The Haunted Sultan (Skeleton Key)

by Gillian Zane

  “We will defeat you, demon,” Owen said.

  “You cannot defeat me. I have been given this place. It is mine! I am the ruler.”

  “Who gave you permission to rule here?” Owen asked.

  “The Sultan, Abduliziz, sent me as a gift to his brother. His brother, the coward who fled like a dog to the New World. The Sultan sent me to decimate and rule and I did what he ordered. Who are you, boy, to question me?” He was now almost fully formed. Sierra was surprised that he took the shape of a handsome Middle Eastern man, with skin the color of bronze and long dark hair that flowed down his back. He almost looked like the Sultan. The only testament to his otherworldliness was the glowing green eyes that shone from his sockets.

  “We told you why we were here,” Owen said and with one quick motion he shoved the scimitar through the Peri’s midsection. The blade, wickedly sharp, slid through the demon’s body like butter. The thing looked confused and then he began to laugh, the scimitar still stuck within his stomach, blood pouring from the wound.

  Sierra struck, shoving her blade through the chest of the thing, adding her blade to Owen's. Both blades stuck within the demon. But still it laughed.

  “You can weaken me, but you cannot kill me!” he yelled as he collapsed to the floor, his body turning to sand before their eyes.

  “I hope that was the help that was needed,” Sierra said to Owen. She bent down and picked up her bloody sword and Owen did the same.

  “I don’t think this is over,” Owen said quietly. Sierra knew he was right. They were still here, still in the home of the Sultan, nothing had changed. They still had work to do.

  Chapter 12

  Owen looked around the courtyard. It was a beautiful environment, if you didn’t notice all the gory bits. If there wasn’t blood splattered over everything and the dead bodies of servants laying on the cobblestones, the place would be perfect. A nice place to bring a date.

  He looked over at Sierra. She looked up and met his eyes, a grimace on her face.

  “Not exactly how I planned out my night,” she laughed morosely.

  “Me either.” He touched her shoulder gently. “But, I’m glad I met you.”

  “You’re crazy.” She shook her head.

  “Maybe, but I plan on getting out of this with you at my side and see if that fire we had earlier can be recreated without whatever lust spell this demon cooked up.” He watched with interest as her eyes widened and her tongue darted out and licked her bottom lip. She wasn’t saying no.

  “I like that plan,” she said in a low whisper.

  “Good, then we have something to look forward to when we get out of this place. Now let’s find this Sultan and help his ass cross over.”

  “Lead the way.” She motioned and Owen turned and headed back the way they came.

  They didn’t go far. They took a few steps toward the house and came across a small body. It hadn’t been there before. It was a boy, or at least it looked like a boy. It was hard to tell. It was on its stomach and its legs had been chopped off, the small body had been mutilated.

  Owen and Sierra looked down in horror as the child pulled itself across the cobblestones, unable to walk but trying desperately to get somewhere. When the two got closer the child stopped its progress and rolled onto its back. The dead child looked up at them, its glassy eyes staring, unsettling.

  “There,” its voice gurgled in its bloody throat. It flung its arm to the side and pointed. The small hand directed them to the center of the courtyard and when it saw it had delivered its message its eyes closed, as if it had spent all of its energy to relay that message.

  They walked in the direction the child had pointed. To the center of the courtyard. What remained of the courtyard at least. While the rest of the outdoor area was still in good condition, this area had been decimated. Plants had been ripped from the ground and all that remained was a dark patch of dirt. In the center of the dirt something was buried. When the two got closer they realized with shock that it was a hand. Planted in the center like an errant weed, the hand reached for the sky.

  As Owen looked down at the hand, the fingers twitched and both of them jumped back.

  “Shit, you would think I would be used to this brand of crazy by now,” he said under his breath.

  “Look.” Sierra pointed at the hand. The movement of the fingers had moved some of the dirt exposing a wrist. Owen had assumed it was a hand detached from a body, but as he peered closer, it seemed to be an arm buried, maybe even a–he looked closer. It couldn't be, he thought.

  More dirt moved and the entire area shifted as if there was something under there.

  There was someone buried here.

  “There’s someone down there, we have to help.” Sierra walked forward but Owen grabbed her and pulled her back.

  “You don’t know what’s down there, you don’t know who,” he hissed.

  “It’s the Sultan, it has to be, why else would the kid point this way?”

  “It might be a trap. We don’t know what is keeping us here, it might be another spell.”

  “We have to try,” Sierra said determinedly. He tried to stop her again, fearful of something happening to her. “No, let me do this.” She held up a hand and walked across the patch of dirt. She bent down and gripped the hand. The hand gripped hers back. She pulled. Owen sucked in a breath, terror clenching his gut. This was taking this insanity to a whole other level. But he couldn’t let her do this on her own.

  She yanked as hard as she could, straining under the pressure. Owen went to her side to help.

  The dirt fell away, revealing a muscular bicep and a second hand pushed through the dirt. Owen bent down and gripped the other hand. That hand gripped him tightly and he tugged, helping whatever was buried to rise. They were both committed to unburying whoever was down there. They used their body weight as leverage and slowly pulled a man from the dirt.

  It was the Sultan. The man they had met earlier. He seemed bigger and more muscled. He was caked in dirt and he was grinning as if this was the best day of his life.

  He threw his head back dramatically and sucked in a lungful of air. He was bearded, and his face was beautiful in a masculine way. He had a sharp aquiline nose, high raised cheekbones, and full lips. He patted at his clothes, cleaning himself off, trying to make a presentable impression to his guests.

  He spread his arms in welcome and grinned at the couple. He spoke a few words in a language they didn’t understand. Both Owen and Sierra shook their heads to show they didn’t know the language.

  “Francais? Anglais?” he asked in his thickly accented voice.

  “English,” they both said together in a deja vu moment.

  “I guess he doesn’t remember us from before,” Owen whispered to Sierra.

  “Thank you much,” he said. “Did I know you from before? I apologize greatly. I cannot remember. My mind seems to have the fog about it. I was attacked and I would be dead if you had not come to my rescue. Very dead in fact. I was getting so tired and I could not seem to dig myself out of that hole. I was close to dead.” He looked down at the hole gravely and shook his head.

  Chapter 13

  “I have a feeling you might be dead, maybe a ghost or something,” Owen blurted out. He cringed and shrugged when Sierra looked at him appalled and he realized he didn’t say that as gently as he should have. How does one tell another that they’re dead? There is no etiquette for that.

  The Sultan looked around confused.

  “I cannot be dead, I am here.” He waved his hands around and went to reach for Sierra as if to prove he was real, but she stepped back and threw up her hands for him to stop.

  “Whoa, I’m pretty sure you’re dead, uh Sultan…if not you would be like a hundred and fifty years old, or something like that. Welcome to the twenty-first century.” He hated bursting the Sultan’s bubble with the whole death thing, but the guy needed to hear the truth.

  “That is oddly strange,” the Sultan frowned. “That Peri o
nly just forced me into that hole to die, it did. Fiend buried me alive. He could not be bothered to take my head like the rest of my household. That would have been much quicker.” He looked around at the courtyard, a perplexed look on his face. When he noticed the dead child he winced.

  “Needless carnage this demon wrought on my people.” He went over to the boy and knelt at his side. He whispered words in a thickly melodic tongue and touched the child’s back.

  “You are the exiled Turk, the Sultan who lived in the 1800s?” Owen asked, trying to put all the pieces in place.

  The man stood and looked back at Owen.

  “I traveled to New Orleans in 1872 from Turkey, yes, after your American war.”

  “Like Owen said, it’s been almost a hundred and fifty years since you came to New Orleans. The Peri buried you in that hole almost a century and a half ago.” She looked at him sympathetically.

  “A century and a half?” He looked up startled, the words sinking in now that Sierra said them. He walked over to a fountain and it began to bubble and churn out water, something it had not been doing before. He washed the mud and blood from his body. “What is the year?”

  “2016,” Sierra answered.

  “Your names, what shall I call you?" the Sultan asked the pair.

  "I'm Owen and this is Sierra," Owen smiled when Sierra did a funny little curtsey.

  "Is that what they call you? You are mountain? How strange.” He finished washing up and strutted around his courtyard like the Sultan he was supposed to be. Owen noticed Sierra’s eyes followed the man everywhere he went and a twinge of jealousy bit through his gut, followed quickly by anger. The guy didn’t seem worried about the Peri or the fact that he had been dead for over a century. He acted like he was about to go to a party.

  “This Peri, the demon,” Owen urged him back on track.

  “Evil creature,” the Sultan spat.

  “Yes. I think the Peri put some sort of spell on this house. It killed everyone and it’s holding their ghosts, souls, whatever you want to call them, in this place. Not letting them leave. It’s feeding off the terror of killing them over and over again. You said you felt like it put you in the hole just moments earlier, but I think it put you in that hole hundreds, maybe thousands of times.” Sierra’s thoughts were in line with Owen’s and he smiled at her encouragingly.

  “I have heard rumors that a Peri can do this, they possess magic,” the Sultan agreed.

  “We’ve also seen people that are not from your time, so I believe it’s also luring people in, or killing people who rent or buy the building and holding their souls within the walls, like your people,” Sierra added.

  “It must be a very strong Peri,” the Sultan mused.

  “We killed it, put swords through its body. Would this save you?” Sierra asked.

  “I do not know,” the Sultan shrugged.

  “But why hasn’t this place changed? Why haven’t you moved on if we’ve killed it?” Owen asked. There should have been a change if they killed the thing, they should go back to their own time. It was obvious that this wasn’t over, Owen thought. But, was it something else that held them here, or did the Peri still hold this place in thrall?

  “You are sure you have killed the Peri?” the Sultan asked incredulously. The look he gave Owen spoke volumes about how he doubted this was possible.

  “Yes," Sierra insisted. “I ran it through with one of these scimitar things, he turned into sand.” Sierra motioned to the sand on the walkway behind them.

  “Ah! You dervish, you! You must be a witch to have accomplished this great feat. Only a witch can run a Peri through like that. What spells do you have about you, woman? Who has sent you?” The Sultan peered at Sierra, finally treating her as if she was something to be acknowledged.

  He walked toward her, continuing his perusal, taking in her odd dress and the blood on her body. He was about her height, small for a modern man, but he was wide and the way he walked added to his imposing factor.

  “Tell me, female, what spells can you cast? Can you put my world back? I never cared for witches, but one that kills my tormentor I greatly respect. I shall make you one of my wives. Do you still retain your maidenhead or did you give that to a sorcerer?”

  Chapter 14

  “That devolved quickly,” Owen said with a nervous laugh. “You should probably step back. I don’t know how they do things in your time, but we don’t say things like that now.” Sierra gave him a grateful look and smiled at him embarrassed.

  The Sultan waved a hand at Owen. “I shall pay you in gold for her. You shall go away now.”

  “Uh…Sultan. You can’t buy me and Owen stays.”

  “You are attached to him, then. I shall let you keep him around. I like pleasure with men too. Be my wife. You shall be the thirteenth, and your maidenhead, you did not answer, have you been defiled already?” He leered at Owen.

  “That’s really awesome that you would take me on as a wife, and rather flattering," she said with fake enthusiasm, "but I’m not in the market for a husband at the moment. And the maidenhead thing, long gone, but really none of your business. ” She looked at Owen and shrugged.

  “I can attest to that–oomphf.” He rubbed his stomach where Sierra had punched him to shut him up. She couldn’t believe he was about to attest to her not being a virgin. Men were ridiculous sometimes when it came to posturing.

  The Sultan looked at the two of them and smiled wide.

  “Your female is quite strange, but this should be expected with a witch. Protect your testicles at night.” He winked at Owen who looked like he was about to bust a blood vessel or run away screaming. A little vein in his forehead twitched and he was all pink and splotchy.

  “I’m not a witch, dammit.” Sierra stamped her foot, wanting to reign in this bizarre conversation. They needed to fix this place and get gone. “I have no idea how to undo this place, or do the witchcraft thing. And there was no spell when I stabbed that thing. Not. A. Witch. So, let's figure this out like rational human beings.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the Sultan.

  “Not a witch? Are you sure?” Sierra nodded exaggeratedly. “This grieves me, the Peri might still live then.” The Sultan clutched at a string of beads around his neck and began walking toward the house. “You two are worthless.”

  Chapter 15

  Owen glanced around the courtyard and realized birds were chirping, the fountain bubbled and the blood that had marred the area was gone. The place was stunning, beautiful and lush.

  “Come, worthless people,” the Sultan beckoned.

  They followed the Sultan into the house, and they gaped at the clean and orderly home. Everything was restored. The drapes were whole again, a servant darted in front of them carrying a tray laden with food and they heard the giggle of female voices coming from the room they had found the mutilated and raped women.

  “It might have been something else, I mean, someone else might have cast the spell. Could someone do that?” Sierra rushed to keep pace with the Sultan. “A woman, she definitely was a witch. She gave me the outfit I was wearing.”

  Owen’s ears popped and he shook his head to clear them. He noticed Sierra was gaping down at herself. She was dressed like when they first met, her costume restored, her skin clean and her hair perfectly fixed in dark waves over her shoulders. Even the bodice she had lost during their earlier escapades was back and affixed to those perfect tits. Owen’s dick twitched and he tried to think of something disgusting to put it in its place.

  He touched his own chest and realized he was dressed again in his T-shirt, clean and put together.

  “Magic,” Sierra said, running a hand through the fringes of her outfit. “She made a point of putting me in this outfit and she knew I was going on a ghost tour. It must be some sort of spell. Like what is happening now, I was a mess, covered in blood…you saw me, right? I was a mess,” she trailed off and sniffed the air. Owen noticed it too, the smell of jasmine and incense and the roo
m had brightened.

  “If this is a mess, I like a mess.” The Sultan stepped forward and fingered the fringe that fell from Sierra’s bodice. It took a second for Owen to realize what was happening because he too was staring at Sierra’s fabulous outfit and the way that it pushed up her tits perfectly. He could barely make-out her nipple through the shining discs that made up her top, but it was there. Erect. Like his dick. His disgusting train of thought had failed.

  “Fuck.” Owen jolted when a breeze flapped a curtain in front of him. “Hey, this isn’t…”

  “Magic indeed.” The Sultan was now pressed against Sierra, her eyes were big. Owen saw fear in her eyes, but he also saw lust. There was something wrong, something off.

  It was the lust spell again. They were back in the main room, even though they had been in the hallway. Pillows and low sofas beckoned. The beautiful serving girl was back, moving to the sensuous music played by the half nude musicians in the corner.

  They were on repeat. Sex then death. Sex then death.

  The Sultan was pulling Sierra to the center of the room and she was following obediently. Owen watched, knowing something was wrong, but unable to move, unable to stop them. His dick throbbed in his pants and his eyes were drawn to the serving girl. She peeled off her top and let it fall, her breasts swaying with her movement.

  “Come,” she whispered. Owen felt his feet move on their own accord. He moved toward the woman. He needed to see what she wanted. He was a gentleman like that.

  Chapter 16

  The smell of the place was intoxicating and Sierra was lost. She knew she should be focusing. She knew she shouldn’t let the Sultan lead her further into the room, or let him touch her right there…

  She wasn’t even sure if that was his hand. How could he touch her there if he was in front of her? She looked down and tripped over a cushion on the floor. Her falling was not graceful. She sprawled across the floor, legs this way, arms that way, chin slamming into the floor with a loud plunk.