“She’s taking this to a whole new level,” Marielle said.
Abby raked her fingers through her impossibly tall hair and pulled it up even higher. “The idiots will show up, get themselves turned into half-djinn, and they have no idea. They probably think her minions are, like, angels and crap.”
“Something tells me that’s not what she’s planning,” I said.
“Then what?” Maven asked.
“She wants to turn us against one another.” Marielle looked into my eyes, her gaze practically begging me to contradict her.
I couldn’t. Instead, I gave her a simple nod and hated myself for never being able to give her what she required of me. Her beautiful green eyes lowered to the floor. The curtain of her black lashes hid the turmoil my confirmation caused.
“But this changes everything.” Abby blinked several times in a row, shaking her head. “It would mean . . .” She didn’t seem able to get her head around it.
“What does she mean sayin’ wear my seal?” Javier asked. “Could be the six six six? Number of the beast? ’Cause she’s el diablo!”
Letting go of Marielle’s hand, I walked to the window. My gaze wandered over the arched branches of the majestic live oaks outside. As my thoughts fell into place, I could well imagine the joy this new course of action was giving Akeelah. She despised humans, hated them with the single-mindedness of a predator on a hunt. What better, more wicked game could there be than pitching humans against humans?
“She will make people kill each other, and she will delight in it,” I said. Without looking, I knew I had everyone’s attention, their gazes a branding iron on the back of my neck. “If I know her well, she prefers this plan over her previous one. It will amuse her to no end to see neighbors turn against neighbors, to cause brothers to betray each other, to drive humans into a self-destructive war.”
I turned and faced those burning, weary eyes, all watching me.
“You don’t think she’s just gonna sit back and watch us drive each other into extinction. That would take fuckin’ forever.” Samuel seemed to think this was a stupid idea, but that was because he didn’t know Akeelah and couldn’t comprehend that she’d already lived a few forevers. One forever was to a Djinn what an atom was to the universe.
“That’s exactly what I think,” I said.
Samuel blew air through tightened lips to show what he thought of my opinion. The expression on everyone else’s faces was a whole other matter, though. They trusted me. It gave me no satisfaction.
“Yeah,” Abby said, “this changes everything. I guess we can forget about poisoned water and biohazard suits. What if some of them show up here? Looks like hand-to-hand combat and weapons training would be handier. I always wanted to learn jujitsu. Plug me in, please!” She laughed bitterly at what she thought was a joke. No one else laughed. She shook herself and frowned. “I was joking, y’all. You don’t think we’ll actually need to fight other people, do you?”
Everyone turned to me as if I was the fountain of knowledge and answers.
I felt dry.
I didn’t want them to have to fight. War was a terrible beast that ate at your sanity one death at a time. I knew just how it could erode your soul, even when the cause was just. I had spilled my share of blood in the battlefields of my human life, all to prove to my father I was worthy. I wanted none of that for them, for Marielle. My eyes searched hers and found them. She was scared, her lower lip trembling.
Dear God, how could I keep this suffering from them?
As hard as it was to accept, my magic would be nothing against Akeelah and her army. There was nothing I could do to stop her until we figured out a way to properly cast the spell. Once we did, our attack had to come as a surprise. That was the only way we could ever succeed.
“In a way,” I said, hoping to raise their morale as well as mine, “this is a good thing.”
“A good thing?!” Javier scratched his head.
Samuel nodded, understanding. “Yeah, people will kill each other but, like I said, it’ll take forever. On the flip side, if she’d decided to use weapons of mass destruction, billions would’ve died in the blink of an eye. So this is probably the best case scenario in terms of casualties.”
I nodded. “Death is death, so it’s a small consolation, but one I feel grateful for. Of course, it doesn’t mean she won’t lose patience. She might still decide to do the unthinkable. So, we should get our plan together and we should act as quickly as possible.”
“What are we waiting for then?” Marielle reached for her backpack, pulled out Gallardo’s heavily bound tome and deposited it on the island. Zet’s stone peeked out of the bag, and I did my best to ignore it.
This was no time for regrets. It was time to find a way to put the banishing spell into practice.
12
Marielle
“What in the hell is that?” Samuel stared a the thick book with skepticism. “Are y’all planning to cause her death by blunt trauma?” he snickered to himself.
Ignoring him, everyone gathered around the island, eyes full of curiosity. Samuel stayed back for a moment, but in the end, he shuffled closer and frowned at the book.
“We got this from a man named Miguel Gallardo,”
I shuddered, remembering him and how I had led him to Akeelah. Thousands of people had died because of me, because Gallardo had revealed the unthinkable to the devil herself. Faris insisted we shared the blame, but I doubted it worked that way. Judgment day was not a shared affair. My guilt was my own.
And it was terrible.
“Gallardo,” I continued, “is an expert in Middle Eastern Mythology. He was an Oxford professor. Abby, Maven and I went to see him, hoping he would know of a way to destroy a Djinn. As an answer, he showed us this.”
I opened the tome to the bookmarked page that showed the large, oval stone carved with cuneiform characters.
“What is it exactly?” Helen asked, giving Maven a sideways, disapproving glance. We had flown to Spain without telling anyone. Maven’s mom was clearly still upset about that.
“It’s a banishing spell,” Maven blurted out, trying to distract Helen.
Faris placed a hand on the photograph of the ancient stone and traced a line of characters with the tip of his index finger. “The stone is very old and, indeed, it contains a banishing spell which involved summoning a demon powerful enough to devour Akeelah.”
Benito pressed closer to his parents. The boy was learning English fast.
“What?!” Samuel shook his head. “A demon? Having an evil Djinn running loose isn’t enough for you?”
“Just shut your mouth, Samuel.” Maven bumped his shoulder against his brother’s, causing him to stagger backward. “You know nothing about any of this, so keep your opinions to yourself, unless the topic of conversation involves ugly tattoos.”
“Tattoos?!” Helen exclaimed. “You have a tattoo? When did that happen? You didn’t ask for my permission.”
“Yes, Mom. I have a tattoo,” Samuel said in a tired tone. “And I’m nineteen, old enough to make my own decisions.”
Abby giggled to herself. “But apparently not old enough to pick a nice one.”
“You—” Samuel began.
“Can we focus, please?” I interrupted.
“I thought you wanted to do this as a team, but I guess only your own opinions matter.” Samuel pouted like a three-year-old.
“Your opinions are welcome, as long as they are constructive and relevant, not a waste of time. You’re nineteen, so I trust you to know the difference,” I said, then moved on. Samuel was just a hog for attention and a queen for drama. The less we fell prey to his antics, the better.
He narrowed his eyes at me, looking as he was wishing for laser vision. I rolled my eyes at him.
“Faris has read the inscriptions on the stone carefully,” I said. “He thinks the spell will work, if done properly.”
“No want to sound like Samuel,” Javier said, “but how can a demon help?
We no need one runnin’ ‘round loose.”
Samuel crossed his arms and raised a blond eyebrow, striking a self-satisfied pose.
“Despite what anyone might think,” Faris said. “Demons don’t like the physical world. They prefer to stay in their own realm, preying on each other. To summon a demon, one needs power to hold it here long enough and make it do your bidding.”
“So the demon will fight Akeelah?” Helen asked.
“No, not fight her,” Faris said. “We need a demon powerful enough to absorb her, to take her essence and make it part of itself. Once it has trapped her, we would send the demon back to its realm. And, with it, Akeelah.”
“So what’s the catch? Why haven’t you done this already?” Samuel asked.
Maven sighed, but said nothing. It was a fair question because there was a catch.
Faris held his palms out, an offer of truth and resignation. “We haven’t done it because I’m not strong enough to summon such a demon.”
13
Faris
I hated to admit it. I wanted to be powerful enough to destroy Akeelah, but I would never be able to cast the spell by myself.
During my short human life, I fought my own battles. The sword sat in my hands and spilled the blood of those who dared threaten my people. The enemy was no match for my skill and resolve. In this instance, however, those two things weren’t enough, and there was no way to make up for what I lacked.
I would have given anything to make the battle even. Akeelah against me, and no one else. But fighting her was the same as one weak man taking on a hundred mighty ones.
I needed help, as hard as it was to accept. Where that help would come from was anyone’s guess.
“All right, so being constructive here,” Samuel shot Marielle a pointed look, “we’re screwed. Because if you can’t do it—the only supposed Djinn around these parts—then no one else can.”
“You’re assuming Djinn are the only ones who can conjure demons,” Marielle said. “That’s not the case.”
“So what? One of you has this kick-ass skill and has been hiding it from the world?” Samuel’s gaze darted around and stopped when it got to Abby. “Oh, man! I always thought you were packing something dangerous inside that tiny frame of yours, Ms. White.”
Abby lifted a hand in his direction, offering him an obscene gesture.
“That’s it!” Maven exclaimed. “Let’s take this outside. I’m going to kick your ass.” Without waiting for a reaction from anyone, Maven turned on his heel and walked out of the house.
We stared at Samuel while he just stood there, looking confused, as if he couldn’t figure out why his brother was suddenly fed up with him.
“I’m waiting, you coward.” Maven’s angry voice echoed from the hallway.
Samuel’s gaze moved to his mother’s.
“A man has to fight his own fights,” I said. This was something Maven and Samuel needed to sort out by themselves.
I remembered fighting with my own brother, solving with our fists what words could not fix. In the end, it had always been satisfying and worth it, no matter the bloody lips or black eyes. Things would have turned out quite differently if we had settled our last quarrel in that manner.
“I agree,” Helen said to everyone’s surprise.
Samuel squared his shoulders. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he walked out of the kitchen. We followed close behind.
Outside, Maven waited, standing in the middle of the yard. Samuel took the porch steps one at a time. Everyone else stayed on the porch. Marielle stood beside me and gave me a worried look.
“They need this. Trust me,” I said. Her worried expression eased a little.
“Who do you think will win?” Abby asked from behind her fingernails as she bit them.
Marielle shrugged.
“I mean . . . it would be like fighting yourself.” Abby sounded baffled.
Maven faced Samuel and, indeed, it was like seeing someone standing in front of a mirror, only the mirror wasn’t functioning correctly because Maven stood ready to fight, his knees bent, his fists at the ready, while Samuel stood straight as a rod, hands hanging at his sides.
The fight was over faster than I could have imagined.
Samuel threw the first punch, after considerable taunting from his brother. He attacked in anger, which is to say he attacked blindly, and all Maven had to do was duck. Then, as Samuel tried to regain his balance, Maven delivered a quick punch to the gut that sent his brother to his knees and left him gasping for air.
“That was it?” Abby asked in a disappointed whisper.
“I think Maven pulled that punch,” Marielle whispered back.
She was right. Maven had been gentle on his brother and, now, he was extending a hand in his direction, offering help. For a moment, Samuel stared at Maven’s hand without moving but, in the end, he took it and lumbered to his feet. They stood, facing each other for a moment. The mirror functioning properly this time, as they stared into each other’s eyes, a silent agreement passing between them.
Something dark and ancient twisted inside of me, a pain so deep that it made me weak at the knees. My brother’s image rose before me, his youthful face smiling, searching for my approval. Then his happy expression morphed into a grimace of pain and hatred, and he was sucked into the stone that still held him captive.
Brother, if it was up to me to offer forgiveness.
But it was all in Zet’s hands. If he could understand that I didn’t set out to take Cala from him, if he could remove the blindfold from his eyes and see that she had made her own choice without any encouragement from me, then maybe he would find a way to forgive my mistakes, my own blindness. Because, in spite of my youth, I should have foreseen the outcome. I should have seen Cala’s attention for what it was, and I should have stayed far, far away from her.
I looked over at Marielle, fully aware that if things had been different, I would have never met her. And so it was impossible to regret my brother’s existence inside the atoms of a cursed stone.
The dark, ancient guilt inside of me stirred even more.
Sensing my distress, Marielle moved closer, slipped her hand into mine.
“Zet will find his way out,” she said.
How was my heart so open for her perusal? How could she read me so well? I smiled, feeling comforted and known to the marrow of my bones.
Three words crossed my mind and heart, and I had to clamp my lips not to utter them right there and then.
14
Marielle
I never knew a good punch in the gut could work such wonders.
Disregarding the pinched expression on his face—which could very well be caused by pain—Samuel was being as pleasant as a sedated lamb. Of course, the pleasantry had a lot to do with the fact that he hadn’t said a thing since we came back into the kitchen, but still. It was possible he was trying to conserve oxygen.
“So to recap,” Abby said, “we need to summon a demon powerful enough to swallow up Akeelah, and Faris—the only one with any sort of magical powers—isn’t strong enough to call up such a demon.”
“Thanks, Abby. That is accurate,” Faris said, looking embarrassed once more. I could tell how much it bothered him not to be able to fight Akeelah like an equal.
“One question,” Anita asked, talking for the first time, “can more than one person do el conjuro?”
“Yeah, is that possible?” Abby looked as if she’d never considered this.
Faris and I had discussed many possibilities, and this was one of them. Sadly, his knowledge on this matter only went as far as what he’d learned during his own transformation from human to Djinn.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. He hated to disappoint everyone, especially when they expected so much from him. “But it’s a good question.”
“And if that’s not possible,” Abby said, “what if two people conjure two separate demons, each half as powerful as Akeelah, how about that?”
Far
is shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I guess that’s not something we should try unless we’re extremely certain,” Maven said, reaching for a box of Cheerios from an adjacent counter. He opened it and began to thoughtfully pop cereal into his mouth.
“Hey, gimme some of that?” Abby put out a hand and he deposited a fistful into it. They crunched cereal like a couple of squirrels.
“So,” Abby said between bites, “where do we find another Middle Easter Mythology expert? I doubt New Orleans is a Mecca for more Gallardos. Ha! I’m so clever.” She laughed at her own joke.
Maven messed her already messy hair. “Yes, you are.”
Abby grinned, chomping on her Cheerios.
“We are a Mecca for weird Voodoo shit, though.” Samuel finally opened his mouth and, for once, it was to say something useful.
An idea sprang into my mind. I berated myself for not thinking of it earlier. “Oh, my God!”
“Is he onto something?” Abby asked. “I think he’s onto something!”
Both Abby and Maven looked at me, their eyes widening as their brains skidded in front of the same idea as mine had.
“Crap!” Abby exclaimed. “We’ve been sitting on the perfect source for weird this whole time.”
“We need to go to Jardin Noir,” I said.
15
Akeelah
Gallardo lay on the metal table, leather straps secured tightly around his wrists and ankles. Vic stepped aside after a final check on the restraints.
“Let me go. I’ll tell you everything,” Gallardo pleaded.
“Well, that didn’t take long.” Vic looked disgusted and slightly disappointed. Like Andy, he had come to enjoy torturing and killing the Dross who unwillingly found their way to this table.
“Speak, then,” Akeelah said. “What makes you think anyone would be able to stop me?”
One Wish Away: Djinn Empire Complete Series Page 59