Bound (Secrets of the Djinn) (27 page)

She shrugs and puts her feet up on the ottoman in front of her chair.  “I’m conserving energy.  Something you should be doing, too, instead of making the rest of us nervous with your constant back and forth.”

“Fine.”  I throw myself down on the couch.  Glancing at the clock, I’m disheartened to see that only forty-five seconds have passed since the last time I looked at it. 

Zane looks up from the grenade launcher in his hands, “You okay?” he asks me.

I nod
and give him an unconvincing, “Yes.”  He goes back to explaining how the launcher works to Malik. 

Getting back up, I walk to one of the bookshelves.  At random, I pull a dusty, leather bound tome from its place.  Blowing the dust off, I bring it with me to the couch
, smiling when I see the title. 
One Thousand and One Nights
.  I remember reading excerpts of this in high school English.  Carefully, I pry open the yellowed pages.  It doesn’t take me long to figure out that this is not the same book I read in high school.  This book is darker, deadlier.  This book is about real djinn being taken prisoner for their ability to grant wishes and about their revenge on those who did them wrong.  These aren’t stories at all.  This is a history book.

I flip through the pages, reading sentences here and there, not
having the patience or stomach to linger too long on any one page.  The things I do read bring a chill to my heart.  The djinn were tortured by humans who knew of them.  They were held prisoner, beaten, starved, dismembered if they didn’t please their masters.  What the djinn did was even worse.  Humans taken as slaves, mostly women to be used and thrown away, left to die.  Human deaths used as entertainment, often forcing humans to kill each other for the thrill of watching.  The days of the Romans feeding Christians to the lions seem tame compared to the things in this book.  Why aren’t these stories in the real history books?  Were the djinn capable of erasing these things from the minds of human witnesses?

I’m about to flip to another page when something catches my eye.  One word sticks out more than the others, a word Beelzebub used. 
Tether.  I study the page, trying to believe it.  Can it be true?  I turn to the next page, expecting it to be denied, put down to superstition.  There’s nothing about it on this page.  I flip back and find the page I was reading replaced by another.  I examine the pages more closely, did they stick together?  No.  Did I hallucinate it?  I don’t think I did, but how could the words in a book change?  Then again, I’ve seen stranger things lately.

I sit back against the cushion and consider the possibility. 
I get so lost in thought, I practically have a heart attack when Zane taps me on the shoulder.  “Sorry,” he laughs.  “I said your name but you didn’t seem to hear me.”

No, I didn’t.  “Did you need me to do something?”  I hope he says yes, I’m going crazy being so idle.  Not to mention my imagination is in overdrive and I’m not sure it’s wise to keep having the thoughts I’m
currently having.

“Do you want to choose the weapons you’ll carry tonight?” he asks.

I jump to my feet.  “Yes.”

Slightly taken aback by my eagerness, Zane asks, “Are you okay?  Guns aren’t usually your thing.”

It’s true.  I hate handling a gun even after all the practice shooting I’ve done over the last month.  “I just need to do something.  I’m going crazy.”

Wrapping his arms around me, he pulls me close for a kiss.  “We’ll get through this.”

His words are confident and there’s no trace of fear on his face.  I smile and tell a white lie.  “I know.” 

“Come on.”  Zane takes my hand and leads me to the table where Brielle is inventorying ammunition.  He picks up a smallish handgun and hands it to me.  “This is the one you’ve used in target practice.  Best to have something familiar in your hands.  Muscle memory is important in the heat of battle. 
Carry this one in your hand and you’ll wear a vest that can holster two more like it and more clips than you’ll need.”  I try not to give him a doubtful look. 

“Why don’t you give her a real gun?
” Jalynx asks.  I didn’t realize she had moved next to us.

Zane scowls at her.  “Like I said, muscle memory is important.  Giving Skye a gun she’s never used before would make her reaction time slower.  That could be the difference between life and death.”

Ominous.  “I’ll stick with the guns I’m familiar with.”  Jalynx rolls her eyes but doesn’t say anything else about it.

Zane helps me into a vest so loaded down with guns and ammunition that it may actually weigh more than I do.  “I hope I don’t have to move around much,” I grumble, shifting the canvas material until it’s as comfortable as it’s going to get.

“We don’t want a battle that’s up close and personal,” Zane says.  “The goal is to take as many out as possible before they get anywhere close to us.  If it does come down to hand to hand combat, you won’t be fighting.”

My eyes shoot up to his.  Angry now, I say, “What?”

“This isn’t negotiable,” Zane says firmly.  “You are their goal, their end game.  If you enter the fighting, we’ve already lost.”

I open my mouth to say something, anything to contradict him.  Nothing comes out.  He’s right.  They aren’t going to fight with me.  As soon as the djinn are able to get their hands on me, they’ll take me behind the veil and the battle is over.  So, instead of an angry retort insisting I join the fray, I ask, “Where will I be during all of this?”  Maybe there’s another reason I don’t get a big gun. 
I won’t even be around for the shooting.

The
sheepish expression covering Zane’s face confirms it.  “We’re going to hide you.”

My eyes shoot to Malik and then back to Zane.  “Yeah?  When did you two plan this?”

“It didn’t take any planning,” Roman says.  He walks over to join us.  “You will be somewhere safe; somewhere they can’t get their hands on you.” 

Great, all three of them are ganging up on me.
  I put my hands on my hips.  “When were you guys planning to tell me this?”

Zane shrugs.  “We planned to put it off as long as possible.”  At least he’s honest.

“Where will she be?” Jalynx asks, her voice far from casual.

Roman’s eyes narrow.  “
You will not know the location.”

I’m not the only one standing akimbo now.  “So, we’re back to this.  I’m some spy who’s going to betray you all.”

Roman’s voice is even as he says, “Is that a confession?”

A growl escapes from between Jalynx’s lips.  “Watch it, Defiler.  You wouldn’t want all your nasty little secrets coming out, now would you?”

I can’t read the expression flashing across Roman’s face.  He masks it too quickly.  “There is nothing you could say that isn’t already known.”

As much as I would like to believe that, it isn’t true.  Roman didn’t tell us he was communicating with his family, and since we found out, he hasn’t shared what information he has gleaned from them. 
I can tell by the way he’s holding himself and the tight lines etched around his blue eyes that he’s hiding something.  Deep down, though, I don’t believe Roman would do anything to cause me harm.  And he’s never punched me in the head like Jalynx did.

“Jalynx, stop trying to cause trouble where there isn’t any,” I say, fussing with my vest again.  The damn thing weighs a ton.

“Ready, Red?” Brielle asks from behind me.  Turning, I shake my head.  She’s a walking advertisement for women in combat.  I thought the stuff I’m carrying is heavy, but she has at least three times as much on her person as I do.  “How can you walk with all that on?” I ask.

Grinning, she says, “I’m not even done yet.  Are you ready to go?”

“Where?”

“The panic room.”

It figures they’d have a panic room in this house.  My claustrophobia is already starting to kick in.  “Is that really necessary?”

“Damn right it is,” Mrs. Gregori says.  “My grandchildren are putting their lives on the line for you and you aren’t going to do anything to get them killed faster.  Knowing you’re safe and locked away will keep their minds on the fight.” 

I can’t get out of this.  At least, not right now.  I’ll cooperate now, but there’s no way in hell I’m not going to fight for my freedom and theirs.  “Lead the way,” I say to Brielle.

“Hey,” Zane says, catching my arm.  He pulls me close and kisses me deeply.  Pulling back, he says, “I’ll see you as soon as we kick some serious ass.”  I smile and nod, fighting back the
sudden tears of disbelief wanting to splash onto my cheeks.

Brielle leads me out of the room and across the large foyer to the library.  She opens the door and gestures for me to enter.  Before closing the door after us, she makes a rude hand gesture to Jalynx, who is watching us from the sitting room doorway.  I guess she knows where the panic room is now.  Probably behind one of these bookshelves.

Maybe not.  Brielle leads me to the far door of the library that opens up into another sitting room.  We cross the room and enter a large dining room, and then we go on to the kitchen.  In the kitchen, we take the stairs to the cellar.  Brielle uses a flashlight to guide us through the dank area instead of turning on the lights.  The walls and floors are solid concrete and other than a few boxes along one wall and a wine cellar off to one side, the space is open and empty. 

Doubtful, I ask, “There’s a panic room down here?” 

Brielle holds the flashlight under her chin, making her face appear ghoulish.  “No, I was giving you a tour of the house and now I’m going to kill you and bury you in the concrete.”

“It was just a question,” I say, unimpressed
with her sarcasm.

Not bothering to say more, Brielle picks up a box.  The guns and ammo on her vest clang together as she moves.  I certainly hope they all
have the safety on.  She carries the box to a spot three feet away and sets it down.  As soon as she does, a grinding noise begins.  I watch amazed as a passage opens in the floor.

“How did you do that?” I ask.

“There’s a magnet in the box I moved that triggers the opening mechanism when it’s placed in the right spot.”  Turning, she picks the box up and moves it back to where it was.  “Come on,” she says, shining a light into the passage. 

We walk down a short flight of stairs to a large steel door.  Brielle punches something into the security box and then holds her eye to a screen for a retinal scan.  The door pops open.  Inside, she turns on the light and turns to me grinning.

The room is amazing.  The floor is carpeted in a soft blue.  A full size bed is pushed back against one wall and next to it is a shower stall with opaque walls and a sink and a toilet behind another opaque wall.  A reclining chair is positioned so the monitors on the wall can be easily viewed.  Each monitor is facing a different part of the property except one.  It is broadcasting a cable news station.  Along another wall is enough canned and packaged food to keep someone alive for months, maybe years.

Awed, I ask, “Did you design this?”

“Nah, this was my dad’s doing.”

Surprised, I say, “I thought your parents weren’t djinn hunters.”  From what I remember her and Zane saying, their mother left that life behind when she met their father.

“They weren’t.  But they weren’t stupid, either.  From what Grams has said, my mom killed enough djinn to put herself on their hit list.”

“She killed them?  I thought you guys bind them with copper and send them back behind the veil.”

A shadow of discomfort is in her eyes when she says, “That’s how Zane and I do it.  Grams and Mom lived by a different philosophy.”

“Oh.”  I can’t think of anything else to say in response
.

Putting a lid on her emotions again, Brielle says, “Here’s the deal.  I volunteered to bring you down here because I knew my brother would lock you in without telling you how to get out.  I think that’s a bullshit idea. If things are going south and his life is in serious danger, you sure as hell better get your skinny ass out of this room to help him.  Got it?”

I nod, liking her more by the second.  “Of course.”  I’m still digesting what she said about Zane, though.  Would he really trap me in here?  If he thought that’s the only thing that would keep me safe, yes, he would.

Brielle points to a control module under the monitors.  “These buttons here let you scroll through the screens.  There’re twenty cameras around the property and all of them feed into here.  Over here is the backup generator.  It’ll turn on automatically if the power to the rest of the house goes out.  This keypad in the middle is where you enter the code to open the door.  Once I leave and the door closes behind me, the room w
on’t open from the outside.”

“Why not?”

“There are motion sensors in here that can tell the room is occupied.  As long as someone is in the room, it can only be opened from the inside.  Once you leave, the mechanism reverses and the magnet upstairs will once again be able to open the passage down here.

“What about the passage opening?” I ask.

“It’ll close twenty seconds after you seal the door behind me.”

Good thing the staircase was short.  That doesn’t give her much time to get clear.  “What’s the code to get out?”