Burned (A Magic Bullet Novel Book 1) Read Free

said. "Those are my instructions."
    I stared at the speaker. "Whose instructions?"
    "Couldn't tell you even if I wanted to. When I try to think of the name, I get an image of yellow rubber duck in my head. You know the kind?"
    "Yes." A djinni couldn't pull that trick. It had to be a mage or someone working with a mage. My head was spinning with the number of possibilities.
    "So I'm gonna ease on over now," he said and I felt the truck slow down. "Don't dawdle because I'm gonna hit the gas and get straight back on the road before you can reach my driver's side door."
    I folded my arms across my chest. "Let me guess. Those are your instructions?"
    "Yes, ma'am. Have a nice day now."
    The door creaked and rose about a foot. More than enough room for me to slide out without disturbing the expensive merchandise. Although I was tempted to dig my nail into the wood before I left, I couldn't bring myself to do it. These were exceptional antiques.
    I dropped to the floor of the truck and rolled underneath the door. As soon as my feet touched the ground, the truck roared to life and rejoined the steady stream of traffic.
    The air outside was thick with humidity and the temperature had to be pushing ninety. Dusting off my sweatpants, I stood on the side of the busy road and surveyed my surroundings.
    Then I saw the sign and my heartbeat skidded to a halt.
    Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love. Home sweet home.
    Somebody had a sick sense of humor.

2
    A h , the stench of I-95. How I'd missed it. Not.
    I was in Philadelphia, the place I'd left behind when I entered the Academy and never looked back.
    I was raised here as a member of the Marida court. Every djinni is a member of one of six groups, or castes as we call them -- Marida, Janns, Shaitans, Hinns, Ifrits and Ghuls. The Marida caste is more formal than the others so we still have a royal court with all the trimmings. Prince Simdan rules over all the Marida in the Mid-Atlantic Colony, which includes Philadelphia.
    I checked the pockets of the sweatpants for my wallet or any form of identification. Nothing. Nor could I summon them, courtesy of my shiny new accessories. I needed access to a phone as soon as possible so I could get myself out of this mess. I had one place I knew I could go. An old friend that I should've kept in better touch with. Knowing Farah, she'd tell me exactly how delinquent I'd been.
    Farah and I had been friends since we were young djinn. Neither of us fit in particularly well within our own castes, so we bonded over our 'otherness.' We used to shift into black sheep on occasion, just to make each other laugh. She's a Hinn, a type of djinn considered closest to animals, probably because they're excellent shapeshifters. They're also fast and heal quickly. Other djinn view the Hinn as weak, but I'd seen Farah in enough supernatural bar fights to call bullshit on that theory.
    Farah favored her fox shape when she chose to shift at all. Mostly, she stayed in human form because she liked the attention her red hair, big boobs and tiny waist got her. It also helped her business -- she ran an adult entertainment store on South Street called Tops and Bottoms. The store was where I found her now, after navigating my way on foot from the highway. By the time I arrived, my clothes were damp with sweat and my dark hair appeared to have channeled the Seventies with its disco sex bomb frizz.
    I pushed open the front door and welcomed the blast of cold air.
    Farah was in the process of dressing a mannequin in BDSM attire -- a sexy seamless dress, matching blindfold and satin restraints. I could see her tastes hadn't changed.
    When she saw me, the restraints fell to the floor.
    "Holy Plasma Plane," she exclaimed. "Alyse, is it really you?"
    Alyse. It was nice to be called by my real name for a change.
    She ran to the front of the store and embraced me, her arms encircling my chest because she wasn't tall enough to reach my shoulders. Her white, formfitting T-shirt had 'Foxy'