I clawed at the sand with one hand and stabbed furiously at it with the dagger with the other, desperation giving strength to my thrusts. Tiny grains filled my mouth and nose as I struggled to breathe. It wouldn’t be long before I ran out of air. Something popped in my right side, a rib likely cracking, and I shuddered out a yell, wondering if this darkness pressing against me would be the end. Desperation surged and the tip of my dagger slipped through an opening.
Blissful, beautiful light filtered through and I scrambled for it, getting an arm through the opening when it snapped tight around it. My legs went weak when the darkness swept in once more. I was out of ideas. Another rib popped and tears pricked at my eyes, absorbed by the sand before they could fall. There was nothing I could do but accept the pain.
As suddenly as he’d attacked, Phenex released me.
My body smacked the ground and I spilled to my hands and knees, coughing up sand and gulping greedily at the oxygen. My ribs burned with every heaving gasp, but I didn’t care. I was alive.
“I’ll ask you again, Zara.” Phenex spoke my name like a taunt. His slender shadow spilled across the backs of my hands and I realized how close he’d gotten. “Who are you, and what are you concealing?”
I looked up, shaking with fatigue, one eye closed in a squint as I peered at his profile. I’d tried to see his magic before, but he’d blocked it somehow, clutching its signature in an ironclad grip. Now though, through the lens of my Iridescence—my ability to see and analyze magic—I realized he was easily the most powerful being I’d ever encountered—aside from myself and Joseph. Bright strands of gold shot with brown so dark it was nearly black whipped around him, his whispery figure so much like Kaleal’s in its lack of true shape.
Whatever he was, it wasn’t remotely human.
“Yes, you really are more trouble than you’re worth, aren’t you?” His flawless calm was starting to piss me off. “No matter how you know me, I suppose. You’re hardly talented enough to defend against me for long. Maybe you should give up now, because you’re only extending the inevitable.”
Over his shoulder, Ryder had shifted to his demon form. Long, veined bat wings flapped as he pounded at the barrier, his mouth wide in what I could only imagine were yells. Beyond him gathered a congregation of nero, their eyes glowing yellow. Something about them…
The sand shifted beneath my knees again, dragging me backward. I let out a short yell of my own. On either side of me rose thick walls of sand. As they snapped together, I reacted, reaching for the only source of water left to me, a source I’d sworn I’d never use.
The walls exploded, showering me in sand. Phenex stumbled, clutching his chest as he choked, clawing at his skin, nails digging bloody grooves. I raised my clenched hand, ripping harder at the very blood coursing through his veins, driving him to his knees as I advanced.
“You think me powerless, Phenex,” I said. Violence burned in his eyes as he curled in on himself, snarling angrily. I smiled wide, the expression ugly. “And you’ve got tricks, but I’m done being pushed around by men who think they’re more powerful than me, who think they’re better than me.”
Like Geoffrey.
In my mind’s eye, I could see the ball of flame rushing toward me.
“Release me now,” I ordered, shaking the vision aside, “and I’ll consider not leaving you a dry husk of skin and bones.”
“Alright, alright.” With effort, Phenex fought my hold and lifted his hand in a placating manner. When I was sure he’d drop the shield separating me from my friends, he vanished. I blinked as my insides went deathly cold in horror.
“Nice try.” His voice came from behind me and I snapped around as a fist cracked my cheek. I stumbled, but even as I reclaimed my fighter’s stance, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Three Phenexs standing side by side grinned broadly back at me, savoring my confusion. The three forms roared with pure magic: no blood, no organs, nothing human about them.
The beginnings of true fear flickered in my belly.
“I must say I’m impressed with that little trick of yours.” The three Phenexs spoke as one. I flinched and closed my eyes against the stereo effect. When I opened them again, he’d multiplied. Nine of him surrounded me now, nine matching versions all closing in. Behind them loomed a growing wall of sand. I scrambled for a plan, anything to save me, but came up blank.
My skin felt icy, my limbs disjointed. Even my head was lighter than normal, my vision foggy with panic. This was really, really bad.
Phenex was still talking, “—never had a chance.”
I spun in a slow circle, nearly tripping over nothing as my breathing went shallow.
“You want to know what I am, Zara?” The bass of his voice pounded my ears over and over again, louder than standing beside the speakers at a rock concert. “I suppose I can let you in on that little secret since you won’t be around long enough to speak of it to anyone.”
Motion across from me caught my attention. Ryder. He was doing something strange with his fingers, cupping them and flipping his thumb first straight up, then flattening it, over and over again.
A wall of sand rose high, but I barely saw it, grasping instead at the answer to Ryder’s gesture that loomed past my fingertips.
“I’m a djinn. The last djinn alive, in fact. You want to know how I know that?” Phenex laughed, the sound reverberating against the walls of the barrier, hammering me like hail. “I killed my siblings and devoured their magic. Every. Last. One of them.”
The incubus patted his pocket and made that gesture again, then pressed his palm to the barrier. Understanding ignited an inferno in my core. My hand shot to my own pocket. On the plane, the incubus had given me something. My fingers closed around a cold, metal rectangle the size of a matchbook.
Heat swept under, across, over my skin.
I had fire.
“Any last words, little God?” One of the Phenexs raised his hand.
I assumed he was the real one.
The bright red of my fire magic blazed hotter and hotter, so blinding in its intensity I’d worry about it consuming me alive if I wasn’t so certain I could control it. I shook now not with fear or pain, but with excited energy as I raised the lighter high, flipping the top back as if I’d done so a million times before. My thumb braced on the tiny textured wheel as the djinn squinted at it.
“As if you care,” I said.
The wheel rolled.
A sliver of a flame emerged, and my magic caught it, erupting like a room filled with gasoline. Everything inside the djinn’s barricade went up in flames, hot and bright, and gloriously mine. I poured my energy into the brilliance, allowing to burn hotter and hotter, the flames barely touching me. It wanted to do this, it wanted to breathe. It sizzled and soared and raged, delighting in its free reign.
The bubble of Phenex’s magic burst, flames bursting forth like a breached dam. Sweat dripped from my forehead, my spine going rigid as I ripped my power back, denying the inferno its life force. The magic screamed in protest but sucked back beneath my skin.
Before the smoke cleared, an arm snaked around my back, clutching me immobile. A thin, silver blade pressed against my throat and I froze, afraid I’d slice my own throat by swallowing. Everything in me protested, my skin quivering at the contact.
Phenex cupped the back of my head, his fingers digging into my scalp forcefully, directing my face upward. My lip curled. He was remarkably unaffected by the force of my power. His skin was untouched. Even the white collar framing his throat was barely singed.
His lips parted and my world narrowed. Nothing penetrated the bubble encapsulating us. A nuclear warhead could detonate beside me and I wouldn’t notice.
“I’m honored to have the privilege of teaching you a very valuable lesson, Zara.” The fingers digging into my hair relaxed, but he had me so ensnared I was beyond considering escape. “The simplest attack is the most effective.”
His thumb traced a line along the column of my throat.
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“So vulnerable, so breakable,” he mused. The pressure of the blade returned and wetness dripped down my skin. “Even a God can be damaged. Don’t forget that.”
He released me, though in my stunned state I could barely move. The djinn folded the blade of his knife into its handle and presented it to me with a flourish. My rigor mortis broke and I took it numbly. The silver and pearl were warm from his body heat.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
He straightened from his subtle bow, one that felt more sincere than mocking. He flicked the fingers on his left hand, dispelling the barrier he’d seamlessly recreated around us. The rest of the world filtered through, and I flinched at the rush of noise.
“You surprise me,” he said dryly. “I’d forgotten what that was like.”
Chapter 12
Knuckles rapped against the door as I unwound a towel from my long hair.
I raised an eyebrow at Briar stationed in the corner of my room cleaning a wicked set of elongated throwing stars. She nodded without looking up from her work, giving me the all clear from the pixie stationed out in the hallway.
“Come in,” I called. Someday I’d understand the telepathic bond between the pixies—after I figured out my own mental irregularities anyway. Like how Kaleal had sunk so deep inside me I couldn’t find or hear her. She had no right to leave me in limbo like this. I could use her help since it seemed we were stuck at Phenex’s palace for the time being.
Finn was the number one advocate for leaving straightaway. I was a close second, but Ryder argued that if we left, we’d lose what could be our only shot at getting across the desert. He’d won over Joseph, who seemed to think the Order was on to us, and the pixies were dying for a fight if it came down to it… so here we were: residing in enemy territory at Temple de Sable.
I tossed the towel away as the door to my rooms opened. Finn strode through. He whistled low and slow, taking in the four-poster bed draped in wispy purple and blue fabrics and its thick, black comforter was shot with pinpricks of white. To the side was a sitting area with chairs upholstered in silk; the vanity was really a wall of gold and mirrors with a ledge. Briar straddled the back of a gilded chair in the corner there, her back to the reflection. She claimed all the glass creeped her out.
“Fancy,” he drawled, an arrogant lilt to his tone. “It’s like I don’t know you anymore, now that you’re big-time and all.” He spun a slow circle in the center of the room before disappearing into the equally, and unnecessarily, elaborate en suite. Seriously, no one needed a Jacuzzi tub the size of a backyard swimming pool in their bathroom.
The kelpie’s voice was muffled through the wall. “It’s so strange knowing someone who’s someone. Try not to forget about us little guys, would you?”
Briar snorted as she tucked the spiked points of one star around the rimmed center, forming something that looked like a thick, black button which she promptly pinned to her bandolier. She selected another star from a tray and restarted the polishing process.
“I take it your digs aren’t as nice?” I asked, toeing on my Converse.
“Hardly.” He emerged in the doorway between the two rooms and leaned against the trim, one boot propped on the other. I blinked and tilted my head. The kelpie’s clothing was more punk than I remembered it being when we’d met. His black jeans were tight, his leather jacket scarred. He pushed at his messily-styled hair with a gloved hand. Finn had always favored jangly, metal bracelets. Judging by the sounds he made when he moved, he’d apparently added to the collection.
“The bedroom—if you can call it that—is an oversize closet with two cots and a trunk,” he added.
“Two cots?”
“Yeah. I’m sharing with—”
“—his favorite dark horse BFF.” Ryder swaggered into the room that suddenly felt much smaller. In imitation of Finn, he, too, whistled, though he never looked away from me. “And while he’s lying through his teeth about our room, I prefer what I’m finding in yours much, much more.”
I had a funny feeling he and Finn were referring to two very different things.
Briar cleared her throat before the moment could stretch into awkwardness. The chair creaked when she unfolded her four-and-a-half-foot frame. “Zara, if you don’t mind I’ll take off and check on my sisters.” She made a point of looking at the three of us in turn. “I pity anyone who tries to launch an attack with the three of you in here.”
I waved her off and waited for the door to close before raising a finger in protest. “Before you start—”
“Do you have a death wish?” Ryder asked mildly. “Because I’m starting to think so.”
“I didn’t ask him to trap me.” I slipped off the bed, my arms folding defensively.
“When a djinn makes you his target, the correct response is to run. You do not engage.” Our eyes met in the mirrors Ryder stood before, his hands hooked behind his back. “You especially do not give him further reason to take interest in you.”
“And who do you think you are?” I demanded. My fire magic ignited, hot and heady as if I hadn’t depleted it a mere two hours ago. “I didn’t know he was a djinn for one, and two, he attacked me. My choices were pretty limited.”
“You could have run.”
“I’m not that fast.”
“You could have died,” he hissed, spinning around.
“If I hadn’t engaged, I would have died alone and defenseless.”
The incubus snarled, black-tipped claws sprouted from his fingertips. “Why don’t you have more faith in us? In me? I’m more than capable of—”
“I think he means to say—” Finn interrupted, bravely stepping between us as Ryder prepared to charge. “—is he understands what an impossible situation you were in, and we’re glad you’re ok. You are ok, aren’t you?”
I resisted rubbing the slender, two-inch mark on my neck, the one I refused to let my magic heal. As much as Phenex frightened me, and as much as I resented him for what he’d done, I found a strange sort of value in his lesson and wanted it to sink in deep.
“I’m beaten, but not broken.” I sank to the bed where I picked up the djinn’s gift to me. It was about the size of a Swiss Army knife, the wooden grip inlaid with a pearl so white it nearly glowed.
Rose had examined and cleared it earlier, allowing me to keep it with an addendum that I someday, “stab him in the eye with it, for irony’s sake.”
I chose my next words carefully, giving voice to the thoughts that frothed like white water rapids. “I don’t think he actually wanted to kill me.”
Ryder whirled on Finn, smoke billowing from his nostrils, hands clenching and unclenching. If he’d possessed my fire magic, odds were we’d all be burned to a crisp right now. The kelpie nimbly darted out of the way and flung himself on top of the vanity, tugging his eyebrow ring in thought.
“What makes you say that?” Finn asked.
“He had every opportunity to kill me.” I sifted through my memories of the battle, wishing for the millionth time that Kaleal would pop her wispy head up and give me some answers.
Oh, Kaleal, where are you hiding you pretentious witch?
I continued, “Right from the get-go, he could have crushed me. I wasn’t prepared for his first sand attack and he wrapped me up like a spider with a fly. I had nothing to do with him releasing me. He was pushing me, he wanted something from me.”
The butt of the knife smacked the palm of my hand. It was starting to drive me crazy, this inability to talk about the ancient God with my friends. I’d even tried writing a note about her earlier in the bathroom, but my hand turned to stone on my arm. I shifted aside my thoughts of her so that my throat would open.
“I think he sensed the fire magic,” I said, semi-truthfully. He’d certainly known something wasn’t right about me. “It was a test, all of it. I guess I passed or, yeah, he might have killed me.”
Finn’s feet swayed and he risked a glance at Ryder who hovered in the corner, seething.
“I think so, too,” he said. At Ryder’s sharp look, he added, “—once I got past the whole, nearly watching you get crushed by your enemies again thing. Jeez, would you calm down already?”
The incubus huffed and started pacing instead.
“Anyway.” Finn dragged out the last syllable. “I thought the djinn vanished thousands of years ago. Even at the airport when I sensed the magnitude of his abilities, it didn’t occur to me that he could be one. I mean, you’re technically stronger than him in terms of power, but djinn are ancient and he’s had several dozen millennia to hone his abilities, no offense. Given what I saw, he could have destroyed you, but he really wanted to see what you were made of.”
He paused and undid one of three buckles strapped to his thigh. “He was also honed in on only you. He definitely sized up Joseph, but you held his attention. I wonder why.”
Finn’s eyes narrowed and my stomach flipped eagerly. Maybe if he guessed correctly, I could tell him about Kaleal. I needed his brain to work a little faster.
“You should know, he’s a soul stealer,” Ryder said, and I could have smacked him for breaking the kelpie’s chain of thought, “in addition to commanding sand. And that’s only a fraction of what he’s capable of.”
I perked up. “Like what?”
“Since they’ve been gone so long, most of what we know is myth.” Ryder shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. The highlights in his black locks seemed to change on a whim, and today they shimmered with amethyst. “Unbound djinn, meaning they aren’t tied to vessels anymore, are practically Gods in their own right with their elemental abilities alone. There are also stories that frame them as tricksters capable of getting into your head and destroying you from the inside out. That’s why it’s important to not let him touch you. Rumor has it that touching skin grants them access to your mind.”
So that’s why Kaleal didn’t want me shaking his hand. Interesting. I unfolded the knife, angling the blade so it caught the light. “And, like you, they get their power by stealing souls.”
Fan the Flame Page 7
