by Kailin Gow
Good plan, Kama. I always loved your intellect.
Yeah right. That and…
Everything else, my Kama, my love. Please be careful. I have a bad feeling about Dr. Sanz’s motives.
Then we’ll have to be prepared for whatever will happen next. I’m ready.
Liam set his chin up higher, a look of determination on his face, as he squared his shoulders back. Then he glanced at Dr. Sanz. “Lead us out of here.”
Clasping his hands together, Dr. Sanz turned his attention back to Liam and me. “Now, if this is to go smoothly, I’ll need your cooperation. This shouldn’t be too complicated. There’s such chaos out there, no one seems to know what’s really going on. That should be enough of a distraction to allow us to slip out undetected, but, then again, you never know. If only one of Pim’s guards catches sight of one of you guys, you guys could find yourself in a far more unwelcoming cell.”
Liam and I glanced around the abandoned office. Though it was dingy and a bit chilly, it could have been worst.
“We’ll follow you and do as you say,” Liam said.
“Hold on,” I said.
They both turned to look at me.
“Can I just have a minute with Liam before we leave?”
“This is hardly the time… or place to get romantic,” Dr. Sanz said with a mocking grin.
Unamused, I glared at him. “Can I just have a minute?”
“Fine,” he groaned. “Make it fast.” He stepped out, but left the door ajar.
I leaned into the door, closing it tight, and turned to Liam.
“What’s up?” His lips played on a grin, while his eyes questioned my motives.
“I’m just not sure. Is this really the best way to go?”
“I know what you mean. I have my doubts about the doctor as well, but, for now, he’s all we got.”
I felt the weight of the moment. So much was riding on the right decision. I tried to imagine the chaos outside. Our little window had offered little in the way of a clue as to what was really going on. All we had was Dr. Sanz’s word.
With my gaze to the floor, I muttered a little prayer and reached for Liam’s fingers, weaving my fingers through them. Liam tilted his head down until his brow met mine while his fingers gave my hand an affectionate squeeze. “Let’s just take it slow, be cautious and be ready to fight if something comes up.”
“Okay.”
His fingers worked up to the nape of my neck, calming me as much as a touch possibly could. “Remember,” he whispered as he brought his lips close to mine. “We’re in this together. No matter what happens, we’ll get through it together.”
“I know. You're right.” I gazed into his eyes, feeling suddenly empowered and capable of fighting anything, surviving anything. “Let’s show Dr. Sanz what we’re really made of.”
“That’s my girl. That’s the Kama I know, the Kama I love.” He kissed me, his urgent need to transmit his emotions coming through loud and clear as his lips possessed mine.
A sharp knock on the door split us apart, but our loud breathing couldn’t be silenced so easily.
“We’d better go before he changes his mind.” I got in control and opened the door to face Dr. Sanz’s scowl.
He stood in front of us with the large djinn, blocking us from moving out of the room. Liam tried to push his way out, but the large djinn stepped forward back into the room. Dr. Sanz followed.
“Shouldn’t we get going?” Liam asked, looking from Dr. Sanz to the djinn.
Dr. Sanz stepped into the room and shut the door. Instantly, I knew something was wrong. “You’re not going anywhere yet.”
“You’re now keeping us prisoner?” Liam asked.
“Of course,” Dr. Sanz said nonchalantly. “I want you both where I can see you, keep an eye on you. So much is riding on this, on my control of you. I can’t risk screwing it up because you want a breath of fresh air.”
“Control of us?”
Dr. Sanz snickered and hugged himself. “I do tend to be a control freak at times. I like to have things in order. I like to have everything organized. As you can see, I already have a strong grasp on the Committee. Pim Seer and all the other non-Magical Ones are practically eating out of my hand. The Magical Ones in the Committee listen to me. I rather like being in control, being the wizard behind oz. So, I do like the idea of knowing where you two are, so, until further notice, you will remain in this room. Meals will be brought to you twice a day and, if you’re good, I’ll let you walk the grounds a minute or two.”
Before he could shut the door on us, Liam rushed him, shoving him to the floor. “Do you really think we’ll just let you lock us up so easily?”
Dr. Sanz propped himself up on an elbow and swiped at the stream of blood dripping from his lip. “If you know what’s good for you, you will.”
No longer willing to listen to the doctor’s argument, Liam attacked the djinn. He was woefully outclassed and there was nothing I could do to help. I fingered the leather band on my wrist, cursing Pim for his ignorance, for thinking tying my hands would do any good. I could be saving his son right now if he’d not been so blinded by his own power.
If I couldn’t use any magical powers, I thought, I’d at least do my best to help Liam with whatever physical force I could muster. I jumped on the djinn’s back, but the very breadth of his shoulders made it impossible to hold on and I slid off. I doubted the beast even noticed my feeble attempt at an attack.
Liam fought hard, succeeding in pushing the djinn to the wall more than once, but he always returned, angrier and stronger.
“You're fighting a losing battle,” Dr. Sanz said as he got to his feet and leaned against the wall. “Even if you succeed in breaking this djinn, which you’ll never do, there’s really nowhere to run to. So why don’t you both make it easier on yourselves? Sit back, make the most of it and just wait for your respective fathers to come and save you.”
“What?” I turned to him suddenly.
Liam stopped, fist in midair and looked at the doctor. “What did you say?”
“You heard me. You didn’t think I’d just want to keep you here all to myself. Of course I would welcome Pim Seer and General Adon. With them both here, well… I did say I was a bit of a control freak, and gaining control of Arcadia would do this old soul good.” He beamed with pride and arrogance.
Chapter 3
Liam found new strength as he fought the djinn harder and with purpose. I watched him and realized he had the capacity to be a Catcher. His father was one of the best, and now it was becoming more apparent Liam had it within himself to be a great Catcher like his father. He cornered the djinn and pressed him behind the thick pane of glass he’d summoned. The djinn fumed and pounded the glass just as his fist turned to smoke, just as the powerful arm withered and left only a stream of red colored fog.
I watched in amazement. I had never seen a Catcher catch a djinn before, just what Torrid told me about Catchers. Most Catchers require a glass lamp-like device, but Liam captured that djinn by creating a glass pane. Liam must be truly gifted then. I could see the victory in Liam’s eyes as he continued to trap the djinn within the glass pane. Trying to make my way over to him, I felt the cold hand of Dr. Sanz wrap around my neck. He pulled me back and shoved me to the wall, his fingers digging deep into my throat. I gripped his fingers, trying to pull them off, trying to get air.
Dr. Sanz loosened his grip, but kept me pinned to the wall.
“You're not going to get away with this,” I said. “You’ve sadly underestimated what my father will do to get me, to save me, and you obviously didn’t know of Liam’s abilities with djinns.”
“If anything, it is you who has underestimated my abilities.”
“Liam,” I called out softly as fear crept through my veins.
Still caught up in maintaining control of the djinn, he didn’t hear my feeble plea.
“He may have a knack for bottling djinns, but he can’t hear you right now.”
Liam was slowly corn
ering the djinn into a smaller and smaller space. The pane of glass he’d erected before the djinn became a large transparent vat, then a sizable vase and finally a long, narrow vile. The puff of smoke that had been Liam’s oversized adversary, condensed and thickened, filling the vial with opaque red fumes until Liam pressed his thumb over the opening to contain him.
As my heart raced with fear of Dr. Sanz’s next move, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride for Liam. I wanted to feel as victorious as he felt.
I tried to summon some of the magic I had recently acquired. If I had ever been faced with a time to put all my magic training with Torrid to good use, this was it. However, every attempt, every concentrated effort resulted in absolutely nothing.
The leather band, I thought. Though I knew it had the capacity to cancel out all my powers, I had to try.
“How heartbreaking it is to watch you, my dear,” Dr. Sanz said. His smirk deserved nothing less than a firm smack. “Need I remind you of the futility of your attempts? Not only does that handy little leather band keep you under control, but my own powers are quite impressive.” He raised his wrist, showing a leather band. “My powers are greater than that which is in that little band. See, even the great Catcher Pim Seer could not control me with the band.”
“You don’t say,” I droned, unimpressed.
“How stoic. You do put on quite a brave face, love, but let’s see how brave you are when I take you far away from Liam. You know, I’ve watched you, kept an eye on you since you were a child. I’ve known all about your mother and her unnatural love for a djinn. The djinns would never accept such a marriage, which was why she had to keep her marriage to your father a secret. You are a rare djinn indeed, a half-breed, and the daughter of the most powerful djinn warrior.” He licked his lips. “You’ve grown into a very beautiful young woman, something I wouldn’t have expected, given your half-breed nature. And your magic has just yet been tapped. There is no telling what General Adon’s daughter is capable of…which is why you must wear that leather band.”
“What? Afraid a girl like me can possibly have enough magical powers to challenge you, old Great Magical One?”
“So young. You know so little, especially how valuable you are to Catchers and djinns alike.”
The walls around us began to back away, fading behind a wall of ever thickening fog. At first I didn’t understand what was happening. I looked to Liam and saw him through this cloud that emerged from nowhere.
Was the building catching on fire? Had fog descended on Arcadia and slipped in the warehouse through some open window?
With the sound of Dr. Sanz’s ominous laughter, the room faded away more and more. Just before the room faded away completely, I caught sight of Liam’s gaze. Horror, fear and heartbreak broke his features as he turned to me.
The silence that engulfed me was heavy, like death. I floated through a cloud, vaguely aware of Dr. Sanz’s presence. I sensed him without seeing or hearing him.
After an eternally long moment, the cloud gave way to a world of black skies and putrid earth.
Chapter 4
I felt the pull of the dream and wanted to remain there. Too much had happened and I could feel the threads of sanity strain. I knew Liam was gone. I knew Dr. Sanz was nearby. I knew Arcadia was in chaos.
The dream of being home, of being where I belonged and where I felt safe; it stayed with me even as the intrusion of wakefulness nudged it away.
“Not so stoic and brave now, are we?”
The sound of his voice, whiny, nasal and more annoying than I ever thought a voice could be, grated in my ears, leaving the tiny hairs of my inner ear prickling.
I opened my eyes, expecting some netherworld, expecting floating genies, warring soldiers or flickering fairies. Instead, I found myself in the Committee Building. Seated in the center of the Committee Conference room, I was surrounded by Committee members, many of whom I’d never seen before.
Just beneath my feet, beneath the gleam of the marble floor, was the room Liam and I had initially been held in. Despite the feel of having escaped from the building earlier, I had the suspicion it was all an illusion Dr. Sanz created to make Liam and I feel as though we left the building. But what for? To gain our trust, perhaps to slowly torture us? I could not get into the head of a madman or a mad djinn. But I did know he wanted Liam and I as pawns in a game he wanted to play between my father and Liam’s father.
“Don’t be put off by the unfamiliar faces,” Dr. Sanz whispered into my ear, trying to sound soothing.
He stood close, too close. Daring to touch me, he brought his fingers to my hair and pulled it back to bring his lips closer still. I shuddered as his breath brushed against my ear. “Listen closely, dear Kama. You're to learn much about the humans of Arcadia and the Magical Ones.”
He left my side and went to sit among the Committee members, taking up the seat at the very center of the long arced table, the very seat Governor Pim had sat in not too long ago.
“You’re aware of the force field that has been shattered?” Dr. Sanz said.
I glanced around the expectant faces. “I suspected as such, yes.” Turning my gaze directly to Dr. Sanz, I decided to accuse him outright. “Isn’t it rather brash of you to so quickly take the Governor’s chair?”
His amused chuckle filled the conference room, right up to the impressively high ceiling. “Yes, I guess it is. You know, for all his genius, for all his foresight, Pim overlooked a few key factors when he created Arcadia. Not all Magical Ones are interested in seeing humans flourish. You might even say that some resent the perfect little lives we so blissfully lead here in the world Pim so brilliantly created.”
“He only wanted to make us all happy, to give us an ideal life.”
“Yes, so he’s said. Apparently, Arcadia has in part been a gift… to your mother. She must be quite a woman. Pim has often mentioned how he crafted Arcadia around the perfect memories he had of his childhood. Quaint neighborhoods, trim lawns, architecturally interesting homes, all esthetically pleasing to the eye. But we’re all grownups here, aren’t we, Kama. We know that perfection doesn’t exist. No matter how you work to make it so, life has a way of dealing you just enough imperfections.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What we, all the genies around you and myself, need to do is fight off General Adon. And that is where you come in. We need your help.”
“But General Adon is a genie, just as they all are. Why in the world would you want to fight him?”
His lips curled into an evil curve. “Let’s just say there are different types of genies, with different points of views. General Adon holds to one point of view while we all hold to another, namely the ability to co-exist with humans.”
I gritted my teeth before blurting out, “You do know that I’m General Adon’s daughter, don’t you? You know that I would never help you, no matter what.”
The double doors behind me were suddenly thrown open and three humans were brought in by two mammoth genies.
I immediately recognized two of them… Jocelyn and Matthew. The third, a thin gaunt young woman, looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite put a name to her face.
“Perfect timing. Here you have a perfect example of what you humans are capable of. They violated our rules. They even went so far as to venture into territory that humans of Arcadia have no business venturing to… the Coliseum.” Letting the weight of his words sink in, he slowly scanned the Committee Members around him.
Shock slowly spread from one Magical One to the next. Their eyes widened, their lips parted and their fists clenched. I'd never heard of the Coliseum and couldn’t begin to imagine what could be so wrong with venturing out there.
“No one dares go into the Coliseum,” a Magical One sitting next to Dr. Sanz snarled. “They must be punished.” He stood and glared at Jocelyn and Matthew, the hatred in his eyes crossing the room and bringing fear to the young couple who clung to one another.
Jocelyn gazed at M
atthew, her fingers fidgeting on his arm as she tried to calm herself. I wanted to reach out and reassure her, tell her that I’d do all I could to help them, but I was helplessly immobile. My every move resulted in a painful burn on my wrist where my leather band was.
The menacing Magical One held out his hand and violently slapped the air before him. At the same time I heard a loud clap followed by a heavy thud. I turned to see Matthew lying on the floor, a flash of red skin visible even from a distance.
“No,” Jocelyn cried out as she knelt beside Matthew and tried to help him up.
Before she even got her hands on him, the two genies at her side grabbed her and held her back.
“Please don’t hurt him,” she begged. “We didn’t know. We didn’t know what we’d find.”
The genies showed no sympathy as they dragged her further away from Matthew.
I stood, knowing I could do little but wanting to at least convey to Jocelyn the pain I felt for her. Our eyes met, and for a brief moment we connected, knowing the impossible situation we both found ourselves in.
But when the genies slammed her to the wall, my body reacted on its own, advancing towards them. The slow burn at my wrist intensified until it was unbearable and just when I thought it couldn’t get worst, the burning sensation was replaced by a strong electrical shock. I swallowed a yelp of pain and stood, helpless and frustrated.
The thin gaunt woman tried to help, but her thin limbs seemed uncooperative. She took a meek step towards the genies and they easily pushed her back.
“I’m okay, Melanie,” Jocelyn shot out. ‘Don’t try to interfere.” She turned to the genies holding her. “She didn’t do anything wrong. Please don’t hurt her.”
I stared at the skin and bones called Melanie. She and Jocelyn’s brother had left Arcadia, had ventured outside the perfection of Pim’s world. Was this what the outside world had done to her? I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was the world outside of Arcadia truly worse than being within Arcadia?
