This was it.
I pressed a finger to the communicator in my ear. “We’re ready, Zet.”
There was no going back.
51
Faris
The taste of Marielle’s brief kiss lingered on my lips. I longed for more time with her—a lifetime, if we were that lucky—not these fleeting moments that seemed to be all we ever shared. Watching her across the street, knowing what we would face in a matter of minutes, made my chest tighten with dread.
It stood to reason that the four of us would be enough to conjure the demon that should ultimately destroy Akeelah. We had even practiced once and managed the summoning part of the spell without problems. At least, it seemed we had a chance.
Though if I was objective, our hasty exercise didn’t really mean much. It had been child’s play, with no opposition and all the variables under control. Real battle, I knew from experience, was never that way.
My fear for my brother and Marielle was not baseless. I knew how things could go wrong from one instant to the next, even when there was plenty of preparation and planning.
Full of foreboding, I turned my full attention back to the street. Zet had walked to the middle of the intersection and positioned himself among the twenty or so men we’d kicked out of the bar.
Immediately, his magic flared, sending a thrill of recognition up my spine. I clenched my fists, restraining my own magic. By no means should Akeelah learn that Marielle and I were here. For as long as possible, she had to believe that her only opponent was Zet. Her over-confidence could be a very useful weapon in our favor.
Setting our plan in motion, Zet’s magic did a few things.
One, he changed his physical appearance back to normal. Once rid of the huge gut and bald head, he rolled his shoulders, apparently happy in his own semblance.
Two, he gave himself new clothes. Loose pants tucked inside leather boots, a red sash around his waist, a breastplate with our family’s seal. My mind flooded as a rush of memories hit me: Zet and my men standing proud on the dry desert sand, the sun beating our brows, our king’s banner flapping in the air as we prepared to defend our people from ruthless invaders.
Three, he pulled Akeelah’s disciples around him, forming concentric circles that hid him from view.
And finally, he shot a stream of magic into the air, an impossible-to-ignore calling card meant to summon Akeelah to our fighting grounds.
Bright and strong, his magic cut a straight trajectory toward the heavens. We were counting on Akeelah looking out for Zet’s first use of magic since the day of our rescue. We were not disappointed.
I held my breath, peering out the window through a small crack between the curtains. We’d been sure she would come. The question was: how many of her Djinn would she bring with her? We had no way of knowing if Marielle’s efforts had been enough to cause Akeelah to send her slaves away.
After just a handful of heartbeats, the thrill of Akeelah’s magic rumbled up my body like an earthquake. I attuned my Djinn senses, trying to see past her strong magical output. In the midst of her energy, I was able to distinguish three other sources. Gallardo, Andy and someone else I couldn’t identify.
I cursed under my breath. We were outnumbered. We’d hoped for only Akeelah and, at most, one other half-djinn. This was more than we could handle. I guess it’d been too much to expect her to send her entire army in search of the Legolas-looking angel that was undoing her dirty work.
“She’s brought three others,” Marielle’s voice came through my earpiece. “God, Dad is with them.”
From my vantage point, I couldn’t see anything, so I hurried to the next window to get another angle. My heart sank when I finally spotted them, standing several yards from the tight ring of bodies Zet had formed around himself.
Akeelah was a few paces in front of Gallardo, Andy and Marielle’s father. I had prayed for Robert to be left behind, but no such luck.
“Maybe he can help us.” Zet’s voice in my ear was a barely discernible mumble.
“Hush, Zet,” I snapped. He wasn’t supposed to talk and risk giving away the fact that he had help. Besides, he already knew that Robert wouldn’t be able to help us. The man was a slave to Akeelah’s wishes. He could never go against anything she commanded him to do.
“Ma’ Gee, we will need you,” Marielle said, her tone marred with regret. We’d wanted to keep Ma’ Gee safe and out of the fight. This felt like a foreboding blow.
“It’s all right, child,” Ma’ Gee’s age-broken voice responded. “I’m prepared for it. I was born for a purpose and that purpose is here.”
“We’re hopelessly outnumbered,” Marielle said, making the situation clearer for the old woman.
Ma’ Gee made a dismissive sound. “I figure it’s something like our four against five. That evil thing can’t count for more than two, right? I reckon we still have a chance. It’s now or never.”
Four against five was optimistic. Ma’ Gee was human, less powerful than a half-djinn, so it was more like three and a half against six, considering that Akeelah was a full Djinn. But what other choice did we have?
“Zet!” Akeelah’s angry voice boomed through the street.
“Behold your false god,” Zet boomed back, talking to the men he was holding around him like a shield. They were stiff like rods and wide-eyed, their bodies victim to magic, their faces victim to fear. “She holds no power over you. Never has. What you did to your fellow man isn’t condoned by God. You have sinned and your sins are your own. You will pay for them come judgment day. Now, go and spread the truth.” The words were meant to make Akeelah believe he’d been the one freeing her chosen ones in Paris, Mexico City, and Rome. And to use her own cruelty to create a distraction.
Zet released the men. Without magic in their backbones, they fell around my brother like straw figures. Some jumped to their feet and ran right away. Others whimpered and crawled like cast-out dogs—some toward Zet, others toward Akeelah.
“You will pay for your interference, Zet,” Akeelah said. “Smite them!” she ordered her slaves, pointing at the hopeless men.
This was Zet’s cue.
As Gallardo, Andy and even Robert proceeded to drive the life out of Akeelah’s disciples, Zet began the demon summoning spell, sub-vocalizing the words to keep the conjuration hidden from Akeelah for as long as possible.
Marielle, Ma’ Gee and I also spoke the words, keeping perfect time with Zet through the earpiece, lending our strength and hoping for the impossible.
52
Akeelah
So it had been Zet.
In a moment of misplaced sympathy and triumph, she had let him go, and he had set out to betray her. What a fool she had been. But no matter. He was nothing but a pesky insect, buzzing a bit too loudly. It would be nothing to take care of him. If he thought he would surprise her with Gallardo’s banishing spell, he was highly mistaken. None of her slaves could hide anything from her—not even when they tried like Gallardo had. In the end, after some well-place torturing spells, he’d taught her every single word of the conjuration.
For a moment, she was amused at the sight of Gallardo, Andy and Robert killing the human bastards. Andy went about with his usual indifference. Life meant little to him, and he enjoyed the sight of blood. His kills were messy and painful. Gallardo, for his part, acted disgusted like he wasn’t enjoying himself but, deep down, Akeelah suspected he was. Robert, though, was the most amusing of the three. He moved like a robot, fighting the urge to follow her command and, yet, his magic flared and men fell to their knees in painless, pathetic deaths.
She couldn’t care less if humans were hurt in the process as long as the results were the same. She would, however, enjoy ordering Robert to follow Andy’s example in redecorating the streets with blood and guts.
At the verge of issuing the command to kill, she realized she was distracted—which had surely been Zet’s purpose. Her attention was in the wrong place. Snapping her gaze away from the dying Dross
, she redirected her entire focus onto Zet. He was standing still, fists balled at his sides and a foolish, open-mouthed grin on his face. It was an odd expression that put her on edge.
Senses heightened, she immediately realized what he was doing.
He had, without preamble, begun casting the banishing spell and was already several sentences into it. She growled in fury, her eyes glowing so bright they cast a red hue over the payment, in spite of the bright daylight.
She experienced a bit of something strange—panic, perhaps? in short, something she had never felt and could hardly be expected to name accurately—until she realized Zet wasn’t powerful enough for such a spell. She was certain of it. She had tried it herself, after all, and it hadn’t been easy. She was sure she owed her success to the repeated practice of conjuring demons to create her slaves. There was no way Zet’s magic could handle a demon of the necessary strength to banish her. No way he could do it alone. Unless . . .
In haste, she cast her magic wider, pulled her focus away from Zet, frantically searching all around.
What she found made her essence draw back with a snap and coil itself into a tight, protective ball.
Others were helping Zet!
She didn’t stop to count how many. There was no time for that. She had to act.
Now!
53
Marielle
I kept perfect time with Zet, Faris and Ma’ Gee, making sure to pronounce every word the way Faris had taught me. I wanted to hurry the words and get to the end before something went wrong with our plan, but the four of us had to be synchronized, and rushing would only result in failure.
Face pressed to the cracked-open door, I peered out with one eye, my attention homed in on Akeelah. A drop of sweat slid down the side of my face. My hands opened and closed, itching to do something.
To my dismay, we had barely begun the conjuration when the distraction we’d created for Akeelah lost its appeal, and she shifted her attention away from Dad, turning to look at Zet. For a moment, she looked confused as she examined his face with a frown.
My heart faltered and my lungs seemed to lock up. It took all I had to keep going and issue the next words in the spell. They came out weak and shaky. Shaking my head, I took a deep breath and steadied myself. I didn’t want Faris and the others to think I was giving up. At this point, there was no going back. We were in this until the demon devoured Akeelah and took her to the depths of hell or . . . we died trying.
If we didn’t banish her, it would be the end, anyway.
As ill-advised as it was, our pace quickened, and the words of the spell rushed past my lips considerably faster than before. I wanted to hurry and slow down at the time.
I watched Akeelah, my eyes glued to her hideous face. Like a hawk to its prey, her gaze was still locked on Zet. A wide range of emotions went through her features—more than I’d ever thought her capable of—until her eyes went wide and switched from emerald to crimson in a split second.
My heart drummed faster.
God. Oh, God.
She was onto us.
We pressed on, the spell building and building. My tongue felt heavy, the words like ticking bombs. I couldn’t make any mistakes. One misspoken word could ruin everything.
Zet’s voice rose a few octaves in my ear. He wasn’t sub-vocalizing anymore. There was no point in hiding what he was doing. Faris came through the earpiece louder, too. In desperate need of it, I borrowed strength from their resolve. My voice grew stronger as well and so did Ma’ Gee’s.
The pavement between Zet and Akeelah began to crack open with a rumble that I felt through the soles of my boots. The sound terrified me—one quick practice wasn’t enough to erase my apprehension—but it also gave me hope.
We’ll banish her.
We will.
Startling me, Akeelah’s voice rang with tremendous force. “You won’t!” she yelled as she lifted a hand and sent a bolt of power in Zet’s direction.
The nauseating surge of Akeelah’s magic was impossible to miss. As soon as I felt it, I sprang into action and wished for the most powerful force field to appear around Zet. With my magic, Zet and Faris’s surged, too.
For an instant, I wasn’t sure we would be powerful enough to stop her, but, when her magic crashed into our combined barrier and fizzled down like harmless fireworks, I dared hope a little more.
“Faris!” Akeelah exclaimed in rage.
She knew his magic well, and now she could be certain he wasn’t dead as she’d believed.
We pressed on, one word after another, the spell widening the crack in the pavement until it was big enough to swallow a bus. Just as the demon began to rise from the ground, Faris materialized next to his brother in a flash of light. He waved at Akeelah, a cold grin twisting his mouth. It was a mocking gesture meant to enrage her. Akeelah’s own anger was one of our weapons which we could hope might even be her undoing.
I would have preferred if Akeelah went on believing that Faris was dead, but the time for hiding was over, as we knew it would be. At least the element of surprise had given us a head start.
Faris’s stunt gained us a few more seconds, as Akeelah seemed to freeze when she spotted him. She didn’t even appear to realize that she had three of her half-djinn at her disposal. If she ordered them to combine their magic against us, we would stand no chance.
The demon emerged like a throbbing pile of bloody tissue, its shape like a giant slug without limbs or an obvious head. Its surface was riddled with abscesses that spewed pus and a yellow-pink liquid. The smell of sulfur and sick was so strong it wafted through the air and made it all the way to the balcony. I gagged, but I managed to control the reflex as we plowed toward the end of the spell, our words still flowing firm and in unison in spite of Akeelah’s attack.
I braced one hand against the closed half of the double door and leaned in. I needed something to hold me back, to keep me from rushing to Faris’s side. I was our last element of surprise, a final distraction meant to throw Akeelah off once more. So I couldn’t move. I had to stay put.
“You should be dead!” Akeelah exclaimed, throwing another ineffectual blast of magic in their direction.
I clenched my teeth. Sweat soaked the back of my shirt. My heart beat like a frantic, caged animal.
The demon was fighting, trying to escape our hold. The pace of our words slowed as our concentration suffered. But we were so close. It was time for the final stretch.
It was time to unleash the demon and send it after Akeelah.
54
Faris
What I presumed was the demon’s tail lashed against the pavement, making the ground shake. Our shield held against Akeelah’s attacks, but simultaneously keeping the magic shield and the incantation flowing was taking a toll. I took deep breaths with every utterance and felt my legs shake.
Next to me, Zet was sweating, his face pinched in concentration. I thought of Marielle alone on the balcony and wished someone could be by her side, but I was also glad she was out of sight—at least for the moment.
We’re close. So close.
At last, the final words of the spell were before us, and Akeelah was still here. I had feared she might flee, but her pride and anger were too big for that. She would never concede defeat.
“Fools!” she laughed, her rage suddenly turning to smugness. “I have you just where I want you.” She jerked a hand toward her slaves, and they began chanting in unison with their master.
A strange sensation made my stomach plummet, as if someone had pulled the floor from under my feet. Zet and I exchanged panicked glances. He looked as confused as I felt. Through the earpiece I heard a hitch in Marielle’s breath. She had felt something, too.
I had no idea what Akeelah’s chant was meant to do. Surely, it was another spell, but to what end? To conjure another demon?
Ignoring the horrible feeling, we pushed forward, slipping into the end of our conjuration.
The demon shook and fought us, its dark
essence poisoning everything. The air felt thicker, foul. I cut my breathing reflex as its insidious aura seemed to make its way into mine. I needed no air and, though this action would do nothing to keep me apart from the rising evil, it helped me focus. It had been too soon since I was almost devoured. The fear of it happening again was real, and I couldn’t allow it to take hold of me—not when the moment was finally here.
“Take the essence that brims with rage and fury. Take it!” we chanted in Arabic. “Grow. Relish new power.”
Our words were meant to direct the demon toward Akeelah. The beast struggled, trying to pull away from our command. We’d expected this, and though we hadn’t gone this far when we practiced, something didn’t feel right.
Too slowly, the demon slithered toward Akeelah. It moved in fits and starts, jerking with indecision. A guttural, frustrated sound issued from within its massive body.
I shook with the strain, the demon’s reluctance a barrier that seemed to push against me. Holding nothing back, I poured what little strength I had left into the effort, but it was for naught because, in the next instant, our control of the creature snapped. The tension that had held us in place gave way, and I staggered forward. Zet took hold of my arm and held me back.
Dumbly, we uttered the final words of our spell. They drifted away, floating in the air like dead leaves. It was no use.
We had failed.
But how? Had I mispronounced a word? Had any of the others? I didn’t think so.
One Wish Away: Djinn Empire Complete Series Page 74