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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Djinn:

“
Jinn
or
djinn
(singular:
jinnī
,
djinni
, or
genie
; Arabic: الجن‎
al-jinn
, singular الجني
al-jinnī
) are supernatural creatures in Islamic mythology as well as pre-Islamic Arabian mythology. They are mentioned frequently in the Quran (the 72nd sura is titled
Sūrat al-Jinn
) and other Islamic texts and inhabit an unseen world in dimensions beyond the visible universe of humans. The Quran says that the
jinn
are made of a smokeless and "scorching fire", but are also physical in nature, being able to interfere physically with people and objects and likewise be acted upon. The
jinn
, humans, and angels make up the three sapient creations of God. Like human beings, the
jinn
can be good, evil, or neutrally benevolent and hence have free will like humans and unlike angels. The
jinn
are the analogue of demons in Christian tradition, but the
jinn
are not angels and the Quran draws a clear distinction between the two creations.”
~ Wikipedia (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinn
)

Ifrit
(say: “ih-freet”): “The Ifrits are in a class of
infernal

Jinn
noted for their strength and cunning. An ifrit is an enormous winged creature of fire, either male or female, who lives underground and frequents
ruins
. Ifrits live in a society structured along ancient Arab tribal lines, complete with kings, tribes and clans. They generally marry one another, but they can also marry humans. While ordinary weapons and forces have no power over them, they are susceptible to magic, which humans can use to kill them or to capture and enslave them. As with the jinn, an ifrit may be either a believer or an unbeliever, good or evil, but it is most often depicted as a wicked and ruthless being.” ~ Wikipedia (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ifrit
)

Chapter 1: A Breath of Wind

Carson

I’m not sure how I end up at The Old Shillelagh, a tumbler of gin and tonic in my hand, watching replay footage of the Tigers beating the Rockies. I left the station hours ago and finally ended up here because I hadn’t felt like going home. I’m watching the game, but I’m not really paying attention. It’s just something to stare at while I try to clear my mind, try not to think about the case. This is one I know I won’t forget any time soon. Miriam al-Mansour is just…stuck in my brain, somehow. It’s not like I’m attracted to her in a sexual way or anything. It’s definitely not that. I mean, she’s beautiful, sure, but it’s something else. And, anyway, she’s with Jack Byrne.

Yeah, it’s definitely something else. Something beyond the woman herself. Beyond the facts even. How am I supposed to just let it all go? Just write off the murder of a man as...what? Self-defense? Even Miriam herself has admitted that it wasn’t self-defense. She said she’d been defending Jack. She said she’d ended up killing Ben because he’d shot Jack—two bullets to the chest. You didn’t survive that kind of injury. You just didn’t. A sucking chest wound was, by all accounts, one of the most painful ways to die, next to being shot in the gut. But here’s the weirdest thing—the part I can’t figure out, and the reason I’ve been sitting in this bar for so many hours: Miriam had been shot in
both
the abdomen
and
the chest, yet somehow she walked away unscathed; four gunshot wounds and she’d survived…without any medical attention whatsoever.

Either she was inhumanly tough, or she healed like Wolverine.

There can be no other explanations.

I finish my first drink, raise the glass and clink the ice at the bartender, Leila. She approaches with a sway, a tumbler half-filled with ice in one hand, a bottle of Bombay Sapphire in the other. She smiles at me, a quick, flirting glance, and then pours a generous two fingers-worth of gin into the glass.

“Start a tab?” she asks.

“Yeah, sure,” I answer. “Thanks.”

“You seem preoccupied, Detective Hale.”

She’s leaning on the bar in front of me, toying with a book of matches. Her T-shirt has a low-cut V-neck, and when she leans over it’s hard to keep my gaze from straying to her generous cleavage. I’ve made a study of the various ways women bend over: there’s the absent-minded bend in which the woman is simply assuming a natural, comfortable position, neither realizing nor caring about how she looks. Then there’s the flirting bend where she is aware of what she is revealing, but isn’t necessarily trying to accentuate it. Lastly there is the overt seduction bend, where she squeezes her arms together and props them underneath her breasts as she leans over so her cleavage all but spills out.

At the moment, I’m pretty sure Leila is somewhere between the first two. Between the way she’s looking at me and her body language there is a definite hint of flirtation, not to be confused with seduction. I’m kind of glad about that, actually; I’ve been seduced on a number of occasions, mostly by women trying to get out of a ticket or DUI arrest. Occasionally, I might encounter a witness hoping to sway the outcome of an investigation, or sometimes I’m being pursued by a drunk badge-chaser. I’ve found that the ones who try to seduce me are not the kind of girls I’m interested in—at least not long term.

I realize I never responded to Leila’s comment. “Sorry, yeah,” I say. “I guess I am a bit preoccupied.”

Leila laughs. “Delayed reaction, much? I was starting to wonder if you’d even heard me.”

“No, I heard you, I was just...”

“Lost in la-la land?” Leila teases. “It’s okay. I imagine your job takes up a lot of brain space.”

“You have
no
idea,” I say. “Today especially.”

The bar is dead and I’m only one of three patrons in the place, so Leila has time to chat. I don’t mind; she’s a beautiful girl, tall and willowy with thick black hair tied back in a neat ponytail and wide, dark, expressive eyes. She seems to like me, and that makes it even better.

I could use a distraction.

Leila wipes at an invisible spot on the counter. “So, I’ve been meaning to ask…how long have you been a detective?”

I shrug. “Six years on homicide.” I feel my phone vibrate in my hip pocket, but I ignore it.

“Homicide, huh?” She grimaces, somehow making the expression look attractive. “You must see a lot of unpleasant stuff.”

I finish my drink, and Leila pours me a third without me asking. “Yeah,” I tell her. “Part of the job, I guess. Most of it I can forget, but some I can’t. Some things people just…aren’t meant to see.”

“I can’t even imagine. So, is that what’s preoccupying you tonight? A bad case?” She folds the towel without taking her gaze from mine. “I hope I’m not being too nosy.”

“No, you’re not being nosy,” I sip at my gin, and then crunch an ice cube. “It’s not one of those gruesome cases that’ll give you nightmares or anything, it’s just...confusing. I’m not sure what to believe, you know?”

Leila just nods, her attention fully focused on me. She has her chin propped on a palm, listening. I find myself wanting to talk about the case, which I know I shouldn’t do, especially with some girl I’ve known a matter of months. But Leila seems…different somehow.

Trustworthy, for reasons I can’t quite pinpoint. Maybe the gin is beginning to cloud my judgment. She’s pouring them stiff, more gin than tonic or ice, and I’m not protesting.

“You mentioned before that this case is tricky, that there’s some element to it that you’re having a hard time believing.”

I nod. “Yeah, and it’s only gotten more unbelievable since then.”

“Unbelievable how?” Leila asks, unloading glasses from a dishwasher underneath the bar and stacking them to dry.

I swirl the thin black straw around the tumbler, causing ice to clink on the walls. “God, I don’t even know where to start. The whole thing is crazy.”

“Can you tell me about the case?”

“You have to promise not to tell anyone about this,” I say, meeting her warm, friendly brown eyes. “I really shouldn’t be talking about this with you. Technically, it’s still an open case.”

“I won’t tell anyone. Promise,” Leila says, smiling.

“Okay, well, you better not.

I would normally never break protocol like this, but I just don’t know who to turn to, what to think, what to believe. I’m so mixed up I can’t tell if I’m coming or going, you know? It’s just…if something goes against
everything
you know to be true, what are you supposed to do then?” I’m slurring a little.

I should slow down on the drinks, I know I should. I just don’t want to. I like the warm muzziness, the gentle floating of my mind. Leila’s easy to talk to, and even easier on the eyes. It’s past two in the morning at this point, and the last customer is weaving out the door.

“Well, what does the evidence say?” Leila asks.

I shake my head. “That’s the issue. The evidence is part of what’s so unlikely.”

“Unlikely, or impossible?” Leila says. “Didn’t we talk about impossibilities before? If it’s several elements too big to ignore, or pretend they’re not what they look like, then you can’t just refuse to acknowledge the truth.”

I nod. “Yeah, that’s what part of me says too.” I duck my head, chastising myself internally.

Leila considers for a long moment before answering, which I appreciate. “There’s so much about this world and about life that we can’t see, you know? Just because we haven’t seen something before doesn’t make it impossible, does it?” Leila comes out from behind the bar and starts lifting chairs onto tables.

I stand up to help her, a little more unstable on my feet than I’d expected to be. Leila rolls her eyes, pushing me back onto my stool, forcing me to sit down. Her hands on my back are warm, the feeling of her touch electric, sending thrills through me.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I say. “But that doesn’t make it any easier to accept what you always thought was impossible.”

She shrugs, then places the last stool on the counter beside me. “Changing your worldview, changing your impression of what is true or possible, I don’t think that’s ever easy.”

“Yeah, but this is…extra weird on top of crazy impossible.”

“Explain.” She’s back behind the bar, turning off the TV and wiping down liquor bottles with a bar cloth. I watch her move, admiring the easy grace of her motions. She’s so light on her feet, every step smooth, every twist of her body flowing into the next motion.

There’s something air-like about her. It’s an odd idea, even for me, but it sticks in my head. She moves as if blown by a secret wind, as if she were a leaf. She has a dancer’s body; maybe that explains it.

But no. Merely being a dancer doesn’t explain the way her hair floats and flutters as if blown by a breeze. Only…there are no open doors, no cracked windows, no fans whirring.

But her hair is definitely fluttering.

There’s no other way to put it, and even though I’m pretty loaded by this point, I know I’m not hallucinating.

Am I?

I stare at her, blinking, closing one eye and then the other, watching every motion she makes. And yes, her hair is definitely fluttering. The tips wave and blow from side to side; a strand drifts across her face and she brushes it absently back behind her ear. I can’t explain it, yet I can’t ignore the truth of what I’m seeing.

Apropos, I suppose.

I watch as she stands at the bar, counting out the register drawer, taking her hair out of its ponytail and shaking it to fall in glimmering black waves around her shoulders. Her hands peel bills from the stack in her hand in quick, sure motions that speak of years of practice. She’s standing still, but her hair is moving—most definitely moving. I’m watching her, mesmerized, and I can’t deny what I’m seeing. I peer surreptitiously around the bar. The entrance door is closed and locked, and the back door, visible through the double-hinged kitchen doors, is closed as well. There are no windows at all and no A/C. So where the fuck is the wind coming from?

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