Djinni and the Geek

Chapter 2

Anissa smiled as she paced the small confines of her prison. He was coming for her, she was sure of it. Her hero. The one who would break the spell. She didn't know when, she didn't know how but he was close and it would definitely be soon. She'd dreamed of him this morning, smiled at him in her vision, although she hadn't been able to see his face.

Anissa flopped onto a cushioned divan and closed her eyes. What would he be like? Tall? Handsome? Of course. Who'd ever heard of a short, ugly hero? A wizard, most likely. A mere human would never have the power to break the spell.

He'd also need power to face the wizard who had trapped her in the puzzle box. She wrapped her arms around her body to ward off a chill of fear. Because one thing Anissa was very, very sure about, was that Murdoch of the Moorlands was never going to give her up without a fight.

Back in Florida, the Gulf Coast town was bustling even though it was Thanksgiving weekend, but David managed to find an empty table in the back corner of a coffee shop with free wireless internet access. Ah, civilization. He'd been out of touch for two days and was starting to go through tech withdrawal. Paradoxically, reverse tech withdrawal was one of the reasons he participated in several reenactments every year. When you made your living teaching computer science to college students, sometimes the only way to stay sane was to step back and let it go now and then. A few colleagues knew how to reach him in the case of a real emergency.

This fall he was more restless than usual even after a trip to England for a tournament last August. Maybe it was because his main partner in crime, his office-mate and best friend Eric Gordon had married last spring. Now that Eric had somebody else to spend his time with, it left David more alone than usual. Or maybe it had more to do with the big-time shake-up his belief structure had had to deal with last spring. Or maybe he was just getting old.

Oh, Get over yourself, Garavaglia. Thirty-seven wasn't all that ancient. Although it had felt like it when he was facing down twenty-something Brendan Malone this afternoon. If Brendan took his advice and learned to fight instead of just showing off, next year he was going to kick Dave's ass into the dirt.

Dave clicked through his emails. There were several from Eric and his wife Lori, a few from his sister and a couple from students. Dave smiled when he found one from his friend Drake. Eric and Lori had discovered Drake last spring, living in the steam tunnels below the campus of Southern Michigan University, where all of them taught. David and a couple of other friends had been brought in to help identify and catch the computer hacker embezzling university funds, who was also a would-be wizard trying to enslave Drake. Right now Drake was traveling through Asia, looking for long lost relatives and Dave smiled at his friend's descriptions of Uzbekistan. He twisted the Celtic silver ring on his right pinky, a gift Drake had given him in thanks. It never got old, knowing he was the personal friend of an honest-to-goddess dragon.

It was approaching dusk when Dave locked his laptop into the Jeep and walked the two blocks down to the shoreline. Florida's sunset coast was aptly named and he figured he'd watch the show before heading back to the campground and the inevitable party that would be well underway. Shops lined the streets and he glanced through a couple of windows, eying tacky souvenirs and upscale menswear with equal disdain. He did duck into a used bookstore and spent a few minutes haggling over a mint-condition pulp paperback from the twenties before zipping out the back door to the alley which would serve as a shortcut to the beach. He'd wrangled himself a good deal on the collectible, so he was whistling as he went.

There was a dinky antique shop across the alley that actually looked intriguing. For one thing, it was small and dingy, not flashy like most of its neighbors. A hand-lettered sign reading, Open - Mind the cat graced the streaky glass back door. For another, most of the stuff in the window looked real. Odds and ends and curiosities rather than large valuable pieces. Maybe he could find an oddball gift for his sister's birthday. Dave stepped over to the stoop.

As he was pushing the door open, he heard a crash, then a scream from inside. His entire body immediately went on alert and he almost reached for the sword he wasn't wearing. He crouched and opened the door, going in low and peered down the cluttered aisle. The jumble of merchandise prevented a view of the front of the store, so he crept forward, nabbing a broom as he went.

By the time he reached the front of the shop, the aisle widened out and his eyes had adjusted to the light. The shop keeper, an older woman, was in the process of emptying the cash drawer of her antique register into a yellow plastic grocery sack. It was going slowly since her blue-veined hands were shaking badly. Standing next to her, his back to David was a tall, lanky youth with a big, shiny knife.

He didn't even think about it. Life on the streets followed by a four-year hitch with Uncle Sam had given him the skills, sword-fighting and paintball tournaments kept him in shape. He had the drop on the kid, so Dave whacked him upside the head with the broom handle and with two more sweeps of the makeshift quarterstaff, had him down and disarmed.

"You okay, ma'am?"

The kid started to say something but since Dave was sitting on his chest with the broom handle across his throat, he shut up as soon as Dave pressed down. Angry dark eyes glared up from inside the hood of a black sweatshirt. A dirty blue bandana covered the lower half of his face.

"Ma'am?"

"Oh!" The white-haired woman seemed to snap out of her daze. "I'm fine. Thank you so much, young man."

"You might want to call the cops."