Grave Beginnings (The Grave Report, Book 1) Page 14

  “So,” she said, turning her head to look at me, a small smile across her face, “how’d you get past this?”

  I smiled back, I honestly had no idea how I would’ve gotten past this door at the moment but she didn’t need to know that. When in doubt, amazing ambiguity is the way to go, “I have my ways,” I said in a vague manner.

  She snorted, “yeah okay, what might those be?”

  I waggled my fingers around in a mysterious manner and jokily said, “secrets.”

  She rolled her eyes and slipped the keycard into the electronic lock slot that was located several inches above the doorknob. There was a minute little bulb, the size of a dewdrop on top of the electronic device that flashed red a moment after she slipped the card in. An instant later the card was spat back out and a soft buzz emanated from the little machine.

  I stifled a laugh but apparently not as well as I though because Agent Ortiz turned to glare at me.

  “Funny is it?” she said angrily, “I’d like to see some of your trade secrets now mystery man.” She said in a challenging tone.

  “May I?” I asked, gently reaching out for the card.

  She shoved it into my hand a bit aggressively, “incase you didn’t notice, I just tried that smart guy.”

  I ignored her jibe and flipped the card over and around before sliding it gently into the electronic card reader device thingy. A second later the tiny bulb flashed a bright green, it was followed by a barely noticeable click sound. The card was ejected back out and I reached down to turn the doorknob, it turned and the door opened.

  I turned to look back at a fuming Agent Ortiz and handed her the card back, “you put it in upside down and backwards, but—”

  “Don’t you dare say it!” she growled.

  “But nice try,” I said grinning.

  Her look was all venom and spite at that moment; she pushed her way past me and into Herman’s penthouse.

  I followed her in and closed the door behind us.

  “Uh, wow.” She said breathlessly.

  I looked around and was blown away, as rich as Norman was this guy must’ve been loads richer and it showed.

  “This is far nicer than your place Norman,” she continued on in awe.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, nodding simply.

  The janitors home was just wow! The floor in the entry/living room was a cream marble with small blackish splatter marks over every tile. Ahead of us, in the center of the room, was a ridiculously long pristine white leather couch. It must’ve been twenty feet long, designed to seat atleast ten people and then there was the other part. It had an additional piece situated on it’s left that was lined up at ninety degrees from the end of the first couch, it too went off for about another twenty feet and was equally as white and pristine. Atop the couches were extremely plump looking cushions that were arranged to alternate in their placement from matching the sofa white, to a rich wine burgundy.

  “Comfy,” Ortiz mumbled idly after she had taken a look at the couch.

  I walked up into the center of the living room and started to slowly take in every detail I could, revolving in place as I did. The windows were small square constructions with thick white paneling between them, they were considerably smaller than most windows but there were a great deal more of them in this home. About fifteen ran horizontally across the room, it seemed pointless to me, they could have just used one big long one. Connected to them were another series of longer and narrower windows that ran upwards at a canted angle, it gave the place a look that resembled a green house, a really expensive white…green house.

  I leaned closer to the windows to examine them, running my fingers along every inch. I was looking for some residue, namely soot, it would have been confirmation of my theory but I turned up nothing.

  I decided to examine the highly polished black circular table that was directly in the center of the room, standing on its tiny nub like legs. Nothing beneath it or atop save for some brand-new looking and unopened books, they weren’t even out of the plastic wrap. Nearby was a small table meant for the use of keeping small decorative items on, much like the vase and potted flowers it currently supported, it looked to be of similar make as the table. In the corner was a classical piano and matching high black padded leather stool, both of them were spotless as well.

  I sighed loudly.

  “Something wrong?” Asked Agent Ortiz.

  “Yeah,” I muttered, “I haven’t found what I was looking for yet.”

  “Well,” she began, “didn’t the report say he died in the bedroom? You might find whatever it is you’re looking for there.” She finished.

  I looked at her astounded, I had completely forgotten about that, how had she remembered that little detail but couldn’t manage to put a keycard in the right way?

  “So…are we going to the bedroom or what?” she asked impatiently.

  “Thought you’d never ask toots,” I quipped.

  She rolled her eyes and snorted, “not even in your wildest dreams pal,” she said with a laugh.

  We navigated our way through Herman’s lavishly decked out penthouse, passing through an unnecessarily large dining table with atleast a dozen white leather sofa looking seats strewn around it.

  ....He had sofa seats for his dining table, the hell?

  The table itself was a beautiful looking marbleized stone, I couldn’t tell what it was but it wasn’t real marble but it looked it. Strangely, it was still covered in bowls and dishes, empty ones but they were still lain out in placement.

  We continued on, strolling through the kitchen next, unlike the rest of the penthouse, the kitchen was surprisingly simple. Oh, it was state of the art equipment of course and expensive looking, but the look itself was simple. Everything had an antiquated wooden look to it; it was homely in a way, clashing seriously with the rest of the homes bright white style.

  The bedroom wasn’t impressive, which was saying a lot considering the quality of the rest of his home. The floor was wood that was stained to resemble the finish on a black glossy showroom piano; it went well with the white, well everything else. The bed was enormous and blanketed in white fabric, the pillows were piled up and were, you guessed it, white.

  This guy had no imagination.

  It looked expensive but oddly simple compared to the rest of the house, it was sparse, just a bed and a small table at the foot of the bed. A small nightstand on both sides and that was it. Oh, there was a glass door leading out to the porch that overlooked Manhattan but still, it wasn’t much of a bedroom.

  But then again, it had a bed and was a room, isn’t that all they really are supposed to be. Maybe he didn’t need or want much; he was shacking up with a model according to Agent Ortiz.

  “Kinda empty,” stated Agent Ortiz, “I was expecting a bit more.”

  “I know,” I agreed.

  “What exactly are you looking for Norman?”

  “Stains,” I answered simply.

  “Ah, what?” she asked a bit taken back.

  “Oh, soot stains not the, ah, other kind,” I explained.

  “Ah,” she said understandingly.

  “Yeah, sorry about that.” I apologized.

  “Wait, why soot?” she asked.

  “Confirmation of a theory Agent Ortiz, confirmation of a theory,” I answered.

  “And what theory is that?”

  “I’ll let you know if it turns out to be correct, if not, well there’s no point in burdening you with more knowledge of what nasties are out there.” I told her.

  “Don’t you think that I deserve to know, especially now considering what I’ve witnessed?” she said edgily.

  “First of all, you haven’t witnessed anything yet, secondly, no.” I replied flatly.

  “I’m sorry?” she said in a challenging tone.

  “Look,” I said sighing, “if you want to talk about this, then let’s do it later, now we need to find something, anything, some clue kay?”

  “Fine. Later.” She said with
finality.

  I nodded in agreement.

  “I’m guessing that his death wasn’t listed as suspicious whatsoever, right?” I asked her.

  “No, older gentlemen’s heart giving out during sex, it’s kind of a cliché but no.” she answered.

  “So it’s a pretty good bet any evidence is still lying here,” I said more to myself than her.

  “Yes,” she agreed, “unless a cleaning staff member’s been through here.”

  “Let’s hope not, he died in bed so I need the sheets to be dirty.”

  “Uh huh,” she said slowly.

  “Not like that,” I growled, “now come here and help me tear this bed apart, and no that’s not a euphemism for us to shack up.” I clarified.

  She laughed, “yeah don’t worry there, I didn’t take it as one.”

  Was that an insult? Whatever.

  We peeled back the sheets and I had got my answer.

  “Is that—” she began.

  “Yeah.” There was a small layer of soot, on a darker bedspread it would’ve gone unnoticed but on the perfect white sheets it stood out a lot. It wasn’t much but it didn’t need to be, I knew now with a hundred percent guarantee what we were dealing with.

  “Damn,” I muttered, “I was afraid of this.”

  “What, what is it?” she asked curiously.

  “A jinn,” I answered.

  Chapter Eleven

  This was bad, this case had just elevated from already bad enough to dangerously worse. Jinn’s were heavy hitter players in the supernatural world and now I had to track one down and kill it before it could hurt any more people.

  “A what?” Asked Agent Ortiz, clearly baffled by what I had just said.

  “A jinn, you know, mythical creatures famed for granting wishes.” I explained.

  “A…genie? Like the blue genie from Aladdin?” she said disbelievingly.

  “Yeah except not blue, doesn’t have a friendly temperament and not voiced by Robin Williams and oh yeah, jinni is a female, jinn is male.” I told her.

  “Wait,” she said shaking her head, “genie? Really?”

  “Jinn, I think, or it could be a jinni,” I answered.

  “Grants wishes…genie…” she continued, still unable to believe it.

  “Yeah, they can bend reality on a small scale, they love making deals and granting wishes and what not. Then they, well the mean ones, screw the person they made the deal with, normally having them die in some twisted way related to the wish.” I explained to her.

  “Uh, how and why?” she asked, still startled at the revelation that jinns actually existed.

  “Well as to how, when a jinn or jinni makes a deal with someone, they sort of leave a bit of themselves on that person. They leave a residue, it’s still part of them however, it’s like leaving a bit of their power on someone else. Anyways, this essence forms sort of a bubble around the person, a magical force field that really doesn’t do anything save serve as a way for the jinn or jinni to reach out to that person. It’s like a pipeline that goes between the jinn and the person who asked for the wish, the jinn can reach out and continue to affect them, make their wish finally go bad in a way.” I explained.

  “Like having an elderly janitor die while having sex with the professional model girlfriend he probably wished for?” she said, beginning to catch on.

  “Yeah, exactly,” I said agreeing. In my head however I was thinking about the will Norman had received from his father, the one indicating that Norman had always desired his father’s car. It was obvious now he had wished for it and he got it at the expense of his father’s life, Norman didn’t know that going into the deal though I wagered.

  “So what happens when the person dies?”

  “Well, the residue around them sort of collapses and here we are, soot and that’s the most worrying thing of all.” I told her.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it means we’re not dealing with some angry lowly type of Jinn, it’s an Ifrit.” I replied.

  “A lowly type of Jinn? An Ifrit? What are you talking about?” she said shaking her head, obviously a bit overwhelmed with all of the info.

  “Jinns have castes, but they’re not like societal castes in some cultures where the only difference is their birth and stuff. Their caste system actually dictates their powers, their strength and many times, their disposition. Ifrits,” I said sighing, “are pretty high up there and they’re mean, like downright nasty mean.”

  “And how does the soot come into all of this?”

  “Well, many supernatural creatures leave a residue—” I began to explain.

  “Like the wraith,” she blurted.

  “Yes,” I said through gritted teeth, “like the wraith,” my anger at her interrupting me obvious. If she cared, it didn’t show. “Ghosts and many other spectral creatures leave behind ectoplasm,” I continued. “Lore goes, Jinn are born from fire, Ifrits are born from the hottest and purest of flames and a byproduct of fire is…”

  “Soot,” she answered more to herself than me, I could see everything starting to click in her mind.

  “Mythology around them states that Ifrits are one of the highest embodiments of fire, you know, created from the fires of creation kind of thing. They sort of have a superiority complex because they believe that they came first into the world, before man and all. That, coupled with the fact that humans, like King Solomon, learned to bind them and make them subservient. So yeah, they love killing us off if they get the chance and it really gets their rocks off getting us to do it for them in a way.”

  She nodded in understanding, “like granting wishes that cause ironic deaths,” she said glancing at the bed.

  “Poor guy,” I said softly, “he probably thought he was getting the deal of a lifetime.”

  “He was eager,” Ortiz, added, “what, with his age and occupation, I don’t blame him.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered sadly, “it made him a perfect target, he probably jumped at the chance.”

  “I still can’t believe this,” Ortiz said, “wishes and genies and tigers and wraiths….”

  “Yeah, the Ifrit’s behind ‘em all,” I said.

  “It can really do all of that?” she said, stunned.

  “Yeah, they’re old, really old, like near beginning of life on Earth old, they are heavy duty players in the supernatural world. They can pretty much make any lower weak willed creature their servant and not to mention the whole part about warping reality on small to large scales depending on their strength.” I answered.

  She blinked several times and then sat down on the edge of the bed, propping her arms on her knees and resting her head in her hands.

  I went over to her and sat right beside her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, much like she had done for me. “Feeling ok?” I asked sympathetically.

  She let out a dark laugh, “at this point, no, not really, no.”

  “Welcome to a day in my world,” I said softly.

  “No offense Norman, your world sucks.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.” I agreed dejectedly.

  We sat there for several moments in silence, before she spoke again, “so Jinns, they can only kill through their wishes?”

  “Well technically I suppose they can kill in their human form as well, but they’d be confined to—”

  “Wait!” she blurted out, “these things can look like humans?”

  “Yeah, humans, animals, whatever you name it and they can shift to look like it.” I answered. “But to answer your question, they can kill physically as a human would but they’d have to follow the same rules a person has to.” I explained.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Well,” I started, “when they are in human form, they sort of have to play by our rules, they’d have to use the human body to kill, they couldn’t rely on their powers ‘till they shifted back.”

  “So they would leave signs, like a struggle, someone being choked, bludgeoned or maybe they’d use
a weapon?” she replied.

  “Yeah…” I said answering her, my thoughts went elsewhere though, Norman didn’t die in a physical manner, I thought. There were no physical signs, meaning he died from a wish, but what wish? I pondered. His father’s car passed to him through his father’s death, the money didn’t kill him, could it have been the youth? That’s when I realized just how poor Norman had died, he was an extremely unhealthy older man who wished for physical perfection, the toll the change must’ve taken on his body is what killed him. Irony, perfect irony, wish to be perfectly healthy and the shock of the change on your system kills you, I thought to myself.

  “Norman, you ok?” Ortiz asked, “you look lost in thought.”

  “I am. I was,” I responded.

  “Oh ok, just wanted to point that out!” she said, jabbing a finger at what she was talking about.

  I followed her finger to where it was pointing, there, on the glass paned doors leading out to the porch, was a small amphibious creature. It was massive for what is was, about one foot in length and covered in a hellish red, orange and yellow coloring. It looked as if someone had sprayed painted a flame job on the amphibian; its skin was secreting a viscous looking substance that smelled horribly like petroleum. It just clung there to the glass door and stared at us for a moment before it convulsed in a little shiver and a small stream of flames erupted along the ridge of its spine.

  “Oh…well shit, it’s a, um, a Salamander,” I explained.

  “Really? Because where I’m from, they don’t light on fire!” Ortiz exclaimed, taking a frightened leap back as she did.

  “Yeah, they’re beings that represent fire, they travel in massive groups and well, just burn things, they’re simplistic animals.” I continued to explain.

  Her eyes widened as she turned to me and asked, “how massive a group?”

  “That massive!” I said, pointing in a panicky manner at the glass door where somehow a dozen of the creatures had materialized.

  Agent Ortiz just stood there in a stunned silence, so did I as a matter of fact, I didn’t expect this.