“Might want to work on your aim, there, killer,” Duncan said before he heel-flipped his board behind a row of bookshelves and out of Fon-Rahm’s range.
Fon-Rahm was finding it hard to concentrate. It took everything he had to focus on his true target. “Vesiroth! This ends here!”
The dark sorcerer smiled at his creation. “Does our pact no longer stand, Fon-Rahm? I believe you promised you would not attempt to hurt me.”
“I propose a new agreement,” said the genie. “You give up your mad quest for the Helm and leave here at once.”
“And what do I get?”
The first of the Jinn’s black eyes misted over with smoke. “You get to survive.”
Professor Ellison and Theo watched it all on cameras from their control room deep in the bowels of the house.
“We finally have Vesiroth right where we want him and that idiot genie shows up to fight him,” Ellison said. “He’ll ruin everything.”
“There’s something wrong with Fon-Rahm,” Theo said. “His eyes look funny. He’s not acting right.”
“That’s not our concern, Theo. Concentrate on the task at hand.”
Theo didn’t say anything. He turned his attention to another monitor that showed Parker, Reese, J.T., and Naomi in the hall outside their safe room. He made a silent wish to himself that they would leave the house and find their way to safety. Then he made another wish that he was going with them.
“All right. Let’s get a move on, guys.” J.T. looked down one direction of the endless hallway and then down the other. “I gotta admit, it’d be a lot easier to find our way out of here if this place wasn’t the size of the Staples Center.”
“I’m not following you anywhere,” said Reese.
J.T.’s mouth tightened into a hurt frown. “Come on, Reese. You can trust me.”
Reese just looked away.
“Parker! Tell her! Tell her I’m not a spy!”
“Dad, I want to believe you, but…” Parker stopped.
“Parker, look out!” Reese cried, pointing backward. The Path member had finally caught up to them. J.T. instinctively stood in front of his son. The Path henchman raised his rifle and prepared to shoot. Suddenly, a look of sheer terror crossed his face. He dropped his gun and clutched his fists to the side of his head. Finally, the Path goon fell to the floor. He curled up in a ball and began to sob quietly to himself.
Parker, Reese, and J.T. turned to see Naomi Cook holding a tarnished gold ring high in the air. She looked terrified.
“I think maybe we found our spy,” said J.T.
“Um, Professor Ellison? You should probably take a look at this.”
Ellison reluctantly turned her attention to Theo’s monitor and the drama unfolding among Parker, Reese, J.T., and Naomi. “Exactly how well do you know your little classmate Naomi?”
“Not real well, I guess. Why?”
“Because she appears to be carrying the Ring of Sorrows. I don’t suppose you came across it in your studies?”
“Yeah, sure, the Ring of Sorrows. I think it, um…” Theo had no idea.
On a normal day Professor Ellison would have let her pupil sweat. This was not a normal day. “It’s not important what the ring does. What’s important is that I know for a fact who has it.”
“Who has it?”
“The U.S. government.”
Parker, Reese, and J.T. all stared at Naomi.
“You were spying on us?” asked Reese, crestfallen.
Naomi lowered the ring. “It wasn’t my idea.”
“Did Vesiroth send you?” said Parker.
“If Vesiroth sent me I wouldn’t have saved you, would I?” Naomi looked down at the Path member. He was rocking back and forth on the floor and babbling to himself. “The ring is supposed to make you relive the worst thing that ever happened to you, over and over again. That’s the first time I ever used something like this.”
Parker was furious. “Yeah, sure it is!”
“It is! I never wanted to hurt anybody, not even the enemy!”
“Parker, back off,” said J.T. He turned to Naomi. “Take a deep breath and try to calm down. You’re shaking.”
She was. “I’m not supposed to be here. They told me not to engage but I knew something bad was happening. I couldn’t just let you guys walk into a war zone. I can’t believe I was dumb enough to let Vesiroth grab me.”
“Who sent you? Why are you watching us?”
“Come on, Parker, why do you think?” Naomi gestured to the destroyed walls. “Your friend the math teacher has superpowers. Did you think no one would notice? You had to know you couldn’t fly under the radar forever. This thing is bigger than just you. It puts the whole planet at risk. We’re just trying to do the right thing.”
“And who is we, exactly?” asked Parker.
“I can’t tell you. I’m sorry. But I can say that we’re the good guys.”
“Of course you are.” Parker snorted. “Even Vesiroth thinks he’s a good guy.”
“Okay. Look, we can sort this all out once we get out of here.”
Parker stared straight ahead. “I’m not leaving.”
Reese said, “But you promised Fon-Rahm—”
“I know what I promised Fon-Rahm. But I won’t leave him here to fight alone. He needs me, even if he doesn’t realize it.”
J.T. stepped between his son and the trail of rubble that marked Fon-Rahm’s path through the house. “Parker, that’s out of the question. I have to get you to safety.”
“You can’t stop me, Dad. I have to do this.”
“Fon-Rahm is a genie, Parker. He might be able to rip down walls with his bare hands but you’re just a kid.”
“It’s hard to explain, but…he’s my responsibility.”
“But you can’t—”
“I won’t argue with you, Dad. I’m going. My friends need me.”
J.T. looked at his son. Parker was steadfast and brave. “When I left you seemed so young and small. But now…Well, if you’re going, I’m going with you.”
“Dad—”
“You’re my kid. I can’t let that other guy take all the glory. Besides, buddy, at this point I basically have to. If I show up without you your mom’s going to kill me anyways.”
Parker felt a flush of pride for his dad. “Dad, I’m sorry I thought you were a spy. I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you.”
“I know. Don’t worry about it, kiddo.”
“Well, what about us?” asked Reese.
Parker glared at Naomi. “You have to keep an eye on Naomi.”
“I just saved your life,” Naomi said. “You still don’t trust me?”
“Nope.” Parker took a deep breath and climbed over the ruins of the wall. J.T. followed, and Parker broke into a jog as they charged into a battle that neither might survive.
When they were gone, Naomi turned to Reese. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I want you to know that I wasn’t faking being friends with you. I think you’re the coolest person I ever…”
Reese didn’t seem to be listening. She picked up the fallen Path member’s gun and gestured down the hall.
“Let’s go,” she said in a voice as cold as snow.
The Path member, dazed but alive, scrambled away from Vesiroth and Fon-Rahm and vanished into a sea of bookcases in search of Duncan. Fon-Rahm let him go and stood in front of Vesiroth. “What is your answer, wizard? Do you live or do you die?”
The wizard smiled as his fingers found the silver spike hanging from his neck. “Fon-Rahm! Finally I see myself in you, ruthless and cold-blooded. This world is no place for the weak, my child.”
“I am not your child.”
“Of course you are. You and your brothers are all my children, and you will all serve me in one way or another. That’s what children are for.”
“Do not make me destroy you.”
“You were created from my essence, Fon-Rahm, and I know you better than you know yourself. You wouldn’t kill me even if you could.”
<
br /> Fon-Rahm’s entire body ached. His own energy was depleted and his thoughts were buried in a deep fog. If it came down to it, he really didn’t know if he could beat Vesiroth in an all-out war. “Do not test me, creator.”
“Ah, but, you see, a test is precisely what I had in mind. You’ve proven you’re still capable of blasting down walls, but there’s something amiss, isn’t there? You’re not quite yourself these days, firstborn. The question is, just how much of you is actually left?”
“Enough to end you.”
Vesiroth nodded sagely. “Perhaps. But then again, it won’t just be me, will it?”
“But who else…”
The answer dawned on Fon-Rahm. Vesiroth laughed as the genie stuck his good hand into the nearest bookcase. Fon-Rahm tore through the wood and paper to find Duncan with the Path member dead at his feet. The ten-year-old finished the rituals, making the last few turns to the ends of the last canister. The empty lamp landed with a clang on the floor, next to another canister just like it.
Through a cloud of thick and acrid smoke Fon-Rahm could see horrors on either side of Duncan. The genie called Kain had the torso and arms of a man, a face that resembled both Fon-Rahm’s and Vesiroth’s, and the segmented body of a giant millipede trailing behind him. His eyes were wide with rage and madness. The genie Resparia was a ghostly version of Fon-Rahm, translucent, flickering in and out of visibility as if he was not really there at all.
The two genies struggled against invisible tethers and let loose unearthly screams. Duncan stood between them, using all of his strength to keep them in line. Fon-Rahm saw at once what had happened.
Duncan had opened both lamps himself. He was now the master of two of the Jinn.
33
IT WAS EVERYTHING DUNCAN HAD ever wanted.
The power. The absolute, unadulterated power. His genies were a direct connection to the Nexus, a gate through which power flowed like water. He had been readying himself for this moment for centuries, and now that it was finally here Duncan knew that without his two genies he would never feel complete again.
Parker and J.T. entered the library just in time to see Kain’s millipede body skitter disgustingly up a wall. The smell of rancid meat hung in the air like a fog. “Look out, Fon-Rahm!” Parker cried. Fon-Rahm ducked out of the way as Kain lunged. The millipede genie opened his mouth and let out a horrible screech.
Fon-Rahm whirled on his young master and J.T. “Parker! You swore to me that you would leave this place!”
“You know I couldn’t let you do this alone!”
J.T. took one look at Kain and went pale. “Um, Parker, what exactly is that thing?”
“Nothing good.”
Kain jolted toward Parker and J.T., but Fon-Rahm grabbed him by his wriggling body and threw him to the floor. In seconds, the two genies were locked together, Kain wrapping his segmented body around Fon-Rahm in an attempt to crush him, Fon-Rahm using his blue lightning to singe legs off of the hideous insect genie. It was a failing tactic. No matter how many legs Fon-Rahm burned away, there were always more.
In the midst of the chaos, Vesiroth seethed. “You dare?” he said, staring daggers at Duncan. “You defy my orders and take the Jinn for yourself? You hide a lamp from me? From me?”
“Yeah, sorry about that, boss,” said Duncan, euphoric in his newfound role as genie-master. “Should have kept you in the loop.” With that, he commanded, “Resparia! Be a bud and bring me Vesiroth’s head, would you?”
The ghost genie vanished and appeared behind Vesiroth, his hands around the dark wizard’s neck. Vesiroth tried to pry them off but his human hands went through the Jinn’s wrists as if the genie was made of smoke.
“Why should you have the throne and not me?” Duncan asked Vesiroth. “So we can have a world at peace? A world without war? I like war.” He sneered as Vesiroth struggled. “I’m really, really good at it.”
As they walked, Naomi desperately tried to get through to her onetime best friend. They could hear the battle raging deeper in the house.
“We have to help them,” she pleaded. “Please. I know you’re mad at me….”
“I’m not mad at you,” Reese said calmly, the Path goon’s rifle uncomfortable in her hands. “I just don’t trust you.”
“I’m sorry I lied. I really am. I thought I was doing the right thing. Hasn’t that ever happened to you? Haven’t you ever done the wrong thing for the right reason?”
Reese wavered. She was always second-guessing herself. Who wasn’t?
“You have no idea what my life is like. This wasn’t my choice. I was raised to do this. I never got to be a regular kid. I never had friends. And then I met you….” Naomi looked at the floor. “Maybe you don’t understand. Maybe making friends comes easy to you.”
Reese whirled on Naomi. “Easy? Everybody thinks I’m a geek and a loser! My whole life I’ve either been too smart or too weird for friends. Parker and Theo are all I’ve got and I don’t know if I would even have them if we had never found Fon-Rahm.”
“You’ve got me.”
Reese looked away.
“And Parker and Theo are my friends, too, and I say we go and help them,” Naomi said. “That’s what friends do.”
Reese lowered the gun. Naomi was right. That was what friends did.
Fon-Rahm threw off the millipede genie and fried it with a blast of blue electricity. Kain landed on his hundreds of legs and hissed at the first of the Jinn. He didn’t like the taste of lightning, and decided to go after an easier target. Kain planted his front claws and leaped straight at Parker and J.T. Parker shoved his father aside and used his residual knowledge of parkour to escape. By the time Kain reached Parker, the seventh grader was gone, using the table and the wall as launchpads for a series of impossible-to-follow acrobatics.
Fon-Rahm targeted the millipede genie and unleashed everything he had. The air in Professor Ellison’s house was filled with arcing blue bolts that slammed into Kain one after another. The heat from the attack blistered the paint off of the ceiling and set fire to the furniture. Kain curled in on himself in pain, looking like the world’s largest and most deadly potato bug.
And then Fon-Rahm collapsed, spent. Parker and J.T. rushed to his side.
“Fon-Rahm!” Parker cried. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
The genie could barely speak. “I…I cannot…”
“He’s hurt bad, kid,” Parker’s dad said. “He’s black-and-blue all over.”
Parker said, “Fon-Rahm, it’s okay. You can rest for a minute. Let Vesiroth and that psycho kid fight it out. With any luck, they’ll kill each other and save us the trouble.”
The genie stared at Parker like he could barely recognize him. “The infection, Parker. I can feel it in my mind. It is telling me…telling me…”
“Telling you what, buddy?”
Without warning, the genie lashed out his arm, backhanding J.T. across the room. Parker’s father hit the wall like a rag doll and slumped to the floor, unconscious. The genie bared his teeth at Parker, his eyes as black as his skin was sickly gray. “It is telling me to kill you.”
34
VESIROTH STRUGGLED AGAINST RESPARIA. The dark sorcerer was the most dangerous wizard who had ever lived, but what could he do against a ghost? As Resparia choked the life from him, Vesiroth gurgled in a vain attempt to speak.
Duncan leaned closer to Vesiroth. “Sorry, boss, I can’t quite make out what you’re trying to say.”
“You…you…”
“I what? I beat you without even breaking a sweat? I’m the greatest wizard that ever lived? Yeah, that sounds about right.” He turned to the millipede genie. “Kain! I command you to make me twenty again!” A mist passed over Duncan. When it was gone, he was no longer a ten-year-old. He was a twenty-year-old man in the absolute prime of his life. “Looks like I didn’t need your help after all.” He flexed the muscles in his arms and cracked his neck. “That feels so good.”
“You…”
“You know,” Duncan said, “if I were you I would save my strength and enjoy my last, oh, say ten seconds of life. Adios, boss.”
Vesiroth’s hand’s found the silver pendant that hung from his neck. He grabbed it and concentrated all his will on the ghost genie. Resparia howled in pain and dropped the scarred wizard to the floor. Vesiroth gasped and locked a gaze of pure hatred onto Duncan. “You…have made a grave mistake.”
Duncan frowned. “Kain! Stop blubbering and kill this old fool.”
The millipede genie pulled himself from the floor and lunged. Without even taking his eyes off his betrayer Vesiroth grasped his pendant with one hand and held the other to Kain. A blast of pure energy knocked the genie back. The fury in Vesiroth’s voice was blistering. “Did you really think you could use my own creations against me?”
He sent out another shock wave and pushed Kain to the other side of the room. That’s when Duncan discovered the downside to genie ownership. He was tethered to Kain and Resparia both, and when the millipede genie was more than fifty yards away, a rush of white-hot pain shot through his head. Duncan put his hands to his temples in abject agony.
“Kain and Resparia are mindless beasts brought into being through a sheer force of will. My very life force courses through them…” Before the ghost genie could disappear, Vesiroth sent a blast that forced him away from Duncan. Duncan moaned in pain as Vesiroth picked up one of the jade-and-metal staffs dropped by the now-deceased members of the Path. “…until I decide that I want it back.”
Parker vaulted away just as a bolt of blue lightning destroyed the place he just stood. “Fon-Rahm! What are you doing? I command you to stop!”
Fon-Rahm ignored his master’s orders. Lightning radiated down his arms and off the tips of his fingers. He was aglow with blue electricity that pulsed like a heartbeat.
“Fon-Rahm, stop! It’s me! It’s Parker!”
Fon-Rahm didn’t seem to care. Electricity crackled around him as he prepared to fry Parker. Parker closed his eyes, ready to die in a way he never would have thought possible, at the hands of a being he had always considered his friend.
Finders Keepers Page 18
