Rebels of the Lamp, Book 1 (16 page)

She had flown in from Los Angeles on the cheapest flight she could find, sandwiched between a woman with a tiny yapping dog and an overweight man in sweatpants who had fallen asleep on her
shoulder. It was a miserable trip, made even worse by the nervous, gnawing feeling that had settled in her stomach the second she had gotten on the plane. She was in no way sure that Parker would
be glad to see her when she arrived. She was going to surprise him for Thanksgiving.

“I still think you should have told him you were coming,” Aunt Martha said. She was there to pick her sister up in the rusted Subaru.

Mrs. Quarry was tired from the flight but happy to be on the ground.

“Tell him when? He won’t even talk to me on the phone.” She shook her head. “You know how he is. Parker never would have forgiven me if I told him I was coming and then
something came up and I couldn’t. I wanted to wait until I was absolutely positive I could get on that plane.”

“Well, he’ll be happy to see you, I’m sure. He misses you.”

“He’s good at hiding it.”

She squinted out an airport window and saw the Gulfstream jet. Mrs. Quarry shook her head. Private planes were for a different class of person than she would ever know.

“Must be nice to have money,” she said, and then she kept on walking.

The inside of the jet was gorgeous and rich, with soft carpet and polished wood accents. Instead of a million seats jammed together, there were white leather recliners. There
was a widescreen TV and a small vase full of fresh flowers on every table.

Professor Ellison placed her bag beside her and sipped on a martini that was already waiting when she boarded the plane. Theo and Parker ran down the cabin, scoping out seats and pushing
buttons.

“It sucks that I can’t tell anybody where I’m going,” said Reese as she sank into one of the chairs. “This is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to
me.”

Fon-Rahm nodded gravely. “Yes,” he said. “I’m sure it will be...exciting for all of us.”

He looked out one of the jet’s round windows and saw that the flight crew was making their last-minute preparations. He turned away before the plane’s copilot stepped onto the
stairs. The man had a sinister look in his eye. He also had a curved knife stuck in the waistband of his stolen uniform pants, and orders to kill everyone on board the plane.

THE G650 WAS OVER THE
Atlantic Ocean, flying smoothly through the night sky. The cabin was quiet. Theo, Reese, and Professor Ellison slept in
their seats. The only light came from the reading lamp above Parker’s seat.

He was too wired to close his eyes, and he was frankly amazed that anyone could sleep at a time like this. They were in a private jet, streaking over the ocean, on their way into the unknown!
His mind flashed to the rich kids at his old school and how jealous they would be if they could see him now, and then he realized that they were in his past. His future was happening right
now
, and he was the only one awake to enjoy it.

Well, not the only one. Fon-Rahm sat in a recliner facing him, and Fon-Rahm never slept.

Parker drummed his fingers on the table and contemplated the covered plate in front of him.

“A cheddar cheeseburger, I think,” he said. “Medium rare, please, with fries and a slice of raw onion.”

Fon-Rahm waved his hand. When Parker lifted the polished metal cover, the food he requested was magically there. Parker dug in. He held the perfect burger to his mouth and then paused. The genie
was staring right at him.

“Are you going to watch me the whole time?”

“If you would like me to look away, I will,” said Fon-Rahm. “I confess that I have always found the ritual of eating very curious.”

“Yeah, well, some people find junk food very calming.”

“I would not know.”

“You’ve never had junk food?”

“I have never had any food.”

Parker put the burger down. “Never? Like, at all? No chicken fingers or peanut butter cups or Nerds? Jeez, no wonder you’re so tense. Here. Try this.”

Parker held up a French fry. Fon-Rahm of the Jinn looked at it with disdain.

“Are you commanding me to eat this?”

“I’m not going to command you to eat French fries. You should
want
to eat French fries.”

Fon-Rahm just stared. Parker shook his head and went back to his food. “I eat when I’m nervous. Or bored or happy. It’s a miracle I’m not a million pounds. You should see
me put it away when I go to see my mom at work. My father’s the same way.”

Fon-Rahm nodded sagely.

“I have much in common with my father, as well.”

Parker stopped eating and looked Fon-Rahm dead in the eyes.

“My dad tricked a bunch of senior citizens into trusting him, and then he stole all of their money. Then he abandoned me and my mom when he got sent to prison. Get this straight. My
appetite is the only thing I have in common with him.”

Fon-Rahm turned his gaze to the darkness outside the jet’s window.

“Why did he steal?”

“What’s the difference?”

“There are many reasons for men to do wrong. Was he hungry? Was he desperate?”

Parker thought about this for a moment.

“No. He was doing fine. We were doing fine. I mean, we lived in a little apartment and we didn’t have fancy cars or anything, but I didn’t care. My dad just...He was never
happy with what he had. He was always complaining about how he deserved better. He had to be a big shot. He couldn’t just...”

Fon-Rahm waited patiently, but Parker didn’t continue. He realized that he might as well have been talking about himself.

“All men have two sides,” Fon-Rahm said. “My father created me in his own image, yet there are things about him I do not understand. I doubt I ever will.” He turned back
to Parker. “Vesiroth was not always evil. He was once just a man who made a mistake.”

Parker mulled that over. Then he held up one of his remaining fries.

“You sure you don’t want one?”

Fon-Rahm just sat.

“Xaru’s right,” said Parker. “You are stubborn.”

The genie was trapped. He took the French fry and, with great care, put it in his mouth. The look of disgust on his face vanished as he chewed.

Parker beamed. “Good, right?”

Fon-Rahm scooped up the rest of the fries from Parker’s plate. He smeared them in ketchup and shoved them in his mouth.

“Not bad,” he said.

And then the first missile streaked past the window.

PARKER JUMPED OUT OF HIS SEAT.
“What was that?”

“Trouble,” said Fon-Rahm. He rose to get the others, but they were already up and staring out the window.

“That was a missile,” said Professor Ellison. “Someone’s attacking us.”

Reese scanned the sky desperately. “Who? I don’t see anyone!”

Then, silhouetted against the full moon, they saw another plane.

“Oh. Oh, wow,” said Theo. “That’s a MiG-17. It’s a Russian fighter jet from the fifties. I have a book about old fighter jets. I have a
couple
of books about
old fighter jets.”

“It’s the Path,” Professor Ellison said. “They must have followed us.”

The MiG banked and then flew straight at the G650, firing its machine guns.

“Get down!” commanded Fon-Rahm, pushing Parker down to the floor of the cabin. Bullets shredded the wall of the plane, but no one was hit. The Gulfstream banked away and the MiG
disappeared back into the clouds.

“A simple flying machine,” said Fon-Rahm, gearing up for action. “By your command, I will dispose of it.”

“No!” yelled Parker. Everyone in the cabin turned to him, sure he was out of his mind. “No. The Path isn’t after
you
. They think Professor Ellison put you back in
a lamp. They’re just trying to kill
us
.”

“So what?” asked Theo. “Either way we’re dead!”

Parker blew him off and focused on Fon-Rahm. “You can feel when other genies do magic, right? That’s how you knew the Path freed Xaru, and that’s how you knew to protect us
back in the woods.”

“Yes.”

“Then that means that Xaru can do the same thing to you. That’s how he found you.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Theo blurted, “Parker, who cares? We’re under attack here!”

“Look, Fon-Rahm, you haven’t done any real magic since you fought Xaru. Nothing big or dramatic, right? Which means that he doesn’t know where you are. He thinks you’re
gone! If he knew you were here, he would be here himself to take you on. If you destroy that jet, he’ll feel the burst of power and he’ll know you’re free and working with the
professor. We’ll lose the element of surprise.”

“Parker’s right.” The professor was as surprised as anyone to be saying it. “Fon-Rahm should stay out of this. Leave this one to me.”

She reached into her bag.

In the cockpit, the pilot was steering the G650 into a cloud bank for cover while trying unsuccessfully to call in a Mayday. He couldn’t get a signal at all. Impossible,
he thought. The only way the radio wouldn’t work is if someone had tampered with it, and the only person that could have done that was the new copilot. The pilot turned to confront him. The
last thing he ever saw was the gleam of the copilot’s knife as it flashed in the moonlight.

As the professor dug around in her bag for a suitable amulet to destroy the MiG, the G650 suddenly lurched. Everyone in the cabin slid back as the plane headed straight
down.

Reese grabbed an armrest to steady herself. “What’s happening?”

Then the door to the cockpit burst open and the copilot stepped out, his knife dripping blood. Theo could see the pilot’s body slumped over the plane’s controls.

“He killed the pilot!” cried Theo.

“Then who’s flying the
plane
?” asked Reese. She knew the answer. She just didn’t want it to be true. No one was flying the plane.

His knife at the ready, the copilot walked deliberately toward Reese, who suddenly missed her mother. At a time like this, math tutoring and sculpting lessons didn’t seem quite so bad.

Fon-Rahm stepped in to intercept the copilot. Without his magic, the genie was no stronger than any human man. “Perhaps,” he said, “you would prefer to fight with
me.”

The copilot slashed at Fon-Rahm but missed. The genie grabbed him. As they fought over the knife, the jet entered a death spiral. Everything in the cabin went flying. Parker snagged onto the
door of the cockpit.

“Fon-Rahm, I wish I could fly this plane!” he said. Fon-Rahm paused in his battle with the copilot to nod at him, and Parker felt a stream of information flood into his brain. He
learned principles of fluid mechanics, the use of avionics, and the operations of every gauge, button, and lever in a Gulfstream jet in less time than it took him to take a breath.

“Hey, Reese, could you help me out for a second, please?” Parker said as he made his way into the cockpit. Reese didn’t have anything better to do besides cowering for her
life, so she joined him.

The view out of the plane’s windshield was terrifying. The G650 was spinning, plunging lower and lower with every passing second. Parker unbelted the dead pilot’s body and pushed it
aside before he sat behind the yoke. With new knowledge and skill he flipped switches and checked lights as he leveled out the jet.

“I’m going to need you to watch our altitude and airspeed. These gauges right here,” he said. “Reese?”

Reese was staring at the dead pilot.

“Reese. You can do it.”

Reese snapped out of it. She stepped over the pilot’s body and sat next to Parker.

“Okay, good,” said Parker with a determined look on his face. He searched the sky and found the Russian jet. It was heading right at the Gulfstream, its machine guns spitting
fire.

“Hang on,” said Parker, grinning as he expertly slid the G650 away. “We’re going to have a little dogfight.”

Parker’s maneuver caused havoc in the back of the plane. Fon-Rahm and the copilot, locked in an epic struggle for the knife, smashed into the wall next to Theo. Professor
Ellison’s bag flew out of her hands. When it landed, its contents were thrown all over the cabin.

The copilot got his knife hand free. He pulled back to stab Fon-Rahm. The genie, for the first time in his existence, felt a flicker of self-doubt.

Theo, thinking fast, groped around for something to hit the copilot with. He came up with a golden statue of a monkey that had fallen out of the professor’s bag, and swung it at the
copilot’s head. The copilot simply ducked out of the way. He sneered at Theo, but then the monkey came to life and sank its metal teeth into the copilot’s hand. The copilot let out a
yelp and rolled himself and Fon-Rahm away. When Theo dropped the monkey, it hit the floor and became a statue once more.

Making himself useful, Theo helped Professor Ellison gather up the things from her bag. There was a quill pen, a lump of misshapen metal, what looked like a voodoo doll, a dried snake, and an
assortment of other amulets, talismans, charms, and trinkets.

“What is all this stuff?”

The professor searched the floor. “Just a few things I’ve collected over the years. If you see a small glass globe, please hand it to me.”

Theo found the globe under a seat and handed it to the professor.

“Thank you,” she said, before throwing it against the wall. The globe shattered with a muted pop, blowing a huge hole in the side of the G650. The plane dipped and oxygen masks
dropped from the ceiling. Professor Ellison was ready for it, but Theo scrambled just to hold on. He was almost sucked right out of the plane.

“Are you crazy?” he yelled. “I could have been killed!”

“And what would we have done without you?” She looked out the hole. “Now we have someplace to fight them.” She caught Theo’s eye. “We need to find the Bow of
Qartem.”

“What’s a Bow of Qartem?”

“It’s a bow, like an archery bow, but smaller.”

Great, thought Theo, looking at the disaster that the cabin had become. That shouldn’t be too hard to find at all.

Despite the danger, or maybe
because
of the danger, Parker felt alive and confident. He compensated for the sudden drop in the cabin’s pressure with the ease of a
seasoned pilot and craned his neck searching for any sign of the MiG-17. He found it, marked starkly against the night sky. The Russian jet banked high, rolled, and made another pass, firing off
two more missiles before diving away.