“As I said, I am Si’lat. We are the smartest of our race. Which is why we are usually the ones who are assigned as Qareen. The Qareen are the constant companions of a specific human. You are mine. I was sent to be with you.”
“Sent?”
“I’ll get to that a little later on. Basically, you would probably find it easier to think of me as your guardian. I am the one that is meant to look out for you. To look after your well-being. To make you feel safe and loved.”
“Like a guardian angel?” I asked, tentatively. It was the only thing that I could think that sounded anything close to this.
“I guess that would be one way for you to think of it. But, we are not angels. The Djinn were created before man. You have heard of the Fall from Grace? Lucifer’s fall?”
I frowned at him for a moment. He was now going to talk about religion? What? This was getting more and more confusing as time went on. He was really going to talk to me about the Devil? Where the hell was this conversation going? “Yeah, of course I’ve heard all about that. We got told about it during Religious Studies back in school, remember?”
Harper laughed, but it wasn’t his usual laugh. It was completely humourless. “Sure, I can remember that like it was yesterday. I remember thinking at the time that it was rather amusing hearing Mrs. Jankins lecturing us about that. She actually got most of it right, but it was always hard to hear someone else talking about something that is so personal to you.”
I couldn’t blame him for chuckling. I remembered that class for all the wrong reasons. Mrs Jankins made the whole subject of religion tediously boring. I still wasn’t sure what he was getting at, so I prompted, “Come on, Harp. Where is this going?”
“Well, I’ll tell you our version of what happened. Back in those days, Lucifer refused to bow to mankind. He refused to see that humans were creatures that were to be worshipped by the angels. Man was flawed and he thought that they didn’t deserve the angels love. For his refusal, he was cast out of Heaven. All of the angels that agreed with him were also cast out.” He paused for a moment before looking back up at me. “The Djinn followed him out of Heaven.”
I could feel my eyebrows knitting together in confusion. What did that mean? Was he saying that the Djinn were in league with the Devil? Was he saying that they were evil? That he was evil? I couldn’t and wouldn’t believe that. I knew Harper. Sure, this was all coming as a bit of a shock to me, but I knew him. There wasn’t a bad bone in his body. He was about as far from evil as you could get. This was the man who had been my best friend for most of my life. I couldn’t think that way about him.
As if he could read my mind, he continued. “You have to remember, religion seems to like everything to be very black or white, but in truth, there are always a lot of grey areas, all varying in shades. Lucifer is now often referred to as the Devil or Satan. He is seen as the root of all evil. But, it is not as simple as all that. You have to remember that He created angels out of light. He made the Djinn out of fire. And, then he made man out of clay. You have to kind of understand where Lucifer was coming from. Why would a being made of pure light worship a being with feet made of clay? Now, I’m not saying that he was totally right in his actions, but when you know the truth of how things really were back in those times, it’s kind of hard to think of him as the evil being that he is seen as nowadays. Human lives are so short compared to those of the Djinn. You have only the knowledge that is passed down to you. We have beings that were there at the time of creation.”
Was I hearing this right? Was Harper really defending the Devil? Could this day get any crazier? And, what was actually worse, was that this was all making some kind of sense to me.
“So, are you creatures of Hell?” I had to ask him. I had to know. I had to know what was going on with everything he was saying.
He smiled. “No. We are beings of a higher realm. You think that I’m on the same side as someone who think of as the Devil? You should know me better than that. I know that none of this is easy for you to understand, but I’m trying to explain it all as simply as I can. And to do that, you need to know it all. You need to know my background. And, if that means telling you the whole truth right from the beginning when the Djinn chose what side to take during the Fall, then it’s only because you need to hear it. But, please don’t judge me just because my ancestors chose which direction to take. I can’t be held accountable for their actions. You should know me better than that.”
“But, the Devil?”
“Lucifer is a Fallen Angel. I needed to explain this part to you, to show you that not all angels are blindly on the side of good. I needed to tell you because not all Djinn are the same. We are those grey areas that I was telling you about.”
“Well, how does that work, then?” I was almost afraid to ask. This was way too much for me to be able to take in.
“As I said, I’m you Qareen. Your guardian, if you like. Your constant companion. You know that I would never hurt you. It’s just not in me. I’m not like that.”
“Okay, so wait a minute. You said that you feed off emotions. How does that work?” I tried to keep my voice neutral, but it was an effort.
“I do, you’re right. I can’t really explain to you how it works. It’s kind of like asking how you breathe. Sure, there’s a scientific explanation behind it, but it is simply just something you do. It’s something that you do without thinking. It’s the same for me. But, I can only feed off of positive emotions. That’s the reason that I do that job that I do. Exercise releases endorphins in the brain. It gives you a high. It makes you feel good. That’s what sustains me. Positive energy.”
I nodded. That I could sort of understand. I knew Harper as well as I knew myself, or at least I thought I did. I knew that he wasn’t evil or bad. It made sense to me that he would do everything in his power to make people happy.
“It’s what I need to survive. Peoples happiness is what makes me live. But, more importantly, it is your happiness that means the world to me. It’s not even about the emotion that I need. It’s because you are my best friend, Carrie. I would never intentionally do anything to upset you. I would always do everything in my power to protect you from any harm. You have to believe that.” He looked at me with such pain in his eyes. I hated that he thought I could doubt him. Sure, this was all crazy, but I knew that he would never do anything to hurt me. He had always been there for me, no matter what, and I knew that he always would be. I didn’t think that this whole Djinn business would change us that much. He would still be Harper to me, I just had to get my head around this new world that he was telling me about.
“I do.” I replied, firmly and surely.
“We’re not all the same. Not all of us feed off of positive emotions. You can pretty much guarantee that when the shit hits the fan that there is often a Djinn lurking in the background somewhere. I don’t always mean the big stuff, like wars, but everyday life when things go wrong. Some thrive on chaos and personal destruction.”
He paused for a moment and I was glad of the time for my brain to catch up with everything that he was telling me. It was hard for me to take it all in, but I was going to try my hardest to understand. Harper was a Djinn. He was my guardian Djinn. It was strange to think that there was an underlying motive to our friendship.
I narrowed my eyes at him. I felt the sudden need to lighten the subject. “So, when do I get my three wishes, then?” I joked. It all felt way too intense and I hated to see Harper so stressed and serious like this. It was all pressing down on me and it was getting hard for me to breathe again.
Harper laughed, genuinely this time. “If only that really was something that we could do. Can you imagine all the fun we’d have if I could do that?” He chuckled again and I could only imagine the wild ideas that were running through his mind.
“We’d be raising hell, that’s for sure!” I quipped and Harper raised an eyebrow at my choice of words. I grinned over at him to let him know that I’d purposely chosen that phrasi
ng. It was good to feel the tension slip away from us for a little while at least.
“But, honestly, no. We can’t do that. The whole ‘genie’ thing is something that was made up. We don’t live in bottles, either.”
Now, it was my time to laugh.
“So, are you ready to hear the rest of it?” He asked, instantly his facial expression turned serious once again. I nodded and took hold of his hand. I knew how hard this was for him to tell me. I could feel the tension running through his body. It was hard for me to hear, but I wasn’t the one telling my secret life story.
“Why did you come to me?” I thought that it was a good idea to start at the beginning, as I said before. I didn’t really mean for him to start with the beginning of time and creation, I more meant the beginning of our time together. I had to know why it all started. Why he had come to me.
“I came to you the night of the fire.”
An involuntary shudder ran through me. I flatly refused to think back to that time in my life. It was just too painful for me to think about. I’d only been five years old and I had suffered through the worst tragedy of my life. Tears pricked at my eyes as I fought not to think about it.
“That night, I was sent to you. You needed me. You needed someone to help you get through it.”
“But, we were only five.”
“Carrie, I know that this is difficult for you to understand, but as I said, I am not human. I am a humanoid creature. I can take on the human form at will. I came to you. I couldn’t exactly come to you as an adult. I had to come to you in a way that we could be together.”
I gulped. I didn’t want to ask this, but I had to. “So, has any of this been real?”
Harper knew what I meant and he looked shocked and hurt that I could have asked him that. “Every single second of it was real.”
I grabbed hold of his hand again, “I’m so sorry, Harp. But, I had to ask. I had to be sure.”
After a quick moment, he smiled at me again. “You have to believe that this is a true friendship that we have. No lying. Nothing false.” He squeezed my hand as if to reassure me. “Do you want me to go on?”
“Yes.”
“I came to you on that night. Djinn are made of smokeless fire in our true forms. That was the night that the fire called to me. It told me where I needed to be and who I needed to be with. You. It was you that needed me, Carrie. You were crying out for help.”
I had never really given it too much thought until now. Harper had come into my life at a time when I needed him the most. It wasn’t something that I even bothered to think about at the time. I was only five. I just accepted this new friend in my life. Now, I wasn’t even sure that I really wanted to question it. No matter what he was, Harper coming into my life was the best thing that ever happened to me.
“So, did you have a hand in any of the foster families that I had to live with?” I think that I already knew that answer to this one, or at least part of it anyway. I hadn’t always had the best of luck and I was shoved from family to family to family over the years. Only a handful of them stuck out in my mind as pleasant memories.
“No. I’m afraid not. That sort of thing is out of my power. But, I was always there for you. I am not one of the Djinn that are strong enough to manipulate the human mind or the actions of others. I can only really make the best of a bad situation.” He smiled sadly, like he thought he had failed me in some way.
“You sure did that. Every single memory I have as a kid, every good memory, you’re in it.”
He smiled a little brighter this time. “We’ve had some fun times, haven’t we?” He was clearly remembering our time growing up together when we got into all kinds of mischief. I didn’t answer him. I knew that if we started reminiscing that we would spend the rest of the day wandering down memory lane and we had a more pressing conversation to have right now.
Harper looked lost for a moment. I knew that I was going to have to be the one to get us back on track. “So, you’re made of fire? Hot.” I joked.
“Yeah.” He laughed. “This isn’t the real me. But, it has grown to be me. This is my choice and I have grown into myself over the years.” He gestured to his whole body. “There is only one thing that I have to constantly work on in my human form, and that is my eyes.”
I frowned for a moment before quoting, “The windows to your soul.” I said, more to myself than to Harper, but he caught the muttered comment. I wasn’t scared to ask him the question this time. It didn’t matter what he was saying to me anymore. This was still the same guy that I had always known. If he had wanted to do something to hurt me, he had had the last eighteen years to do so. I didn’t see why he was going to start now. “So, what is it about your eyes that is so different?”
Harper looked down at our entwined fingers for a moment before looking back up at me. I gasped. I couldn’t help it. I had expected him to tell me, not to show me.
His eyes were shining an ethereal yellow, like liquid fire. They were so bright that they were almost blinding. Glowing. It was like his eyes had been replaced by liquid jewels. I had never seen anything like this before. Not in any horror or fantasy movies or anything like that. I could feel my heart start to race again. It wasn’t because I was scared. I was simply shocked by the beauty of that fiery stare. They held a beauty all of their own.
“Wow!” Was all I could say to him. Harper blinked and they immediately went back to their normal hazel golden brown.
“So, now you’ve seen.” He said, simply.
“You’re not kidding! I’ve never seen anything like that before.” If there had been any doubt left in my mind about what he had been telling me before, seeing the sight of those dazzling yellow eyes had just confirmed every single word that he said.
“Do you have any questions for me?”
“I have a thousand!” I laughed. “I just can’t think of any right now.”
“You don’t have to ask them all right now. We’ve got all the time in the world.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him and smirked, “So, does this mean that I’m stuck with you forever?”
Harper grinned. It felt good to be feeling like we were ‘us’ again. “’Fraid so, chick.” But, then his grin gave way to that serious look again. “But, I want you to know that you do have a choice in this. If you don’t want me to be around, and I wouldn’t blame you after learning all of this, then I can leave. This is not something that I want to force on you. I can keep on protecting you from a distance.”
“You mean like a stalker?” I joked.
“Like a protector.” He clearly wasn’t prepared to joke about this yet.
I nodded. I had to. I had to acknowledge that he was more than just a friend in my life. He had his own role to play, one that I didn’t even know about up until this very moment. I now understood better why he said that me knowing all of this didn’t have to change anything between us. It didn’t actually change a single thing that I felt about him and what he meant to me. It wouldn’t change how we lived our lives.
“Are you happy?” I asked suddenly.
He looked up at me sharply, “What? Why would you ask that?”
“I want to know if you’re happy.”
“Yes. Yes, I am.” And I knew that he really meant it. I was glad that everything I had known between us was real and that he wasn’t just pretending to get what he wanted out of our friendship. I was glad that I wasn’t just a means to an end for him.
“So, why are you telling me all of this now?”
“Because…. Milligan is also a Djinn.”
Chapter Fourteen
Now, it was my time to look shocked again. “He’s what?” I jumped up off of the sofa. “How do you know that?”
I could totally handle everything that Harper was telling me about himself, but Milligan? He was a Djinn? What did that mean? I knew that he wasn’t like Harper and that thought scared me more than anything else.
He sat still on the sofa. He knew that I needed to walk off t
his nervous energy that had suddenly just invaded me. “I finally started to understand when you told me about the tattoo. It’s more than just an ink design. It’s something that we are born with, created with. Sort of like what you would think of as a birth mark. Other than our eyes, it is the only other thing that we take over from our true form to our human form.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I couldn’t be completely sure. We have a way of identifying one another. I can’t really explain to you how it works. It wouldn’t really make much sense to you. But, we can see one another on a higher level. We can see each other in our true forms. Somehow, Milligan had managed to hide that from me. That’s what confused me.”
I gulped. Harper looked angry that Milligan had been able to hide his true self from him, that he had gotten the better of him. I had seen so many different emotions from Harper tonight. In a way it made me feel a little better. It was like I was finally getting to truly know the real him. Every single part of him. It somehow made our bond feel stronger.
“What did he want with me?” I now knew that there had been more to it than met the eye. It was true that I was confused by the feelings and the whole situation with Milligan, but now that Harper had stated that he was also a Djinn, I knew that there was more to it. It wasn’t a coincidental meeting.
“Now that I have been able to piece it all together, I understand a bit better what he is. Milligan is a Shaitan. They are among the cruellest and most devious of our kind.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Great. That’s just fucking great. So, I get caught up with the psycho. Just my luck.” I said, sounding pissed off and broken. Trust me to attract the worst of their kind.
“Milligan is able to manipulate others. You would be able to liken it to demonic forces. The Shaitan are the true forces of evil.”
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