Harley Merlin 12

by Bella Forrest

  “I’ve heard of djinn who haunt cemeteries. Is that true?” Santana asked, her dark hair whipping back in shadowed tendrils. A tremor went up my spine. She’d been spending too much time with Tatyana. Then again, what was she supposed to do when I made excuses not to see her? Sit alone in her room? Not likely, and not what I wanted for her.

  Abdhi clasped his hands. “Beastly creatures. As a whole, the djinn like to pretend the Ghul don’t belong to us.”

  “You mean ghouls?” Eerie beings that devoured people who happened to be in cemeteries at the wrong time.

  “A Western bastardization of a perfectly good word. I mean what I say—Ghul.” Abdhi shot me a disapproving look. “Although, the meaning is more or less the same: flesh-eating creatures who feast on the living and the dead.”

  Santana nodded eagerly. “A friend told me they encountered a few.”

  “Is your friend of the female or male persuasion?” Abdhi asked, interested.

  “Female.”

  He made a noise of understanding. “Then she was likely at less risk, unless it was a Qutub.”

  “The things you clean your ears with?” Santana squinted, putting her hand across her eyes to protect them from the sand hissing across the dunes—hopefully not the sign of an Ifrit on the rise.

  Abdhi chuckled. “You’re amusing, for a mortal.”

  “A Qutub is the animal form of a Ghul, right?” I found the section in the book.

  “I’d be impressed if you hadn’t just read it.” Abdhi snickered. “But you are correct, and they are the lowest of the low.”

  “What’s the other, non-animal kind? It doesn’t say in here; it just says Ghul and Qutub,” I interjected, closing my eyes against the sand.

  “That’s because the ‘other kind’ are just called Ghuls,” Abdhi replied bluntly.

  “And they appear as beautiful women who lure men to their deaths?” This book had everything a person could want to know about djinn.

  Abdhi gave a belly laugh and performed a charade of walking on hooves, though it gave off more of a T-Rex appearance. “In theory, but you’d have to be fairly stupid to fall for it, as they can never get rid of the donkey legs of their natural form.”

  I frowned. “According to this, there are several djinn who like to trick mortal beings.”

  “Mm-hmm, especially men—being the more foolish of the sexes,” Abdhi retorted.

  “Hey!” I protested.

  He shrugged. “Where beautiful ladies are concerned, men often lose their minds completely.”

  Does he know? His words nagged at my insecurities surrounding Santana, and the wall between us that was part of the reason for us trekking through this freezing cold desert in the small hours of the morning. Had I lost my mind for Santana and the future we might never have? I supposed trying to let go of the most incredible thing in my life would qualify as being borderline insane.

  “What about Si’lat?” I moved to the next description on the page, changing the subject.

  “They also take the form of beautiful women to trick men into… you know, laying with them.” He gave a mischievous wink. “Think succubus. There are Qarinah and Shiqq who behave similarly, though the former is associated with sleep paralysis, where they suck the dreams and nightmares from their immobilized victims and feed on them.”

  To my surprise, we’d covered a lot of ground while talking. Then again, most of the landscape looked the same, and sand dunes seemed to have an impish way of shifting when you weren’t watching.

  “And the Hatif, who mimic the voices of loved ones.” Abdhi continued on our whistle-stop tour of djinn classification. “They don’t possess solid form, but if you’re ever alone and hear the voice of someone you know, dead or alive, when they have no reason for being there, you can bet that it’s a Hatif.”

  “Yeesh, who knew there were so many types? It’s like a pick ‘n’ mix of djinn.” Santana chuckled, rubbing her arms briskly.

  “Oh, sweet girl, I’m not even finished yet.” Abdhi grinned, effortlessly climbing the next dune. As distracting as he was, my thighs weren’t listening to his information. They were on fire, and Kadar stirred inside me, aggravated by the effort. He hadn’t chimed in with his own intel, or smart comments, so I took that as a sign that the Lullaby Weeds still had him under their spell.

  “Lastly, we have the Hinn—not technically djinn, more of a rival species. We say subclass, they say separate. It caused a war many years ago, the sparks of which exist even to this day, though we mostly avoid each other for the sake of peace.” Abdhi gestured to the sky. “So, as you can see, djinn come in all shapes and sizes. A pick ‘n’ mix, as you said. We have varying abilities—some appear as weather phenomena, others play tricks, some toy with mortals and drive them mad or cause sickness, and others are so dangerous you would have to have a death wish to go near them.”

  “Let’s not meet any of those, okay?” Santana shivered. I didn’t know if it was from the cold or from Abdhi’s sharp, warning tone.

  “No, indeed,” Abdhi agreed.

  He went on to tell us about how each of the planets was associated with a djinn, but I’d tuned out, the book no longer drawing me in. Kadar made himself known, with spiky pains stabbing my abdomen. My limbs dragged like they’d had the life drained from them. Another side effect of Kadar’s illness.

  “Who cares about other djinn?” Kadar rose up, stamping me down. “While you’re waffling on, some of us are dying here. And I don’t see those cretins coming to our aid, do you? Every branch of djinn is out for themselves, and I would wage another war against every single one of them, to teach them a lesson.”

  “Kadar?” Santana whispered.

  I felt him leer. “Who else?”

  “Maybe you should sleep some more,” she suggested.

  “And maybe you should mind your own business,” he retorted. “This is your fault, anyway.”

  Santana’s expression shifted to anger. “Excuse me?”

  “You wouldn’t stay behind, and you being here is messing with Raffe’s mind—distracting him. Why do you think he’s pushed you away? Honestly, for someone who acts like an intellectual, you can be dense.” I fought to wrangle Kadar, but he wouldn’t budge. “And he won’t say it, so I will. His greatest fear is his inability to give you children—well, without potentially killing you, anyway.”

  “What?” Santana grazed her bottom lip with her teeth. “I told him we didn’t need to worry about that.”

  “Then you really are stupid,” Kadar shot back. “Of course you should worry. You’re not exempt because you’re powerful in your own right. His mother was, too, and it didn’t do her any good.”

  Kadar, stop! I tried to take back control.

  No. Why should I? She needs to hear it, and she needs to hear it from someone with more punch to them, Kadar replied inside my head.

  “That’s why he’s been trying to push me away?” Santana looked heartbroken.

  “Did you think he’d just gone cold? You—the one he’s been pathetically in love with from day one?” Kadar scoffed against my wishes. “You think señoritas like you come along every day for a guy like him? Pfft, as if. They might for me, but Raffe’s a sap.”

  Santana rallied. “Then why didn’t he just say so? I bet you had something to do with it, didn’t you?”

  “He did say so, but you wouldn’t listen!” Kadar snapped.

  Her eyes widened. “Not being able to have children with him doesn’t mean he has to push me away. There are ways around it, Kadar.”

  “Not satisfactory ones.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face us. “He wants your kiddos, Santana. He wants the shiny, happy family he never had, the one you constantly harp on about. You think he’ll give that up? You think it doesn’t hurt us when you say you want a billion children, knowing each could be a death sentence for you?”

  “I—”

  Before Santana finished, Abdhi swiped Kadar across the face with a slap that sounded like a lightning crac
k. Instantly, Kadar disappeared inside me, and I came back to the surface, feeling the almighty sting from that smack.

  “Djinn. Such drama queens. Am I right?” Abdhi shook his head. “They should all spend some time stuffed in a lamp. That’d teach them.”

  “Sorry about that.” I peered at Santana, but she’d turned away. Evidently, Kadar had given her food for thought at the worst possible moment. Did he want both of us distracted during this mission? At least it had brought my mind back to the task at hand, as mortified and angry as I was with him for bringing up that sensitive—and secret—subject. I’d been trying my best to keep it from her, and he’d gone and blurted it out. Impulsive idiot. I glanced at the book to skirt past my embarrassment, ignoring the throb in my cheek and moving on to the specifics of the collective djinn world. “Are all of these djinn connected to Erebus?”

  “They are indeed,” Abdhi answered. “All of us born of his Chaos mutations.”

  Santana turned her attention on Abdhi. “So he’s like your dad?”

  “Alas, he lacks paternal instincts. With that in mind, he is more the scientist who botched us into being. If he were truly our father, he wouldn’t leave us to suffer like this.” Abdhi’s tone held a bitter note as he gazed over the shadowed dunes where a strange, goat-like creature grazed on sparse shrubs. It had spiraled horns, bent backward. An oryx, if memory served.

  “‘Botched into being.’ It doesn’t sound like you’re all that glad to exist,” I cut in.

  He shrugged. “I make the best of my situation. But let me ask you—what is the use of existing if you are destined to be a slave?”

  “There aren’t free djinn?” Santana asked. We made quite the tag team of questioners, but I wished she’d look at me. Kadar really gave it to her straight, and I knew I had to clean up his mess.

  “‘Free’ is a subjective term.” Abdhi huffed a sigh. “There are djinn who consider themselves free, but they can be called on any moment to do their overlord’s bidding. So how free can they truly be? At least in my lamp, I am relieved of that duty. The lamp protects me from the call of Erebus, as it is imbued with djinn magic that shields me from him, as per the instruction of the spell of the one who placed me in my lamp. Again, it spares me the worst of this illness because it has an energy source of its own. Lamp or no lamp, however, the fabric of my being is linked to Erebus.”

  I was about to ask another question regarding Erebus’s servants who weren’t djinn, but Abdhi stopped abruptly at the top of the dune. A second later, I understood why. Below us, in a deep valley between the dunes, lay a massive city of rocks and ruins, literally sitting in the middle of nowhere. It must have once been an incredible feat of architecture, with towers and spires and walls of white and gold, but it had crumbled, leaving the shell of its former glory. Flames flickered within and shadows darted between buildings, letting me know we’d reached true djinn territory.

  “What the—!” Santana gasped.

  “Welcome to Salameh,” Abdhi replied. “The city of sanctuary for the supposedly free djinn. You cannot see them all, but hundreds of djinn reside here.”

  “Hundreds?” My throat clenched.

  Abdhi smiled. “There are many here like your djinn, born inside magicals but freed by their magical’s death. Consider it… a retirement home for djinn.”

  “They’re crusty old folks?” Santana looked down at the city with worried eyes. I shared her apprehension. Even from here, the ruined city gave me the creeps. Shadows swirled, with bursts of fiery light scattered throughout, and whispering voices drifted up on the wind. Not the kind of place non-djinn would want to find themselves.

  I really wish you hadn’t come, Santana. It would have done no good to flog that dead horse. She was here, and she wouldn’t go anywhere. I just had to hope that, between Kadar and Abdhi, we could keep her safe from errant Ifrits and Ghuls.

  “I wouldn’t say that in their presence.” Abdhi’s eyes glowed like beacons in the darkness. “And no, they aren’t. These beings have a thousand or so years left to live. The Storyteller is the only djinn I know who has lived so long, though you wouldn’t know it from what I’ve heard of her.”

  I turned the book to its final pages. “Older than two thousand years? It says here that djinn only live that long, which makes sense if you’re similar to Purge beasts.”

  “There is some leeway, if the Storyteller is anything to go by—perhaps because we are far superior to the everyday Purge beast. Some say she may be over ten thousand years old, though none know her true age.” Abdhi’s voice filled with quiet reverence.

  “Ten thousand years old?” I jabbed at the book. “It says here, in black and white, that djinn only exist for up to two thousand years. Is she like an exception to the rule or something?” I may have been retreading old ground, but I wanted proper clarification.

  “The Storyteller is unique in many ways. Not everything must be black and white, Raffe… and there are always exceptions.” Abdhi gave me a pointed look, making me wonder if he was talking about more than the Storyteller. “Come, we mustn’t linger, in case they decide we are a threat.”

  Abdhi descended the slope to the broken gates of the city, and we had no choice but to follow. He was our guide and defender here, on djinn turf. I stayed close to Santana and took her hand. I braced for her to pull away, but she didn’t. Instead, she gripped my hand tight and cast me a sideways glance, filled with sorrow and a million things she didn’t say.

  As we reached the gateway, my instincts screamed to run in the opposite direction. Out of the darkness, smoky forms swept up to block our entry. Innumerable burning eyes flickered to life, red and wrathful and trained on us.

  Twenty

  Raffe

  No one said a word, a stalemate stretching between us—the outsiders—and the resident djinn. Even Abdhi stood in silence. Nayla had put us in his care, but he hadn’t made any assurances as to how this might turn out. And the longer we stood here, the more djinn materialized to stare, each more menacing than the last. I felt their anger surging from their fiery eyes and slamming me in the chest, sending roots of terror deep into my heart.

  We’re not welcome here… I didn’t know if that was me or Kadar, but the fact remained.

  Emphasizing my fears, a howling wind tore through the ruined city, screeching between the broken gaps in walls and shattered windows. It extended toward the sand dunes into the night, conjuring black storm clouds that masked the starry sky overhead. Thunder growled in the near distance, and my nose stung with the metallic scent of oncoming rain. When I looked over my shoulder, my stomach churned at the sight of a wall of sand rising and rushing toward us like a tidal wave. Abdhi had informed us of the djinn’s abilities, and it seemed every power had come out to play in defense of their refuge.

  “Calm yourselves, before you draw attention to our location. These are my guests, and you will treat them with due courtesy!” Abdhi finally spoke, his voice booming across the horde of ruby-eyed hostiles.

  The djinn jostled nervously, giving hints of their true forms as they phased between wispy smoke and solid appearances. Some monstrous individuals stood toward the back of the gathered army. At first, I’d thought they were shadows cast by the city’s remaining towers, but they moved fluidly and were clearly sentient. I understood then that Abdhi’s description of un-subjugated Marid was no exaggeration.

  That wasn’t the only thing I came to understand through being closer to the city. Thanks to the incendiary glow sizzling from the djinn, I could see more of Salameh. Bioluminescent pools glowed inside the fortifications, with palm trees swaying and lush greenery growing at the water’s edge. From within dilapidated structures, delicate tulle drapes billowed from windows. A secret paradise in the middle of the Arabian desert—an oasis, quite literally. Their sanctuary.

  And we’d shown up unannounced.

  “Abeq fe al-khalaf!” Abdhi bellowed, switching to Arabic as a few shadows slithered forward. It meant “Stay back,” which didn’t exac
tly fill me with confidence, considering they paid no attention.

  I decided to attempt some Arabic of my own, in hopes of extending an olive branch. “Nahin la naani ei darar lek.” Basically, I told them we meant no harm. Whether they’d listen or not was another matter.

  The encroaching djinn paused in surprise. The winds died slowly as the sandstorm sank into the desert, and the clouds rolled away to reveal the clear night again.

  “Did you do that?” Santana whispered.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered back.

  “Al-salam maak.” A strange voice lifted above the mutter of furious djinn. A feminine voice, saying, “Peace is with you.”

  I squinted into the gloom, watching a figure part the smoky sea. Scarlet-skinned and clad in a red silk robe, she approached us. Her dark garnet eyes burned with a strange white flame. Abdhi had been right about something: she didn’t look ten thousand years old. She walked without a hunch, or any sign of age, and had very few lines and wrinkles on her mesmerizing face. I couldn’t tell if she was beautiful or not—she was beyond those parameters. But she had a regal quality about her, in the strength of her jaw and the high cut of her cheekbones.

  I bowed to her, on impulse. “Al-salam maak.”

  “I will speak in your tongue, for simplicity’s sake, though I commend you for greeting me in kind,” she said, smiling. Her voice had a faraway, musical timbre that surrounded me. “My name is Safiya, though many know me as the Storyteller.”

  “There’s no way you’re ten thousand years old!” Santana blurted out. “You look younger than my mom.”

  Safiya laughed softly. “I am far shy of ten thousand years—that is hearsay and hyperbole, to heighten my mystique, no doubt. I would reveal my true age, but a woman of my maturity must retain some secrecy. Regardless, we djinn do not age in the same manner as mortals, and I do not age in the same manner as other djinn.”