Rebels of the Lamp, Book 1 (11 page)

Nadir nodded to one of his confederates, and the Path member presented him with a wooden box, lacquered black, its corners blunt from centuries of use, an image of a grinning skull carved into
its lid. Nadir set the box on the ground, removed the rusting metal pin that held the lid closed, and reached inside.

He pulled out a small glass vial stopped with an age-old cork. The liquid inside was thick and oozy and as dark as tar.

As Xaru looked on, curious, Nadir removed the cork and let a single black droplet fall to the ice.

After a moment, the drop began to move.

The trembling man at the altar bowed his head. His whispered prayers grew louder as the black droplet creeped toward him. By the time it disappeared under his robe, his eyes were wide with
terror. Soon, his legs were coated with the vile stuff. He swatted at himself, half mad with panic, as it engulfed his chest and arms, and his last scream was smothered when the black tar covered
his face and his head.

Then, somehow, the goo began to contract. The kneeling man, now a writhing shadow, grew smaller and smaller. Finally, he was still, and all that was left was a single droplet staining the ice
black.

Nadir put the opening of the vial on the ground, and with his finger drew an ancient symbol in the ice. At his command, the droplet rolled back into the glass tube. He replaced the cork and put
the vial back into its box.

Xaru smiled, now truly free.

“That’s so much better,” he said to Nadir. “I can hardly wait to get started.”

WHEN HE OPENED THE BARN
door the next morning, Parker found Fon-Rahm standing in his corner, arms folded against his chest, exactly as Parker
left him. The genie had literally not moved a muscle.

“Good morning, sunshine. I would ask you how you slept, but you don’t sleep. I didn’t have a great night, myself. My head was killing me. I feel better now, though, thanks for
asking.”

Fon-Rahm stared straight ahead.

“Okay, then,” said Parker. “Here’s what’s going to happen today. Theo and I promised my aunt Martha that we would run to the store with her to pick up some
perennials, whatever they are, and after that, you and I are going to get up to some serious wish-granting. I have been toying with the idea of a helicopter.”

Fon-Rahm seemed distracted. He didn’t even appear to be listening.

“You with me, buddy?”

Fon-Rahm said, “Something has happened.”

“Wow. Here’s a command for you: be less cryptic.
What
has happened?”

“I do not know. Something has changed. The balance in the Nexus has shifted.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s a Nexus?”

“It is the force of magic that surrounds Earth. I sense dark waves on the horizon.”

“Oh. Well, in that case...” said Parker. “No, I still don’t care. I’ll see you in about a half an hour.”

Parker left the barn. His headache returned the second he shut the door behind him.

“Come on, Parker,” said Theo. He was waiting with his mother in the driveway in front of a ratty Subaru station wagon.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

With each step Parker took toward them, however, his headache got worse. By the time he reached the car, he was pressing his palms into his eye sockets to try to relieve the pressure.

“Parker?” asked his aunt Martha. “Is something wrong?”

“No, I just...I’ll be okay. My head hurts.”

“It’s probably allergies. People who aren’t used to the country get them.”

Theo got in the car. Parker opened the door to the backseat and grimaced when he climbed in. His aunt looked him over.

“Maybe you should go inside and lie down for a while.”

“But...”

“Go, Parker. Theo? Why don’t you stay with your cousin? There’s some allergy medicine in the bathroom.”

Theo grumbled and got out of the car with Parker. As soon as Aunt Martha drove off, Parker collapsed onto the driveway.

“Jeez, Parker, are you okay?”

“The barn,” Parker said.

Theo helped Parker to his feet. As they neared the barn, Parker’s headache vanished. They swung open the barn door to find Fon-Rahm rising from the ground, recovering from a headache of
his own.

The genie looked at Parker.

“You, as well?” he asked.

A half an hour later, Parker, Theo, Reese, and Fon-Rahm were standing under the uprights in the visitors end zone of the Robert Frost Junior High School football field. It was
set behind the school, hemmed in on one side by hills. It was also deserted on a Sunday morning, which made it perfect for an experiment like this one.

“I don’t know, guys,” Reese said, scrolling through a Web site on her phone. “I can’t find anything anywhere about genies and their masters being attached by the
head.”

Parker and Theo stared blankly at her. Boys, thought Reese. Really.

“You two didn’t even consider Wikipedia?”

“I do not know what knowledge this Wikipedia contains, but the spell that binds me to Parker has clearly also created some kind of a tether between us.” Fon-Rahm turned to Parker.
“My suggestion is that you walk down this shorn meadow....”

“It’s a football field,” said Theo.

“This football field, then, until the pain forces you to stop. That way at least we will know how far apart we are permitted to go.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Rommy,” Parker said. “But, of course, losers walk.”

Parker pointed to the other end zone. Fon-Rahm rose off the turf and began to float slowly down the field. Reese counted off the yards as he went.

“Ten. Twenty.”

“My head already hurts,” said Parker.

“Thirty. Maybe he should slow down a little.”

Parker rubbed his temples.

“Wow. Yeah, it’s getting much worse.”

“Should we stop?” asked Theo.

Parker said, “Uh-uh. We have to know.”

The pain was obviously getting very bad for Parker. He clenched his eyes shut and began to sweat.

“Forty. Fifty.”

“Okay. That’s enough,” Theo said.

“Sixty.”

Reese was starting to sound as nervous as Theo.

Parker fell to his knees. In the distance, Fon-Rahm tripped out of the sky and landed on the grass. The genie struggled to his feet and continued on foot, slowly and in great pain.

“Seventy.”

“That’s it,” said Theo. “Call him back!”

Parker gritted his teeth.

“Just a little bit farther...”

“Seventy-five.”

Reese sounded more than a little panicked. Fon-Rahm began to weave. He was continuing on willpower alone.

Parker dropped to all fours. Theo ran to his cousin. By the time he got to him, blood was running from Parker’s nose and ears.

“Fon-Rahm!” Theo screamed. “Come back!”

He yelled to Reese.

“Make him come back!”

The genie was no longer moving. He was collapsed eighty yards down the field.

“Reese! Help me with him!”

Reese ran over. She and Theo each grabbed one of Parker’s arms. They dragged him as quickly as they could down the field toward Fon-Rahm. As they got closer to the genie, the pain in
Parker’s head began to go away. They reached Fon-Rahm and they all fell in a heap, spent.

Reese studied the genie’s face.

“Fascinating,” she said. “What do you think would happen if you got farther apart than that?”

Fon-Rahm and Theo just stared at her.

Parker said, “Let’s hope we never have to find out.”

THE PUCK SLAMMED INTO THE
glass right in front of Parker’s face. Theo and Reese both flinched, but Parker kept right on smiling. Fon-Rahm
looked like he would rather be back in his lamp.

“And this is what, exactly?” the genie asked, gesturing to the ice stretched out in front of them. “Another football field?”

“Close! Good, Rommy!” Parker said, nodding his head approvingly. “Actually, what this is is a hockey rink. People put metal blades on their shoes, like so.” He held up
his new ice skates. “So they can go really fast, and then they use sticks to push a hard piece of plastic into a net.” He gestured at the goal.

“Ah. It is a waste of time.”

“Nailed it in one,” said Reese.

Parker shrugged. “Maybe. What I just said is literally one hundred percent of everything I know about hockey.”

The rink was vast, with high ceilings and mainly empty bleachers lining the sides. The floors off the ice were concrete and covered with black rubber mats. The plexiglass topping the barrier
that surrounded the rink was cloudy and scratched. It was a classic rink, open since the fifties, and it had been home to countless hockey games, birthday parties, skating lessons, and first dates.
There was a snack bar that sold Snickers bars and popcorn, and a pro shop where you could buy gear and get your skates sharpened.

It was so cold inside the building that the kids could see their breath. Fon-Rahm, of course, didn’t breathe.

“Then why are we here?” he asked.

Theo said, “Because those jerks are here.”

He pointed at the guys finishing up their hockey practice on the ice as they gathered in the center of the rink and took off their helmets. They were the jocks that had tormented Parker on his
first day of school. The goalie took off his mask and shook the sweat out of his hair. Then he turned to the bleachers and nodded at a group of bundled-up eighth-grade girls watching from the
bleachers. Caitlyn Masters, the redhead Evan had been after all year, turned and whispered something into the ear of a friend. Evan smiled to himself. Caitlyn was having a party later that night
and, if he played his cards right, he just might be able to get her alone for a couple of minutes.

“Why, hello, Evan,” Parker said.

Theo shook his head. “Let’s grab a seat,” he told Reese. “This is gonna be good.”

The Robert Frost Junior High hockey coach was a patient guy. He liked kids, mostly, and he
really
liked hockey. He had, in fact, briefly played minor league hockey for the
rough-and-tumble Syracuse Crunch, but he spent a lot of time on the bench, and he hung up his skates when he realized that if he couldn’t start for the Crunch he was probably never going to
play left wing for the Canucks. He brooded about it for a few months, but then he met Debbie and bought the place in New Hampshire, and he never looked back. He kept in shape by running laps at the
school, he built a deck for the house all by himself, and things had worked out pretty well at the tire shop. Plus, he got to spend his free time teaching kids the game he loved. Not so bad at all.
Coach Decker was that rare guy who was completely content with his life. Let the other idiots break their necks trying to get rich and run the rat race. He thought he had it all, and on occasion,
he
acted
like he thought he had it all.

He blew his whistle and skated out to his boys. “All right, you doorknobs, let’s wrap it up,” he said.

Parker finished lacing up his skates and turned to the genie. “Okay. Wait till I give you the signal.”

“What is the signal?” Fon-Rahm asked, genuinely confused.

“Um, I’ll go like this.” Parker shot imaginary guns with both sets of fingers.

“Ah. And where shall I be?”

“Close! The whole effect will be ruined if my head explodes.”

“I concede the point.”

Parker put on heavy gloves and hobbled to an opening in the wall. He had been on skates once before, with his father, but he was just a little kid then. The only thing he remembered about that
whole day was the cup of hot cocoa his dad had bought him after. That was right before his dad took “the job” that turned into “the trial” that turned into “the
jail.”

Now he placed his left foot gingerly on the ice. It immediately got away from him, and he had to wave his arms in the air to keep from going straight down.

“Poor Parker,” said Reese, settling into her seat.

“Yeah,” said Theo. “He’s not the most coordinated guy in the world.”

Parker balanced himself on the wall. “Here we go,” he said, and he pushed off.

“Oh, come on. What the”—Coach Decker glared at him, so Evan changed his sentence midstream—“
heck
is this jerk doing?”

The other guys snickered.

“Hi!” said Parker, slipping on the ice. “Whoops! Sorry!”

“Can I help you?” asked the coach.

“I’m Parker Quarry? I’m here to try out for the team!”

“Are you kidding me?” said Evan.

“All right, guys, just...I’ll handle this.” Coach Decker turned to Parker. “Tryouts were last week. We’re already practicing.”

“Yeah, but I’m new! I just found out about it.”

“I would love to let you try out, really, but it just wouldn’t be fair to the other...”

“Let him try out!” said Evan.

Coach Decker sighed. “Evan, come on.”

“No, he’s right! We should give him a shot. You don’t know. He might be the next Sid Crosby!”

“More like the next...” Evan’s friend searched his brain for a good person to compare Parker to, but he had nothing. “The next
loser
.”

“Yeah, um, it’s Parker, right?” said the coach. “I don’t mean to be harsh, but have you ever played before?”

“Nope. But I was watching you guys, and I have to say, it doesn’t look all that tough.”

A wise guy. Coach Decker knew the type, and he knew how to deal with it.

“All right. You want to try out, let’s do it.”

“Great!”

Caitlyn Masters and the other girls in the bleachers laughed as Parker lurched on the ice. He managed to stay upright, but just barely.

The coach touched Evan on his shoulder. “Get in the goal.” Evan put his mask on and skated gleefully to his spot. “Parker, I’ll tell you what we’re going to
do.” He put his hand on Parker’s back, causing another near wipeout, and dropped a puck in front of Parker’s feet. “Evan’s going to stand in front of the goal, and all
you have to do is give this puck a whack with your...” He saw that Parker didn’t have a stick. “Coleman! Give Parker your stick.”

Coleman handed it over. “Ah, man, it’s brand-new. I got it for confirmation.”

Parker took the stick and used it as a prop to keep himself standing.