The kid opened his mouth, closed it again, and scowled. “Give me the location of your jinn, and this doesn’t have to get unpleasant.”
Give him what? Maggie asked.
“Give you what?” I said aloud at the same time. My mind suddenly kicked into overdrive, and I felt myself tense involuntarily. Not a soul in the world knew that I had a jinn ring on my finger. Maggie might have been trapped in there, but she still had access to no small amount of power, which she used to keep herself hidden. She wanted to keep from falling into the wrong hands almost as much as I wanted to keep people from knowing I had an ace up my sleeve.
“The jinn,” the kid repeated. “Don’t play coy. I know that you have the vessel containing Margarete Abaroa. It is not your property, and I’ve been tasked with returning it to the proper owner.” His scowl disappeared into a businesslike look of disdain.
He certainly knows how to play it cool, I told Maggie.
He’s an asshole, Maggie snarled. My ring is no one’s property but my own.
I was taken aback at the anger in her voice. Maggie was not prone to hysterics, so for her to become genuinely furious about something took some doing. Of course, I don’t like it when people upset my friends.
I gave the two draugr a sidelong glance. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. A jinn? Where would I even keep such a thing?”
The kid seemed to take my question literally. “Traditionally in a lamp, but other vessels have been known. Rings are popular.” His gaze flicked to Maggie’s ring, but nothing about his posture told me he knew that I had her with me right now. “You can hand it over,” he continued, “or tell me where it is. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to kill you and reanimate your corpse so it can tell me where to find the jinn. I would prefer you make your decision quickly. I don’t have all day.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off.
“Don’t try to run. You seem to already know what the gentlemen beside you are, so…”
I cut him off in turn. “Yeah, I know what a draugr is, buddy. And look, I’m crazy amounts of impressed that you’ve managed to raise and keep control of them. In broad daylight, no less. But this is a Starbucks in a crowded city. It’s the worst possible place to kill a dude.”
A hint of uncertainty crossed the kid’s face. “If you choose to be difficult, you will forfeit the lives of everyone in this shop. I will not leave witnesses.”
Okay, I told Maggie, he’s getting on my nerves.
I need answers, she responded sharply.
It was the closest to a command that I’d ever gotten from Maggie, and it kind of annoyed me. “We should establish something really quick,” I said, holding up a finger at the kid.
The necromancer licked his lips. He had a nervous glint in his eye, like he’d finally realized that if I knew what a draugr was and wasn’t reacting with fear, he might be in trouble. “What?” he demanded.
“Do you know who I am? Not, like, in a pretentious way. I’m just curious if you know who I am or what I do for a living.”
“I don’t care. All I know is that you carry the jinn. That’s all I need to know.”
Is he powerful enough to be this arrogant? I asked Maggie.
Powerful enough? Sure. But he can’t be more than nineteen, so he probably doesn’t have the chops to use his power.
Him first, then.
“Let’s start with names,” I said. “I’m Alek.” Reaching across the table, I snatched him by the hair and slammed his face into the tabletop.
The draugr moved fast enough that one snatched me by the arm the moment its master’s head hit the table. With a quick motion, it planted its feet, grabbed me by the shoulder, and yanked. Draugr are strong, and if I were fully human, it would have ripped my arm off entirely. As it was, I let out an undignified gasp as I felt my arm get pulled out of its socket.
My bottom canines transformed almost instantly, turning into thumb-sized tusks that ripped painfully through my gums and jutted from my lower jaw. The troll berserker in me took over, and I was out of the chair in the blink of an eye. The tattoo of Mjolnir flared to life on my right fist, glowing like the embers of a fire, and I slammed it into the draugr’s stomach hard enough to rip through the desiccated, sorcery-strengthened skin and out the other side.
I took a punch from the other draugr, which sent me staggering into a chair and going down in a heap with the fellow I was now wearing as a bracelet. Someone in the building screamed. I landed hard, rolled on top of the undead, and pulled out its willowy spine. The creature dissolved into dust beneath me.
The second draugr grabbed me by the shoulders and squeezed. I could feel its powerful fingers begin to push through my skin, and I groaned at the pain. I got to one knee, grappling the creature around the middle and lifting it off the ground. I took us both across the middle of the Starbucks. Draugr first, we went through the glass snack case and tumbled into the prep area.
The draugr’s sunglasses were knocked off, and I stared into empty pits that had once housed eyes. It howled at me angrily, thrashing, and wrapped one bony hand around my left wrist. I punched the creature in the head, my Mjolnir tattoo giving off tiny sparks of sorcery. Its neck snapped back, and it howled at it me again. Reaching up, I grabbed an espresso machine and pulled it down onto the creature’s chest.
The damn thing finally let go of my wrist. It struggled, trying to push the machine off it, and I got to my feet and brought a boot down on the creature’s forehead – again and again. Bone crunched under my heel, and the body finally dissolved in the same way the first one had.
I staggered back, wiped my forehead, and noticed that the employees were cowering in the back room, watching me with eyes wide. “Give me a minute, then call 911,” I told them.
I stepped through the shattered snack case and walked over to the necromancer. The blow I’d given him had put him out cold, but he was beginning to come around. I lifted him by the back of the neck and put him on the ground, rubbing his face in the dust of his draugr, then flipped him over so I could see his eyes.
Tell me if he tries anything, I said to Maggie.
I slapped him until he began to sputter. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“It’s Nick, damn it! Stop hitting me!”
“Nick the Necromancer. That’s adorable.” I slapped him again, then grasped him by the chin. My tusks were still out, and I didn’t bother to force them to retract. His eyes widened at the sight of them. “Look, Nick, you asshole, you don’t bring draugr into a Starbucks on a Saturday afternoon. Demigods don’t pull that kind of shit! There are Rules. Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’ll show you who I am,” he growled.
He’s going to try and cast some kind of decaying spell on you, Maggie warned.
I broke two fingers on his right hand. That should keep him distracted. I let him scream for a few seconds. “All right, Nick, tell me who sent you after me.”
“Go to hell,” he gasped.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not gonna sit here and torture you all day, Nick. I work for a living. Tell me who you are, or I call OtherOps.”
He just stared at me balefully, so I got up and shouted to the employees. “Call 911. Tell them a necromancer and two draugr just jumped a reaper agent. They’ll patch you through to the right place.”
“You’re a reaper?”