She had been aware of things ever since there was anything to be aware of. And, in all that time, she’d never heard of anything—not even in rumors—that would be able to stop her. Still, she knew better than to sneer at the possibility. Not every rock under the sun had been upturned, not every secret revealed.
“If I tell you, you will let me go,” Gallardo said, not as a question, but as something he deeply wanted to believe.
She didn’t want to disappoint him. “I will.”
“There is an ancient spell carved onto a stone. The spell describes the means to destroy a Djinn.”
“Destroy?” Akeelah found her voice rising in surprise.
Not stop, but destroy? What ludicrous nonsense was this?
“Yes.” Gallardo nodded awkwardly from his prone position.
“You seem to give this stone credit, why?”
“It was recorded by a magus. I once caught a glimpse of a similar stone which described how to turn a man into one’s magical slave. Since meeting you, I’ve confirmed the stone is accurate. The proof is right there.” He looked at the collection of bottles resting atop the wooden crate. “Therefore, I have no reason to doubt the second stone is real.”
“That’s why the girl went looking for you,” Vic said. “And now, she has the stone. You gave it to her.”
Akeelah’s anger flared through her essence like a firestorm.
“No no no!” Gallardo was adamant. “I didn’t give her anything. I never had the stone, just a photograph. I showed it to her for just a moment, then put it away.”
“So she doesn’t have it?” Vic asked doubtfully.
“I . . . well . . . I went back to my house. Andy took me there before he brought me to London. I wanted to hide the book that contained the picture, wanted to put it in a safe place. But . . .”
“It wasn’t where you left it,” Vic said in a tired tone that made it obvious he’d dealt with this kind of stupidity before.
Gallardo’s only answer was a deep, audible swallow.
“So now Faris has it.” Akeelah whirled, her legs dissolving into a funnel cloud, her eyes glowing so intensely that they cast a red glow all around her.
She shot up into the air, then descended at a staggering speed, headed straight for Gallardo’s chest. Even though he knew she couldn’t harm a single hair on his body, the man cowered, shrinking as if to meld his body into the table.
If she could have, Akeelah would have pierced through his heart, taking away his life essence as she came out on the other side. But she was powerless against these filthy creatures she so deeply despised, and her downward momentum came to an abrupt stop just mere millimeters from his chest. She slammed to a halt as if an invisible wall had materialized between them.
Gallardo, that despicable Dross, whimpered with his eyes tightly shut, an animal much lesser than any street dog ever was.
“You will tell me everything there is to know,” Akeelah spoke into his ear. “But first, let me make sure you are quite unwilling.” She reduced her voice to a threatening purr. “You will be my slave forever and ever and ever. Your prison will be a bottle you shall never leave unless I deem it absolutely necessary.”
She disappeared and reappeared an instant later several yards away from the piece of scum.
“Do away with him,” she told Vic, as she prepared to conjure a demon.
Gallardo screamed. He was definitely quite unwilling.
16
Marielle
Faris parked the Hummer in front of Jardin Noir. We had circled the street a couple of times, making sure it was safe to stop. It seemed silly to me. I imagined anyone could have been hiding beyond the nursery’s chain-link fence or in the woods across the street, but Faris seemed at ease and reassured somehow.
“I don’t sense her magic,” he said, squinting at the darkness past the fence. It was 10 P.M., dark and silent but for the chirping of a thousand crickets.
Clearly, Faris wasn’t worried about human lurkers. Only Akeelah seemed to give him pause.
We hopped out of the car, our shoes crunching the gravel on the parking area. The sound alone brought a ton of memories crashing down on me.
Grandpa. Dad.
I had lost Grandpa Arthur. Was Dad gone, too? I imagined him in Akeelah’s clutches while I was here, chasing what might be an impossibility. But what else could I do? We couldn’t fight her. Not really. If she truly had taken Dad, the spell was our only chance to rescue him. Besides, if we didn’t do this, the whole world was doomed.
Faris pushed the service entrance open. The hinges squeaked. They desperately needed oil. I could almost see Grandpa cringing at the sound and hurrying along to get a can of WD-40 from his supply shelf.
We waited for a few beats before going in. The silence became absolute, as if even the insects knew the stakes and wanted us to be able to listen better.
One slow step at a time, we walked down the center aisle, between wildly overgrown and dead plants. Without care and with the cold of winter, those that could grow did while the rest died.
My heart ached for Grandpa. This place had been his life. He and Grandma Eloise opened the nursery when they were young. Both Mom and I grew up playing between the exotic plants and eying the strange customers that Jardin Noir’s trade attracted. It was that list of customers that had brought us here tonight.
We trod ahead like cats on padded feet, our eyes darting in every direction, searching the shadows behind the shelves. Stars glowed above the mesh canopy. A cold wind blew from the nearby woods. Leaves rustled all around us, sounding like furtive whispers.
The shack, the small prefab structure that served as Jardin Noir’s office, stood at the end of the long row, looking as abandoned as the rest of New Orleans. I had its key in my pocket, but we didn’t need it. Faris turned the knob and the door eased open.
I took a large, heavy Maglite from my backpack, clicked it on, and directed its bright beam into the dark building. The place was empty, occupied only by old office furniture. I breathed a sigh of relief, even though I had no right to do so. I didn’t really feel safe—not in the least.
We stepped inside and closed the door behind us. I rushed to the metal file cabinet while Faris checked the small bathroom in the back.
I rifled through different folders until I found what I was looking for. “This is it,” I said, spreading the papers on top of the dusty desk.
Faris took the flashlight and shone it on the ledgers as I scanned them, my index finger quickly moving over the names. I didn’t quite remember the exact name I was looking for, but I was hoping it would ring a bell when I saw it.
I went through several pages, recognizing many of the name, customers who did business with Grandpa for many years. I could even picture some of their faces. I had begun to lose hope just as a name caught my attention.
“I think this is it.” I bit my lower lip, searching my mind for the certainty we needed.
Gertrude Chapiteau. Gertrude Chapiteau.
“Are you sure?”
“Let me look at the rest of the list.” I did. I went through every name and, again, I came back to the same one.
Gertrude Chapiteau.
“This must be it. The other ones aren’t ringing any bells. She was a regular customer, but she preferred talking to Grandpa. She sort of gave me the creeps.”
“Why?” Faris’s face was cut in shadows that made him look as mysterious as the day I first met him. It has been in this very place. He had come out of nowhere and stood before me, bathed only in candlelight, a beautiful and terrible sight to behold.
“Well, she’s . . . a strange woman, the perfect stereotype of a witch. She was always giving me the evil eye.”
“Let’s hope she’s more than a stereotype. Is there an address?”
“Yeah.” I jotted it down on a separate piece of paper and put everything back in the cabinet.
I didn’t have the best feeling about the continuity of regular life, much less of Grandpa’s belov
ed shop. Still, I had to leave the files in their proper folders. There was no other way, not in this place where memories of my grandfather felt like a living, pulsing thing. If I closed my eyes, I could practically see him on the desk chair, ticking orders off with a half-chewed, yellow pencil.
I stuck the witch’s address in my pocket. “Let’s go.”
Faris opened the door and peered outside. The coast was clear. He stepped out of the shack. I looked back over my shoulder, casting a glance at Grandpa’s collection of Mardi Gras masks. Their colorful greens, golds and purples were as muted by darkness as they were by dust. He never allowed me to take them down and clean them. I sighed.
“Are you okay?” Faris came back in, tipped my chin in his direction. Our eyes met.
“I’m fine. There’s just so many memories in this place. It’s hard to . . .” I couldn’t explain how being here made me feel. Grandpa’s house was gone. This was the only place left that he had loved.
“I know.” Faris pressed his forehead to mine. “I’ve made a few memories of my own here.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“It’s where I met you.”
“Not the most glamorous place,” I said.
“And yet,” he stopped, looking pensive, “the best place, the right place. Somewhere you belong and love. I only hope my presence here has made the space between these walls more memorable. I hope I’ve added a few worthy memories to those you hold dear.”
I rested my head on his chest, slid my hands around his waist. “A few worthy memories?” I scoffed. “You’ve done wonders for more than just my memories. I would be lost without you.”
“Not true,” he said.
I pulled away and frowned at him.
“I would be lost without you. Inside a stone, to be precise. And you—well, the entire world, as a matter of fact—wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“You have a point.”
We smiled at each other, then locked lips in a lingering kiss that I wanted to last forever. Faris’s mouth shaped against mine, fitting perfectly. The velvet of his tongue slid against my own, sending a flash of heat to my very center. I moaned and pressed my body against his. The solidity of him made me feel safe and grounded.
I kissed him harder. The flashlight dropped from his hand and rolled toward the desk. He tangled his fingers in my hair and deepened his kiss, his touch.
Being like this—here, at this very moment—felt wrong and dangerous. We had a job to do, something far more important than anything I ever imagined could fall on my lap. But the task was so large, so impossible, that it was hard to know how to care, and I kept avoiding what needed to be done.
It was easier to kiss Faris, to lose control and wish he could make me his, and I could make him mine. At least that made sense, it was something I wanted, deeply. Everything else I would turn away from, as long as I could make sure Dad was all right.
Faris spun me around, pushed me against the wall. He kissed my neck and lifted me, his hands pressed tightly around my hips. His mouth ventured lower than he ever had and, to my surprise, wandered to my breasts. Hot breath seeped through the fabric of my sweater and bra. I groaned involuntarily as if his lips had made contact with my skin.
I wanted to rip my clothes off and throw them to the floor. I wanted to cast aside his own clothes and caress every inch of his body. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know how far I could go with him, what small daring act from me could make him lose control of his magic, the way he’d done the last time things got this heated between us. I only hoped he knew when to stop or, better yet, had found a way to keep his desire from triggering his magic.
One of his hands found its way under my sweater and caressed my stomach. Slowly, hesitantly, his fingers traveled upward, igniting a path that went from my waist straight for my left breast.
His mouth became still over mine, as if his wandering hand required his full attention. All I knew was that he had mine. My skin was on fire and my entire focus had been reduced to a few inches of skin at the edge of my underwire bra, where he was now tracing its outline.
After a moment, he took a deep breath and slipped a couple of fingers under the lacy fabric. He was barely touching me and I was on fire. Inside, I was screaming, wanting more, wanting it all.
And maybe we could have gotten somewhere, except a crashing sound outside the shack abruptly brought us back to reality.
Faris pulled away and turned to face the open door. My thoughts spun for an instant—a combination of disappointment and panic flooding my head—but it took no more than that for me to jump into action. I crouched low to the floor, reached for the Maglite and pointed it through the door.
The light beam fell on the narrow checkout counter and the rows of plants beyond. Nothing looked out of the ordinary—not from this distance.
“Stay here.” Faris crossed the threshold out of the shack. His body was tense. He moved in a crouch, a predator ready to pounce. There was a certain power to his measured steps that suggested he would be deadly if forced to attack. I watched him go, holding my breath, irrationally fearing for him. But no man or Djinn could hurt him.
He passed the cash register and stopped halfway down one of the aisles, his gaze trained on something at his feet. After a moment of perfect stillness, he looked over his shoulder. He shrugged and shook his head.
I gulped in air and allowed my shoulders to relax. After pulling the door closed behind me, I joined him. A broken ceramic pot lay at his feet, black dirt strewn all around it. The pot hadn’t been there when we first walked in.
“Could be raccoons,” I said. “They’ve always been a problem, find their way here from the woods.”
Faris looked all around with a narrowed gaze. There were no signs of a raccoon, no other overturned pots, half-chewed plants, or paw prints. It seemed doubtful.
“They can be pretty sneaky,” I said, trying to ease him as much as trying to ease myself.
Faris turned to me and spoke in my ear. “I don’t feel comfortable going back to Live Oak or to Mrs. Chapiteau’s.” His breath was warm and sent a shiver down my spine.
“What do we do then?”
“We’ll drive around for a bit.”
So we got in the Hummer and drove aimlessly, our eyes bouncing from the road to the rearview and side mirrors. No one followed us.
Not that we could tell.
17
Faris
If I allowed it, the situation would have paralyzed me. There was no way to be 100% certain no one was following us.
There were no cars behind us and no flare of magic. That much I knew. But this didn’t prove there was no one there. I knew this better than anyone. I’d used magical disguises too many times not to be aware of what was possible. One of Akeelah’s half-djinn could have been watching the nursery for days, the magic that had camouflaged him now undetectable due to the long passage of time.
We drove for almost an hour until I accepted the futility of it, staring out the window in silence. The emptiness and desolation were too strange for word. We could have gone on playing the same cautious game forever, and it would have made no difference. The possibility that someone was following us would still be there.
I sighed and gestured toward the GPS. “Go ahead and punch in her address.”
Marielle’s delicate, long fingers moved over the touch screen and quickly tapped several buttons. After a few moments, she frowned, looking confused.
“It’s not working,” she said, her green eyes filling with a mixture of despair and confusion. “You think Akeelah . . .”
“Don’t worry. That’s why we have maps. They’re in the back pocket of your seat.”
She reached for the road atlas, placed it on her lap and began turning the pages, her movements less assured than they had been on the screen. The “magic” she was so used to having at her fingertips had been taken away, and that seemed to scare her. Would I feel the same if I became a man again? Would I miss the power that had been at my beck and ca
ll all these centuries?
I pushed that cowardly doubt away. I was not who I was meant to be. This essence that pulsed within my makeshift body was not entirely me. I had not lived. I’d been but a young man of nineteen when my humanity came to an end. After that, the rest of my existence had been but a nightmare of imprisonment and enslavement. Magic was but the sham that had stolen my life and left me at the mercy of human greed.
I would not miss it.
“Okay,” Marielle looked up from the atlas. “I think I got it. Go ahead and take a right at the next intersection.”
Her directions took us two hours outside of New Orleans to a small, bayou town called Breaux Bridge. We passed through the deserted center of town—a gas station, a small bank branch, a Masonic lodge, a barber shop, and Catholic church—and immediately after that we found ourselves on a narrow, two-lane highway surrounded by heavy woods.
We spotted only a handful of houses along the way, though several mailboxes at the corner of small dirt roads suggested the area was slightly more populated than it appeared.
“Slow down, I think it’s coming up.” Marielle pointed at a gap in the trees ahead of us. “Yeah, that’s it.”
I slowed down and turned onto a muddy road dotted with potholes. Our vehicle rode smoothly enough, though, and after a somewhat shaky two-minute drive, we found ourselves in front of a decrepit house with crooked shutters and a decaying porch.
The house was dark but for a warm glow through one of the windows. We got out of the car. Neither one of us shut our door. It felt like sacrilege to break the silence. We exchanged a quick glance, then met at the front of the car, our attention completely taken by the house.
A strange aura emanated from the dark structure. Something akin to a Djinn’s magic, but different too . . . less vast and more concrete at the same time.
“She is what we came looking for,” I said. Marielle didn’t ask me how I knew that. She just nodded and took a step forward.
We approached the house, hesitantly. My foot was midair toward the first porch step when a slight change in the energy around me sent my instincts on high alert. I halted and pulled Marielle away from the house. She gave a small start, but quickly crouched, ready for anything.
One Wish Away: Djinn Empire Complete Series Page 60