by Gene Gant
My demon form gave way, and I looked human once more. The power of the earth sprites’ collective will withdrew. The bent trees snapped upright, the figure of sticks and dirt collapsed and fell apart, and the pressure holding me down was gone. I got to my feet.
There was plenty of time to save Draven. Things had finally gone our way. Malwar was trapped inside the island, I was no longer his slave, and although I’d been bound to obey his final command while he was my master, he hadn’t ordered me never to bring Draven back. I was free to do that if I wanted to, and I definitely wanted to do it.
Without hesitation, I raised my hand, ready to warp Draven onto the island again. As I did so, Inky ran toward me. Inky, still half-dazed from being knocked unconscious when Malwar attacked him, and overcome with emotion at Draven’s disappearance, wasn’t thinking clearly. He shouted before I could complete the move, before I could bring my hand down and open the passage.
“Bring him back, Ahmad!” he cried out to me. “Bring Draven back now!”
“Inky, dammit! Shut up!” I screamed at the same moment. But it was too late. He wasn’t my master, he’d requested the use of djinn magic, and now the curse barred me from doing the very thing we both wanted most.
INKY GRABBED me by the collar of my shirt, his face full of anguish. “Where is he?” he cried. “Where’s Draven?”
Mina walked into the clearing where we stood, where Inky was shaking me for answers. Her ghost form melted back into her body. She reached out and put her hand on Inky’s shoulder. “Grayson….”
He ignored her. He kept looking into my eyes, his voice somewhere between a plea and a demand as he spoke. “You have to bring him back, Ahmad. You have to bring him back here.”
“You know I can’t,” I said quietly, looking down to avoid the hurt in his eyes and to keep him from seeing the bitterness I felt toward him. “You made that impossible.”
“What did you do to Draven?” he pleaded.
“I did exactly what Malwar told me to do.” I was angrier at myself than I was at Inky or even Malwar. “I put Draven under a layer of rock beneath the deepest part of the ocean that I know of, the Marianas Trench. He’s alive, but… not for long.”
Inky spun us both away from Mina and slammed me to the ground so hard I nearly blacked out. “Bring him back!”
I put up no resistance as Inky tightened one hand around my neck and raised the other in a fist.
Mina walked calmly but quickly over and grabbed Inky’s upraised arm. “Grayson, stop. This is pointless. Ahmad can’t do what you want, and beating him in the face with your fist won’t change that.”
“So we just let Draven die?” Inky shouted at her. “Is that it?”
“No. We save him.”
“How?” Inky’s voice cracked with hopelessness. He let me go and backed away. “The Marianas Trench is halfway around the world from here, somewhere between fucking Japan and Australia!”
“Just be quiet and let me try something.” Mina closed her eyes and went motionless. She remained that way as Inky held his breath and I lay on the ground, waiting.
She opened her eyes about a minute later and knelt down beside me. “Ahmad, how’d you like to visit the Mariana Islands?”
MINA AND I hovered in the dark sky about a hundred feet above relatively calm Pacific waters somewhere east of the Mariana Islands. We were transported there and held aloft by djinn magic, which I used freely because I decided that I liked the suggestion Mina had made.
We had been there for more than an hour, and I was getting more anxious by the minute. “How much longer will it be?” I asked.
“Patience,” Mina replied, and she put a finger briefly to my lips to silence any further questions from me.
Maybe ten minutes later, the surface of the water directly beneath us bulged upward. Something huge and globular swelled up from the ocean and rose toward us. I nearly broke into a happy dance at the sight. “Praise Allah!” I shouted.
“No, praise the sprites,” Mina replied.
It had been a tag-team effort, organized at Mina’s request. Hundreds of air sprites formed the massive bubble of air. Hundreds of water sprites drew the bubble into the ocean and towed it down to the bottom of the trench, equalizing the horrendous pressures below to keep the bubble intact. Hundreds of earth sprites moved aside the tons of rock and sediment on the ocean floor as the bubble was maneuvered into position.
Now the dripping bubble, having returned from its journey into the deep, floated beside Mina and me, carried by giggling, flying air sprites. Draven was inside, smiling, as happy to see us as we were to see him.
His clothes weren’t even wet.
Sixteen
TWO MONTHS later, on Memorial Day weekend, spring was giving way grudgingly to summer. Saturday dawned cool, in the low sixties, and by midafternoon the temperature had only reached seventy-two degrees. The sky was clear and the sun was shining, however. It was a perfect day for a barbecue.
Carolyn Northbrook, Draven’s mother, lost both her apartment and her job as head librarian at the East Branch of Wisteria’s public library system during the weeks Malwar held her captive. She’d found a new job at the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago’s South Loop and rented an apartment in Hyde Park. The water sprites had taken her from the island on a small boat when the earth sprite collective rebelled against Malwar, so she’d never met Inky, Mina, or me. Draven decided it was time she did.
The four of us had become closer as friends in the past two months. Draven and Inky were now boyfriends. It was amazing the changes they brought out in each other. Being with Inky had cooled Draven’s hot temper. Being with Draven had taken Inky from being a predator to a grazer. Their relationship had settled into parameters that worked for them, with a little help from me. Inky still fed on passion, but only from Draven. He fed in small amounts here and there, when they held hands, when they cuddled, when they made out. But he was careful not to take too much. Being a Grendel Kid gave Draven resilience beyond that of a human being, so he could survive Inky’s feedings a lot longer than the average man or woman. But he was still weakened from being with Inky, and he would eventually die from the feedings like all of Inky’s victims.
That’s where I intervened. In that refrigerator in my garage, the one I mentioned earlier where special things are stored under a protective spell, I kept a tiny piece of resuscitagen root. It’s from a very rare plant and carries a very hefty price tag because it can’t be duplicated magically. I had to voluntarily enslave myself for a time to a witch to obtain the little piece I had. As the name implies, the root has restorative capabilities. I gave the root to Draven, and as long as he has it on him somewhere, it instantly restores his body so he barely feels the effect of Inky’s feedings. It made it possible for him to endure Inky’s little feedings without being debilitated.
Draven was literally Inky’s life. But resuscitagen root requires refrigeration, and while Draven kept his piece cold between uses, it rotted a little every time he used it. Eventually it would become useless, but for now, it allowed Draven and Inky to be boyfriends in every sense of the word.
Mina was a bit annoyed with one of her souls. She’d gone with me a couple of weeks ago to a party Jack and Kellie threw in a downtown Chicago nightclub. Passion Mina had come out when we were dancing, and her moves were a bit… provocative. She caught the attention of a seventeen-year-old drag king whose birth name was Pauline, but he called himself Paulie. They sort of hit it off and were dating now, which meant Core Mina had to let Passion Mina out more often than she preferred.
Inky tried to set me up on a blind date with a teen wizard who had just started his apprenticeship. He showed me a picture of the guy, who was kind of cute. But I wasn’t ready to date again. I wasn’t ready to risk the pain, either for myself or the poor guy unlucky enough to get involved with me. What it really all came down to was that, even fifty years after his death, I was still in love with Angelo.
I was okay with that. Besi
des, I had good friends. Not just a set of contacts I could use when needed, but real friends.
Mina, Inky, and I arrived together at the Northbrook apartment, emerging from a bolt of black lightning right in the living room. Draven was there waiting for us.
“Hey, guys,” he gushed, grinning happily. He grabbed Inky immediately, of course, and planted a big kiss on him.
Inky licked his lips afterward. “Was that my appetizer?” he asked with a wink.
Mina rolled her eyes at that, a little smile on her face. “Could you be any cornier?”
Draven grabbed Inky by the hand. “Come on. Mom’s out on the patio. She just put the steaks on the grill.”
I watched as Draven led Inky and Mina from the living room onto the patio, where I could see his mother standing over the grill. I hung back, watching them all. Draven was fifteen now. He’d be going to summer school to make up the time he’d lost this school year. There’d be a new school for him this fall, and probably new friends. He was so happy now. So were Mina and Inky. I watched as Draven made the introductions. I listened as Draven’s mother said how happy she was to meet her son’s friends.
I watched them, and I was happy too.
Then Draven waved for me to come out, and I went to join them.
About the Author
GENE GANT grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and lives with his family in a quiet little rural community just outside the city.
By GENE GANT
Everything We Shut Our Eyes To
If You Really Love Me
Lessons on Destroying the World
The Battle for Jericho
The Supernaturals
The Thunder in His Head
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Copyright
Published by
HARMONY INK PRESS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Supernaturals
© 2014 Gene Gant.
Cover Art
© 2014 Paul Richmond.
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Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
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Digital ISBN: 978-1-63216-299-1
First Edition August 2014