Rebels of the Lamp, Book 1

by Peter Speakman

“We need your help,” said Professor Ellison.

  “Of course you do! No one ever comes to see me unless they need something. What is it? A rare herb? A map to the hidden treasures of Amenhotep IV? An introduction to some crime boss?” Maks waved his hand. The squalid men that surrounded the area all picked up their drinks and moved to the other side of the bar. “Sit! Sit! Can I get you anything?”

  “I’ll take a beer,” said Parker hopefully.

  Everyone ignored him. They all sat. Reese was instantly repulsed by the sticky table.

  Professor Ellison said, “We’re looking for the Path.”

  Maks seemed surprised. “Somebody’s looking for the Path? That’s a new one. Usually, people are looking to avoid them.”

  “Do you know where they are or not?” said Fon-Rahm. His patience was wearing thin. “We have no time for games.”

  “He’s not much on charm, is he?” Maksimilian said, a twinkle in his eye. He poured himself another drink. “I may have heard something about them skulking around. What do you want them for?”

  “That is none of your concern,” said Fon-Rahm.

  “It’s my concern if you cause trouble and it comes back to me.”

  “We’re not looking for trouble, Maksimilian,” Professor Ellison said. “Just a little information.”

  “I suppose I owe you, after what happened in Mongolia,” the fat magician said.

  The professor smiled. “I was too much of a lady to bring it up.”

  Maksimilian took a dainty sip of vodka. “I have heard—now I don’t know this for a fact, mind you, as I have not seen it with my own eyes—but I have heard that some hoodlums who may match the general description of the Path have set up shop nearby. I have also heard that they are not alone.”

  Parker said, “Xaru is with them.”

  Maks regarded Parker. “Perhaps. I value my own delicate skin too much to go and make sure.”

  “Where are they?” asked Fon-Rahm.

  “Holed up in a closed museum. It used to be named for Stalin, before the unpleasantness. There’s not much left after all the looting, but it’s big and it’s private. There are worse places to hide.”

  Professor Ellison rose, and the rest of her party joined her. “Thank you, Maks. I’ll consider us even.”

  Maksimilian kept his seat. “Think about my offer, Julia. None of us is getting any younger. Maybe someday I’ll tire of waiting and I’ll marry someone else.”

  “My loss,” said Professor Ellison as they walked out of the bar.

  Parker looked at the professor with a new sense of who she was.

  “Julia? Really?” he said.

  “Shut up,” said Professor Ellison.

  32

  “THIS IS A MISTAKE,” FON-RAHM SAID.

  They were hiding in the dark, crouched behind a low wall overlooking the crippled museum. It was a blocky monstrosity without windows or adornment, an ugly building, dingy, rundown, and sad even by Soviet standards. In its prime it would have been unpleasant. Now it was downright depressing.

  “The Path is not to be trifled with. We should proceed with patience.”

  “We should go now,” said Parker. “We don’t have time for games.”

  “There is always time for caution.”

  Professor Ellison said, “The boy is right. We don’t even know if they’ll be here in the morning, and if they leave we may not be able to follow them. Tonight we can catch them by surprise.”

  They ducked lower as a Path guard made his rounds. He passed right by their wall and stopped. Reese held her breath, but the guard only shifted his rifle’s strap from one shoulder to the other. Then he picked his nose and went on his way.

  “He’s the only guard on this side,” whispered Parker.

  Theo checked his watch. “I’ve been timing him. He goes the same way over and over. He’ll be back here in seventy seconds.”

  “I have something in here that will turn him to ash,” said the professor as she dug into her bag. “That way his family can save money on the cremation.”

  “No! We don’t have to kill him,” Reese said. “We can create a diversion and sneak past him.” She rooted around in her brain for something to justify her idea. “That’s what they did in A Tale of Two Cities.”

  “One of these days you’ll have to get over your squeamishness, my dear.”

  “Or maybe you can just stop killing everybody that we meet.”

  While Reese and the professor argued, the guard made his turn and came back to the wall. Theo picked up a baseball-sized rock, took careful aim, and simply beaned the guy in the head with it. The guard folded like a map.

  Parker stared, openmouthed, at his cousin.

  “What?” said Theo.

  They pried off some boards and made their way in through a side door. As bad as the building was from the outside, the inside was worse. The floor was marble and the walls were stained concrete. A few old paintings still hung at weird angles. Broken statues lay on the floor in pieces. It was dark and scary. It smelled like mildew.

  Fon-Rahm pointed the way. “I can sense Xaru and one other. They are this way.”

  They started to walk through the looted museum.

  “I can’t help feeling we should be armed,” said Theo.

  “Guns are for simpletons,” the professor said. “And they’re unnecessary. All we need to do is get within eyesight. I’ll cast one spell to trap the genies and another to”—she glanced over at Reese—“incapacitate the Path.”

  Theo said, “Yeah, well, I would still feel better if one of us had an Uzi.”

  The professor locked eyes with Theo. “You’re not wrong to distrust magic, Theo, but I believe you’ll find it’s sometimes necessary.” Ellison paused. “Perhaps I might even teach you a few things. Better you than”—she glanced at Parker—“someone who lacks self-control. Nothing major, of course, but enough to test the extent of your gifts.”

  “I’m tested enough already, thanks.”

  “You should give it some thought. It’s not an offer I make lightly, and it may not be repeated.”

  Professor Ellison walked on. Theo stared at the ground and followed behind her.

  They crept down a long, soggy hallway and up a curving flight of stairs. As they passed a water-damaged Renaissance painting of a woman, naked except for a strategically placed bedsheet, Parker did a double take. He went in for a closer look and then turned to Professor Ellison.

  “Is that you?” he asked incredulously.

  “I got around,” the professor said with a shrug. Reese grabbed Parker by the arm and pulled him away from the painting.

  When they got closer to the museum’s center, Fon-Rahm motioned for them to be quiet. They all took cover behind a pile of crates and shattered chunks of concrete. They peeked out and saw that they were perched on the edge of a round walkway that looked over a domed atrium. There were holes in the dome, and two stories down, the legs of what was once a giant statue of a Greek athlete stood atop a crumbling pedestal.

  They saw Xaru, pacing as he screamed at his minions.

  “Find her! Is that too much to ask?” he fumed. “I recognize that you are lower life-forms, but even for humans you are unconscionably stupid. I would have been better off with camels!”

  Fon-Rahm spoke in a whisper. “Good. They are distracted.” He turned to Professor Ellison. She was pulling the two empty lamps from Theo’s bag. The genie regarded her with mistrust. “I have your word that you will not try to trap me.”

  “I won’t. Not yet, at least.”

  “Fair enough. Do you need anything before you begin?”

  “No,” she said, “but you might want to get a mop.”

  “Why?” asked Parker.

  “Because when they realize what I’m up to they may very well wet their pants.”

  The professor made a few last-minute adjustments to the open containers. Then she stood, her arms wide to the sky, and opened her mouth to start the incantation. Before she could get a singl
e word out, Yogoth materialized out of thin air behind her.

  They had walked directly into a trap.

  33

  “PROFESSOR ELLISON!” REESE SCREAMED.

  It didn’t do any good. The ugly brute Yogoth grabbed the professor with his four arms. He used one hand to bat away her bag of tricks, and another to cover her mouth so she couldn’t speak. Fon-Rahm rushed him, but the drooling genie was faster than he looked. He batted Fon-Rahm over the railing, where he landed heavily at Xaru’s feet.

  Xaru regarded Fon-Rahm with some amusement. “Bring the witch and the children down to me,” he said, and three Path members stepped out of the shadows to seize Parker, Theo, and Reese. Two more Path members took control of Professor Ellison from Yogoth. They were careful to keep one hand clamped over her mouth.

  On the ground floor, Fon-Rahm shook off Yogoth’s hit and reached for Xaru.

  “Oh, Yogoth,” called Xaru. The four-armed genie leaped from the rail and landed directly on Fon-Rahm, forcing him to back to the ground. Then he grabbed Fon-Rahm by the legs, swung him in a circle, and let him go. Fon-Rahm was thrown through a wall and into the next room. Yogoth followed him through the hole to finish him off.

  Reese squirmed in her captor’s arms. She knew that Parker would be in pain. She was right. Parker tried not to show it, but his eyes were watering and his teeth were clenched. His head was on fire.

  As Fon-Rahm and Yogoth battled in the other room, the Path members hauled the kids and Professor Ellison down to the atrium. Xaru smiled warmly.

  “And now we’re all together,” he said, gently touching Reese’s cheek. Theo put all his strength into breaking his captor’s grip, but the thug outweighed him by a hundred pounds. He didn’t have a chance.

  Xaru shook his head. “Humans. Really. It’s all too pathetic.” Then he raised his voice so he could be heard over the sounds of the brawl in the next room. “You might as well come out now.”

  Maksimilian stepped into the atrium. Professor Ellison squirmed in the arms of her abductor and stared knives into him. Maks averted his eyes.

  “So we’re good now?” he said. “You’ll call off the Path?”

  Xaru stood directly in front of Professor Ellison, enjoying her anger. “Of course. You may go back to your little life, secure in the knowledge that you are a traitor to your own kind.”

  Maksimilian turned to leave, desperate to be anywhere else.

  “I’m sorry, Julia,” he said. “May we meet again in happier times.”

  Maks put his head down and left the museum. Professor Ellison couldn’t do anything besides close her eyes and wish that things were different.

  There was a mighty crash, and Yogoth was thrown through the wall and into the atrium. He landed near Xaru, bent iron bars pinning his four arms to his sides.

  Fon-Rahm, angry, stepped through the hole in the wall. “This is absurd, Xaru. I can defeat any of our brothers, and you and I could fight for centuries without one of us declaring victory.”

  “How right you are, Fon-Rahm,” said Xaru. “Such a flawed plan seems out of character for me. It’s almost as if I were only trying to distract you for a few moments.”

  “Distract me? Distract me from what?”

  Fon-Rahm whipped his head around, but he had figured it out too late. Nadir had been training for this moment for years. He was dressed in a robe passed down through generations and covered with arcane runes. His arms were raised, his mind was focused, and he was chanting an ancient spell. Winds whirled around him.

  Fon-Rahm’s empty lamp was set in front of him, open and waiting to welcome the genie home.

  34

  THE WIND TOOK FON-RAHM AND spun him around the room like a leaf in a hurricane. The genie bounced off the walls and tried desperately to find something, anything to grab on to. It was no use. He was pulled down and, in a haze of fog and brimstone, sucked back into the lamp. Nadir finished his spell and threw his arms to his side. The lamp sealed itself and began to faintly glow. Fon-Rahm was gone.

  Parker fell to his knees. There was no hope now. His captor dragged him back to his feet.

  If Xaru felt anything at all, it didn’t show. “Good,” he said. He turned to his prisoners. “Now, then. Tarinn, my old friend, I am well aware that you have, in your possession, one or two other recovered lamps. I have given some thought as to how I might discover where you’re hiding them, and I have decided that torturing you until you tell me is probably the most fun.”

  One of the minions holding the professor pulled out a knife.

  “She would rather die than talk!” said Parker. Easy for him to say, thought Reese. No one was threatening to cut his throat.

  “Well, let’s see!” said Xaru cheerfully. “Start with her left eye and then take her nose,” he instructed the Path member. “After that we’ll get creative.”

  Professor Ellison looked truly scared. The goon with the knife pulled back her hair and held the blade inches from her left eye. She locked her mouth shut. She would never talk.

  It was Theo who finally broke. “No! Stop! I know where the lamps are!”

  Parker said, “Theo, shut up!”

  “You shut up! They’re going to kill her!”

  “They’ll kill her if you tell them!”

  Theo turned to Xaru. “I’ll tell you, if you promise to let us go.”

  Xaru put his hand over where his heart would be, if he had a heart.

  “I promise,” he said.

  “He’s lying! Theo!” said Parker.

  Theo shut him out. “She has a secret space in the wall at her office at the university. I saw it. It’s a hiding place. I bet the lamps are in there.”

  Parker deflated like an old balloon. He didn’t think Theo would really do it.

  “Thank you. Now there is a levelheaded boy.” Xaru turned to the professor. “And you keep your entire face.”

  Parker glared at his cousin. Theo looked at the ground.

  Xaru walked over to help Yogoth, who was still struggling on the floor. “Now,” Xaru said, easily unbending the iron bars that trapped Yogoth’s arms. “Nadir. You and I, along with my dear brother Yogoth, of course, will bring Tarinn back to her home, where she will give us the lamps. No doubt she protected it with some kind of a pesky spell. She was always so clever.” He picked up Fon-Rahm’s lamp and admired the glow. “A mine in Belarus is set to be collapsed tomorrow. It reaches almost five miles into the earth. The rest of you are to place this lamp gingerly at the bottom. When they destroy the mine, poor Fon-Rahm will be buried under millions of tons of rocks and dirt. Let’s see how long it takes him to find his way out of that.”

  He caressed the lamp in a cartoonish display of brotherly love.

  “We could have shared the world,” he whispered to the lamp. Then he spoke to the Path. “Kill the children. Drop their bodies into the mine, as well. No use stirring up trouble.”

  “But, you said...” said Theo.

  “Start with him,” said Xaru, nodding at Theo. “No one likes a snitch.”

  35

  PARKER EYED PROFESSOR ELLISON’S BAG. It was plopped down against a wall, kicked aside and ignored in all the confusion. He didn’t know any of the spells that went with the doodads inside, but he knew the bag was filled with powerful stuff. If he could reach it, he thought, he’d find some kind of magical talisman he could use as a weapon. He would make the guards tell him where they had taken Fon-Rahm’s lamp, and he would figure out a way to stop Xaru from getting into the secret hiding place in Professor Ellison’s office. He would save the world from genie domination. He would be a hero to Theo and Reese. His mom would be sorry she had treated him so badly. His dad would realize that he had made a huge mistake in being so selfish and abandoning him.

  If he could reach the bag.

  But he couldn’t. Parker was sitting on the floor with Theo and Reese. Their backs were propped up against the base of the statue, and their feet were stretched out in front of them. Their ankles and wrists were tied with
rough, itchy nylon rope and, just to make things a little more uncomfortable for them, they were each gagged with a piece of cloth that smelled like sweat and tasted salty. Parker could no more reach the bag than he could swim the Pacific Ocean with a motorcycle strapped to his back.

  Xaru, Yogoth, and Nadir had taken the professor and four or five members of the Path back to New Hampshire. Some of the others grabbed Fon-Rahm’s lamp and left for the abandoned mine in Belarus. The goons who remained behind were sitting around an old crate, playing cards in the dim light. They were pretty drunk. They goaded and insulted one another in whatever language it was that they spoke. While they were distracted, Parker used a jagged crack in the marble pedestal to saw at his ropes, but he wasn’t getting anywhere. He hoped that they would play cards all night.

  One of the Path members threw down his cards in frustration and the others laughed. He had lost the game. He protested, but the others waved him off as they got up and collected their gear. One of the goons slapped Parker’s face. He said something funny to his comrades and they laughed and staggered out of the atrium. Parker knew that the man they were leaving behind had lost the game and gained a chore. It was his job to kill Parker, Theo, and Reese.

  The remaining minion got unsteadily to his feet and carefully folded a map. It took him three tries to find his pocket. Then he weaved his way over to where the children were tied and unsheathed a dagger from his belt.

  Parker felt Theo squirming away beside him. Then the Path member pushed Theo’s head back and put his knife to Theo’s throat. Theo shut his eyes tight.

  “MmmmmMMMmM,” said Reese through her gag. “MMmmmmmMMm.” She had something to say. The Path member ignored her and turned back to Theo, but Reese was insistent.

  “MMMmmMMMMmMMMM!” she said.

  Finally, the man with the dagger relented. He leaned over and pulled Reese’s gag down.

  “Thank you!” said Reese. “That thing was driving me nuts.”

  The Path member had a quizzical expression on his face as Reese swept his legs out from underneath him with one swift and powerful kick. The dagger flew out of the minion’s hand as he fell and smacked his head hard on the marble floor.