A weak smile doesn"t quite make it onto my face. "h.e.l.lo, Rudy."
Gunza wobbles down the stairs, looking like a tubby sheikh. His glittering red robes can"t hide the stupendous gut wagging in front of him.
When he and I were partners, he never had a gut at all.
"Long time no miss!" says Gunza as he drops from the last marble stair to the floor. "How"s the old gang of idiots?"
"Better than ever, now that you"re gone," I tell him.
Gunza throws an arm around Magda"s shoulders and squeezes her tight. "Oleo and I used to work together! Isn"t that something, Magda? We was revenooers together."
Magda"s head bobbles as he jerks her around. Her flat stare drifts past me like litter on a breeze.
"Went after tax evaders, didn"t we?" says Gunza. "Folks who didn"t pay the state a piece of the action from wishes granted and spells cast."
"It"s income, Magda." I wave my clipboard at the surrounding opulence. "The state deserves its share under the law."
"Bull-squat, Oleo." Gunza chortles and strokes his braided red mustache. "Let the state get its own genie."
"Yes, fine idea." I walk around the room, taking notes on the clipboard. "We could get one the way you did. Force an old lady at gunpoint to use up her three wishes on nothing and hand over the lamp."
Gunza"s grin darkens. "Hey now, Oleo. That was a straight-up gift, and no one can prove otherwise."
"Almost no one." I shoot a look at Magda, and she turns away.
Gunza shrugs. "If a door closes, open a window. The department pa.s.sed me over for a promotion-which you got-but Mrs. Sandusky thought I deserved an even greater reward. She wished for me to have it."
The walls are made of alternating gold and platinum ingots, which I note on my clipboard. "Well, I wish you"d paid your taxes." I write more on the clipboard. "If I were you, I"d wish you don"t have a coronary when you see the grand total you owe the state."
"I don"t owe one cent!" Gunza releases Magda and storms over to grab my clipboard.
I s.n.a.t.c.h it right back. "You lazy p.r.i.c.k. How hard could it be to pay your taxes? You already wished for unlimited wishes, didn"t you?"
Gunza smirks. "That was my first wish."
"Why not wish for her to pay your taxes?" I point my pen at Magda.
"Because I don"t choose to." Gunza"s features twist into a scowl. "Because I am the master."
I shake my head in disgust. "You"re just like all the rest. All the other sc.u.m you used to help me bust."
Gunza gazes into my eyes for a long moment, nodding slowly. "Run," he says finally.
I know where this is going. I knew from the moment I walked into the place.
"I wish..." says Gunza.
I swing the clipboard at his head, but he knocks it away with one thick forearm.
Before I can take another swing, he finishes his sentence. "I wish that a hunting party of madmen and monsters will hunt down Oliver Singel, then torture and mutilate him for as long as I wish... and not kill him, no matter how much he begs for it."
Magda"s eyes meet mine. They well with regret and resignation.
I reach out to her. "Magda, please! Don"t do it! I"m here to help you!"
Gunza giggles and smacks me on the back. "He"s a liar! He"s just here for his precious revenooo!"
"I"m sorry." Magda weaves her arms in the air, and a cloud of twinkling glitter swirls above her. "I have no choice but to obey my master."
"Wrong!" Even as the misshapen forms materialize before me, I keep trying. "I can help you! Tell me what you want!"
Magda hesitates, and the figures flicker. Gunza stomps over and smacks her across the face.
"Do your job!" he says. "Obey me!" He strikes her again.
Magda closes her eyes. Her nimble fingers finish their dance in the air, and the hulking forms solidify.
"Run, rabbit!" Gunza howls with laughter. "Don"t let "em catch you!"
With one last look at Magda, I turn and sprint off into the depths of the mansion.
The hunters are silent. No shrieking laughter, no ululating howls, no clattering weapons and footsteps. I can barely hear them back there at all-just whispers and the rustling of wings and rags.
The quiet makes it all the worse as I run.
Heart hammering in my chest, I race to the end of the corridor and burst through the oak double doors there. Beyond the doors, I find myself in a vast arboretum, teeming with tropical trees and flowers.
Without stopping, I draw my cell phone and send a text message to my partner. At least I had the sense to post him elsewhere in case I needed backup.
Now, if only Gunza didn"t think to wish for Magda to block outgoing phone signals.
As I pocket the phone, I hear brush shuddering behind me. Ducking off the gold-bricked path, I bolt through the thick foliage, crossing the room away from my original trajectory.
Suddenly, a feverish ghoul explodes from the shrubbery ahead of me, swinging a machete. I fall back, barely escaping the blade... and nearly end up skewered on the point of a bayonet brandished by a leering soldier.
Twisting out of the way, I leap off into the cover as both of them slash and stab at me. I rush straight through the deep green jungle, panting for breath in the steamy air-and surge out of the vegetation in front of another set of double doors.
Plunging through the doors, I find myself in a maze. Through its frosted gla.s.s walls, I glimpse shadowy figures moving around me... but I have to go onward. I hear noise from the other side of the doors, so I can"t go back to the arboretum.
I move as quickly and quietly as I can, though it doesn"t matter. The enemy can see me as well as I see them through the frosted gla.s.s.
I zip around a corner, then another and another, always choosing right at the branches. Turning again, I spot a blurred figure on the other side of the translucent wall... and he spots me. He changes direction and follows me down the pa.s.sage, keeping pace in a humpbacked trot, separated from me only by a few inches of gla.s.s.
Luckily, the next time I reach a branch, he hits a dead end. He howls, caught in a corner, as I dart down another pa.s.sage, hoping for an exit.
I find one-a gleaming golden door inlaid with multicolored gems-but just as I charge forward, it crashes open, revealing a towering maniac.
He stands seven feet tall, at least, and his double-jointed limbs are like sticks. He"s naked except for a leather loincloth, and his skin is reddish-brown, like an almond.
His eyes and mouth gape wide as he scrambles toward me, drooling and whooping.
Suddenly, before I can do anything, he slows in mid-step. His movements stretch out as if he were the star of a slow-motion movie, and his whoops extend to one drawn-out tone.
I jump when I hear the normal-speed voice of Magda behind me. "That was one of my masters, two hundred and fifty years ago. Shall I tell you how he beat me?"
Looking around, I see another predator creeping from the maze in slow-mo. This one, muscular, blond, and bushy-bearded, wears the horned helmet of a Viking.
"Were these your masters through the ages?" I say.
She nods. "As you die, you will know what I"ve been through."
Stepping toward the tall one, I gingerly touch his reddish-brown knuckles. "How can you be doing this? Disobeying Rudy?"
"I"m obeying him," says Magda. "I"m slowing things down, but you will still be hunted and tortured."
"Why talk to me at all then?"
Magda c.o.c.ks her head and frowns. "What did you mean when you said you could help me?"
"I meant what I said," I tell her. "All you have to do is tell me what you want. Just ask for it."
She narrows her eyes. "I know what this is about now. You want me for yourself, don"t you?"
"No." I shake my head. "I want to save you."
"You"re not the first to say that." Magda snorts and folds her arms over her blue satin bodice. "Somehow, saving me always ends with hurting me."
"Not this time." I spread my arms wide. "I swear, I"m here to help you."
"You want my help collecting Rudy"s taxes," says Magda. "For all the riches I"ve given him."
"Actually," I say, "you"re the only reason I"m here."
Magda stares, her expression split between confusion and disbelief.
"This time, I"m not as concerned about tax evasion," I say, "as I am about slavery and abuse."
She looks like she"s thinking hard... and then her stare becomes an angry glare. "Liar. You"re a liar, just like all men."
"I"m telling you, I came here only to save you."
"Liar!" She lifts her hands overhead to weave and conjure, and I see the tall man start to move faster. "You better run, liar!"
Without another word, I dash around the tall man, heave open the door, and race into the hallway. I can tell she"s run out of patience, at least for now. I can tell she doesn"t believe me.
Even though I told her the absolute truth.
I don"t care about the mystic taxes. This time, I came only for her.
As I run down the hall, I open every door, but I"m not looking for a way out. I"m looking for something else.
A lamp. Her lamp.
Now that I"m on the inside of Gunza"s mansion, I"m determined to find it. I"m going to end this perverted jerk"s most heinous crime: genie abuse. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d"s a djinnophile.
Here"s how it works. The genie must obey her master. The genie has magical powers that can heal any wound, repair any damage. Even to herself.
What better scenario can there be for a twisted sicko who likes to hurt women? He can brutalize her any way he likes, then wish away the damage, removing any sign of the crime, expunging any guilt... and leaving a clean slate for the next round of abuse.
That"s what makes it especially evil. The genie becomes an accomplice to her own abuse. She literally has no choice.
And it goes on and on and on like that, again and again and again. Forever, if he wishes eternal life for himself.
So it"s no wonder Magda doesn"t trust me... but she should. There"s much more to me than meets the eye.
For one thing, I"m state police now, not Department of Mystic Revenue. I work for the Paranormal Victims Unit.
For another thing, I"m someone altogether different from any of that or anything Gunza could ever guess.
But Magda could figure it out. At least I hope she does before it"s too late.
I"m hustling through the gymnasium when they catch me. Two of the ghoulish thugs burst in through the far door from outside the mansion, and another drops down from the ceiling on a rope.
The one from the rope has dark skin and a tribal headdress of tattered fur and feathers. One of the other two has silver hair and wears a tuxedo, and the last one bulges with muscles and pads under a football player"s uniform. More echoes of Magda"s former masters.
As they surround me, I look for the best escape route. My eyes keep flicking to the open door to the outside, where my partner waits. If my text message got through to him, he could come charging through that door at any second, guns blazing.
Just as I have that thought, he pops up in front of me out of thin air. He"s standing, and at first I think he"s still alive... but then he literally falls to pieces- arms and legs and head and torso tumbling to the floor.
I hear Gunza laughing, and I turn to see him floating in midair on a scarlet magic carpet. As he claps, Magda slumps beside him, utterly joyless.
Like I said, she becomes an accomplice. She literally has no choice.
At least she takes no pleasure in it. That"s what makes her worth saving.
She has yet to hand over her soul.
"Bravo!" says Gunza. "Bravissimo! You should"ve seen the look on your face, Oleo!"
I keep my eyes fixed on him, partly so I won"t have to look at my partner"s body parts oozing blood at my feet.
Gunza elbows Magda hard in the side. "You"re getting all this on tape or a crystal ball or whatever, right? So I can watch it again and again?"
Magda nods. "Yes, Master."
I hate seeing her like that. A woman with so much power, a woman who literally could do anything, reduced to groveling and harming the very people who could set her free.
Unless I can get through to her. "I can help you, Magda."