Harley Merlin 12 Read online

“Why not?” I prompted, eager to learn more of this mysterious being.

  “I was created in Erebus’s primary Purge Plague and am thus imbued with certain qualities that later iterations lack. It is the same with you magicals and your predecessors. I suppose, in that analogy, I would be a Primus Anglicus, while you are diluted descendants.” She gave a small, graceful nod. “I mean no offense; I am merely attempting to explain my existence in a way you may better comprehend.”

  Santana stared at Safiya. “A Purge Plague?”

  “Akin to the Purging of a beast, but en masse. Erebus made it so,” Safiya replied. “And we are not so simple-minded as most Purge beasts.”

  “Safiya, Safiya!” one of the furtive shadows hissed.

  Safiya glanced at him. “Yes, Rasul?”

  “He is Raffe Levi, the son of Leonidas Levi. He holds Kadar within himself, the son of Zalaam.” The one who’d spoken came to stand beside Safiya, his form solidifying into a familiar red body and black smoke.

  “Ah, I see.” Safiya looked back at me. “This is Rasul. He belongs to the same djinn lineage as Kadar and was formerly entwined with his own Levi. I suppose he is family to you.”

  That was a lot to process. “Rasul, is it?”

  The djinn shuffled forward. “Yes, I am he. I resided inside your great-great-grandfather, Javad Levi.”

  “Is that why you’re here, enjoying your… uh… retirement?” I fumbled the word. I didn’t want to insult one of Kadar’s ancestors.

  “Yes. When Javad died, I was freed. I had no desire to return to Persia, in case I became entrapped again. Instead I came here, where all the freed djinn come, no matter where they originated.” Rasul dipped his head, and I did the same.

  I put out my hand. “It’s good to meet you, Rasul.”

  He shook it. “It is a pleasure to meet you, too. I shared a remarkable bond with Javad. Even now, I miss him. When one has been bound to another so closely, there will always be an emptiness after they pass.”

  “It’s nice to hear about a Levi and their djinn getting along.” I thought of Kadar and wondered how he’d feel when I wasn’t around anymore. If he’d thrown himself from that building, as he’d planned, would he have ended up here? Or would it have killed him as well as me? I didn’t know the rules of suicide in the djinn world. Perhaps it spelled their death, too. Otherwise, why would Kadar have done that? It’d certainly felt like he hadn’t intended to survive, though I was buried deep at the time.

  “Javad and I were close from the moment he was born, and I was tied to his being.” Rasul gazed at me wistfully, as though seeing his host’s face in mine. “I even contemplated following him to the hereafter, but, after I found my way here, Safiya urged me to remain.”

  That answers your suicide question, Kadar hissed inside my skull. I was planning to go with you, just so you know. I wouldn’t splatter you and make a run for it. If I’d wanted that, I’d have done it years ago.

  “Now that you have had something of a family reunion, perhaps we ought to return to the matter at hand. Namely, why are you here?” Safiya ushered Rasul backward and once again took center stage. “This is a sanctuary for free djinn. You do not have a free djinn. Unless you are here to sacrifice yourself for his freedom?”

  That took me aback. “No, that’s not why I’m here.”

  “It happens from time to time, revealing the occasional selfless mortal.” Safiya’s white-flamed eyes flashed.

  “I’m not here to sacrifice myself, but I am here to help Kadar. I do want to help the rest of the djinn, too—not just the one I exist with,” I explained. “You’re all suffering because Erebus cut you off, and we need to find a way to fix it. That’s why I’m here, to see if we can put our heads together and figure out a solution.”

  She sighed. “I feared that may be the case.”

  “Feared? Why?” Santana cut in. “Surely it’s good that someone is coming to ask for your help to fix a problem that’s plaguing you all? I’ve stayed up night after night with Kadar, and it’s not getting any better for him. He’s small fry compared to some of you, so it must be kicking your backsides.”

  Safiya raised her eyebrows. “You stayed up with Kadar?”

  “It’s not like Raffe could. Every time Kadar comes to the surface, Raffe conks out, and I won’t leave either of them hanging. I love them, and I’ll stay up every night I have to until they’re better,” she replied.

  My heart swelled. I felt Kadar bristle inside me, too, evidently pleased that she’d bundled us together.

  “You love them?” Safiya sounded dumbfounded.

  Santana lifted her chin. “They’re stuck together. If I love one, I have to love the other.”

  “Then you are, perhaps, as much of a rarity in this world as I.” Safiya smiled curiously. “Nevertheless, that does not mean I am any more willing to help you. I have been asked for help since this affliction began, but I worry for my kind, specifically those with magical hosts they are bound to.”

  “Why them, specifically?” I urged.

  “Because they do not understand what it will take to rid themselves of this dire ache.” Safiya’s shoulders sagged, and her black smoke thinned out. “So, I have decided upon the safest course of action. I have encouraged all djinn to endure, in the faith that Erebus’s power will eventually return.”

  The winds whipped up again, though they didn’t howl so much as whimper. The djinn were afraid, and they had every right to be.

  “Then your faith is misplaced, Safiya,” I said. “I don’t mean to be rude, and I don’t mean to defy your authority, but Erebus has taken on a personal project involving the city of Atlantis. I don’t have the details, but I am certain that it will take a while. Longer than you, or I, might have.”

  Safiya’s eyes flashed brighter, and whorls of sand twisted up around us. “He is pursuing this path again?”

  “Yes, that’s what he’s up to,” I replied, squinting. “I didn’t know he’d tried before. Can you tell me why?”

  “Sadly not. I only know that it relates to reaching that ruined city; his reasoning has always been unclear. At least now I understand why we have been separated from his power.” Safiya’s smoke billowed wildly, her skin pulsating with obvious rage. “And no, this is not his first attempt at Atlantis. However, if we are suffering this way, he has reached much further in his quest than ever before. It is my guess that he has succeeded in the part where he must take a human form. He tried that once before and failed. Yes, that must be why we have been cut off and are suffering.”

  “Surely you already know that? You must’ve already known about the human body thing, right? Aren’t you all connected to his brain or something?” Santana squinted in confusion.

  Safiya sighed. “A common misconception. The djinn are connected to each other, but we are not connected to Erebus’s mind unless he desires it and wishes to send messages to us. When he shut us out and the illness began, we had no sense of why. But now I understand. So, I suppose we must sit and talk awhile… There is no other option now.”

  I sat cross-legged on a patchwork of intricately woven rugs, with the warmth of a fire taking the chill from my bones. Santana sat beside me, clutching a satin cushion to her chest with a heavy woolen blanket draped over her shoulders. Without a word, she took the edge and put it around me, and the two of us huddled inside. Kadar may have kept me relatively toasty, but nothing beat having Santana near. Even if I’d been roasting, I would’ve bunched up next to her.

  One of the bioluminescent pools glowed nearby. The palm fronds swayed in the breeze while the fragrance of desert rose mingled with the earthier scent of woodsmoke. Abdhi sat opposite us, keeping a reverent distance from Safiya, while the rest of the free djinn stood or sat close by, listening in on our conversation.

  “As I mentioned, I was created from Erebus’s primary Purge Plague, many thousands of years ago. One moment I was energy, drifting in nothingness, and the next, I was forced into sentience through an innocent magical. She died,
as the rest of the mortals in that first wave did. Our power was too great for them to survive.”

  “Were there other djinn like you?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Yes, but they are long dead now. As they passed into the ether, returning to the Chaos from whence they were birthed, Erebus created more of us, though he granted us less power than before. No doubt he feared an uprising, either from us or from Gaia herself to protect her own creations, if he kept killing them the way he did during that first expulsion. I imagine that was his way of preventing punishment befalling him, by promising to find an alternative method and undoubtedly claiming that the first bout of killing had been an accidental effect of our release into the world.”

  “So you’re the only one of your kind left?” Santana queried.

  “Indeed. I am the last of the first. All these djinn around you now, and within the wider world, are echoes of that initial glory. However, his intention never faltered—that has remained constant. We were made to be Erebus’s eyes and ears in the mortal realm, watching and listening and working in his name, covering all corners of this earth.”

  Santana tapped her lip with a finger. “His network.”

  “Yes, his network of unwitting emissaries.” Safiya sighed. “But, with all Child creations, there were unavoidable flaws in our conception. Flaws he is not able to undo, even now, or we would not be what we are.”

  I frowned as I held my hands up to the fire’s warmth. “Flaws? What kinds of flaws?”

  “We are bound to his will, and we rely upon him for our power, but he cannot intervene or negate the spells that we perform of our own volition,” she explained.

  “I’m guessing that doesn’t work in your favor now, though?” Santana pressed, leaning forward.

  “Sadly not,” Safiya replied. “Erebus has never succeeded in gaining a mortal body before. As long as his being is restrained in human form, the djinn will continue to be separated from his power, and we will slowly decay and fade back into the ether we emerged from. We cannot stop him, and we cannot prevent our own demise. It is the tragedy of the perpetually subservient.”

  I raised a nervous hand. “Is it okay to speak in front of… them?”

  “They are free djinn, hiding here to avoid the call of Erebus. They hold no love toward him, and he evidently holds no love toward them. Anything you say here will be treated with utmost discretion and will not leave this city,” Safiya promised.

  Funnily enough, I believed her. What djinn would be mad enough to defy their matriarch? Erebus might’ve been their “father” in a sense, but he was an absentee father if I’d ever seen one. Which made Safiya the single mother, trying to figure out what was best for all her children.

  “I guess that’s one advantage of being cut off, right? He can’t hear you, even if he wanted to?” I hoped.

  She lowered her head. “A very small advantage, yes.”

  “There has to be something you can do to prevent your demise, as you put it.” Santana leaned even farther, to the point where I worried about the flames.

  Safiya lifted her gaze, the firelight intensifying her burning stare. “There is one way, though it is only to be used in the direst emergency. This certainly qualifies.” She took in a deep breath. “If the djinn gather with one objective, we can go to Tartarus and speak with Erebus to gain more control. In truth, it would do more than that—it would free us from our maker altogether if we all chose at once, as a collective.”

  “Wouldn’t that put you in the same position you’re in now?” I couldn’t figure out how it would help them, since they’d still be cut off from Erebus.

  “A valid inquiry. We would be excised with a quantity of his power flowing into us and staying there. As such, we would no longer be subservient to him. Those bound to magicals would be extricated immediately upon Erebus relinquishing his hold—it would be like wiping the slate entirely clean and starting again. Ultimately, it would leave us all as weaker entities, but we would be truly free.”

  A bristle of nervous chatter rose as Safiya spoke.

  Free? Extricated? That means… I would be able to have a family with Santana.

  My heart lurched at the prospect. I knew that attempting to remove a djinn usually resulted in both parties dying, but this would be different. This would be, as Safiya had said, wiping the slate clean. I imagined the wrench would still hurt, but if it meant I could have a future with Santana, I’d go through every pain under the sun to make it happen.

  Traitor. Kadar’s voice ricocheted through my brain. A second later, he ripped through me without warning and took over. “You’re talking about staging a coup, you vile bottom-feeders. I ought to tear every one of your heads from your shoulders, pluck your hearts through what’s left of your throats, and stick them on a sacrificial altar to Erebus for this betrayal.”

  “You are young, Kadar.” Safiya’s tone softened. “You have not been made to bow and scrape beneath his autocracy. You have not experienced the shared misery, witnessed through the djinn’s hivemind.”

  Kadar bristled with anger. “You are what you are. You would not exist without Erebus. You ought to kiss his boots instead of whining about injustice.”

  I fought back, trying to claw my way up from the depths Kadar had shoved me into. “Kadar, think about what—”

  He forced me into submission again, just as he’d done at Ignatius’s—locking me down so I couldn’t get out. “This isn’t your fight, and you don’t get a say!” Kadar yelled. “You do not owe Erebus as we do, so keep your nose out of it. If you do not, I will cut it off to spite us both.”

  Kadar, think about what this could mean for me and Santana. I tried to get him to listen, but he was too far gone.

  And what about me and Santana? he replied violently. Or do you not give a damn about me anymore?

  I sat silently and retreated to the corner of my mind that belonged solely to me. Kadar couldn’t get in here. I’d built it long ago when I realized he could read my every thought and delve into my brain whenever he liked. My safe haven in this safe haven of Salameh. He wouldn’t stop me from hoping, not if it meant we both got to survive and live on our own terms. Why couldn’t he see what was being offered?

  We’d miss each other, sure, but the world would be our oyster—separate entities, at long last. And we could still be in one another’s lives if we wanted, the “if” being the important part. No more forced symbiosis. He should’ve jumped for joy; I certainly wanted to. When Kadar glanced at Santana, she had tears in her eyes. No doubt she understood what this meant, too, especially after Kadar’s earlier outburst.

  This separation sounded like a viable way to have a family with Santana. If Erebus was forced to relent, the djinn would be healthy and continue existing, though they would be less powerful. But who wouldn’t exchange that for freedom from Erebus’s shackles?

  Kadar… that was who.

  “Stay down! I’ve had just about enough of you!” he bellowed. And with that, the doors locked on my safe haven, shutting me inside. Judging by his ire, I didn’t know when, or if, I’d emerge again.

  Twenty-One

  Kadar

  Santana, Santana, Santana. Raffe’s head spun with nothing but her. My head, too. In our shared blood, she throbbed endlessly—an insipid disease that neither of us wanted to cure. But sometimes, he just couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

  I’d been with him longer. I’d been part of him since birth. One whisper of getting free of me, and he’d jumped for it. Coward. Wretched weakling.

  How’s that for gratitude? I kept this fool warm when he should’ve shivered. I gave him strength when he’d otherwise have gotten trampled. I focused him when distraction snapped his attention the wrong way. And I gave him the bad-boy edge that kept our woman interested. Santana would’ve been yawning if I hadn’t brought some spice to our trio. Sometimes, I sensed her yearning for me to come out instead of Raffe. But, selfish to a fault, Raffe thought it was all about him and his wants.

  Ma
ybe I could forgive that. Raffe dreamt of freedom when he thought I wasn’t listening. He entertained his idealistic mental pictures of a future without me. And liberation wouldn’t have been so bad, all things considered. I wouldn’t mind sowing my wild oats, so to speak, flexing this djinn muscle however I liked, not worrying about my host losing his mind. But breaking loose of Erebus… I had my unhinged moments, but that was pure madness. And these ingrates needed to hear that.

  “You have been out here too long. It has addled your pathetic minds. What you have is a façade of autonomy, when you should accept the nature of our being,” I hissed at the crowd, smug in Raffe’s silence. I’d buried that chicken deep. A door worked both ways. He wanted to lock me out of a corner of his mind? Fine. He could stay there and think about what he’d done.

  “We belong to our king, our leader, our creator. Do you know what gods do when their subjects rebel? They spit in their faces and destroy them for lack of gratitude. If you think Erebus will be any different… let’s just say if you go to him and demand this, then you deserve to have your brains crushed against these walls.”

  “Erebus is no god,” Safiya replied coolly.

  Silly cow, thinking she owned the place because she’d lived the longest. So what? To me, it just meant she hadn’t had the courage to die. We didn’t need a matriarch. The djinn had a leader. We were built to follow Erebus, not this dissident.

  My eyes burned into her. “What is a god but a creator with exceptional power? Erebus is our creator. Therefore, he is our god. Defy him at your peril, but know this: you’ll be to blame for what comes after. If he obliterates us, that’s on your shoulders.”

  A rumble of apprehension circled the crowd of djinn. Despite Safiya’s protestations that the Salameh djinn didn’t care for our king, it seemed she’d overshot her estimations. Not surprising, considering her arrogance. Haughty old crone. To even suggest mutiny against Erebus spelled conceit.

  “Would we survive in our weakened state?” one djinn shouted. A big, bulky Marid, towering over everyone. “We have all made enemies.”