Book Read Free

One Wish Away: Djinn Empire Complete Series

Page 69

by Ingrid Seymour

It’s not so bad. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.

  I found myself thinking that maybe, wherever I was going, I would see Faris again. I would hold him and ask me to forgive me for being so inflexible, for being mad at him when he was taken from me.

  My head spun. Nothing seemed to stay in one place. The hanging light above me swayed from side to side. Faces came in and out of focus. I tried to make up the features, but they were little more than a blur.

  “Faris,” I murmured, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth. I shivered. It was so, so cold. Lights exploded above me. Like fireworks on the Fourth of July, sparks of light rained down all around me. They glowed in red, green, and blue.

  “She’s here!”

  Voices echoed in my head, ghosts from a past that would go out of existence, out of memory. There would be no one else to remember Mom, Grandma Eloise, Grandpa Arthur, Faris, the way that I remembered them. All the moments I’d shared with them would disappear as if they’d never existed.

  “You’re going to be all right.”

  “You can’t hurt me, Akeelah. I’m not your slave anymore.” Zet?

  “Andy, Robert, Gallardo. Come out!”

  I shook my head weakly. “W-what . . . what . . .?” I wanted to ask something, but I couldn’t. There was no way to find what word should come next. My mind was muddled, slow, confused.

  Warmth flooded me, a wildfire spreading through my veins. A shock of energy electrified my skin, my muscles, my very bones. I sat upright, blinking against the chaos that spread before me.

  “Faris?!”

  He was here. I looked at my arm. It was clean, unmarked. I wasn’t bleeding anymore, and I felt . . . I felt fine.

  “Kill her.” Akeelah’s voice echoed throughout the warehouse.

  Faris threw his arms up. Sparks rained down around us outside a shimmering shield that sprang from his hands. He slowly walked away from me, leaning forward, pushing the attack away. “Run, Marielle,” he said.

  My heart beat violently inside my chest, sending adrenaline into every corner of my body. I was free of the straps, so I threw my legs to the side of the table and prepared to jump.

  Faris was keeping Andy, Gallardo and my father’s magic from reaching me. But Zet was also there, helping his brother hold it all back. Behind them, Akeelah’s eyes glowed red. She growled and unleashed her magic.

  A strong blast of energy, like the explosion of a bomb, crashed against Faris and Zet. The blast hit me, knocked me off the table and sent my flying against the instrument table.

  I crashed to the floor. Metal torture tools clattered all around me.

  A lance of pain shot through my middle. A muffled groan broke through my lips. Pushing myself to my hands and knees, I tried to get to my feet, but collapsed back down. I pressed a hand to my side, then looked down. Blood shone on my fingers. Numbly, I stared at my side and the large knife sticking out from it.

  I tried to call for help, but my mouth filled with blood. I sputtered, spitting speckles of red onto the floor. My lungs struggled for breath. I was drowning in my own blood.

  My lungs stopped. My eyes rolled into the back of my head.

  Death laid its hand across my eyes once more.

  40

  Faris

  Akeelah’s magic slammed into us like a giant fist. My own magic dissolved, barely serving as a cushion to her powerful blow. I flew backward and crashed into one of the many wooden crates. The boards cracked, splintering, digging into my back and arms.

  Shaking my dazed head, I wished myself out of the broken crate and got ready for another attack. I searched for Zet and found him on the floor, still confused from the blast. He got to his hands and knees, swaying as if he would collapse again.

  As much as I hated and wondered at the fact that he was still a Djinn, at the moment, I was grateful for it.

  “Kill her!” Akeelah yelled once more, her attention shifting from us.

  I whirled, following her gaze. She was staring at Andy, Gallardo and Robert who had evidently been turned into a Djinn. I hadn’t been here and the world had impossibly become more horrific. The three half-djinn were facing away from me, obstructing the view to whatever laid past them.

  My useless heart thumped wildly with fear, a reflex remaining from my short-lived human life. I had told Marielle to run. She couldn’t still be here. She couldn’t.

  “She’s already dead,” Gallardo said.

  “No no no,” Robert felt to his knees.

  “Marielle!” I screamed her name and flew to her side.

  I was on my knees, next to her, in an instant. Wasting no time, I poured the entire force of my magic into her, wishing for health, for life. I pulled the knife from her side. It was large, serrated and crimson with her blood. The wound sealed immediately. The bleeding stopped.

  I wished for her blood to be renewed, her organs to be healed, her lungs to breathe, her heart to beat. I had saved her many times. I had made her whole just a few minutes ago. This wouldn’t be any different. She would open her beautiful green eyes and would look at me, disoriented, but alive. Here. With me.

  Holding my breath, I waited. Robert was crying silently, his head bowed. I wanted to tell him to snap out of it. Marielle would be all right. There was no other alternative.

  Her eyes didn’t open.

  I went over her injuries. I’d healed them all. Yet, she didn’t wake. Her heart didn’t beat. She was healed and still . . .

  “Marielle.” I brushed the back of my hand over her cheek, pushed a strand of black hair off her forehead. Her expression was worried, just how she always looked when she was in pain.

  “Marielle, please.”

  I took her hand in mine and pressed a kiss to her fingers. Their tips were cold, but the rest still warm.

  “No,” I said into the palm of her hand. “No.”

  She’s not gone. She’s not.

  I can fix this. I can fix anything.

  “Come on, Marielle. Please wake up. I wish for you to wake up.” My eyes darted to her father. Maybe something was wrong with my magic. Maybe the demon had weakened it. “Robert, help! Make her wake up.”

  He just shook his head.

  “Do something. You’re her father!”

  I looked around, grasping at straws for someone else to help. Andy and Gallardo avoided my gaze, but Akeelah eagerly met my eyes, wearing a satisfied smile that quickly evolved into a roaring laugh of pleasure.

  “It’s too late for anyone’s magic to save her. It seems all my wishes eventually come true.” She continued to laugh then, between cackles, added, “She’s dead, and now you can regret your failures for the rest of eternity. Not long enough for my taste. No one crosses me and gets away with it.”

  My heart froze mid-beat, sending its frigidity to the rest of my body. Akeelah’s voice stretched into the distance. The overhead lights receded. Absolute numbness descended over me.

  My hands shook as I gathered Marielle to my lap and caressed her silky hair. I pressed my forehead to hers and wept. My tears splashed onto her face. I rocked back and forth, imagining she needed me to soothe her, to make her feel that everything was alright.

  “I tried.” I spoke softly into her ear. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I failed you. I’m sorry I never kept my promises. There was this one I really intended to keep. I wanted to be with you, build a life with you. I wanted to be a man and be yours, if you would have me. I could have spent eternity with you. A human life would have been too short, but it would have been everything. Everything I wanted.

  “Ours forever.

  “Without you life goes back to darkness, and forever is the most lonesome word ever created.

  “I want nothing to do with it.”

  As a Djinn I couldn’t die. There was only one way to become human and be free of my agony. I had to speak those three words. I loathed the idea of telling her when she couldn’t hear me anymore, of fulfilling my promise when it hardly counted. But it was the only way.

  “Marielle,
I love you. Since the day you freed me, I’ve loved you. And I will love you with my last breath.”

  After setting her gently back on the floor, I picked the knife that had ended her life, stood and faced Akeelah.

  “Not all your wishes come true. My regrets die today next to my beloved,” I said and stabbed the knife into my chest.

  41

  Faris

  My chest spasmed. Blood poured from the wound in my chest as I numbly looked down at it. Akeelah stared in confused horror as I stood there bleeding, waiting to die.

  “You idiot!” Zet was suddenly at my side, forcing me to the floor as he cradled me in his arms.

  There was pain, and there was blood, my heart had stopped, but death hadn’t come. I felt the same way I had in the last two thousand years, except more wretched and hopeless.

  It seemed all of Akeelah’s wishes did come true.

  I was still a Djinn. I had told Marielle I loved her, and I was still a Djinn. I couldn’t understand why. I couldn’t think clearly to figure out what I’d done wrong.

  Zet pressed a hand to my chest, kept me from getting up as I tried to resist him. He winked at me, the same way he had all those years ago when we were children and had each other’s back. The wink had always meant, “Play along, brother. If we stick together, nothing can ever defeat us.”

  I stopped struggling, denying my desire to rage at Akeelah, the world, life, the very fate that had brought me to this heinous moment. If I couldn’t even have death, what good was anything else I might attempt to do?

  “You idiot!” Zet repeated. “Why would you do that?” Then over his shoulder at Akeelah, “You godforsaken creature! My brother is dead because of you.” He turned to me and urged me with his gaze to . . . to what? Play dead?

  He urged me again, his gaze dark and insistent. I closed my eyes and let my head fall limply to the side. Something about his adamant expression told me I should do exactly as he said. Pretending wasn’t hard—not when I wanted to be dead and nothing, not even a million full-fledged wishes, could ever get me there.

  “He became human so he could kill himself,” Zet said. “He’d been holding back, staying a Djinn just so he could protect her. You took away every reason he had to stay alive.”

  Akeelah ignored Zet’s accusations. “How are you here? And still a Djinn?” She didn’t care one bit about me. One evil done, she was probably planning her next.

  “Your magic holds no sway over me anymore, Akeelah. I’m free of the stone. I forgave myself and my brother and, for the blink of an eye, became human. But humanity doesn’t please me anymore. I much prefer this, so I had a witch turn me into a free Djinn. I had to save my brother. And now, you have taken him from me, you spiteful creature.

  “Waste your time with me, if you wish. But let me put my brother and his beloved to rest first. I will come back and settle our score when that is done. I assure you.”

  With those words, I sensed Zet’s magic flare. It was a familiar energy that made me think of single-mindedness, blind strength and cunning, the way it had all those times when he had attacked Marielle in his determined quest to destroy her.

  For an instant, the desire to fight him flared within me, then I remembered there was nothing and no one to fight for any longer.

  I felt, more than saw, as Zet’s magic transported us from that detestable place. I tried to feel grateful toward him for thinking of what, in my grief, I hadn’t possessed the decency to do. Marielle needed to be laid to rest with care, love and dignity. This much I had to do. After that, the entire world could go to hell.

  The instant we arrived wherever he’d taken us, Zet went into a frenzy of motion. “Faris, snap out of it!” He slapped me on the cheek. “Barzakh!” he said, then jumped right into a summoning spell.

  I was so numb, so detached from logical thought that it took me long moments to realize what my brother meant. But when I finally did, I sprang to my feet, my frozen heart waking and starting a savage drumming in my chest.

  Marielle was lying on the floor of . . . of the shack.

  Zet had brought us to the nursery.

  He moved quickly through the summoning spell and urged me with adamant hand gestures to tend to Marielle.

  He meant to try to save her life by turning her into a Djinn. I had no idea if it would work, if it was already too late to try, but I would seize any chance to bring her back.

  It took all my will not to use my magic to procure Marielle’s blood. Akeelah hadn’t followed us, and I didn’t want to give her a reason to sense me and know I was still alive.

  Instead, I rushed to the kitchenette, dug in the cupboard and found a plastic container and a knife. I hurried back and knelt next to Marielle’s inert body. The cold in her hand sobered my erratic heart, filling it with renewed pain.

  It wasn’t easy to cut her skin and open a wound in her arm. I could have never hurt her, whether dead or alive, if it wasn’t for the fierce hope clawing its way into my soul. I slid the knife across her wrist, even as my throat closed with revulsion at my irreverent daring. I was taught to respect the dead, but I refused to let Marielle go when even the smallest hope to bring her back existed.

  Blood flooded from the wound and slowly trickled into the container. It wasn’t fast enough. I exchanged a glance with Zet. He shook his head at a loss, but continued the spell.

  We needed more blood and quickly, but her heart wasn’t beating, so there was no pressure to push the blood out.

  “Oh, God.” I pressed a hand to her chest and applied a few compressions. It was difficult looking into her beautiful face, but I didn’t tear my gaze from it. If we were unable to save her and this ended up being nothing but a desecration of her body, I wanted to remember what I’d done. I wanted to have all the memories that would torture me until the end of time. Because, for this, I deserved endless suffering.

  With every compression, her blood pumped faster, filling the container until there was enough and Zet’s spell brought a small demon from the depths of the earth.

  The shack split in two as the floor opened. Arthur’s desk slid to one corner of the room and crashed against the wall. Mardi Gras masks crashed to the floor from the wall.

  The demon flew straight to the ceiling, flapping a set of leathery wings. It chose the physical form of a pale creature no bigger than a house cat and with a long tail that made it seemed unbalanced. Its small head had a huge set of yellow eyes with no pupils. It fluttered around the room, screeching, trying to escape Zet’s hold.

  Wasting not a moment, my brother worked through the spell and sent the demon in to gather Marielle’s blood. As the creature became crimson essence and seeped into the bloodletting wound in her arm, my lips moved frantically in silent prayer.

  I prayed for her soul to still be in this realm and not yet in Barzakh. I prayed that she was on a slow, reluctant journey and remained within my reach.

  The demon rummaged inside Marielle’s body.

  Remorse clamped its jaws on me. I felt despicable and selfish, willing to defile her body for my gain, for my fear of life without her.

  Minutes passed and the demon didn’t come out.

  Zet’s plaintive gaze met mine once more. He shook his head ever so slightly, and it was all my infinitesimal hope needed to wither and die.

  “I’m sorry, brother. It was too late,” he said.

  My head hung, limp and heavy with the enormous sorrow my hope had momentarily managed to eclipse.

  Marielle was lost, and so was I.

  “Faris,” my brother whispered my name.

  Something in his tone made me look up. The demon had finally found its way out of Marielle’s body, and it now hovered a few feet above her. At the sight of the fluctuating mass of energy, my hope resurrected, lifting my heart from the bottom of my chest and bringing me to my feet.

  Zet hurried to issue the rest of the spell, saying, “Bound by blood. Free by her own will.”

  I stared at what had been but a dark wisp and marvel
ed at what it had become. The insignificant cloud of essence that had gone into Marielle was now three times bigger and looked nothing like it had before. It wasn’t dark anymore but bright and shimmering the illuminated surface of a lake.

  My hand went up of its own accord, drawn by the pure clarity of the magnetic energy. Before my fingers reached it, the orb flew toward Zet who held out a Mardi Gras mask, the first thing he’d found within his reach, and captured it there.

  At last, the demon—reduced to its murky state once more—rose into the air and returned to the ground, sealing the gaping hole and leaving the linoleum floor intact.

  Elated, I rushed to Zet and reached for the mask. I was smiling, my heart beating for joy and not fear. My brother returned the smile, but didn’t hand me the mask. Instead, he pulled it away.

  My smile crumpled. My mind reeled with possibilities. I reached out again. Zet shook his head.

  “You don’t need this,” he said.

  “What . . . ?”

  “She’s right over there, stupid.” He pointed over my shoulder.

  I frowned and turned slowly, still afraid, still unwilling to believe fate hadn’t cheated me out of every possibility of happiness.

  When I saw her, standing at the back of the shack, I almost wept like a child, almost ran and crushed her between my arms with self-absorbed relief, joy, elation. But I didn’t—not after I drank in her expression and felt the horror coming off her in waves.

  She was staring at her prone body on the floor, lifeless, pale, drained of blood.

  “Marielle,” I whispered her name like a lament.

  For a long moment, she stared at her wasted shell. I had been in her shoes once and knew exactly what she was feeling, knew there were no words that could ease the terror of finding herself turned into an otherworldly being, no words that could explain the desperation, the instinctive need to craft a body from borrowed pieces of matter floating in the air. Because without a body nothing makes sense, nothing feels real.

  Except . . . there was something I could say.

  “You can be human again,” I said. “All you have to do is wish for it.”

 

‹ Prev