Curse of a Djinn

by Lichelle Slater

  I smiled softly and kissed her forehead. “We need to get back to the magi now. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t!” she snapped, anger balling her hands into fists. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. You stop Taotin from hurting my friends or I swear, Doren . . .”

  “Point taken.” I took her hand, and she sprinted to the exit beside me.

  I still couldn’t piece it together. Taotin shouldn’t have been able to enter the library, which meant he had an ally on the outside who was very powerful. Avashal could have brought him in, but I had spent a significant amount of energy to get Gwen through the barrier dividing our realms, and I knew returning her would drain the rest, enough that Jesse would need to make a pretty big wish to get me back to full health.

  But Taotin had almost disappeared, and he’d moved in the wrong direction from the djinn doorway when he’d left.

  I stopped in front of our doors.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “I just realized we really are in quite the predicament,” I admitted, looking down at her. “In many ways. The library has safety guards to prevent magical creatures from entering one another’s realms. Being a djinn, I can’t exit through the doorway of the giants, for example.”

  Her chin rose. “So I shouldn’t be able to exit through your door.”

  I shook my head. “It’s more than that. I’m pretty sure I can use my magic to get you out, but I’m more concerned about how we’re going to get out of the djinn realm. My master has to summon me out, and they don’t know I’m here. If they don’t know I’ve returned . . .”

  “They won’t know to summon you back,” she finished.

  “And I don’t know how to take you back out with me.”

  Gwen gulped a breath. “Okay. Okay, so . . . so what? You and I hide out there? Or I try and find the sorceress doorway?” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “Hope it leads me back to the mortal realm?”

  “No,” I said a bit too firmly. “No, I can’t just let you out of my sight knowing how close Taotin is. He has at least one djinn on his side. I fear he may have more.” I ran a hand over my face.

  “If he has djinn on his side, we could step right into a trap if we leave the library,” she said.

  “But he also didn’t leave in this direction.” I looked over my shoulder, glancing at the other doorways behind us.

  Gwen understood what I was thinking. “If Taotin is a human, how did he get in here? You masked me, blended me with you using your magic, making the library believe I am a djinn. But I am also a sorceress, so perhaps the library read that. How did Taotin get through? An ancient human pharaoh?”

  We stood in silence.

  Gwen tilted her head. “Doren, could he have wished himself to become something different? To become a magical creature?”

  I licked my lips. “Yes, if he had a powerful enough djinn. Look, it’s too much to think of right now. We have to get back to the magi, and I need to tell them everything. What do you think we should do?”

  “Magi?” she asked, studying me with scrunched eyes.

  “Oh, the mafia kids. Apparently, they’ve been one of the magi factions.”

  She raised her brows.

  “I’ll explain later,” I said.

  Gwen clutched her book tighter to her chest. She reached out and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. “Our only choice is to go through those doors.”

  I smiled softly. She had always been brave. “I’ll protect you in here, but you need to trust me and do as I say.”

  “I trust you.”

  We made it through the doorway again, my djinn markings glowing blue, showing me I was running low on energy. I didn’t need the visual reminder, I could feel it deep in my bones, and when I let go of Gwen, I had to steady myself on her shoulder before I could walk.

  “Are you all right?” she pressed.

  “Of course.” I gave her a reassuring smile. “If I use my magic without the permission of my master, it weakens me temporarily. Nothing I can’t handle.”

  She didn’t look like she believed me, but she didn’t argue.

  I put my arm around her shoulders, needing to feel her at my side. “My place is just down this way.” I gestured to the path we’d taken to get to the library.

  Like before, all my senses were on alert for any sort of abnormal sounds or actions of other djinn. Though we liked to stick to ourselves, there were enough djinn who I knew we should have seen at least one during our walk. And we hadn’t seen a single djinn on our way to the library. A dark foreboding lingered just out of my line of sight, at the corners of my vision everywhere I looked.

  Gwen suddenly stopped, and I looked at her, about to ask what she was doing, but my breath hitched. Her eyes had taken on a light glow. She flipped to the very back of the book, to a page of hieroglyphics I knew she couldn’t read.

  “Do you need me to read that?” I asked.

  She didn’t acknowledge me but traveled a finger down the images. I glanced around again, the typical silence somehow seeming too quiet, and making me rather uncomfortable. Gwen was reading something maybe her past self was trying to get her to remember.

  “We really need to move,” I finally urged.

  “Love yourself. Trust yourself. Trust your love,” she said. She looked up at me, our eyes locking together like they had in the library, and she gave me such a smile, my heart swelled. “The three corners of a pyramid. Love and trust, of self and the one you love.”

  The same light in her eyes glowed around her hands, radiating from the book and spreading through her body until her entire being glowed. I dropped my hand and watched her, afraid I might disrupt the magic by my touch.

  She closed the book and smiled with more confidence than I’d ever seen. “That’s what Glupin was trying to teach me. I have relied on myself for the last eight years, but I never fully trusted myself and my magical abilities, and I never ever trusted anyone else. But when I was terrified, when I was trying to escape, all I could think about was you.” She reached her hand out and touched my face.

  I felt the magic tingle through her hand and down my tongue. I leaned forward to taste it, to taste her, and drew a deep breath. Even in my realm of colorless unchanging, Gwen brought the scent of ginger and hot summer evenings.

  But we couldn’t linger like this, and I pulled away.

  “Doren, what is motivating Taotin?” she asked the moment we parted. “What does he want?”

  I shook my head. “I know he’s been trying for centuries to be rid of the magi.” I put my hand on her back, urging her forward again. “I think he might be gathering their power, but I honestly don’t know why. I haven’t seen enough to know.”

  “When we were alive, I don’t remember him sharing things like that with me,” Gwen said.

  “Do you remember him being your husband?” I asked.

  She looked up at me. “Pieces. Do you think power still motivates him after all this time?”

  I ran my fingers through my hair. “It’s been so long, I . . . but wait. In the library he said he’s been trying to bring you back for centuries,” I said, realization dawning on me.

  It made sense.

  “Care to share your thoughts, wise one?” Gwen asked.

  I licked my lips. “Gathering power all this time . . . he said he brought you back . . .”

  “You think he got that power and brought me back from the dead himself?”

  “It’s possible.”

  Gwen’s head snapped to the right at the same moment I felt a wave of magical energy, and without hesitating, she dropped the book. She moved her fingers in a series of quick, sharp movements until a white shield of magic appeared directly before us. A form appeared and sent a flurry of fireballs in our direction. The heat exploded around the edges of the shield, which hadn’t had enough time to spread that direction, and I smelled the scorch of the fire.

  The heat dissipate
d, and Avashal looked Gwen up and down.

  I got a bitter taste in my mouth.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Zenja.” He bowed at the waist. “I’ve come to rescue you.” Like Taotin, he held his hand out toward her.

  “Rescue?” Gwen laughed. “Oh, trust me. I don’t need you doing anything except to deliver a message to Taotin. Tell him to screw himself.”

  Avashal arched an eyebrow and shifted his attention to me.

  “This is Avashal,” I explained. “Taotin’s djinn.”

  Avashal smirked. “You’ve known for a while, haven’t you? You don’t seem surprised at all to see me coming to fetch her.”

  “How many djinn does he have under his control?” I asked.

  “All that matters is we bring Zenja back to him. He was very specific in his orders.”

  I sensed a presence over my left shoulder and spun in time to dodge a flying dagger. I slammed my hand against Gwen’s shoulder, moving her out of the way of the second and sending her sprawling to the ground.

  I caught the man’s arm when he thrust inward for a blow and slammed my elbow into his nose. “Gwen, hold on!” I called.

  She’d backed up against a building so she could keep her eyes on everyone, but she wasn’t a damsel in distress. Gwen extended her right hand, gathering the bricks from the cobblestone pathways and quickly building a wall in front of Avashal.

  He shouted in frustration and tried his own barrage of magic, but Gwen was already done with her wall, and his magic only leaked over the top without causing any damage.

  A third man appeared, but he had a scimitar and slashed at my chest. I hopped backward, then ducked and spun a kick at his ankles. He easily skipped to the side and sliced downward. I rolled the opposite direction and sprung back to my feet to kick his shoulder. He turned inward, drawing a small dagger, and managed to slice his own arm in the process.

  “Doren!” Gwen screamed the same instant I felt the hotness of pain sear between my ribs as a dagger sunk into me.

  The man twisted the dagger, cracking it against my bones. I gritted my teeth, falling forward to roll away from my attacker, and saw Avashal standing with a dagger bloody to the hilt.

  He’d used his magic to transport up behind me. I should have seen it coming.

  I staggered back to my feet, only to drop to a knee and gulp for breath. He’d managed to puncture my lung. I could feel it growing tighter as it filled with my blood.

  Avashal looked over at Gwen. “A djinn can’t kill himself in our realm. Did you know that? Doren tried a few times and was never successful. Of course, what he never caught on to—and I truly don’t know how—a djinn can kill another. Cause them pain. Especially if one obtains the Dagger of the Dead.”

  I shifted my gaze to the dagger. It was supposed to be a myth, another old legend or story to make us djinn hold out for any sort of hope for freedom. But I could feel my lung getting heavy, and I knew Avashal was right about at least being hurt by another djinn.

  I tried to stand again but groaned as a wave of pain coursed through me, and my stomach retched so hard I nearly vomited.

  “Oh. I forgot to mention he’s now been poisoned as well.” Avashal interrupted one of Gwen’s spells. “He could die without healing.”

  She glared at him, balling her hands into fists. I fully expected her to give him an earful, to beg for help, something. But she strode past him instead, over to my side. She crouched and placed her hand on the wound on my back, forcing me to grit my teeth, and I watched her stare down Avashal. “I can heal him.”

  Heat radiated from her hand.

  “Which is sort of what I was hoping for,” he shrugged.

  Two djinn appeared, each grasping on to one of her arms, and before I could react, she was gone.

  “Gwen!” I shouted. I tried to get to my feet, tried to turn and find her. “Guinevere!” I screamed.

  Avashal clicked his tongue at me and flicked the blood away from his fingers. “He did warn you.”

  I turned to him, feeling so much more than rage course through my veins. Even in the colorless world of the djinn prison, I saw my markings glow blue.

  Avashal’s eyes widened and he took a step back. “Wh-what . . . are you doing?”

  I was recalling every particle of energy I could muster to myself, every ounce of my life force and every master’s I’d ever taken. Taotin wouldn’t take Gwen. I wouldn’t allow it. I wouldn’t allow her to be hurt by him ever again.

  With a shout loud enough to be a roar, I sprinted forward and landed a blow to Avashal’s face so hard he cracked the side of the building he struck, and he dropped the Dagger of the Dead. I sprinted at him again, fingers grazing the ground to scoop up the dagger and slammed it into his heart.

  His eyes widened, and his lips moved. He looked down at the dagger and then up at me.

  “I’ll see you in hell,” I growled.

  His toes gave way to sand, and slowly his body succumbed and was scattered on the wind.

  I dropped the dagger and collapsed.

  Chapter 22

  Gwen

  I should have been impressed by the statues, paintings, lavish rugs, furniture, and pure wealth in the room, I should have gawked and spun in awe and wonder like I had at the Library of Alexandria. But Taotin sat in a chair beside the fireplace, and I wanted to kill him right where he sat.

  “I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” he said, fingertips pressed together.

  “Oh, I have much more than questions, you bastard,” I snapped back, jerking my arms away from the djinn holding me.

  He held up a hand, stopping me. “You shouldn’t poison your tongue with such language. It’s unbecoming of you, Zenja.” He frowned at me.

  I’d seen that look. It was his passive-aggressive way to tell me I was treading on thin ice. I felt a chill crawl up my spine like frozen fingers, and they gripped the back of my neck.

  It wasn’t a chill. It was his fingers, ethereal yet physical enough that the grip hurt.

  He smirked at me and motioned a finger for me to come closer.

  I complied. Not because I wanted to, but those fingers on my neck were enough to show me he had a hidden power I didn’t understand. I stopped in front of him, and in a fluid motion, Taotin got to his feet.

  His fingers played with a pendant on the end of his necklace, and he smirked cruelly at me. “Did Doren survive?” he asked.

  My jaw flexed, and I resisted the urge to punch him in his pathetic nose.

  Taotin laughed, right in my face. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you again. To have you back.” He ran his finger down my cheek.

  I stepped back, regardless of the icy magical hand on my neck. “Don’t touch me.”

  “You must not remember,” he frowned. “I suppose that is to be expected when one is reincarnated.” He put his hands behind his back and strolled to the liquor cabient. He popped the cork on a rectangular one and poured it into a glass. “You and I were quite the pair. Don’t you remember any of it?”

  I couldn’t. In honesty, I didn’t want to. My memories of Taotin were tiny flashes compared to the memories I had of Doren.

  “Hm. That little viper stole you from me then, and I won’t let him take you now. I simply won’t allow it.” He lowered his chin, looking at me from under his heavy brows.

  Another chill traveled up my spine, but this one was out of fear.

  He tipped the liquid down his throat and set the glass on the edge of the table. “There is so much to do now that you’ve returned to my side.”

  “Like what? What is it you want?” I demanded.

  He smirked. “You. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” He strolled over to me, only to jolt to a stop when the pendant on his necklace slowly turned to sand. “No. No, no, no!” he shouted, grappling at the sand as if he could stop the process, but it slid through his fingers and piled on the floor.

  Taotin’s eyes burned in anger, and he sn
apped his glare to the other djinn still in the room. “I want Doren now. Bring him to me.”

  They disappeared.

  I grinned triumphantly. Doren had survived his injuries.

  Taotin’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and I actually thought he would strike me. Instead, he straightened his spine, lips tight, and gripped my wrist so tightly I thought it would break. He led me from the room.

  My brain swam with excuses to try and use, questions to demand, but I couldn’t get anything past my dry tongue.

  I thought we might be headed to a bedroom or something, but he dragged me into a sitting room and pushed me onto a couch. He grabbed a book from a shelf and dropped it in my lap.

  I stared at it, then up at him.

  “You remember Doren because he found you first. You remember him because he took you on adventures while I secured our lives. You choose not to remember he used you to get to me. To get information to give to his precious magi companions. To kill me. And you failed to see it. Even when he killed you.”

  I started and leaned back. “What are you implying?”

  Taotin took a seat at my side and opened the cover of the book. He put my hand on the first page, and a swarm of memories flooded my mind.

  The first thing I saw was the very first time I met Taotin, when I was proving my magical abilities to be his sorceress. When he showed me to my room, he smiled at me with such kindness, his brown eyes bright with the sunlight.

  I accompanied him to breakfast, where he explained his needs for me that day—usually menial tasks like ensuring the river monsters stopped attacking the shoreline villages, helping to lighten the burden of the slaves so they could work longer, manipulate the earth to help with crop harvests, and so forth.

  And then we began to spend more time together.

  He was charming, charismatic, and his playful phrasing of words left me laughing.

  I sat at my desk, writing in a journal—this journal—all these details. “ . . . his smile makes my heart forget it is in a body. His laughter is the sound of rain after a drought, and I am the ground sucking it all in . . .”