INVISIBLE DUTY (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) (6 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

The cemetery Kelly and I staked out was a bust as soon as the sun cleared the horizon and started beating down on us
. I sensed more than a few spirits hanging around, a benefit of my shamanic abilities, but not a djinn in sight.

“What now?”
Kelly asked the question upper-most in my own mind.

I crinke
d the stiffness in my neck away before looking around and answering, “Now we try plan B.”

“Which is?”

“Don’t have a clue.”  The dust of donkeys and diesel buses choked the winding roadways near the cemetery entrance as the roads started filling up with more and more people. Lush red-pink flowers emitted a sweet scent in the air. But my mind wasn’t on the life of Kigali. “I was so sure the graves would be a perfect hiding spot.”

Kelly waited a beat before saying, “But what if he’s not hiding?”

I glanced sideways toward her. Former kindergarten teachers must think more laterally than I’d given them credit for. “Good point. So where would a Tuareg hang out?”

“A criminal Tuareg,” Kelly added.

“Sometimes you’re scary,” I said, wanting to high five her, which wasn’t a smart move in public. Instead I started heading toward the east, unfurling my map as I walked. There could be a hundred locations for criminal activity in Kigali. It wasn’t like there would be a neon sign flashing—
trouble this direction
. On the other hand I often felt like I had such an arrow pointed straight at me. Being sent to prison could do that to a person. Yeah, I’d killed a man. Well, technically a Were attacking my brother who had been in the middle of shifting to his wolf self. A vulnerable position and one that could have given me the defense of justifiable homicide, if humans knew about preternaturals.

They didn’t. But that was water under the bridge. Right now I needed to focus on finding me a slime bucket of a djinn.

Kelly double-timed it to keep up with me. “Where to now?”

“Where’s the most likely place to find a Tuareg tribesman away from his home area?”

“With other Tuaregs,” Kelly smiled.

Give the woman a gold star.
“And what’s this place remind you of?” I asked, waving my hand to indicate the city.

She glanced around. “You mean Kigali?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. Africa.”

I smiled, pushing back the
alasho
headscarf. Not enough to reveal my face or hair. I had to admit it made a heck of a disguise, sort of like being a masked bandit, which is what had given me an idea. “Think harder. Look around.”

Kelly slowed as she did what I’d asked, then a smile spread over her face. “Okay. It’s like that scene in the first Star Wars movie with Harrison Ford.”

She was getting warmer. I looked up to orient myself. Kigali was built on a series of hills. With the wealthier tending to hold the high ground, which meant we headed toward where desperation drove life, the valleys. In particular a place called the
Caplaki
.

“I give up,” Kelly said at last as I gazed up and down the
Ave de l'Armée
.

“The wild, wild
west,” I murmured, glancing from map to nearest road signs. “And you know what that means?”

“No.”

“No rules and anything goes. Which works in our favor.”

I thought I heard her groan as I chewed my lip.

“It was supposed to be here.” I double-checked once more that I was next to the
Milles Collines
, when I mumbled, “Just a sec.”

A few quick words to a
man standing outside the posh--by Kaligi standards--hotel and I waved Kelly after me. “Come on.”

Bless her, she didn’t ask for details or drag her feet until we reached the newer
Caplaki
Market.

“Where are we?” Kelly asked, her eyes saucer wide as she edged closer to me. The sounds of vendors shouting and buyers haggling made a solid din, but nothing more than a good country rodeo boasted.

Sellers were lined up in fixed stalls, hawking everything from fresh produce to carvings and masks smuggled across the DR Congo border not that far away.

“We’re shopping?” Kelly asked when she found her tongue.

“Nope.” Walking briskly between stalls, I looked for a telltale Tuareg indigo blue turban and weathered tan caftan. My revised plan was a long shot, but standing around and doing nothing was too. I grabbed Kelly’s arm so I could lean in and talk to her without anyone else hearing me. No telling what ears, and eyes, were active at the Market. Besides it looked more natural for two women on our own to stick close together. “Djinn are said to be particularly fond of marketplaces and Muslims—which most Tuaregs are—have been warned many times not to be the first to enter the market or the last to leave it.”

Kelly stopped in her tracks. “Are you Muslim?” she asked, looking at me as if I had spoken Swahili.

“No. Why’d you think that?”

“How do you know Muslim superstitions?”

Okay, it wasn’t a direct response, but she didn’t seem inclined to budge until I admitted, “My father. He has traveled to a lot of places and has some great stories.”

“About the you-know-what?”

“Them and other things.” I glanced over my shoulder, not trusting the rough-looking men glancing in our direction. “Let’s see if we can find any blue men and we’ll talk tales later. Okay?”

She nodded, but didn’t get moving until she asked, “Are you going to tell Jaylene and Mandy where we are?”

Technically I should and we both knew it. This was still an Invisible Recruit op and running half-cocked into a bad situation could get both of us killed. Besides, among my father’s stories were old adages such as keep your friends close and your enemies closer. “Go ahead and notify them,” I said, scanning the crowds. My preternatural ring was heating up, but no telling what kind of non-human was lurking around us.

It took another fifteen or twenty minutes to spot our first lead; a taller man than our quarry, but definitely wearing the deep blue robes of
a desert dweller. “Ten o’clock,” I whispered to Kelly.

“Is he—“

I shook my head, silencing her question before others could hear it. Talking about djinns in public in this part of the world was a big no-no. “But we’re going to follow him.”

We were on to Plan C. Find a Tuareg and hope he led us to more of his countrymen
. One in particular.

Besides, he was heating my ring to the point my skin felt on fire.

CHAPTER NINE

It was mid-afternoon with the African sunlight painting stripes across canvas tarp tenting
, and shadows digging deep grooves between stalls of baskets before Jaylene and Mandy caught up with us. Kelly and I had been stationary beside a crude barbershop for long enough to make me antsy. The tall man, if he was a man, had led us on a merry trek up and down stalls, stopping now and then to do a little backslapping, and haggling here and there. The kind of negotiating that involved quick glances around and sleight of hand, with something passing palm to palm.

Now he was loitering in front of what might
be a dentist if I read the hand-painted sign correctly. To his left was a large opening with a woman hawking chickens, on the other side a smaller space that looked abandoned.

We’d obviously scored in finding someone involved in what clearly looked like shady dealings. But we weren’t any closer to the Tuareg I’d tangled with yesterday. A point Mandy was quick to address when she slid up next to Kelly.

Both she and Jaylene were wearing the same head-to-toe burqas that

Kelly and I wore, with only eyes visible. While the
clothes seemed like a great disguise early that morning they were heating up to the point I was ready to strip mine off, middle of a public market or not.

“Time’s passing,” Mandy murmured, not looking at me though I knew good and well we were both uber aware of one another.

“If I needed a clock, I’d have asked for one,” I shot back, but was really too hot to focus on bickering with my teammate for long. Especially since a grizzled older man, who looked like he’d lived a hard and dangerous life, had approached the Tuareg. He leaned in to say something, then both ducked into the shadows of the empty stall. And disappeared.

Crap.

“What now?” Jaylene asked, her tone echoing my feelings exactly. It didn’t take an experienced agent to know that following a suspect into a dark interior with no idea what was on the other side was not a good idea.

Maybe they were just escaping the heat? And if I believed that I’m sure there was a bridge in Florida for sale with my name all over it.

“You sure this Tuareg was involved with the djinn?” Mandy prodded. At least she kept her voice down to a whisper.

“No.” I kept my focus forward.

“Can’t you do some witchy hocus-pocus to help here?” Jaylene asked.

As if. Magic always came at a price and it wasn’t like I could pull a spell out of the ether. Far as I knew
, there were no djinn seeking spells out there. Only idiots called darkness and danger toward them. And since I had no herbs, salt or personal items of the djinn, there was no way I could cast a traditional seekers spell.

Just as I was going to explain the
ABCs of magic casting in short-and-to-the-point terms to my comrades, I heard a dog growling.

Not just any kind of growl
, but one of those low in the back of the throat sounds.

Across from where the four of us stood, a scrawny dog that looked like a cousin to a hyena was snarling in the direction of the empty stall.

“That thing rabid?” Mandy asked, stepping back though the canine wasn’t facing us, or doing anything except uttering a deep, raspy sound that made the hairs along my arms stand up.

“Shoo!” Kelly waved toward it. “Go away.”

“No.” I grabbed her arm to make sure she didn’t scare the mutt. “Dogs and donkeys are able to see djinn.”

“You’re making this crap up as we go.” Mandy sounded a lot like the dog as she fisted hands on her hips.

I didn’t care what she thought. Magic could come in a lot of ways and sometimes pure, dumb luck was the best kind.

“Where’re you going?” Jaylene demanded as I stepped closer to the dog who had kept his back to us, growling at the darkness.

“Inside the stall.”

“Not alone you’re not,” Jaylene snapped back, eyeing the dog and me as if we’d both gone crazy. “I’m not so sure you know the meaning of out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

Oh, I knew the meaning. I was beginning to think it was my own motto.

I looked at her and Kelly as I nodded toward the opening. “The dog’s giving us the best lead we’ve had all day.”

“And if that m
utt is right, we may be facing Bad Dude on his home turf.”

Jaylene had a point, a good one. It was Kelly who helped break the stalemate. “I could check him out, my own way, if you get what I mean? At least see what’s inside the stall.”

Now why hadn’t I thought of that? Probably because it’d put her at risk and also leave her vulnerable for double the time she went invisible.

But I might be able to get away with a little sniffing around. Not on the physical realm but the spirit one.

It was risky. To travel to the spirit realm, I would leave my physical body an empty shell, vulnerable to attack.

I glanced at Jaylene and weighed my odds against the sun already easing toward the horizon. Time was running out and I hadn’t even found the djinn, much less stopped him.

“Can I trust you?” I asked Jaylene, who gave me a very pointed raised brow answer in return.

“Tell me what you need.”

I pointed toward the V where two stalls met, creating a deep shadow and a hint of privacy. “I’m going to leave my body there.” I said, glad my voice didn’t sound as my nerves. If my dad knew what I was planning, he’d skin me alive.

Kelly brushed against my shoulder and I jumped.

Okay, maybe I wasn’t hiding my worries as well as I’d hoped.

“You said
body
didn’t you?” Jaylene spoke on the other side of me, her voice strained.

I nodded.

“As in leaving it?”

Another nod. If I didn’t do this soon I’d turn tail and run.

I glanced at Kelly. “I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

I looked around but didn’t see anything I could use, so I just threw out what I wanted. “You must pound on something. Wood to metal, hands to hands, something.”

She cocked her head. “Why? What am I doing?”

“Mimicking a heartbeat. That will keep me tethered to this realm while I’m in the other. As long as I can hear you, I can follow the sound back to my body.”

Kelly nodded and started a slow rhythmic clapping of her hands. It wasn’t ideal because it was so quiet compared with beating on a hide drum. But needs must.

“That’s good,” I encouraged, settling myself into as comfortable position as I could get. “Keep it up.”

Jaylene glanced at Kelly as if making sure they were both hearing this conversation before asking
, “And what happens if you don’t return to your body? Or if Kelly stops drumming?”

It was Mandy who answered. “She dies.”