She buried her face in my chest and cried. I held her, feeling wretched and at a loss for words. When I was a young man, I had seen children die in senseless violence. Villages plundered by bandits who were little more than animals. It was the most despicable sight anyone could imagine.
What had I allowed? Why hadn’t I protected Marielle from this? True, she was strong, but no one should have to see children suffer at the hands of such beasts.
“I’m sorry, Marielle. I’m sorry.” I spoke into her wet hair, wishing for a way to soothe her, but there was none—not even magic could erase the awful memories, the misery. “You shouldn’t have had to do this.”
She pulled away then and angrily swatted the tears and rain from her face. “It’s not your fault, so don’t apologize. And I did have to do it. There was no other sensible choice but for me to go. Alone. Besides, I now understand the full consequences of my actions. I’m responsible for what is happening to all those people. I’m—”
“Please, don’t punish yourself this way. You would have never involved Gallardo if you’d known what he was capable of. Besides, no one could have imagined the extent of Akeelah’s evil,” I said.
Her darkened gaze told me she didn’t agree with me.
I couldn’t let her assume this burden. “Yes, we knew she was evil. We knew she was capable of terrible things, but who could have guessed she would be able to manipulate people the way she has? You must remember that all of those who raised a hand against their neighbor made a choice. If they killed, it’s their sin. No one else’s. No amount of magic could have made them do such harm, and you know that.” My last words were firmer than I intended, but they seemed to get through to her.
Marielle nodded, if a bit reluctantly. “Let’s go inside.” She took my hand and pulled me toward the house.
The porch was empty. Zet had presumably gone inside. We went straight to what had become our bedroom and lay quietly on the bed, holding each other with fierce determination.
She had dried our clothes and made the room warm. Her fingers played with the buttons of my shirt, undoing them one at a time. When she was done, she pushed it aside and traced my chest and stomach, making me shiver.
After several minutes, her breathing became even and peaceful.
“I think we’ve done enough to anger her,” she said, “to make her send her slaves in search of the culprit. If she hasn’t, it doesn’t matter. I’m done waiting. I’m ready to face her.”
50
Marielle
It had all started in New Orleans, and I would end in New Orleans.
Akeelah’s disciples had begun their campaign in the French Quarter by Jackson Square, the first place where she’d performed her goddess charade.
So it was to that spot where I transported us the next day: Faris, Zet and Ma’ Gee—the only hope the world had. It was late afternoon and the February sun was shining unseasonably bright and hot for that time of year.
We appeared in front of the square and began moving slowly down Decatur Street, our gazes darting from one sidewalk to the next. I had expected to find bloated bodies everywhere, but the area was clean and eerily quiet. It was weird. This part of downtown was always packed with people, day or night.
I looked over at Faris who was walking beside me. He took my hand, and I had to fight not to pull away. I had made him looked so different from his regular self that the disguise even managed to fool me. He was thinner, with hair cropped near his scalp, and pasty, pale skin, not the rich olive tone I was used to. Ma’ Gee looked like herself since Akeelah had never met her. For my disguise, I’d opted for looking like Deborah Landry, an old high school classmate. And for Zet . . . well . . . I’d just had some fun with him.
I didn’t think we would run into Akeelah or any of her half-djinn, but we had to be safe, at least until we were ready to attack.
Zet pulled next to Faris, stretching his t-shirt away from the protruding stomach I’d given him. “Did you have to make me look like a retired beer drinker? I really don’t appreciate this. I just saw myself in the window back there, and it’s worse than I’d thought.” He rubbed a hand over his shiny, bald head.
I smiled, feeling a measure of satisfaction. Was it bad that I would consider leaving him like that, if given the chance? He had tried to burn me to a crisp, after all.
“It’s temporary,” Faris said. “Unless the look grows on you.”
Zet scoffed, but left it at that.
We kept walking for several blocks without running into any disturbances of any kind.
“I wonder who . . . cleaned?” I asked. “It was nothing like this in Paris, Mexico City, and Rome. There were bodies everywhere.” I tried to keep the images of so many dead from entering my head, but they were like water seeping through my fingers. There was no way to stop them. I wondered if there would ever be.
“I’m sure Akeelah did,” Zet said.
Faris and I looked at him, surprised.
“She wouldn’t care,” I said.
“If there is one thing she hates more than Dross, it’s rotting Dross.” Zet’s eyes narrowed and got a faraway look as if he were remembering some past event. And maybe he was. He had spent time under Akeelah’s control as her slave. I could only imagine what he’d gone through. I almost felt sorry for him.
“Did you hear that?” Faris stopped and cocked his head to one side.
I held my breath and listened. My eyes locked with his. I nodded. I could hear loud music and shouts intermingled with it.
Zet jumped ahead of us. “This way.” There was a spring in his step. How could he be excited about any of this?
Faris must have noticed the displeasure in my face because he felt the need to excuse his brother, “He’s always enjoyed the moment of action. He used to get impatient waiting to go into battle.”
The thought sobered me. Faris had told me stories about their short stint as humans. Before they had even turned ten and left childhood behind, they were given weapons and training. Not much later came the actual battles, fields awash with blood where they had to defend their empire from foreign invaders. Then, before turning twenty, they were tortured and turned into Djinn. Some life.
We caught up with Zet and moved toward the source of the music at a fast clip. When we got closer, we slowed down and cautiously turned the next corner into Bourbon Street.
The sight that greeted us froze us on the spot. My mouth went dry and my stomach roiled and seemed to flip on itself. I turned away, pressing my forehead to Faris’s shoulder. I wished the images to fade into nothingness and wash away from my mind. They stayed put. A Djinn’s power can’t affect anyone’s mind. It’s one of the rules, but that didn’t stop me from wishing and wishing it wasn’t so.
The gruesome images of slashed limbs, smashed-in faces and streets flowing with blood flashed before my eyes like a slideshow at top speed.
Frustrated at my limitations, I wished for something I could handle: the bodies disappeared. I almost felt them go as my magic flared.
Faris patted my hand. “We’ll get through this.”
“That bar. It has people in it, and it’s the perfect location.” Zet pointed at a building in the opposite corner. It had a double door, painted blue, and a sign that read Queen Bee’s. The sounds of a bluegrass song drifted through the open windows on the side. Drunken shouts and jeers could be heard over the fast melody.
“Let’s go.” I marched forward, the disgust in my stomach shifting to anger.
By the time I pushed through the front doors, my chest felt ready to explode. What I found inside did nothing but add fuel to the furious fire already burning inside of me.
About twenty men were inside the bar, all in different states of drunkenness. They turned as soon as we entered, directing their crazed gazes in our direction. Their sour beer and sweat reek hit me like a wall.
I appraised them, discovering that every single one of them bore Akeelah’s mark. They looked like the scum of the earth, and the evil Djinn had made them thin
k they were the chosen ones.
“What do we have here?” The tallest and widest of the men stepped forward. He wore a yellow bandana over his greasy, long hair, jeans stained with blood, heavy boots, and a sleeveless, checkered shirt. He had a ridiculous handlebar mustache that seemed stiff with dry food. “More faggots, I reckon?” he asked, looking us up and down. We were in the LGTB part of Bourbon Street which explained his comment. They’d probably come here with their self-righteous morals and hateful principles intent on hurting people they would never understand—not with their black hearts and blind eyes.
“They got no marks, Pete.” A man stood from one of the tables, a beer bottle in hand. He swayed, but caught himself on the back of the chair.
“I vote for trying to redeem her.” Another man stood, pointing at me. “The other three we can do without, unless Dick wants to keep the boys.” Everyone laughed. One of them slapped the table in front of him as if he’d never heard a better joke.
A whimper from across the bar caught my attention. It led my gaze to a group of four women sitting on the floor huddled together in a corner. They looked as scared and beaten down as stray dogs, their faces the picture of misery and pain. One of them was holding a torn blouse to her chest and looked at me with a plea in her eyes.
I lost it then, my anger spilling like hot lava and deadly acid mixed together. Up until that moment, I hadn’t hurt anyone. I hadn’t taken advantage of the fact that I had become a Djinn quite unwillingly. But then and there, the urge to hurt these low, savage men came over me.
Like boneless rag dolls, they slid from every corner of the bar to the center of the room, feet dragging behind them, scraping the battered wooden floor. Eyes and mouths wide, they crashed into each other, all around the guy they’d called Pete. They struggled to push away, booted legs skidding in their efforts, but they stuck together as if magnetized.
Zet walked in a circle around their compressed bodies, openly laughing at their predicament. Ma’ Gee looked at them in disgust.
“They deserve whatever you’re willing to throw their way,” Faris said, leaning into me, “just make sure you don’t do anything you would regret.”
I bit my lower lip, trying to focus my anger elsewhere. I wanted to squeeze them all to a pulp, but Faris was right. As much as they deserved it, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I allowed myself to get carried away by blind fury. That would simply make me as bad as they were.
That didn’t mean I would let them off easy, though.
I cut off the music and took a step forward, one hand held in front of me. “What have you done?” I said, my voice booming through the barroom. Inch by inch, I raised my hand toward the ceiling, lifting them up into the air. Their scuffed shoes came off the floor. They gasped and swore and invoked the name of their fake goddess in vain. When their heads were mere inches from the wooden top, I stopped.
“Who have you killed? How many?!” I demanded.
No one answered.
I shook my lifted hand. They shook with it, feet dangling.
“We were just doin’ our part,” one of them whined. “We’re marked. We’re chosen.”
“Thou. Shall. Not. Kill,” I said squeezing them harder together. The rumble in my voice echoed through the bar. “It is that simple,” I said.
“I—I can’t breathe,” someone caught in the middle said. His voice was barely more than a choked whisper.
I was finding it hard to care. I squeezed harder.
“I didn’t, I didn’t kill anybody. I swear.” It could have been a lie, but something in the sound of the voice gave me pause.
Like a carousel, I turned the bundle of floating bodies until I spotted a man wearing slacks and a white button-down shirt. His chin was pressed to his chest, his eyes downcast. Akeelah’s mark stood out on his pale forehead. His chest was pumping up and down like he was about to cry. He didn’t have the face of a murderer. He looked like a normal man. Someone’s husband. Someone’s father.
I choked on something. My own saliva? Bile?
Who was I to judge these men? Who was I to know what they had done? Just because they bore Akeelah’s mark didn’t mean they’d followed her orders. They’d simply gotten caught in the middle of this awful tragedy, like everyone else. He had probably ended up with this bunch in an effort to stay alive.
I released the pressure a few notches. There was a collective sigh of relief, followed by deep intakes of breath.
“Inside your own hearts, you know what you’ve done,” I said. “Sooner or later you will have to account for your deeds, and there will be no hiding the wretchedness of your souls. Your false goddess will not save you then. You are responsible for your own actions. No one else.”
Without preamble, I released my hold on them. Most collapsed to the floor in a heap. Some landed on top of tables and chairs. Others on top of the wooden bar.
Zet jumped back, laughing. “It’s raining drunks and assholes,” he said.
As they nursed their banged up knees and ankles, their eyes lifted to me. There, I saw fear, doubt, regret, guilt, defiance, anger . . . a million emotions that couldn’t begin to match what I felt.
“You’re not marked. You’re not chosen.” I waved my hand over them. The flame outline disappeared from their foreheads. “You are only what you have made of yourselves. Leave now! Leave and fetch your goddess. And give her a message for me, tell Akeelah that her day of reckoning has come, tell her the Djinn Empire she dreamed of is no more than a twisted fantasy that will never come true.”
“But . . . but we don’t know where to find her,” a bearded man with a high-pitched voice said.
“Just go!” I pointed toward the door. “Go, before I change my mind.”
There were a few seconds of stunned silence before the scuttling of shoes against the wooden floors began. They got up and, in a fit of nerves, stumbled out of the bar, tripping over each other.
When they had all gotten out and stood in the middle of Bourbon Street looking dazed and lost, I turned to Zet. “It’s time,” I said. “I’m ready for this.”
Zet nodded and exchanged a glance with his brother.
“I’m ready, too.” Faris nodded back.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Ma’ Gee said when we looked her way.
“Okay.” Zet swallowed, took a deep breath and walked to the door. He stopped and cracked his neck before going out.
As we’d agreed, I touched my ear and imagined a high-tech surveillance earpieces appearing there. It did, filling my head with the sounds of static. I wished for three more, one for Faris, one for Zet, and one for Ma’ Gee. Their hands lifted to the sides of their faces as soon as they felt them. We figured Akeelah wouldn’t think of searching the airwaves. High tech “magic” wasn’t something she would ever utilize—not with the kind of power she was capable of wielding.
Zet’s back straightened, but he didn’t turn from the door. “Can you hear me?” he asked.
“Loud and clear,” Faris said.
“Ten-four,” I said, trying to lighten the mood, as if that was possible.
Ma’ Gee rolled her eyes and sat at one of the tables, one hand on her beads.
Zet put two fingers up in the sign of victory and started to walk outside.
“Wait!” I said and walked back to the scared women in the corner. “I’ll take you out of here to a safe place. Don’t be afraid.”
In a flash, I transported them to Live Oak and, after a short explanation, left them on the porch with Javier, who had been sitting out there playing with his new radio.
I materialized at the bar once more.
Faris moved to my side, took my hands in his and looked me in the eye. I shook my head and wished us back to our proper physical forms. I welcomed the sight of his handsome face as much as he seemed to welcome mine. He placed one hand on the side of my neck and caressed my cheek with his thumb.
“I can’t get enough of your beautiful face,” he said with a smile. “Be careful,” he add
ed, his tone growing deeper and serious. “If the demon gets out of control, we end it. Okay?”
I nodded.
“That’s what we agreed on,” Faris said with a warning, as if he expected me to go rogue and deviate from the plan. I had no intention of doing that.
“I know. I know.”
He pressed his lips to mine. It was a quick kiss, nothing that would qualify as a farewell. We needed all the luck we could get, so there was no reason to jinx ourselves.
“I’ll go,” I said in a chipper tone. “See you when it’s over.” I gave him the most genuine smile I could muster, even though I was bursting with dread and the need to stay in his arms, to hold on and never let him out of my sight.
With a deep breath, I vanished from the bar, his intense eyes the last thing I saw as I magically made my way to the building across the street. I used what Faris referred to as a whim—something Akeelah would be less likely to trace. She didn’t need to know where we were hiding. It took longer than normal, but eventually, I appeared across the street, in one of the balconies of the many creole cottages that graced the French Quarter.
I was on the second floor in front of an intricate, wrought iron railing painted in black. I grabbed on to it and looked down at the street. This balcony would have been a prime Mardi Gras spot to people-watch and throw beads and chocolate doubloons to anyone who asked. I vaguely wondered when the holiday was supposed to be this year. Sometimes it was in February and other times in March. I felt a pang for the tradition, remembering how many times I rode on Dad’s shoulders while I desperately tried to catch a moon pie from one of the floats. I felt pretty sure it wouldn’t be celebrated this year—not even if we succeeded today. There had been too much death around the world to think of anyone partying.
Below, the men we’d kicked out of the bar stood in the middle of the intersection, looking hopelessly disoriented. They were huddled together, their eyes darting down the different intersecting streets as if trying to decide which way to go. It was perfect.
Pulling away from the railing, I turned and made my way through the double doors behind me and entered the building. The place wasn’t even locked, at least not on the second story. Inside, it was dark, a small bedroom fancily decorated with antique furniture. I eased the door back, but didn’t shut it all the way. I peered through the crack and made sure I could still see the street. It was a great spot. Looking in a diagonal line, I searched the second story above the bar’s sign. The building has no balcony, but, through one of the windows, I was able to see Faris, ready and in position.
One Wish Away: Djinn Empire Complete Series Page 73
