“No!” he screamed.
The beam of light started to twist and fold in upon itself, back toward the stone, its wide cone growing smaller as it coalesced. Zet fought, all thrashing limbs and blue-white magic crackling uselessly in his fingertips.
“Akeelah,” he called in supplication.
He reached for her and took hold of a thick section of her white mane. She fought to free herself, but Zet wrapped her hair around his arm and pulled, trying to break free. The glow grew in intensity and started sucking Akeelah in, too. Her black skin wavered with the light. She screamed in agony as the red beam sprouted flames that engulfed her. An acrid smell cut the air.
I held my breath, hypnotized by the scene, wishing with all my strength for the stone to trap both monsters quickly. And forever. Zet and Akeelah grappled with each other, both growing smaller and more ethereal by the second. I willed them to disappear.
Akeelah twirled, and, in one fluid twist, swung an arm in a chopping motion. Her hand glinted like a sharp blade as it came down on her own hair and severed Zet’s lifeline. Sparks of burnt hair flew into the air. As the tether between them broke off, Akeelah staggered out of the suctioning light and fell to one knee, her skin bubbling. Panting, she gave us one last threatening glance. A sound like the crack of a whip resounded over the music from the party, then Akeelah disappeared, leaving only smoke behind.
Faris took a step toward Zet, reaching out a hand. I gripped his arm and held him back. Without Akeelah to hold on to, Zet’s descent into the stone accelerated.
“Brother,” Faris said with pity. “She left you a way out. All you have to do is find forgiveness in your heart.”
“Damn you, Faris. I’ve no heart left in me, and it is your fault,” Zet’s voice was a strangled echo. The light quivered as he clenched his fists in concentration. Suddenly, his shape grew somewhat larger and stronger, as he visibly gathered the last of his strength. Hatred radiated from his every pore as he honed his entire attention on me.
I had only a fraction of a second to register the wicked power in his gaze before I heard a whoosh. A fiery mass engulfed me and pain seared through every inch of my body. Wrapped in flames, I fell to the ground, convulsing. My skin blistered and hair singed the way Akeelah’s had. I cried out in agony. A harsher smell assaulted me and, through the anguish, I realized it was my own burning flesh.
I was a human torch.
It could have been a second or an eternity, I didn’t know, but when the excruciating torture proved to be too much, I welcomed the blackness that slammed against my consciousness.
33
When I came to, Faris had an arm around my waist and was holding me upright. “How do you feel?” he asked.
“Um . . . fine, I guess.” I looked at my hands, expecting to find charred meat. They looked intact. The tender skin around my eyes tingled, and the stench of burnt flesh and hair still clogged the air, but that was all the evidence left after the charbroiled experience. Had I imagined it?
“W-what happened?” I asked. “Where is Zet?” I wheeled around.
“He’s gone. Safe in here.” Faris lifted the stone which he held in one hand. “We’ll make sure nothing happens to it.”
“Hey, you,” a booming voice brought me back to reality. “What’s your story?” A short, stocky policeman—a policeman?!—walked in our direction.
“What’s going on?” I asked under my breath.
“I’ll explain later,” Faris said.
Disoriented, I looked around and discovered that no signs of the struggle remained. I straightened and tried to look composed. Faris removed his arm from my waist and smiled.
“Get us out of here, will you?” I urged him between my teeth.
“No, yet. There’s something you should see,” his whisper rang in my ear, even though he now stood several feet away from me.
“Where did you come from?” the cop said. “I thought I’d cleared this area.”
“We were just over there.” I pointed vaguely toward the swing.
“We?” The officer looked around.
Faris stood right there in plain sight, but, clearly, he was visible only to me.
“Well, my friend and I were . . . but he . . . left.”
“Left, huh? Jumped the fence, you mean?”
I shrugged. When had the police arrived? What had I missed? Maybe the noise had made the neighbors call the cops.
“Some friend,” the cop said.
I took a step forward. The world seemed to tip, and I faltered a little. Faris steadied me. I felt dizzy, and my depth perception was off.
“A bit too much to drink? I hope you’re not planning on driving,” the cop said in a tired tone, as if tonight had already been too long for him. He had no idea.
“I’m sober, Officer . . . Ross,” I said, reading his name tag. “Designated driver.” I forced a smile.
“I’ll have to see your I.D., and you’ll have to pass a Breathalyzer test before I let you drive anywhere, young lady.” He walked toward the house with tired steps.
Not my I.D.! I had no idea what had happened to my purse during the ordeal.
“Um, sure. No problem,” I said.
I looked to Faris for help, but he just gave me a goofy smile. How could he be smiling right now? I still felt terrified, expecting monsters to spring from the ground. There was no room for smiles. I ignored his odd behavior and followed Officer Ross. We passed through the living room on our way out. With the lights on, the place looked like a disaster zone. Furniture skewed, popcorn on the floor, cups, cans, and bottles on every flat surface.
In the front yard, several people were pleading or walking the line with different police officers. An ambulance, lights flashing red but silently, was parked in the middle of the street. A paramedic opened the back and pulled out a stretcher.
“Where is she?” he asked one of the cops.
“Bedroom. On the left, at the end of the hall,” the cop said.
The paramedic pushed the stretcher up the pathway as a colleague joined him. They sped by as I watched.
“Oh, my God. Is Deborah okay?” I whispered, heart hammering, feeling awful for forgetting all about her.
“She’s fine,” Faris said. “Nothing happened. I summoned the police in time.”
“Oh.”
My eyes swerved in all directions, taking in the spectacle.
“This way,” Officer Ross instructed. I followed him to a patrol car.
As we walked, I continued to scan the yard, searching all the faces for a particular one. I saw Brett—pants now properly pulled up to his waist—telling a tall policewoman he’d had nothing to do with it (whatever it was). John Deerman aiming two fingers at his nose but poking his eyes instead. Kurt Dowell sitting on the grass, laughing as if he’d never seen anything funnier. And finally, Jeremy O’Neal ducking into a police car, hands held awkwardly together at his waist.
Faris and I exchanged a quick glance. He nodded and said, “For you.”
I peered at Jeremy again before the police car drove away. He looked scared beyond belief, shrunk to half his size. He buried his face between cuffed hands, the binding metal that needed to become a permanent part of his future.
“Where’s Abby?!” I asked, feeling a jolt in my stomach.
“Home. Asleep.” Faris winked. I relaxed.
Officer Ross pulled a Breathalyzer out of his car and held it out. “Blow into the mouthpiece and keep blowing until it stops beeping.” He looked as amused as an opera fan at a rock-n-roll concert.
I did as I was told. When the device stopped beeping, Officer Ross looked at the display and raised his eyebrows, looking mildly amazed. “The only good kid left in America.”
Please don’t ask for an I.D. Pleeease, I silently begged. My purse was probably in the pits of hell after the way the ground had erupted during the fight.
Officer Ross gave me an appraising glance, then said, “Go home, kid. Drive safely, okay?”
“I will.” I tried n
ot to sound too relieved.
I saw my Prelude parked down the street, and started toward it. Faris wrapped his arm around me and helped me along, that goofy smile on his face again. He ushered me into the passenger seat, shut the door and appeared behind the wheel. Good thing I never locked the piece of junk, because the keys were gone with my I.D. I shook my head at my mundane worries. Faris could have produced an I.D. or unlocked the door for me. Or would he? He was free now.
Feeling somewhat safe inside my car—a ludicrous thing, really, because how could I ever be safe again?—I exhaled a big sigh of relief.
“What just happened back there?” I turned to look at Faris. He was staring at me in something like awe, eyebrows raised, lips parted and trembling a bit, that silly smile gently quirking one side of his mouth.
We looked at each other.
“Why are you grinning like an idiot?” It was a mean question, but it was all I could come up with.
“Because—”
Somehow I felt I wasn’t ready for what he was about to say. “Um, what was that thing? Akeelah? Is she gone?” Okay, maybe this wasn’t a better topic, but I had to know. I pressed my fingers to my temples.
His grin turned into a frown. “Zet,” he said, a name spoken with sadness. “He was always so . . . misguided, so quick to judge. He never listened, just believed what he wanted to believe.” Pain and regret flashed in his eyes. “It seems he got himself into something he didn’t fully understand. Akeelah is a true Djinn, a powerful one with an immense hatred toward mankind, at that. I should have suspected something when Maven’s truck disappeared and I ended up chasing a trace of magic to a dead end. Akeelah must have created it. Oh, Zet, what were you thinking?” He shook his bowed head.
Guilt descended on me. It was stupid after all Zet had done, but Faris’s grief was so devastating. “I should have told you about Zet and Akeelah. Maybe none of this would have happened.”
He looked up, shaking his head more adamantly. “I doubt that would have mattered.” He was lost in thought for a few seconds, then resumed. “Zet and I have a long, painful history. Even so, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. We both have a way out of this curse.” He huffed with irony. “I suppose now, I can tell you all about it.”
“Zet told me . . . his side of things anyways,” I said.
Faris searched my gaze, probably wondering if I’d believed Zet’s tale. Well, I hadn’t. As a matter of fact, I’d grown to hate him, Faris’s brother or not. I had no idea how he’d take this, but I had to tell him. Honesty above all else.
“I’m glad he’s gone. He’s just evil, I . . . I hate him.” The words tumbled over each other, but I got them out.
Faris’s face remained expressionless.
“Yesterday, when he couldn’t or wouldn’t follow me inside the church,” I continued, “I had time to think and the idea of changing the words in the curse came to me. I knew what it would mean for Zet, but I didn’t care.” I peered up at Faris. “Look, I won’t apologize. I know he’s your brother, but . . .”
“I’ve always been able to go into churches,” Faris mumbled. The night, the world went on outside the windshield where his attention focused.
I felt confused by his reply. “Well, he’s very different from you. Maybe too evil to go in a holy place. Maybe he was just that ashamed of himself. He told me vengeance was the only thing that mattered to him. He said something about selling his soul to the Devil, so he could be free and get revenge on you. I guess he meant Akeelah.”
If Faris had looked grim before, at that moment he looked positively desolate. “Brother, how could you? All you had to do was forgive yourself. ” He worked his fingers through the hair at his temples and pulled his eyes into narrow slants. After a pained moment, his hands fell to his lap where they sat motionless. I respected his silence.
A few, quiet seconds passed, until I couldn’t take it any longer. “So if he’d just forgiven himself, he could have been free from the curse and could have been human again? I hadn’t planned to leave him an out, but after he said he would never forgive you . . .”
Faris’s gaze lifted. His eyes were full of gratitude. “Thank you.”
I didn’t feel like I deserved it.
“He was always stubborn,” he mused. “Cala’s father saw it as well. He was a vengeful man, but not entirely devoid of a conscience. He blamed Zet for not stepping aside and letting me marry his daughter. She chose me, even when I made it clear I didn’t love her. She thought I’d eventually come to feel for her the way she felt for me. I’m not sure that would have been the case. Yet, to obey my father, I would have married her, if only Zet could have accepted that.
“But he never did. He didn’t believe me. He thought I had stolen Cala from him. On purpose. I tried to explain, but his mind was made up. He blamed me and couldn’t forgive me for what he thought I’d done.
“When the magus cast his curse, I still remember his words quite clearly, he said ‘Forgiveness, from your brother and yourself, shall set you free.’ It seems Zet thought, I should forgive him and he should forgive me. He was always too blind to see his own faults. I forgave him a long time ago—even when I blamed him and hated him for this curse—but, obviously, he was too blind to see.”
I wasn’t surprised. Admittedly, the magus’s words had been vague, but the little interaction I’d had with Zet had shown me what a self-centered bastard he was. He’d had centuries to mull this over. One would think he would’ve stumbled upon the right interpretation eventually.
“Now,” Faris shook his head with sadness, “the capacity to forgive seems to have left him.”
“You shouldn’t feel guilty, Faris. Not after he wanted to imprison you for all eternity.”
We sat in silence for a few heartbeats. Reluctantly, I switched my attention to his part of the curse. What he once denied clearly requited. My mind went back to that moment right after I made my last wish when Faris started vanishing in front of my eyes. It had been so hard to tell him I loved him, yet I’d done it. Then he’d become solid again, but . . . still remained a Djinn. The curse had not been lifted, not fully anyway.
I bit the inside of my cheek, thinking about what this meant. My heart shrank, as it became clear. He didn’t love me. He didn’t reciprocate my feelings. Un-requited love was what I felt. My body trembled with the realization. I hugged myself and moved away from him. I couldn’t take any more rejection. My heart was broken, but he didn’t need to know.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Do you feel sick? The fire . . . you’ve not been yourself since Zet set you ablaze.” His face twisted as he remembered my spontaneous combustion.
Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t love me. I would have been a lump of coal by now if he hadn’t still been a Djinn to put me out.
“I’m fine,” I managed. “Don’t worry.”
“I’ll take you home.”
In the blink of an eye, I found myself in Faris’s arms and in the middle of my bedroom. Gently, he set me down on the bed, sat beside me, and smoothed the hair away from my forehead.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. That odd smile returned to his lips, showing just a bit of his perfect teeth. He looked . . . self-satisfied.
“What’s with the stupid grin again?” I asked, aggravated, batting his hand away.
“I was just thinking about something you said earlier.”
I felt a flush like traffic lights on my cheeks.
“So you do?” he asked.
“Do what?” I looked away, my heart aching. What was this? Torture? Did he enjoy making young, foolish girls fall in love with him?
“You love me,” he said, not as a question, but as a simple, irrefutable, matter-of-fact statement.
“Oh, that?”
“Yes, that.”
I chanced a glance his way. He was still grinning, looking downright smug.
Damn him!
I wished I’d known things would turn out this way. If I had, maybe I would have never sai
d those words out loud. I’d only dared because I thought I’d never see him again. Now, he was very much here, making fun of me, practically laughing in my face.
In a huff, I sat up and crossed my arms over my chest. “That was nothing.” I sounded bitter even to myself. Screw honesty. I was done playing into his hands. “Just something I thought might help you cope for all eternity. It was stupid.” I twisted my dress in my hands, wishing it was Faris’s neck.
“You can’t deny it,” he said as if a bubble of laughter was caught in his throat.
“I’m not denying anything. Just . . . setting things straight.”
“Marielle, you can’t deny it because I know it’s true.”
“You know nothing, you conceited son of a . . . argh! You’re still the same irritating, self-centered, smug—”
“And you’re still the most distrustful, hard-headed, ill-tempered girl I’ve ever met. The reason I know you love me—because you do love me, no matter how much you try to deny it—is because I’m still here.”
“Yeah? Well, good for you. I’m glad I could be of service.” And I meant it, but I couldn’t help feeling I’d been cheated somehow. My love had freed him, but what had I gained? Two evil Djinn bent on making my life a living hell? Three wishes, none of them spent on myself?
“You did it. You freed me.” Two simple statements, heavy with gratitude. “Yet, you don’t seem glad.” He was genuinely puzzled. “Why?”
An unexpected tear spilled down my cheek. He stopped it with one finger before it reached my jaw line, turned the gesture into a caress that traveled to my earlobe. I shook my head and shied away from his hand. He held me in place, refusing to relinquish the feverish contact. His mouth opened and closed, as his eyes seemed to search for understanding in the curve of my lips. Then he blinked as if realizing something.
“Is it perhaps because you think yourself alone in this . . . emotion?” He sounded incredulous. “Because I haven’t said the words?”
One Wish Away: Djinn Empire Complete Series Page 25
