherd. And when that puppy ran out into the street, a car broke Billy’s back. That dog was as loyal and loving as any kid could ever want. He thanked me time and again for that dog, saying it got him through it all. He didn’t know, never wondered what his life would have been like without that dog.

“Jill Matthews just wanted her parents to get back together again. She wanted things back the way they were. What Mommy never told her was how hard Daddy beat her. But she came back, because I made her. And things went back to normal. It lasted three weeks before Daddy cracked Mommy’s skull open and she was gone for good. Jill never forgave me and ended up finding a man just like her father.

“I remember all of them. Every wish gone wrong. Everything I’ve ever done to stay alive. I’ve forgotten so much of this world; so many memories have become hazy and weak. The good times? They’re some of the first to go. But the wishes, I never forget the wishes. Each one of them is burned irrevocably into the back of my mind.”

“It’s a fate you’ve earned,” said Colby.

“The hell you say.”

“You’re a vampire. You prey upon the young because they don’t know any better. You dress up in the silks and the gold and you put on a hell of a show. But you’re a vampire, siphoning off the dreams of children and leaving them empty, dreamless husks.”

Yashar’s eyes glassed over with tears. He bitterly gritted his teeth, trying to contain himself. “I’m done with it,” he said. “All of it. I’m gonna do it this time.”

“No you won’t,” said Colby. “You’re not strong enough.”

Yashar rose to his feet and waved a belligerent finger. “I am strong enough! I’ll do it!”

“Yeah, and when’s that gonna happen?” called Colby, still sitting on the curb.

Yashar narrowed his eyes, speaking coldly. “Once the fairies are done with you. Fourteen days after today, I suppose.”

Colby shot to his feet. “You son of a—”

“Don’t you get pissed at me. This is your mess, not mine. I tried to drag you away from that boy. I tried to keep the truth from you. I tried to talk you out of intervening. This is your sin, Colby Stevens—your mess. You damned yourself the night you stuck your nose in their business, and now your precious little house of cards is collapsing, and you have the stones to come to me about what I’ve done? Sounds more like you haven’t come to grips with what you’ve done.”

“You’re just as guilty as I am. We’re both condemned men.”

“No,” said Yashar. “The difference between you and me is that while we’re both condemned, I am intimately familiar with my sins. You, on the other hand, don’t think you’ve sinned at all. But I’ll see what I can do to follow you soon after you’re gone.”

Colby shook his head, stormed off, frustrated, waving his arms wildly. The two had no more to say to each other.

Yashar took a long, gulping swig of the whiskey, killing all but the last few shots of the bottle. He looked down at the remainder solemnly. “Whiskey,” he said. “You’re my only friend.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” called a voice from behind him.

“If you’re here to apologize,” said Yashar, “I don’t accept.”

“Oh, we’re not here to apologize,” said another voice. “We’re here to grant you your final wish.” Yashar, now in something of a stupor, slowly turned around to look behind him. His mind was fuzzy, his reactions sluggish. Two redcaps leered at him, fondling an all-too-familiar bottle. While it had no name of its own, Yashar knew it by its inscription and the names of the djinn it had held in the past. He knew the name of every djinn that had died in that bottle. And it was only fitting now that he was going to join them.

“Well, that figures,” he said. “What took you so long?”

“Traffic,” joked one of the redcaps.

“Not you, a*shole,” said Yashar. “I was talking to the bottle.”