Ring of Aandaleeb: The Hidden Ones (The Djinn Chronicles Book 1)

by Hutchins, S. S.

  “There is nothing perfect but God himself,” Aunt Sadie would say.

  Henry couldn’t believe he had missed this flaw, in a mandala he had seen so many times before. Not only was it obvious, it was glaring. It ruined the mandala in such a way as to make the back of his mind itch. The itch in Henry’s mind was a subtle itch at first. Then the itch began to grow into an irritation. As if in slow motion, the flaw had gotten bigger, through no choice of Henry’s, and, with it, the irritation got bigger, until the flaw was the only thing he could see and the buzzing was almost unbearable.

  “Good job, Henry. I have to go now. Look for the man with the stone heart. I will be there when you expect me the least, but need me the most. Now one last thing—pull the flaw, pull it to yourself and don’t let go.” Aunt Sadie/Mabel’s image appeared briefly then faded away.

  Henry began to chant to himself, “Pull the flaw.” But the buzzing was unbearable and how was he expected to ‘pull the flaw’? What did that mean? Then, instinctively, he stopped fighting the buzzing and the flaw expanded until he was not looking at it, but he was in it. It surrounded him and was a part of him and then there was nothing. No buzzing, no flaw, nothing.

  He remembered one time when he was seven and he and his brother, Sam, were on the Tower of Terror by themselves. They had looked at each other, frightened and excited, as they entered the ride. As always, it was like looking into a mirror. Sam’s green eye was on the right; Henry’s on the left. Sam was right handed and Henry was left handed. Sam wanted frozen vanilla yogurt, Henry wanted vanilla ice cream. They were similar, but different. Yet this time they were in complete agreement. This was going to be awesome. Then the ride dropped and they were frightened. Then it stopped and the elevator doors opened and then they plunged, lifting up in their seat belts, feeling weightless, and he looked at his brother and, in that moment, they both wished they could fly.

  This is what Henry felt and he was happy. Then the colors flashed by him and the shapes of circles, triangles and squares coalesced around him. He was in the mandala and it was so beautiful that tears started to well inside of him. The colors were vibrant and clear, as though he had previously been looking at the colors through some type of film or gauze. He really could see the oranges, reds, plums, blues, in such clarity. That’s when Henry realized that the shapes and circles weren’t moving, he was moving through them. Henry was being pulled as if he were flying. Henry had embraced death, but now he knew he would live and it scared him. He shot out of the mandala like it was a pressurized geyser and he hit the pavement on his side. He rolled onto his back and in the evening air floated the mandala, 2 feet by 2 feet, in the air. Just like his grandmother had shown him. Henry couldn’t quite comprehend what he was seeing, but before he could assess it, the mandala folded in on itself and disappeared.

  Henry knew he wasn’t on the bus anymore. In fact, the night sky had star after star winking at him, as if they were laughing at his predicament. He felt the warmth in his chest, the same warmth he had felt on the bus, the same warmth in the mandala, the same warmth that had started several weeks ago that forced him to begin this journey, the same warmth that was making flames spark up around him. This time, the warmth wasn’t stopping. It was filling him up. It felt good.

  He sat up on his elbows. Looked around, everything had an odd familiarity. He couldn’t quite place it. He knew where he was. He slowly stood up, turned around and he was home. The apartment building was a burnt out husk. For an instant, he saw it as it used to be, bright and shiny. Henry could see images of the flames, then the horned man, then the burnt out building, all playing tricks on his mind's eye. He was definitely in the hood. In all this time little had changed on Salt Lake Ave. It was here that he and his brother had enjoyed their first birthday parties and it was here that they had raced their big wheels up and down the street. Henry was excited and confused.

  Things had gone from interesting, to odd, to downright strange. More questions and no answers. He knew he was in over his head, but he couldn’t figure out how far in over his head he was. How had Aunt Sadie/Mable spoken to him? Where was this warmth in his chest coming from? Why the flames? And how had he teleported himself to safety? For the first time, Henry began to question his sanity, but he also felt it all made sense. His parents and brother must have died for a reason and the answers must still be in this building.

  Henry watched the building, expecting something to happen, as if it were alive. After everything that had happened so far, he knew that anything could happen. Nothing did. He watched for what seemed to be hours, but only minutes had passed. He wondered to himself if the gangs still ran this neighborhood and what time it was. It stayed quiet. He walked to the apartment building and up the flights of stairs. He found the charred door that said ‘Apartment 2C’ and he pushed it open.

  To Henry’s surprise an angel, literally, was squatting in the debris with a broken picture frame in her hand. Her translucent wings stretched to the ceiling and she glowed a soft gold.

  Henry startled her. She looked down at the picture frame in her hand, with a burnt picture in it, then back at Henry. She took her smartphone out and quickly snapped a photo of him. Then she winked out of existence. Henry wanted to be surprised, but he couldn’t muster the energy. He walked to the photo and he saw himself, his mother and his father, with their arms wrapped around him, but Sam was missing from the photo altogether.

  Chapter Three: Heart of Stone

  Henry had remembered this photo differently. He brushed the smut from the glass and looked at his mother. She was beautiful. Her long hair reached down to her back; her almond shaped eyes looked just like his, but both of her eyes were green, not just one; her finger nails were long and elegant and you could tell there was something very exotic in her olive colored skin. Her whole demeanor belied her African/Arab heritage. His father, as usual, was smiling, with a short fade, his wire rimmed glasses slightly sliding off of his nose. His New York Yankees shirt showed off, not just his New York pride, but his Bronx pride. Yet Henry could not understand why Sam was missing. The way his parents held their arms around Him, the family looked complete.

  “So you came back, majnoun!”

  Henry turned around and there stood the monster of his memory, the one he remembered staring at him through the flames, standing almost ten feet tall in the doorway, hunched over. The horns on his head extended almost two feet from his forehead. He gripped the sides of the door frame and it crumpled under the grey, stony fingers. A giant leg followed in through the door, almost dragging through the ground.

  “What are you?” Henry felt the warmth spread from his chest to his hand and it burst into flames. Up until now, he had only little flickers, almost sparks. This felt right. The monster stood up and bellowed.

  “You killed my charges and you ask what am I, monster!?! You doomed the world to apocalypse and you question me? How dare you!”

  The monster charged Henry and he rolled over into the debris while simultaneously throwing the fire from his hand. It hit the monster square in the chest and it dissipated, sparks flying into the air landing all over the timber. The monster was not stopped, not even phased.

  “You bring the same fire of your masters once again to this home! You shall surely die.” The monster stomped the ground and what was left of the building began to crumble down on top of Henry’s shoulders. Something wasn’t right. Things were not coming together. Who was this monster protecting? Why was he mad at Henry?

  “Wait!!!” Henry screamed, “This is my family; I am the boy in the photo.”

  “Impossible. He is dead. If he was alive I would feel him, I would know. He has been dead for years now. “

  “Look at the photo!” Henry yelled once more.

  The monster picked up the photo and looked at both the picture and the boy, back and forth between the two.

  “You look like him, but this may be a trick.”

  “My aunt Sadie told me to find the man with the heart of stone. He can
vouch for me.”

  The monster stopped and what passed for a face sniffed and snorted.

  “We must go. I smell fire on the way. We have disturbed the soul of this place and it has begun to attract the attention of the hidden ones.”

  “Can you take me to the man with the heart of stone?”

  The monster looked back over his shoulder, “I am the man with the heart of stone. Daylight is coming. There are few who can help, but many who can harm. It is time for us to go.”

  Sarah had recognized the boy immediately. He was much more handsome than she thought, but he was also a lot more dangerous. She could see the fire had begun to set in his chest and his djinn side had been activated somehow. Her mission had been to destroy him, but he had startled her, caught her off guard and she had to use that sacred place to enter Qaf and now found herself disoriented and lost in the tunnels that encompassed the earth. Sarah quickly understood that this was no place for a Grigori.

  Enclosed in the earth like a tomb, stumbling along the wall, Sarah had known Qaf was the home of djinn, the way they traveled, but the green glow had been surprising. It permeated everything, was around everything, she felt like she was in a giant radioactive mine. But it was just the glow, nothing else, no sounds, even her breathing had been somehow dampened, muted, no sound traveled out, no sound traveled in and she couldn’t see, even with her sense, much further into the mountain.

  “I see you are lost, little Grigori.” The sound came from all around; Sarah frantically looked around to see who was speaking, she even tried to reach out with her sense to find them, and yet nothing.

  “You are in Qaf; you are out of your element, little sister.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Before Sarah’s eyes a smoke began to seep off the green walls, swirl and coalesce into a ten foot tall woman. Her skin was ebony and her head was completely bald, ten rings of gold wrapped around her neck. She wore a gold breastplate and an Egyptian skirt-like tunic at her waist. Her feet wore sandals, which surprised Sarah because she had known djinniyah, female djinn, despised to walk. But what stood out were her green, cat-like eyes. They glowed with a fierce intensity and she understood what it meant when it was said the djinn were created from the “hottest part of the flame of a smokeless fire”. Her nails were long and, as she held the Masaii Spear, it looked as if they would get in the way, but somehow they didn’t.

  “Let me pass, I have protection!!!” Sarah pulled from her shirt a brass chain with the knot of Solomon fashioned in copper and brass upon it.

  The djinniyah quickly raised her hand to protect her eyes. Sarah thought to herself this might work, just like in the vampire movies. The djinniyah then doubled over and began to shake and then laugh. Sarah knew she was in trouble. The djinniyah disappeared and, before she knew it, she felt those long fingernails across her face and djinniyah’s hot Saharan breath in her ear.

  “The last Suleyman is long since dead, girl. Unless you carry the Ring of Aandaleeb, the only thing that chain protects is your neck. The rest is fair game.” Sarah felt a trickle of blood roll down her cheek as one of the nails cut into her skin like tissue.

  “Amirah, enough!!!”

  Two more djinns appeared in front of Sarah. Both male djinns had a similar height to Amirah, the djinniyah, but were built like body builders. One was the color of sand and another had the same emerald color as the walls. Sarah could feel Amirah’s grip loosen, slightly, as the djinn approached.

  “She is Grigori, she may pass in these neutral territories. Let her go.”

  “Hassan, Abdul—the Grigori are no friends of the djinn. They meddle and do the bidding of the lost, the Nephilim. You know this!!! They still meddle in the affairs of men.”

  The emerald djinn, Abdul, gave Amirah a look and she dropped Sarah to the ground.

  “Thank you.”

  Abdul looked at Sarah, with those same intense eyes as Amirah’s.

  “I know who your father is, little one, and you fight on the wrong side of a losing battle. This is the end of the age of men. Even we djinn of the neutral territories know this.”

  Hassan, the other djinn, spoke: “Others know who your father is as well. We know there will be no redemption and next time you will not be so lucky if you pass through Qaf again. I suggest you find other ways to travel.”

  Abdul waved his hand and a door appeared in the wall on the side of the mountain. Sarah looked back to Amirah and she saw her lick her lips.

  “Go.” Hassan looked sadly at Sarah. Sarah stepped through the door, shapes and colors swirled around her and she could hear Amirah’s voice as if she were right in her ear.

  “This will not be the last time we meet, girl.”

  The beauty of Long Beach, California, has long been its simple charm. In between Los Angeles and Orange County, it sat as a way station to the world. The Long Beach beach has a breakwater that was built by the corps of engineers. It spans miles wide and miles deep, keeping the waters calm from the raging pacific. Some have said that this was mistake, in fact a downright travesty, because if the Pacific were allowed unfettered access to the shore it would actually provide waves like its neighbors—Seal Beach and Huntington Beach—and most likely raise property values. Nevertheless, that is not the case. In fact, its sleepy charm has meant that Long Beach not only shares a border with Los Angeles and Orange County, it shares a border with the edge of the unknown.

  This is what Henry felt as he watched the sunset on the balcony of the Villa Riviera, a 16-story French Gothic Building designed by Richard King. Originally one of tallest buildings, it now was simply a beacon of protection for the spiritually beleaguered. Richard King, it was rumored, was a djann, half human – half djinn, who feared his heritage and he built it with a copper roof to protect him from all manner of unusual goings on. Henry’s host had told him that and then disappeared out of the window, telling him he would be back at sunset.

  Henry had slept a dreamless sleep, yet when he awoke he felt that he had had no rest. He had anticipated this meeting and wanted answers. Down dropped a bear from the roof onto the balcony. Henry jumped back and he felt the heat well up from his chest and spread down his right arm to his hand. The bear was made of stone. About the size of a black bear, it was menacing as it approached on all fours, yet something about the eyes was familiar. Then the black bear stood up on its hind legs and shook itself and the stone flew off and evaporated before it hit the walls. There stood a man.

  He wore a pair of jeans and a pullover sweater. His sandy blond hair was tousled from the shaking off as a bear. Yet his eyes stayed the same steel gray they were as a bear, and, Henry assumed, as a demon.

  “I’m starving,” the stone/bear man said as he pushed by Henry. This had not been what he had expected; he had hoped for some immediate explanation. Instead, the stone/bear man was making a bologna and cheese sandwich. “I have had many names in my lifetime… To you I am your protector and you can call me Wali.”

  “Wally?” Henry said with a little trepidation, such a mundane name for such an unusual situation. “Close enough, boy. Wally will do. We do not share our secret name, lest evil get a hold of you and render your soul inert.”

  “Enough of this, I need some answers and I need them yesterday.” Henry’s face was a mixture of frustration and defiance. Wally walked from behind the kitchen and up to Henry and placed his hand on his shoulder. “I lost you once; I will not do it again, Henry.” Wally then sat on the barstool next to Henry. “You want answers and I have some answers, but not all of them. I have some explanations but few of the reasons why. My job was to keep you safe and I have hidden here for the last decade, “under the radar”, hoping I could forgive myself for not being there for you and your family. I am so sorry.”

  Wally embraced Henry quickly. Henry flopped down on the couch.

  “I’m not sure you will like what you hear, but you will have to hear it and I hope, together, we can make heads or tails of it. So let me begin at the beginning…”
>
  “This is what I want to know—what happened the night of the fire?” Henry’s eager face showed excitement. Wally shook his head. “No, this story begins at the beginning; the true beginning, when the earth was new and some of the races were already old. Let us speak about creation.”

  Chapter Four: How it all began

  “In the beginning was the word and the word was God. From there He took 6 days—some say eons—to create the heaven and the earth and on the 7th day, eon, He rested and none of us have really seen Him since. In the meantime he created three races. First it was beings of light—you know them as angels. They became the messengers and voices of God. Second He created the djinn—you know them as genie—from the hottest part of a smokeless flame. Third He created man from earth. As a last, but not least, gesture He commanded the angels of the light and the sons and daughters of the flame to serve Adam and his children.

  This was the beginning of trouble. The angels had no problem then, they loved the children of Adam. In fact, later on some of them loved the daughters of Adam a little too much. “

  Wally winked at Henry a knowing smile. Henry stared back not fully comprehending.

  “But not then, their problems came much later. But immediately the djinn were furious. They could not believe God would put mud men ahead of them. They had felt that they were God’s favorite and were jealous of Adam’s status and felt it was blasphemy. Not all, but most rebelled against God and even amongst themselves they splintered and became separate tribes.