by Lyn Brittan
And the horribly stretched faces of the dead, locked in endless, soundless screams. He put his hand on hers, kissed her once more and twisted the key with her hand.
She was back in her house.
Alone.
Chapter Twelve
Every instinct told her to go back, but she couldn’t afford to be reckless. Every second away could mean an eternity inside that place of silent death for Faruq.
She had to think...fast.
Dinah!
She called her sister, but the phone kept ringing. She tried wishing to be in the house, but Faruq didn’t answer. For that matter, neither did Tig. Cassia grabbed her car keys and headed for the door, struggling to breathe past tightening lungs and a chest suddenly too small.
The streets were crowded, even in the summer rain that had the whole city draped in a cloak of humidity. At any other time, she’d have bitched about her hair, but nothing mattered, nothing other than the djinn trapped on the other side of the wall.
Dinah’s house was locked and with one hand, she fumbled through the purse slung over her shoulders for the key. With the other, she knocked until her knuckles cracked and bled. When that didn’t work, she kicked. She screamed. She dumped her entire purse on the porch, found the key and got inside. No one was home.
Books.
She needed books.
Magic books, spell books, old family fucking books.
Nothing in the den or library looked old enough. She took the stairs two at a time and ran into their bedroom next. To hell with privacy, she rushed into their closet first, throwing things off shelves and tossing clothes off racks.
Nothing!
She checked the clock. It’d been twenty-seven minutes since she’d last seen Faruq. Was that a lifetime where he was? Two?
She allowed herself one more survey across the room before checking elsewhere, when something small and white at the foot of the bed caught her attention. A pregnancy test. And it was positive. Dinah was having a kid.
The box rested somewhere near the pillow. She counted again. This time not minutes, but days, then weeks. How long since she...?
She shook the box and it rattled – another test was inside. There wasn’t time to second guess it. She took it to the bathroom, used it and sat it on the ledge of the counter while she did another sweep of the house.
Thirty-six minutes.
She considered the attic, but that wasn’t Dinah’s style. She kept her magic close and practiced. Should she go back to the bedroom? No, that was too close. Magic could be unpredictable.
Of course!
Cassia ran downstairs into the kitchen and checked the small window seat in the opposite corner. Under the pillow, was a small lock.
She tried the key in her pocket. It didn’t work.
None of them did.
She tried the two spells she knew for opening things.
Zilch.
If spells didn’t have power here, there was nothing else.
...but a name. Hers didn’t do crap, but she knew Dinah’s and with all she had, she put every iota of will in her body behind it. Sure enough, the latch popped open. She took everything. Journals, books and yellowed paper so old that it smelled of burnt linen and mold.
On the counter was a pink, polka dotted shopping list. She wrote a note outlining everything she knew of the place that held Faruq and a warning not to follow. If Dinah was pregnant, Cassia knew she wouldn’t risk it. She followed it up with an apology and thanks for the years of love she’d had with her sister. Tig deserved a few words too and she hoped they’d be enough.
Forty-eight minutes.
Gasping now, she made another dash up the stairs to the bathroom, grabbed the pregnancy test and stumbled back down. She left it on the counter with her note, now stained with fresh tears. Shaking hands scribbled out the words, me too and she ran out the door.
All of her decisions were a lot easier after that.
She went back to her home, packed some bags with clothes, along with medicines and books. She took vitamins as well, and cleared her cabinets of every bit of food she had. If things worked out, they’d find a spell to get him home – this would just be a way to tide them over.
If not, well, she’d risk another trip when the food ran out. But she pushed that thought aside. It wouldn’t come to that. They were smart. They’d work it out.
Somehow.
She went for the key, but there was no way to hold on to everything while putting it in the slot. She started to panic, but something gentle pulled at her heart...Faruq’s words. What had he said? She didn’t need him to enter the lamp. Eyes closed, her mind wandered, centering on one golden thought.
When she opened her eyes again, she was inside the lamp and standing next to her beautiful man.
“Cassia? NO!”
“You don’t tell me what to do. Here.” She threw the grocery bag with the spell books at him. “Start reading.”
He didn’t. He didn’t do anything but kiss her, pull away to stare at her face, then kiss her again. The strength to ask him how long he’d been alone didn’t reside in her body. Her heart denied the answer she read on his face. A tight, ashen, hollow look replaced his once vibrant glow. “We’re going to get out of here. These are my family spell books. Dinah and Tig are helping from the other side.” Or, will, she added to herself.
“I don’t want you here.”
“I don’t want you here either.” She put her hand to his face. Heat was still there, but a bit of the spark that marked Faruq was gone. “What has this place done to you?”
His eyes pinched and darkened, as if he wasn’t quite sure she was really there. She gave his hand a squeeze and those impossibly long eyelashes of his slammed together. “It’s only been minutes for you, hasn’t it?”
“Less than an hour.”
He let out a huff of air and started unzipping her pants.
“We’ve gotta get home. We don’t have time for this.”
He didn’t look up, keeping his eyes on her body. “I have had nothing but time and now I’m going to make love to you.”
“Faruq, we—”
“Because I need you. I need to know that you’re here.”
“Look at me. Look! Feel my hands on your face. I’m here. I am right here.”
“I want to send you away, but I can’t. I’m too selfish. I want you with me.”
“Damn straight.”
His fingers went back to work, but this time, so did hers. They took no turns, no jockeying for position. He sat on the floor and she straddled him as he entered her. Their eyes never left each other. She looked straight into her man’s soul, but kept her secret close. The place that surrounded the lamp, didn’t deserve to share in their joy.
That kept her going too. She’d tell him of what they’d made and that meant getting out. The magic of the lamp probably didn’t lend itself to pregnancy. She’d never heard of female djinn and there was perhaps a good reason for it. A child in utero would stay in that state. Such was the power of the lamp.
He entered her inch by inch, not pumping, but filling, reminding her and perhaps himself, of their place with each other. They grabbed. They kissed. They cried. And she knew she’d never leave him again.
When they finished, she lay beside him with her hand splayed across his chest. She didn’t sleep, but neither did he. “What are you thinking about?”
“At the moment, nothing, hamdullah. It’s enough to be here next to you. If I think, my heart will ache that you’re here.”
“The same.” But it was a lie and one that had her smiling. She didn’t sleep because she wanted to memorize every inch of this lamp. Soon, she wouldn’t be able to see it for nine months and this was an image worth keeping. That wasn’t positive thinking; that was reality.
Eventually she drifted off, but couldn’t precisely point to when she woke up.
“There’s no day or night,” Faruq explained, surrounded by pillows and stacks of open books. “Not that I can tell
.”
“And those things I saw, right before I left?”
“You’ll see them again if you step out. They’re drawn to magic, I think, or perhaps anything new. They’ve been here a long time, Cassia. Their clothing isn’t of this decade or this century. Perhaps your aunt died an older woman than anyone realized. That also explains why you can come and go, but I can’t. The key really is tied to the blood. It was the ultimate failsafe.”
He waved her over with an apple from the pack. Oh, dear Lord, when was the last time he’d eaten? She started to ask, but he brought the apple to a juicy death with a loud crunch.
“I never get hungry in the lamp. Having said that, I almost forgot how much fun food was.” He patted the space next to him and helped her down. “I’ve had a while to study those things out there, but these books confirm my worst assumptions.”
Her eyes followed his fingers on the page. She bit back the stinging taste of bile. “My ancestor traded those people for her youth?”
“I think so. She ripped their essences from them.”
“The carriage,” she asked, unable to keep her voice from cracking.
“One day I worked up enough nerve to look inside.”
“And?”
But he shook his head. “It isn’t alone. I think its mother is here, but I’m not sure that either are aware. Sometimes they get very close and I think, maybe they do know.” He shrugged and pulled her close. “There are older children here. Two dogs follow one of them, but the little boy doesn’t see. The dogs have wounds. I think they died trying to protect the boy.”
“Dogs? You don’t think...”
“I do. Anyway, they’re not all the same either. It’s like she tried different things. I know of ghosts and poltergeists, but a few of the creatures out there fall somewhere in between. There’s a witch among them or something stronger.”
“That’s how they contacted us!”
“Maybe.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“I can’t even point her out among them. And they don’t speak. You were never in tune with your magic but when we met, that spark between us must have set off or ripped something open. These poor souls are worse than anything I’ve seen. They’re out of place. I don’t know what you can do to save me, but you have to send them to where they belong.”
“They’re not the ones I’ve come here for.”
“I can’t hear them, but I can see their pain. They need you.”
“And I need you, Faruq.”
“Good. Then you, my witch, will save us all. And I think this spell will help you do it.”
She tried sounding out the words, a mixture of Latin and French, but he stopped her and gave her a bite of his apple. “This will drain you more than any spell you’ve ever cast. Save that energy. Eat up”
She couldn’t have imagined how true his words proved to be. When they stepped out of the lamp, the half-creatures floated around them in a whirling mass of stretched faces and threadbare clothes. The first time she said the words she fainted dead away before reaching the end.
She’d woken up in the lamp with her head in Faruq’s lap, but she didn’t waste any time in getting out and trying again.
Pain gripped her head as if she’d been smacked with a two by four. She threw up twice and a stitch in her side made it impossible to stand upright. Towards the end, she relied on Faruq to keep her vertical. For her efforts two of the closest creatures vanished.
“You did it!”
“Yeah.” She sagged into him, legs unable to do their job. The joy was short lived at the realization that dozen or more of them still waited for their freedom.
Chapter Thirteen
He’d come up with his own system for marking time and by his reckoning, she’d been settling souls for a week. Trying to stop her proved futile. She had it in her head that she couldn’t leave without him and that he wouldn’t leave until she was done.
It left him with a woman fading before him. Dark circles lined her eyes. Those wonderful lips now cracked and peeled at their fullest points. Her body creaked as she moved and she didn’t so much sleep as drop from exhaustion.
She had no energy for lovemaking, not that he’d asked. He only wanted what was best for her. That meant warm baths where he sloughed the filth of death off her, and deep sleeps in each other’s arms. That first day of work had been the best of it. From then on out, she lost a little more of herself each time. Soon she would be done saving them.
He didn’t give a damn about the creatures anymore. Only her. Only his mate, who now suffered and there was one sure way to end it. He took his time with the note, writing and burning several versions, before settling on the simplest.
I love you more than life. I love you more than my life. Live and know that for one man, you were everything.
He took the knife, an old bejeweled scimitar handed down from one of the elder brothers and without a single look down, sliced his throat. He couldn’t stop the gurgling. His body ached to heal itself, but he fought against it. He almost laughed, or would have, if he’d had the air. The heat from his blood fogged the air and he recognized it for what it was. Life escaped him and with his death, she’d be free to leave. Free to live.
His feet went first. Funny thing about djinn. They’re all humany until the very end. Then they just sorta disappear. Flesh went wobbly, like ripples in a cup, before fading away. The rest of his body joined the mist and soon all he had left were eyes.
They never left her sleeping body.
*****
“Faruq?”
It wasn’t like him to leave her alone in the Red Dead World. She grinned at the name they’d come up with and turned over in bed. These were the good times, alone before going out there to face those pitiful creatures.
She often caught him reading the spells, trying to take some of the load off her. He had zero success. Nada. But she loved him all the more for trying.
“Faruq? Where are you?”
When he hadn’t shown up after calling and wishing for him, she dragged her aching muscles out of bed, got dressed and popped outside the lamp. The fool was probably at it again. How many times did she have to remind him that he wasn’t a witch? Not that she was a great one herself. But her magic, weak though it was, worked here.
She’d wondered, oh endlessly wondered, how much easier this would have been with her sister at her side. But this was her mountain to climb and even though it near broke her every time, she was doing it – one step at a time. Today, she would finish.
Nothing new greeted her outside, just another herd of death. She didn’t need the book anymore, she’d learned the words days ago and with half-closed eyes, she recited the spell. Arms outstretched, she roped them all in for one last push to a peaceful death. It must be done now. She had a life to get back to.
Her eyes refocused towards the end of her chant, right about the time her back gave out. But joy outshone pain. This was her favorite part of the otherwise hellish experience. Just before sending them over, the creatures displayed brief moments of lucidity and sublime elation. She always summoned the strength to open her eyes for that part. This time, it nearly killed her.
“Faruq? No...no!”
She ran, but he held out his arms and waved her away. He’d warned her often enough not to get too close to these things and now he was among them.
“Say something.”
Another headshake.
Oh Lord. One more word and she’d have sent him to a place he could never return from.
He circled his index fingers, silently begging her to continue.
“No. I won’t.”
He glowered and intensified his movements.
She didn’t know if he had the ability to hear her, so she did the one thing she knew he’d understand. She patted her stomach.
Could a dead man die again? He looked terribly close.
Together and so very much apart, they cried.
No. Not this way. Fuck that. She got up,
wiped her wet cheeks against her shoulder, went for her books and came right back out. Her hands went through the pages so fast that some ripped. Others ripped her, splitting the flesh of her fingers and dotting the pages with blood.
She had to redo the spell, as much as it hurt. No choice. She guided her mind, pulling in all the creatures of this world, save one. Focused, she made sure her magic didn’t touch Faruq.
She passed out and tried again.
And a third time.
By the fourth, it hurt too much to open her eyes. But she knew he was there and that they were alone. His spirit drifted over and she fell asleep at his feet.
Hours passed. Days. Who knew? She woke up hungry and weak, but mostly angry. Her knees wobbled when she tried to stand. Faruq reached out, but his hands passed through her as a shocking blast of ice.
It shook her, but didn’t slow her. Book in hand, she started reading again. A zombification curse popped to mind, but he’d come back devoid of free will, if he came back at all. That sort of thing also required a body. She hadn’t seen his and there was no way to ask.
The substantiation spell was next on the roster. If he’d had a body somewhere, that ought to have done it. If not, he’d be mist forever, lost as billions of particles. The shade of Faruq hadn’t moved and his face scrunched up in concern.
Or anger.
Fine. Let him be angry. She was kinda, sorta angry at him for being dead.
She sat cross-legged on the red clay, working out every single possibility. Nothing left this place, except for her.
Correction. Nothing living left this place, except for her.
Fine. Ghosts had to be sent to their final resting place, or remain here.
Correction. These things weren’t ghosts. They were used, mutilated half-people somewhere between death and eternity. For better or for worse, Faruq was just dead, not cursed. She reached for the necklace and dangled the lamp in the air, nodding and pointing to it. Faruq’s eyebrows shot up. He mouthed something and shook his head.
So, he couldn’t get in the lamp.
Despair settled its gnarling roots in her soul as her options dwindled. If she stayed, it meant the end of her child. Not happening either.