Djinn: Cursed (11 page)

Then I rolled my eyes at my naivety and answered my own question. “A wish.”

He took a swift step forward, a hint of madness smoldering like a spark in the depths of his dark eyes.  “Not a wish.  Many wishes.”  He made a derisive sound and looked at me. “Come now, girl.  If you know of me, you must have wasted a wish on the knowledge.  You know the four limitations of your power.”

I growled at the man who had me pinned there on the tables, “I don't know what you...”  I winced as more memories flooded into my head unbidden.  The sensation did nothing for my migraine, the lights hurt even more.  Then I just knew.  No fanfare or pretenses, I just knew what he was talking about.

For all the seemingly limitless demonic power us Djinn possessed, there were still things we could not do, aside from wishes that would take more power than we possessed to accomplish, like world peace.

We could not grant a wish for someone to fall in love, it was cliché, but love was a greater force than us, and it also had something to do with free will.  The more a wish affected a person's free will, the less effective the outcome, but especially when love was involved.  Lust, though, that was a different story.

The second limitation was that we could not raise the dead.  When their energy, or soul, was separated from their physical form for more than a few minutes, that connection was severed completely, and it would take the powers of creation itself to join the two back together again.

The third was that we could not change the past, only the power of the gods could do that since time is linear, and it would defy the laws of creation to alter it.  I must admit that I had briefly thought about making a wish that my ancestors had never sought power, but I was afraid that it might mean I had never been born so I didn't.  Now I know it wouldn't have worked anyway.

And the last restriction... I looked at the man and narrowed my eyes.  The last restriction was that we could not grant immortality to others.  To others?  Could I grant it to myself?  But I knew, that I would not age until I had used my ten wishes, and then until the one I am bound to, the one closest to me who makes the next wish, had received the boon of three wishes from me.

Of course, not aging didn't mean I couldn't still die from mortal, mundane means if I were not careful.  But if I was careful, I could live to see the sun burn out in the heavens if only I didn't make any more wishes.  That was beyond frightening to me for some reason, instead of encouraging.

I studied the man in front of me as he seemed to have lost interest in my self-revelations while he chuckled at my wings.  He said in an amused tone, “What could possibly have prompted you to wish for these?  Some sort of angel complex?”

I wondered out loud,  “But, how?  We can't grant immortality.”

At that, he spun more quickly than someone of his apparent age should have been able to and he placed his face next to mine.  He poked my forehead a couple times with one of his bony fingers, “Of course not.  Think girl!”

Then he moved back and smiled. “No, you cannot grant me what should be rightfully mine, but you can grant me the boon of youth.  Every couple decades since your pathetic ancestors made a deal with my Lord, the greater Djinn that has been my first wish after I forced them to waste their own trying to survive.”

Then he wandered to the end of my bloody wingtip and said in a voice full of venom, a fire in his eyes, “Aging each time before my vitality could be restored.  But your cur of a mother...”  He roughly twisted my wingtip, I could feel the splintered bone there from where Kanton had tortured me.

I screamed as white-hot lances of pain wracked my body.  I panted and gasped as he released me.  He slid back up to me, face to face again as he hissed, “She made her final wish which somehow obscured you from me, from us.  My kin has followed your line since the beginning, but she made whatever infernal wish it was, prior to taking her own life before I could make my first wish to bind her to my will.”

He pulled back from me to look at his hands again. “I was physically in my late forties again at that time.  And I have had to watch as my body has aged to this over the last seventeen years after we lost track of you.”

Then he chuckled. “For the longest time, that infernal wish vexed us.  No matter what we did, we couldn't track you.  I was panicking as you were nearing the age where your power would manifest, the day you considered yourself an adult, and we had no clue where you might be.  Then by chance, we happened upon a loophole in her wish.  It must have been directed toward my family line, because when we finally broke down last year and hired a slew of private investigators to hunt down my 'long lost orphaned granddaughter' we got multiple results almost immediately.”

He laughed almost cruelly at that. “She was a crafty one, your bitch of a mother.  My family could not find you but anyone else could.  So we had you watched, and waited until you came of age.  Then I sent Mr. Kanton to harass you and force you to waste your wishes.”

He gave me a sadistic grin and prompted, “So make this easy on yourself, make a wish to be free.  Now that we know how to track you.”

I shook my head.

He said in an almost amused tone, “I must say, though, you show more restraint than most.  I expected the mercenary to be dead or worse by now.  They unusually are.  But they are disposable.  It is amazing how many of the unsavory crawl out of the woodwork to do my bidding if I wave enough gold and baubles under their noses.  I have plenty more to take Kanton's place.”

I understood power corrupts and this man seemed to have lost his very humanity, he was using men as fodder, just collateral damage.  He didn't seem to value human life in any way.  And from the sound of it, he has done this for centuries.

He shrugged and said, “It is no matter now.  Once you have exhausted your wishes, I will have my youth and vitality back.”

Then he leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Then I'll watch your daughter finish growing up before enslaving her to my will when her power blossoms too.”

I heard an animalistic growling and realized it was coming from me.  I slammed my head to the side as violently as I could, ramming my forehead against his nose.  I heard a crack and crunching of cartilage and Xerxes staggered back with his hands covering his face, blood gushing between his fingers.

I smirked, the forehead is the hardest bone in the body, as strong as concrete.  I was happy to share that little factoid with him in a show and tell manner like that.

He growled out in rage and grabbed the pliers from the table where Baldy had left them and slammed them down on my wingtip.

I screamed and felt my body pushed beyond its capacity to process the pain, in a defensive action it felt the only logical response was for me to pass out, letting the darkness take all the pain away for me.

I think I was smiling as the flare of the pain faded with my awareness.  I had finally found my strength, finding the real me.  I wouldn't break again, now that I had something to fight for.  Something that mattered.  I couldn't fight for me, but I could fight for the daughter I didn't deserve, the little girl who didn't deserve my fate.  I felt my self-respect, which was stolen from me minutes before, return with a vengeance.  It filled me and ignited a fire inside me as hot as the surface of the sun.

When I awoke again, I felt all the pain returning, but my ears were ringing, and I realized I was having another episode.  I squirmed against my bonds desperate with the need to do something about the thousands upon thousands of wishes bombarding me.  “I wish I had a puppy.”  “I wish Lance would catch something from the bitch he's cheating on me with.” “I wish Angel knew we were coming.”

I snapped to full awareness at that one, pushing the wishes that threatened to consume my entire being aside.  It had been Hailey making that wish.  I almost laughed hysterically at the realization she had done it on purpose.  She was sending me a message.  She must be out of jail, and she and Dorian were coming for me.

I exhaled and realized I was vertical, my feet were still bound, but my hands were free now.  I looked at myself.  The bastards had those railroad spikes pinning my wings wide and flat against the wall.  The spikes were just out of my reach, I'm sure it was on purpose, leaving my hands free but unable to free myself.  False hope.

I looked down, and my ankles were bound together, and the rope went to the floor and was tied to another spike driven into the floor.  I strained against it, but the effort stretched my wings and caused searing pain to almost double that damn migraine.  I was going to invest in a pain killer factory if I survived this.

I took a moment to examine the room.  The entire space was empty now, the tables had been taken away, and all there was to see was the shiny white linoleum floor and the white walls.  On the wall opposite me was a message which was smeared in what could only have been blood.  “Make a wish.”  I wasn't going to do that.  No matter what it cost me, no matter how long Xerxes kept me.  With luck, he'd be dead of old age by the time my daughter came into her power.

What had he said about mine?  When I considered myself an adult.  I had wondered why my power manifested on my twenty first birthday.  It couldn't have been twenty one for all my ancestors since centuries ago, even fifteen was sometimes considered an adult.  It was when I myself believed I was an adult.  Our modern culture put a number to that.  Our twenty first birthday.

I smirked at the blood, realizing it must have been from the broken nose I gave the old bastard.  I wanted to dance at that.  Now I've broken both of their noses.  It was most likely the last victory I was ever going to have.  I felt a moment of silliness so shimmied in a dance anyway.  I knew it was either that or let the hysteria which was lurking and looming like a specter in my mind, take me.

I noted that it was dark out.  How long had I been unconscious?  The artificial orange-ish light, like that of a distant streetlight just barely illuminated the alley beyond.  I wondered where we were since my screams hadn't brought anyone in the area to look around.  It must be somewhere where there weren't any people around or worse, where Xerxes owned the entire area.

There was absolutely nothing in the room I could use even if I managed to somehow get free.  Wait.  I glanced down at my waist, to the belt buckle with the concealed knife.  I placed my hand on it then paused, releasing it.  What good would it do me?  It wasn't like I could reach the ropes at my ankles.  It was best I didn't let the bastard know I had a weapon just yet.

I'm sure I would have been tempted eventually to use a wish to escape after all, but I knew now that Hailey and Dori were looking for me.  I paled.  What if they get caught by Xerxes' goons or worse?  Come on Angelina, pull it together, you know the trap that the wishes can become, a crutch, an easy out.  The old bastard is counting on that.  He's had centuries of practical experience manipulating my ancestors into that same trap.

I heard the door locks turning, and I closed my eyes and let my head drop.  One of the hinges squeaked slightly in protest telling me the door had opened.  Kanton's voice said blandly, “She's still out.”

Then Xerxes almost growled out in a now nasally tone which had me fighting hard not to smile at, “Really?”

I heard footsteps then my eyes snapped wide open as I was screaming.  Red hot needles of pain shot up my wing and down to my back, making my shoulders spasm, trying to flap away from the source of the pain.

I swung my head to look at his hand as he released my injured wingtip.  He sneered at me, which looked ridiculous with the twin black eyes he was sporting, and the white bandages taped across his nose.  His sneer vanished when he saw my smirk.  Then he grabbed the end pinion feather on my wing and yanked hard, pulling it from me.  I hissed in pain.

I don't know how many hours passed as he introduced me to ways of feeling pain that were lost to the world millennia before.  Those same millennia he had been alive.  Well, maybe it had only been minutes, not hours.  I wasn't really trying to track the time as I just concentrated on the pain, letting it fuel my defiance and anger.  This bastard wasn't going to do the same to my daughter.

I think it was my smirk that drove him to get more and more creative.  My head was just hanging limply down on my chest as he grabbed my chin to pull my head up to look at me.  I smirked again.  He huffed out an exasperated breath, and I swayed, and my vision swam as I heard him almost screaming in my head though he didn't verbally say it, “I wish she would break already!  This is getting tedious!”  He dropped my head, and it lolled to my chest again.

I shook it hard to get his voice out, and the need it imparted in me to help grant the wish.  I was instantly rewarded by my migraine sending white hot needles into my eyes.  That cleared my head right away.

I really hated that it seemed I heard someone's deepest wish when they touched me.  I didn't want to know their desires.  It was like being a voyeur into their private thoughts that I should never be privy to.  And some, like his were dark and disturbing.

I thought for a moment about that.  I had heard everyone's wish at one point or another when they touched me since this all began the other morning.  All except Dorian.  She had touched me, and I had always seemed to be in contact with her as often as possible, draping my wings over her.  Smiling at her awesome smiling face.  But never once did I hear her wishes.  Was it the ghost thing, or something else?

I looked up as I heard the man pacing away.  He growled at Baldy as he passed him to leave the room, “Feed her, hydrate her, and let her rest, then we'll begin again in a couple hours.  She'll be no good to me dead.”

My stomach gurgled at the mention of food.  How long had it been since I ate?  Dori's eggs.  I realized to my chagrin that I hadn't used the restroom since then either, and the thought made me have to go.  Shit, they'd never let me down, I'd wind up having to embarrass myself further when I couldn't hold it anymore.

Baldy just nodded, shut the door behind his employer, and stepped up to me.  He started checking the ropes on my ankles, and as I gazed blankly over is back, I caught motion to the side.  I turned my head to see some feet through the narrow windows, walking along.

No, not walking.  It was more like strutting, in a dancelike rhythm.  Then once they got to the far side of the windows, they started moonwalking back to the other side again.  I almost barked out a surprised burst of laughter at the absurdity of it but was able to stop myself.

Then my heart started beating faster, and I restrained my excitement as Dorian hung her head upside down in the window, with a silly grin on her face, her dark hair hanging down and she gave a goofy wave.  Her eyes narrowed and darkened as she took in my appearance.  I don't think I could describe the look adequately.  To me, it looked like someone who was not normally aggressive had made a decision to visit unspeakable violence upon someone.  It made my heart flutter.

She seemed to steel herself, then crouched so I could see her.  She cupped large imaginary breasts in front of her and then flipped off the air and then held up five fingers.  With that, she ran off.  Dear lord, I had always been bad at charades, but she was simply terrible.  Ok, I got the reference to Hailey.  But five?  Five what?  Five minutes, five hours, five beers?

My question answered itself when there was a loud crashing sound coming from the opposite end of the building.  Ah, five seconds.  Men started shouting, and I heard automatic weapons fire.

Kanton stood up quickly and turned slightly toward the door, speaking into his cuff while pressing his other hand on his ear.  “Status report.  What's going on out there?”

He was standing so close I could just make out men yelling in his earpiece.  Kanton growled out, “McCain, report.”

There was some static then a female voice that made me smile responded, “I'm sorry, but McCain isn't with us anymore.”  Then there was a squelching sound that made Kanton tear the earbud out as he cursed, “Fuck.”

He swung his weapon from his back as he looked at me and growled, “Just who the hell is that woman?”  He turned his attention to the door as he placed a hand on my chest like he was making sure I stayed in place.  He was going to make a hostage of me if he needed to.

I smiled at the back of his head as my hand absently went to my belt buckle as I said, “She's my bartender.”  It was now or never.  I knew if I made my move now, it was going to mean so very much pain, but it couldn't be worse than what Xerxes had introduced me to.  I was used to the pain now.

I yanked my wings forward as suddenly and violently as I could.  One swift motion, and I screamed as flesh gave way, tearing as I pulled my feathered appendages off the spikes.  They arched forward like white blurs in the artificial light of the room and slammed into both sides of Kanton's neck as he started to spin toward me.

I had meant to strike both of his carotid arteries, hoping the sudden interruption of blood flow to his brain would knock him out.  But he twisted faster than I though he could.  I lucked out though as the heavy leading edge of my left wing struck his throat solidly.

He stumbled back, tripping over his own feet and falling onto the floor, gasping and grasping at his neck as I fell to the ground.  I broke my fall with my hands and wings.  I winced when my wingtip hit the floor.

I was immediately sawing at the ropes on my legs with the little knife.  I made short work of them and then rolled out of the way as Kanton reached for me, slowly getting his breathing back to normal.  I swung the little knife and left a bloody trail along his arm.

I ran to the door, slashing at the man's neck as I passed by.  Again he was faster than me.  My attempt to slash his neck missed as he twisted away, but I left another gash along his cheek and across an eye, just barely missing it.

It struck me at that moment that I was ready to kill the man, and I wondered if that made me less of a person at that moment.  But anger replaced that thought because it was him and Xerxes that had pressed me so far that I would even consider it.  I think I lost a piece of my humanity at that moment, knowing that I had learned the lesson of kill or be killed, and I mourned for that last piece of innocence lost to me.

I would do anything to make sure my daughter would never go through this.  I paused, was this what my mother was thinking?  I had thought her so selfish as I grew up, being shuffled from foster home to foster home.

I researched my family at one time while I was in high school, after being put in my third home.   My father was listed as a John Doe, and all I could find on mom's family is that her mother had vanished when she was twenty-three and was presumed dead.  Mom's birth certificate didn't list a father.

Of course, I hadn't seen it then, but I see it as clear as day now.  The curse... because that's what it truly was, a curse in more ways than one.  I knew now that if I dug deeper, I would find a similar trend stretching back across time as far as there were written records.

It seems that we only had a life to ourselves for around twenty years, or until we considered ourselves adults.  Two short decades before the power inside of us woke up on the Earth's next orbit around the sun.  I wondered why twenty-one years until Xerxes words had clued me in.

And why always a daughter?  Why not a son?  I searched out the new knowledge in my head for that answer but found nothing.  I guess even in all this insanity, there were still some unanswered mysteries that even the Djinn magic inside of me didn't know.

I sorted through this line of thought in less than a heartbeat then shoved it aside since I had more pressing matters at that moment.  I grabbed Kanton's weapon, which had skittered across the floor when he fell and swung it at him as he scrambled after me, one hand covering the bleeding gash on his face.

He dropped his hand and just smiled smugly as he started moving slowly toward me.  “Give it up girl.  You don't even know how to use that weapon.  Save yourself the embarrassment, the safety is on anyway.”  The blood flowing down his face and dripping off his lips made a gruesome counterpoint to the slight tick of his lips.  He was nervous.

I swallowed, preparing to run but then held the gun barrel up toward him, and he slowed.  He was too cautious.  I let my mouth turn up into a sneer as I asked, “Is that so?”  I swung the barrel slightly to his left and pulled the trigger.

It sounded like a deafening burp as the weapon slung fire in the closed space.  The barrel whipped upwards, I wasn't prepared for the recoil that almost ripped it out of my grip.  By the time I let go of the trigger less than a second later, it must have fired five or six rounds.  I blinked as he froze.  My ears were ringing, which didn't help my headache any.  But I swung the barrel back toward him and braced my arms better as he held his hands toward me, palms out in a calming gesture.