“Yeah, sure. Pull the other one and we can play ‘Jingle Bells.’ ”
“Don’t you see? You’re Dehbei. Not only are you a late-generation scion, born to this world untethered and pulling from the magic of your own realm, but your djinn strengths are already earth based. Your potential is … well, frankly, it’s frightening.”
“Wait a minute.” I shoved my hands in my pockets, afraid they might start shaking. “Are you saying I actually have a chance against these assholes? That I can get Ian and Tory out of there and survive?”
“You might. With the proper training.”
“Then train me.”
He closed his eyes. “I don’t think I should do that.”
“Please. Jesus—I mean jeepers. Whatever. Look, what they’re doing to him makes the Spanish Inquisition look like a bunch of Boy Scouts. God … er, heaven knows what they’re doing to Tory. I can’t destroy Ian. I don’t want to destroy him. Yes, he’s a bastard, but he has reasons. You know what they are.” I stopped for a breath and wondered briefly what Ian would think if he knew I was begging a Morai for help. Probably something like I will tear your limbs off, blasted thief. “They murdered his wife. They’re cutting him to ribbons. And your sister’s planning to make him father a child with her.”
“Yes. Which means she’ll continue to hunt me. She needs me to perform the ba’isis.”
“Then we avoid them for a few days. You train me, I go in and get them. And your sister leaves you alone.”
A deep frown etched his lips. “She’ll be expecting you to come for him. She probably wants you to, so she can use you to further command his obedience.”
“Yeah, she said as much. But she won’t be expecting me to know what I’m doing when I get there. She thinks I’m weak. And she doesn’t know I can spy on her.” A chill jolted my spine. I didn’t exactly enjoy the spying method. Maybe Ian wouldn’t think about me over the next few days.
And maybe Vaelyn would call off the whole torture thing and sit Ian down for a nice chat over milk and cookies.
Calvin propped his elbows on his knees and stared at me over steepled fingers, like a principal considering the best punishment for a wayward child. Finally, he said, “Very well, apprentice. I’ll teach you what I can. But should I believe you intend to destroy me, I reserve the right to defend myself.”
“Thank you.”
I refused to think further than the next few days. Get Ian and Tory out. I had to concentrate on that. After they were safe, we could worry about the next problem—which was the tiny matter of Vaelyn, who sure as hell wasn’t going to say Oh, well, back to the drawing board when she lost her favorite torture victim.
And since they shared a tether, we couldn’t destroy her without destroying Calvin too.
Chapter 21
I took my jacket off and folded it. “Are you sure I have to do this?”
“Yes. The fastest way for you to learn your power is to discover the source.”
“But do I have to take all my clothes off ?”
Calvin smirked. “You can leave your underwear.”
“Gee. Thanks.” If he was messing with me, it didn’t show. Much. I rolled my eyes and kicked free of my shoes, yanked my vest and shirt off, and did the rest before I could lose my nerve. At least I’d put on clean underwear before I left the house and got caught in a downpour. I rubbed at the goose pimples on my arms and hopped from foot to foot. “It’s kinda cold in here. Is that fireball of yours hot?”
“Not especially. But if you’d like, I can set your pants on fire.”
I glared at him. “All right. What am I supposed to do?”
“Lie down.”
“On this rock?”
“Unless you’d prefer lying outside in the mud.”
Fantastic choices. Groaning, I lowered myself to the ground and stretched out flat on my back. Cold stone nipped my flesh and sent prickles through my limbs. “Now what?”
“Close your eyes. Feel the earth.”
“What, all of it?”
“Concentrate, apprentice.”
I closed my eyes and wondered why none of the djinn could bother calling me by name. Except Tory, and he always got it wrong.
I could feel the earth, all right. It was poking me in the spine, digging against my shoulder blades, caressing the back of my head like a brick wall. Unyielding, unwelcoming, practically pushing me away. Why couldn’t we have been hiding in a nice, soft meadow? At least it didn’t smell too bad in here. It was dank and musty, the way I guessed most caves smelled, but outside of that I caught the scent of fresh rain, moist dirt, the perfume of a thousand pines dashed through a mountain wind.
Below me, the rock warmed—or my skin grew numb with the cold. I couldn’t tell which. I tried to concentrate on that, on the feeling of stone against me, the idea that I was touching the world. And I felt … something. A deep-seated buzzing, like an itch that I couldn’t quite reach. I strained for it, attempting to break it open, but the sensation hovered just beyond my grasp.
Come on, you bastard. Instinct told me the key was right there, directly at my mental fingertips. All I had to do was touch it, take it into me, and I could use it. But the circuit refused to complete. The buzzing intensified, filled every muscle and vein until I was convinced I’d start flopping around on the cave floor with smoke pouring out of me like a downed power line.
The electric flood ceased abruptly. I opened my eyes. “Ow.”
“Nothing?”
“Not exactly nothing.” I pushed up and drew my knees to my chest. “Something’s there. I just can’t touch it.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm, what?”
Calvin shook his head. He stood, stretched. “We’ll have to try again later. For now, there are a few important spells you should learn right away. Shielding, for one. And paralyzing. And suspension.”
“If by suspension you mean flying, forget it. These feet were made to stay on the ground.”
“You’ll learn it anyway.” He pointed past me and gestured. My pile of clothes floated off the ground, drifted toward me, and landed in my lap. “Most spells have more than one use. Get dressed. I’m going to reactivate Barzan’s wards. We should stay here as long as possible—the more we venture out, the greater the chance Vaelyn will find us.”
After I managed to reel my jaw back in, I redressed quickly and watched Calvin work. He used blood to retrace some of the symbols on the walls, and words that made them glow like the identifying marks on a tether. The light eventually faded and vanished. When he’d done half a dozen of them, he returned to his seat. “All right, apprentice,” he said. “We’ll start with shields.”
Hours later, I decided Brother Calvin had missed his calling. He should’ve been a drill sergeant, or maybe a prison guard. If he’d been Rocky’s trainer, Apollo Creed would’ve been on the mat in round three.
“I’m tapped,” I groaned from my latest flight crash position. Since I hadn’t figured out how to get to the earth magic—if it even existed, and after the last three tries I’d started to think Calvin was as crazy as his sister—I had to rely on the old painful and draining method to learn this stuff. “I got nothing left.”
“Try again.”
I didn’t even have enough strength to glare at him. Learning shields hadn’t been too bad. They were for deflecting minor spells, and they could keep other djinn from detecting power for a short time. The lockdown spell was harder. I’d managed it, eventually, but the effect lasted less than a minute when I cast it. And flying … ugh. I’d get airborne, wobble around for a few seconds, and then drop like a lead balloon.
I struggled to my feet and leaned on the wall for a minute. No point in asking for a break. At the rate we were going, I figured he wouldn’t let me stop until I passed out. I closed my eyes and tried to convince myself that flying wasn’t so bad. Birds did it. Planes did it. Bats—no. Bad example. I decided to think of it as a really high, really slow jump.
When I opened them again, I
was ten feet off the floor and rising.
“Shit!” The minute I opened my mouth, I started losing altitude. Fast. In desperation, I ordered myself to stop before I hit the ground and broke something important. Like my spine.
It worked. Sort of. I slowed and floated down to land with an ungraceful stumble. “Enough,” I gasped. “I can’t do any more. I’m tired, I’m in pain, and I’m extremely cranky.”
For an instant Calvin looked like he’d laugh, but he gave an imperious little nod and said, “Very well. You should rest. You are human, after all.” He shifted position, stretched his legs out. “And I need some time to think.”
“You do that.” I limped over to the wall and sat with my back against it. No way I was going to lie down on that damned rock floor again. I figured I’d just relax for a few minutes, close my eyes, and maybe inventory my pockets. Try to come up with some masterful one-man invasion strategy involving shields, weak-ass lockdown spells, and a three-inch switchblade.
I was asleep before I could fully appreciate the fact that I wasn’t flying anymore.
I smelled smoke.
My body reacted before my brain and jolted me awake. Flames leaped and crackled in the fire confined in a circle of stones ten feet from me. Between the firelight and the weak rays of sun slanting through the roots that covered the cave entrance, I made out the enormous snake heading for me.
I yanked the Sig from my pocket and took aim. “Don’t even think about it,” I said. “If you think passing out is an indication that I’m going to destroy you, I’ll be happy to get the hell out of this cave and away from you.”
The snake hissed. It sounded annoyed. It glowed, coiled in on itself, and became Calvin. “Don’t be ridiculous, apprentice. And save your strength. You’ll need it for today.” He turned and walked toward the fire. “I had to heal myself,” he said without turning around. “I broke my arm.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“Catching breakfast.” He sat on his rock and pointed. There was a spit over the fire, with four fist-size black lumps skewered on it.
“Um. What are those?” Please say hamburger.
“Bats.”
“Of course they are.” I swallowed and scooted closer. “I don’t suppose you have anything else on you? Loaves and fishes, maybe some stale communion wafers …”
“Don’t worry. They taste like chicken.”
“Yeah. Cannibals say that about humans too.” The aroma of roasting bat wafted over to me. My brain said Oh, hell no, but my empty stomach overrode it with a snarl of Meat! I was about to eat a flying rodent. This’d be the first item on the list of things I wouldn’t share with Jazz when I got out of this. If I got out of this.
If she’d even speak to me when I got out.
Damn, it hurt to think about her. How she’d been at the end—not furious, but finished. She’d had enough of me, and I couldn’t blame her. Love wasn’t enough to put up with the constant threat to her life and Cy’s just because they were with me. I should’ve left them alone.
I would, when this was over. I’d tell her they were better off without me. Take my djinn and go home. The fact that the only home I’d ever known was with her didn’t matter. I could go back to living in cars and hotel rooms for the rest of my life, if it meant Jazz and Cy would be safe.
My pocket buzzed. When I figured out it wasn’t the power of the earth failing to work through me, I dug my cell out. The screen was still cracked and flashing, but I caught the incoming number. Jazz. Maybe she’d been reading my mind. “ ’Scuse me a sec,” I muttered in Calvin’s direction. I wandered off to a corner of the cave and answered with a neutral, “Hello.”
“Donatti, what the fuck is going on?”
She sounded so shaken, I immediately envisioned hordes of Morai scions invading Lark’s place, and them hiding in his bunker while the bastards trashed the house. “Are you all right?”
“We’re fine. Except for Lark—he’s a wreck. He can’t get hold of Tory. Where are you guys?”
“Um.” My gut churned like a tornado. There was no way to break things gently, but I couldn’t make myself spit anything out.
“Um is not a good answer. What happened?”
“Jazz …” I sucked in a breath that burned my lungs. “They killed Akila.”
Her silence was shattering.
“Jazz?”
Her voice trembled when she finally spoke. “Did you see them do it?”
“We didn’t have to.” My jaw clenched in memory of the devastation on Ian’s face. At least I wouldn’t have to explain too much. Jazz knew how djinn marriage bonds worked. “Ian’s ring broke. Exploded.”
There was a long pause. “But there’s another way to break them,” she said. “Remember? She was going to do it at Trevor’s.”
The whole scene with Trevor and Lenka flashed through my head. Akila begging the Morai leader to spare Ian’s life in exchange for a bond with her. Lenka, sneering and cold: You would mutilate yourself for him? No one had to spell out what that meant. The bond could be broken if her finger was cut off.
Still, it wasn’t enough. “She was tethered to her ring,” I said as evenly as I could. “If it’s been destroyed … so has she.”
Jazz covered the phone, but not in time to completely hide a wrenching sob. I waited. When she came back on, her voice was hoarse but steady. “You still haven’t told me where you guys are. Lark’s losing it here.”
I couldn’t help noticing that she didn’t express any concern about me. The observation killed any lingering doubt over the decision to get out of her life. She didn’t need me fucking things up. “Ian went crazy when they killed her, and took off for their little nest. You know, the one they lined with lethal hardware. Tory followed him. He said—” I swallowed hard. “He said to tell Lark he’d come back if he could.”
“Great. That’ll cheer him up.” Her attempt at sarcasm fell flat. “What about you?”
Christ. Why did she have to pretend she cared? “I’m in a cave, learning ancient wisdom from a monk.”
“Not the Morai.”
“Yeah. It’s a long story.” I closed my eyes and leaned back on the cave wall. “Look, I’m working on getting them out of there. I don’t know how long it’s going to take. A few days, I hope. Tell Lark I’ll do everything I can to make sure Tory gets back to him, okay?”
“Gavyn …”
My breath caught. “What?”
Seconds ticked by. “Never mind,” she whispered. And hung up.
I replaced the phone and made my way back to the fire. Calvin didn’t ask about the conversation. I would’ve been grateful if I could have felt anything at that point. He handed me a flat stone, vaguely plate shaped, with two blackened lumps on it. “Soup’s on.”
“Yummy.” I took it and sat cross-legged on the floor. Despite the loud demands of my stomach, I wasn’t quite ravenous enough to dive right into crunchy bat nuggets. Maybe it tasted like chicken, but it sure as hell didn’t look appetizing. It might be better if I didn’t look at what I was eating.
Or if I used a little magic to boost the appeal.
I closed my eyes and thought hard about chicken. The colonel’s best, extra-crispy all-white breast meat. I held a hand out and passed it over the bat carcasses a few times. A slight twinge in my chest said it was working. When I looked down again, I had two golden brown hunks of fried chicken on my plate. Much better. I grabbed one, already drooling.
“What did you do?”
Calvin looked as stunned as he sounded. I shrugged. “Ian told me that magic doesn’t change what something is, just your perception of it. Bats are edible—I guess—but I’d rather it looked and smelled like chicken too instead of just tasting like it.”
His shock morphed to a smile. “An excellent idea. Maybe there’s hope for you.” He held his plate toward me. “Would you mind? I’d prefer fish, if possible.”
“It’s easy. I think you can handle it.”
“I will not—”
“Use your powers. Yeah, I know.” I had a feeling he was going to end up breaking that particular vow soon, like it or not. Since I only knew one kind of fish, batter dipped and fried, I concentrated on it and made the transformation. “There you go. Consider it payment for services rendered.”
“Thank you.” Calvin drew his plate back with obvious approval. “I have water for us too. Perhaps you could turn it into wine.”
“Make mine a beer, and I’m in.”
Grinning, I dug into my Kentucky Fried Bat.
Chapter 22
Another round of lying on rocks brought me no closer to becoming one with the earth.
Calvin made a weary gesture, signaling me to stop, and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Perhaps it’s been too long,” he said. “For you, or for this realm. I can feel the reluctance of the magic. It doesn’t want to be used, possibly because of the black sorcerers, or even the djinn.”
“Terrific. So I’m trying to crack the whole damned planet’s defense system?” I sat up and brushed rock dust off my back. “I’m a good thief, but not that good.”
“Yes. Well.” He stood and paced a few steps. “If you’re unable to draw on your magic, maybe you should consider calling off your mission. It’ll be suicide.”
“What’s your problem?”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“How can you keep telling me to forget about them?” I yanked my clothes back on and held in a scream. “Haven’t you ever cared about anyone? I can’t walk away from this.”
“You should. Vaelyn will destroy all of you.”
“Jesus Christ. Yes, I swore. Sue me.” I finally understood why Ian and Tory both hated cowards. “What about Mercy?”
He gave me that castrating look. “What about her?”
“If they had Mercy, would you walk away, let them do whatever they wanted with her?”
“Mercy has nothing to do with this,” he said. “She’s not involved with the djinn, at all. I’ve made sure of it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Except for you.”
“I would never—”
“Come on, Calvin. Stop thinking like a monk for a minute.” If he really didn’t get it, I’d have to make him understand. “I can’t possibly know more about your clan than you do. Get offended if you want to, but you know damned well the Morai aren’t above using people you care about to get to you. And you do care about her, don’t you?”
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