Burn For Him

by Kristan Belle

  I walked into his bedroom to find him lying on the bed, apparently fast asleep. Well, great. We’d been through all of this and he’d been here, catching up on some sleep?

  “Harper?” I called from over by the door. No response. I walked over to the bed. “Harper?” I said in a louder voice. I gently shook his arm. He didn’t stir. He didn’t wake. He didn’t make a move. He stayed sleeping, breathing soft and even. Taking a deep breath, I leant forward to whisper in his ear. “Venite ad me. Mihi opus est.”

  Harper shot bolt upright in the bed. It was just lucky that I moved out of the way quickly enough so that he didn’t head butt me.

  “Carrie? How did you know how to do that?” He looked puzzled at his rude awakening. I knew better now, though. He hadn’t been asleep. He’d been off on that other plane that I didn’t understand about.

  “Marissa told me what I needed to say to bring you back here.”

  He looked sharply from me over to the open doorway. “Marissa told you?” I nodded. “Marissa!” He shouted and jumped out of the bed and ran out of the room. By the time that I ran into the living room after him, he was already sitting on the floor next to the sofa, gently cradling her hand in his.

  “Marissa, are you okay? Talk to me.” He crooned softly. There were tears in his eyes as he looked over at me. “What happened? How did she get like this?”

  “Milligan.”

  Anger crossed his face. “Milligan was here?” He roared.

  I had the decency to look a little sheepish. I now knew that we shouldn’t have gone out. We shouldn’t have left the safety of the apartment. But, in a way, it was a damn good job that we had. Now, we knew more. “Marissa took me to the hospital to see Destiny. I asked her to.” For some reason, it was important to me that he knew that none of this was Marissa’s fault. It was all on me.

  “Don’t you know how dangerous that was?” He glared at the wall behind my head. I had the feeling that he wanted to direct that look at me, but even now, he couldn’t bring himself to take his anger out on me.

  “I do now.”

  “Marissa. Wake up.” He said as he gently shook her shoulder. When she opened her eyes just a crack, Harper beamed at her. “That’s it. Try to stay awake for me.” He said, soothingly.

  “Just give me another minute to rest.” She said in a barely there voice.

  Harper nodded. I knew that he wanted to know what was happening, but I also knew that he couldn’t bring himself to push her. He let go of her hand and turned all of his attention back to me. “What happened? Tell me everything.”

  I sat down on the opposite sofa. I hated seeing Marissa looking so weak. It was all my fault. We should have stayed here.

  “We weren’t there for very long. I had to go and see her. Especially now that I know that she was some sort of part of Milligan’s whole plan. I had to, Harp.” I looked at him imploringly, and he nodded. I was grateful that he understood. “Just as we were about to leave, it looked like she was getting a headache and then she collapsed on the floor. She said that he was too strong. She said that she could feel him. I had to carry her out of there. The further we got away from him, the better she seemed to get.”

  “It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m just tired now.” Marissa croaked.

  Harper flipped around to look at her. “You should close your eyes and rest, Marissa.”

  “No. I can rest later. We need to talk.”

  “There’ll be plenty of time for that later. You need to rest.” Harper said softly in a brotherly tone.

  “No. Now.” Her voice was starting to sound stronger as she pushed herself to sit up. “We need to talk about this now.”

  Harper didn’t argue with her any further. I guessed that he knew as well as I did that there was no point. He wasn’t going to win this argument. We waited for a moment for her to get somewhat comfortable before she started to talk.

  “As soon as I touched Destiny, I knew. I knew what Milligan was. There were parts of him that were shielded but I got the general idea. I knew what he was capable of.” Her voice took on a whole new intensity.

  “What do you mean?” He asked her.

  “His mark was left all over her.”

  “Why didn’t I feel it, then?”

  “You’re too close and I knew what to look for. You didn’t. You were relying on the doctors. But, they can’t help her.” Marissa said. There was no real emotion in her voice now. She was sticking to telling the bare facts here.

  “What did you feel?”

  “He’s more than just Shaitan. He is driven by more demonic forces. He has demonic elements.”

  Harper stood up abruptly. “Demonic elements? What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that he is like nothing we have ever dealt with before. Did you get hold of Rhetka?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Good. She wouldn’t be able to help us without all the information.”

  “But, what exactly does this mean?” Harper sounded confused and he wasn’t the only one. I couldn’t blame him. This was way too much for me to be able to follow.

  “I don’t really know, not yet. I just know that we aren’t going to be able to negotiate our way out of this one. You can’t negotiate with Demons.” Marissa shook her head sadly.

  “Doesn’t that mean that you can just kill him, then? If he’s not what we thought he was, doesn’t that make it simpler?” I asked the pair of them.

  “No. It’s still not as simple as all of that. He is still part Shaitan. His clan would not let his death go unpunished. It doesn’t really matter to them about the Demon part of him. Plus, it wouldn’t be all that easy, anyway. Demons are, well, you would probably call them our sort of cousins. Our stronger cousins.” She looked from me to Harper. “I don’t know if Rhetka will have a solution for this. We might be on our own.”

  Harper didn’t say anything. He started to pace around the room. I wished that he would stop. Watching him pacing was making me more nervous and anxious.

  “So, what can we do?” I asked them both. Neither of them seemed inclined to answer. Well, that seemed ominous. I didn’t know what it was that we were fighting. They did. And, they still didn’t have a clue. Great.

  I didn’t say a word as I got up. They didn’t bother to try and stop me from leaving the room. I knew that I wasn’t going to be going far, just as they knew. I went only into the kitchen to put my phone on charge.

  I called through to the hospital. I needed to check that Destiny was okay. After knowing that Milligan was there, anything could have happened. As it was, the nurse who answered the phone spoke to me like I was going crazy, telling me that nothing had happened in the last hour since I went into see her. I didn’t really care what she thought of me. I was just relieved that Destiny was alright. Well, as alright as Milligan had left her.

  “Is she okay?” Harper asked me from the doorway, making me jump at his sudden appearance. I hadn’t heard him come into the room.

  “Yeah, she’s fine. Just the same.”

  Harper stepped into the kitchen and looked at me solemnly, “I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you from this.”

  “You’ve got nothing to apologise for. None of this is your fault.”

  “But, I missed all the signs. I should have known.” Harper sounded like he was beating himself up. “I should have known that there was a Djinn involved. I should have paid more attention. Marissa picked up on it the moment that she came into contact with Dee. Why didn’t I?”

  “You weren’t looking for it. You had no idea. She did.”

  “But, I should have. That’s why I’m here. I’m here to protect you. I failed you.” Harper looked grief stricken. I knew that no matter what I said that he would still feel this way. I had to try, though. I had to let him know that he wasn’t to blame in any way, shape or form.

  “You haven’t failed anyone. I mean that. None of this is your fault. The only person to blame is Milligan. This is his fault, no one else’s.” In that very mome
nt, it was like I really could see the truth in the matter. Milligan really was the only one to blame. Harper couldn’t have prevented it. I couldn’t have stopped it. Once Milligan had set his sights on me, there had been no going back. He started all of this. But, we were the ones that were going to finish it. There was no use wallowing in self-pity like this. We had to think what to do next. We had to make a plan.

  We had to do something.

  “Who can you talk to? Will there be anyone who knows how we can stop him?”

  Harper looked a little taken aback at my sudden change of pace. “I’m not too sure yet.”

  “Well, will any of your clan know something about this?” I didn’t know how the whole clan thing worked, but it was as good a place to start as any.

  “Again, I’m not sure.”

  “Well, why don’t you go and find out. Go to sleep, or do whatever it is that you have to do.” I grinned at him.

  “We don’t sleep.” Harper playfully rolled his eyes at me.

  “What? Never?”

  “Never.”

  Well, I hadn’t really expected to hear that when I first started teasing him. “You don’t sleep at all?” I asked again, just to make sure that I was hearing him correctly.

  “Not at all. When it looks like we’re sleeping, we are simply leaving our human bodies, or our shells if you like, and we go to our higher plane. It’s quite a handy thing really, that way it doesn’t look too strange to the humans that we live with.” Harper grinned and laughed at the expression on my face.

  “Okay. Too much information.”

  “Awwwww. Am I freaking you out?” He laughed.

  “Just a tad.” I laughed. “I don’t need to know exactly what you do. Just go and do it.” I shoved him towards the direction of his bedroom.

  “Will you keep an eye on Marissa for me?”

  “Of course I will.” I was surprised that he even bothered to ask. What did he think I was going to do? Leave her to her own devices? He knew me better than that. He gave me a kiss on the cheek and went into his bedroom without another word.

  Marissa was laid with her eyes closed on the sofa when I walked back in. She was looking much better now than she had before. There was some colour coming back into her cheeks. She opened her eyes as I drew near her.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  “Better, thank you.” She smiled a little more strongly this time. She propped herself up on one elbow and looked over at me. “I’m going to see what I can find out. To you, it might look like I’m sleeping, but –“

  I put up a hand to stop her from explaining it any further. “I just went through all of this with Harper. You take your nap. Knock yourself out. I don’t need to know the details. I’m going to watch a DVD so I hope you don’t snore.” I smiled at her to let her know that I was kidding. Sort of.

  Marissa laughed. “No. I don’t snore. We don’t really sleep.”

  “Enough.” I held my hands over my ears like a little kid and she laughed again.

  “Okay, okay. I won’t say anything else.”

  “Good. I can’t stand people being noisy when I’m trying to watch a film.” I threw her an amused look but she had already closed her eyes and it really did look like she was drifting off to sleep.

  I decided to attempt another cup of coffee. I was absolutely shattered. I didn’t want all three of us to be sleeping at the same time. Sure, I knew that Harper and Marissa weren’t actually sleeping, but they weren’t anywhere that I could easily bring them back from. I couldn’t remember the phrase that Marissa had told me before so I guessed that I would just have to wait for them to come back from that other plane that they kept telling me about.

  I sat back down and stared at the television. I couldn’t even remember what film I had put on. I could feel my eyelids starting to droop. I couldn’t fight it. I was too tired and they just wouldn’t stay open.

  “Holy crap!”

  That yell brought me out of the light sleep and I sloshed coffee all over my legs. Again. I think that someone was telling me to give up trying to drink that disgusting stuff. It was gross and I was more than happy never to have it ever again. I looked over at Marissa with wide eyes. She was now sat upright, looking like she had found the answers to world peace. I had never seen such a jubilant smile before.

  “What is it?” I asked, coming fully wide awake in the blink of an eye.

  She turned to look at me slowly with a look of wonder on her face. “I know what we need to do.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I know what we need to do.”

  “What?”

  She jumped up off of the sofa, showing no signs of the pain that she had been going through earlier. “I need to get Harper. We can’t do this without him.” And she raced off towards his bedroom.

  I took the time while she was gone to wipe myself down again. I was just lucky that the coffee had been stone cold this time. My trousers were soaked through. I really did need to change them. But, as I heard their footsteps returning, I knew that I didn’t have the time. I would just have to sit in wet trousers and suck it up. This was more important than a little bit of discomfort.

  They both waited until all three of us were seated before diving ahead. “Tell us everything.” Harper said, looking eager.

  “I spoke to Rhetka. She couldn’t help us. She had never heard of anything like this before. She sent me to go and talk to Raina. You know how knowledgeable she is.” Marissa and Harper exchanged a look between them that I didn’t understand. But I didn’t want to interrupt and ask her who she was talking about. I wanted to hear everything else that she had to say. “She was very shocked at first. I told her everything that you had told me and I told her everything that I felt. I told her all about your friend Destiny and what happened at the hospital when Milligan drew nearer to me. She hadn’t heard of anything quite like this, either.”

  “So, did she have any suggestions?”

  “Well, you know Rhetka. She can be a little out there at times. But, we spoke further and she thinks that an exorcism and a binding spell would work best here.”

  “But, how can we do that? The clan will want to take revenge on us. I can’t put everyone at risk like that.” Harper pointed out.

  “I did mention that to her. She thought of another way around that. Rhetka said that we need to be able to individualise him. We need to cut him off from his clan so that they don’t know what we’re doing to him. Rhetka also said that they should not seek revenge as we are not actually ending his existence. We are simply binding and imprisoning him.”

  Harper nodded like he understood what she was saying. I didn’t. I hated to ask a stupid question, but I couldn’t hold it in a moment longer. “You mean like a genie in a bottle? One that he can’t get out of?”

  I half expected them to both laugh, but surprisingly enough, they both nodded. “Yes. Essentially that’s right. He’d be bound with water. We are beings that are made of smokeless fire. The water will stop him from being able to take form again. Oh, and it needs to be holy water.” She looked at Harper when she said the last part and he nodded. I didn’t know where we were supposed to get holy water from, but he obviously did.

  “But, I thought that you said that all of those stories weren’t even real?” I looked at him puzzled.

  “I said that we couldn’t grant wishes. I said we don’t live in bottles. I didn’t say anything much else about the rest of it. Plus, in actual fact, I hadn’t ever thought that binding a Djinn would ever work. I guess that I was wrong.”

  “It won’t be easy, I can guarantee you that. We need to find the correct incantations and a suitable vial to hold him in for an eternity. It’s not going to be easy.” Marissa warned us.

  “Well, I guess that we had better start looking into it.”

  “Yes. We don’t have much time. If we do this, Rhetka says that it has to be tonight. The moon is at its fullest which will help to strengthen the bond. And, we need all the help that we
can get.”

  “Tonight?” I asked, shocked by how fast everything was moving.

  Marissa smiled at me warmly. “Don’t worry. We can do this.”

  “But, tonight?” I feared that we wouldn’t be ready, no matter how confident Marissa was.

  “Yes. It has to be tonight.” Marissa said firmly.

  “Where do we look?” Harper asked her. Marissa was clearly running this show.

  “Internet.” Marissa replied as she dug her phone out of her pocket. I laughed. I couldn’t help it. They were supposed to be these supernatural creatures and they were looking for some mystical incantation, I thought that they would have been looking for something a little more otherworldly and sophisticated than the internet.

  “But, how will we know what works and what’s a load of crap?”

  Marissa carried on tapping away on her phone. “Show us. We’ll be able to tell which ones are genuine.”

  I raised an eyebrow but made no further comment. I had to trust that they knew what they were doing here. I didn’t, so I just had to follow their lead. I opened up Google with a grin to myself.

  “What about this one?” I tried to hide a grin as I turned the laptop screen around to face them both. Harper burst out laughing, but Marissa took my suggestion seriously.

  “Not quite what we’re looking for. I don’t think that it will work for us.” She said as she squinted at the screen.

  Harper laughed again, “I don’t think that ‘Supernatural’ is going to help us out much here. The Winchesters rock, though.”

  “Damn straight the Winchesters rock. Dean and Sam would kick Milligan’s ass.” I said with a wink. Marissa looked confused by our exchange. I simply shook my head at her and got back to work.

  I wasn’t really getting very far as I didn’t know really what it was that I was looking for. I tried showing them a couple more articles, but they still weren’t right. After a while I decided to check out what was happening on Twitter and Facebook to pass the time. It was all quite amusing to see the sorts of things that people were stressing out over on their statuses. It was nothing compared to my own Djinn/Demon shenanigans. What I wouldn’t give to only have to worry about what I was going to wear tonight. Saying that, though, I doubted that I would ever willingly step foot in another nightclub again.