Tales of the Djinn: The Double (25 page)

Stupid people couldn’t pull of these kinds of enchantments—not even one at a time.

The human had gone pale, at least; tense from the energy he was exerting. He stood near the center of the tile-lined room, perhaps two feet from the drained portal. The vessel in which Elyse had trapped Yasmin’s brother was securely cradled in his left arm. His right hung less assuredly at his side. He clenched and unclenched the hand that had lost its tattoo, as if the appendage bothered him. Arcadius rather doubted it bothered him enough.

Despite all the magical plates he juggled, Mario wasn’t out of breath.

“You can’t control us both forever,” Arcadius said conversationally, not wanting to remind him Elyse could do anything.

Light gleamed in the sorcerer’s dark eyes. “Who says I need forever?”

“Let me out!” his cohort urged hollowly from inside the vase. “I’ll help you defeat them.”

Mario’s feral grin wouldn’t have heartened the ifrit. “Sorry, Samir,” he said. “I have a better use for you.”

What better use?
Arcadius wondered.

He got his answer soon enough.

Samir sputtered objections as Mario began a new incantation. The words rolled so quickly from his tongue they weren’t intelligible. Arcadius tensed, but the spell wasn’t directed at him or Cade. It wasn’t directed at Elyse either.

“What are you doing?” Samir demanded, fear cranking his voice higher. “Stop that! I told you I’d help you!”

“He’s killing him,” Cade said, figuring it out quicker than Arcadius could. “He’s going to use him for death magic.”

The portal
, Arcadius thought, his mind racing to catch up. Joseph’s team had ignored this door in favor of restoring the one Iksander had left through. Mario super-infusing this nexus with Samir’s spirit would circumvent the need for the lengthy charging process that
didn’t
break light djinn law.

If the sorcerer was so keen to get away that he’d sacrifice his partner, maybe he felt more threatened than they realized.

Arcadius looked at Elyse. Her dismayed expression conveyed the unfortunate truth. She had no experience improvising spells.

“I don’t know what to chant,” she confessed.

He didn’t know what to tell her. His class of djinn didn’t practice death magic. Joseph studied broadly. He might have been aware of a counter spell. Like Elyse, however, Arcadius couldn’t swim beyond his depth.

Fuck,
he thought. Cade’s grimace said the same thing.

Inside the brass vessel, Samir screeched like a banshee as his life force was wrenched from him. Arcadius didn’t have time to pity him. The iron stopper, which Elyse had remembered to secure, suddenly popped spinning from the jar. The ifrit’s departing spirit had forced it out, his essence spuming like a solar flare from its prison. The sun the flare fell into was the portal’s power source. The nexus flashed white with a tall blue slit, blinding rainbow sparks and rays shooting out of both. The air was abruptly so dense with magic Arcadius’s ears felt stuffed with cotton.

Despite this, he heard his double call to Elyse.

“Take my hand,” Cade said hoarsely.

Mario’s magic didn’t affect her like it did them. She wasn’t immobilized. She ran through the glare even as Mario tossed the vase aside and bounded into his escape route.

Elyse’s bloodied palm slapped around Arcadius's double’s. The pair reminded him of children swearing a “friends forever” oath. Cade must be hoping to use her human magic to strengthen his. He’d better hurry. The portal’s slit had already swallowed the sorcerer. If Mario escaped, they’d have little chance of catching him . . . or finding the lost young people.

His spirit twin bowed his head. “If it please my Creator, whither this man now goes, so go my love and I.” It wasn’t a spell, merely a humble prayer. “Say
Amen
,” he added to Elyse.

No,
Arcadius thought, realizing what Cade had asked. He shouldn’t be taking Elyse with him into danger. Yes, he needed her power, but what if he got her killed?

“Amen,” Elyse agreed.

The air buzzed as she said the word. A second later, Arcadius’s feet unstuck from the floor. Mario must have gotten completely through the door. Without him to sustain it, the spell he’d put on Cade and Arcadius fell away. Still holding hands, Cade and Elyse stepped into the whirling radiance.

“No!” Arcadius protested.

Elyse glanced back at him. Her green eyes were brighter than he’d ever seen them, lustrous light green jewels blazing within dark lashes. Her curls floated crazily, her smile for him as warm as sunshine. What did that smile mean? Did she care about him too? His blood roared in his ears from the intense magic. Her lips moved.

“We’ll be back,” he thought she assured him.

Arcadius had perhaps three heartbeats to decide. The portal’s surge of energy couldn’t last. His breastbone felt as if a hot poker were stabbing it. One of them should stay. The city needed a commander. Elyse’s head turned back in the direction of wherever she and Cade were going. Cade could protect her.

Probably.

“Damn it,” Arcadius muttered as he jumped after them.

~

Though it frustrated him to wait, Joseph couldn’t leave Yasmin. From what he’d overheard of her conversation with her unexpectedly familiar brother, the ifrit wanted her for his scheme. Samir/Ramis had already collected enough victims. Until they knew the risk was over, he wouldn’t give him the chance to claim another.

Not that Yasmin was defenseless. He glanced at the fine gray eyes that showed above her veil. He knew she’d been nervous, but she’d proved her mettle.

At the moment, her attention wasn’t on him.

“Something is going on up there,” she observed, nodding toward the Arch of Triumph.

Joseph turned. Soft gold light radiated through the normally invisible openings in the gallery overlook. He stiffened as the glow suddenly turned sun-bright.

“Crap,” he said. “Someone’s charging the portal.”

Did Samir have enough power to do it? Little hairs on his arms stood up.

The ifrit would if he didn’t bother following light rules.

“That’s death magic,” Yasmin said, shivering as she identified the vibration.

The glaring light winked out, causing his nerves to jolt. If Samir had killed someone to fuel the portal, chances were Joseph was friends with them.

“Stay,” he ordered his companion. “I’ll call a guard to protect you.”

“You aren’t going without me. And we don’t have time to argue.”

They didn’t. He changed and she did too. They streaked side by side through the gallery’s decorative piercings, materializing silently behind them. Yasmin took a moment to shake her robes straighter. The door to the portal room was open, the space inside almost completely dark. Joseph’s nostrils flared. He smelled blood but not enough to signify a death.

The magic he’d sensed from the park was now no more than a vapor trail.

Yasmin began to speak and he held up a hand to silence her. Though the entire structure seemed empty, he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, as if there were something inside that room he didn’t want to see.

He went in first. No one attacked. Elyse and Cade weren’t there. The portal was even dimmer than the last time he’d checked—more a cinder with a single spark than a guttering candle flame. The recent influx of power must have been exhausted by whoever had gone through it. Joseph couldn’t read the location it had been keyed to connect to.

“I think the tattooed man was here,” Yasmin said softly from behind him. “I caught a whiff of him at the cosplay club.”

Joseph turned. “You read scents that well?”

She hugged herself and shrugged. “I’ve been in my cat form a lot lately.”

Joseph rubbed his upper lip. Mario could have charged the portal if he’d been here. Possibly, he could have slipped around Joseph’s barriers as well. Joseph had come up against the human sorcerer back in Elyse’s world and hadn’t emerged victorious. Mario’s skills were formidable. On his own, Joseph wasn’t sure he could counter them.

It also seemed using the arch as a vantage point wasn’t an original concept. Though he’d known Samir might ask Mario to observe his meeting with his sister, in case it was a trap, he’d hadn’t guessed
this
would be his lookout.

He tapped his teeth in frustration. Cade had chided him now and then for taking too much weight on his own shoulders. Tonight Joseph deserved a different sort of rebuke. He’d screwed up royally.

“Can I spell a light?” Yasmin asked. “It’s really dark in here.”

“Sure,” he said absently.

She called up a handheld glow. The soft illumination pushed back the thick shadows. As it turned out, the space wasn’t as empty as he’d thought. One very lifeless body stretched face down on the floor.

Yasmin gasped sharply. “Is that—?”

The corpse was child-sized. Its skin was gray and sunken, its limbs too skinny and vaguely simian. One foot remained within the brass vase that lay nearby, but Joseph didn’t need the clue to identify who it was. This was the physical counterpart to Samir’s smoke form—or rather the husk of it. Every scrap of soul energy had been sucked from it. Though the sight was terrible, Joseph was relieved.

At least he knew whose life force had recharged the portal.

“Yes,” he said to Yasmin. “I’m afraid that’s your brother. The form he showed you must have been a disguise.”

She leaned rather than stepped closer. One slim hand pressed her face veil against her mouth in shock. “Ramis must have hated looking like that after he turned ifrit. He was so proud.” She choked out a breathy laugh. “Pride was what led him to murder in the first place.”

Joseph didn’t know how to comfort her. He had no siblings and couldn’t comprehend the shadings of what must be a complicated wound.

“I’m all right,” she said, waving his concern away. “Should we . . . do something with his body?”

He couldn’t answer. He was too distracted. Rather than feeling better that his friends weren’t dead, his unease worsened. Something was still wrong. His stomach was in knots. Dreading what he’d find, he scanned the room again.

What he
didn’t
find finally set off his alarms.

His statue double was gone. The sheet Arcadius had draped over him lay twisted on the floor a few feet from where the stone form had knelt. The blood he’d smelled before stained it. With his skin gone icy, he bent to examine it.

As he lifted the cloth, a few chips of stone fell off.

“Shit,” he hissed.

“What’s wrong?” Yasmin asked.

“My statue’s gone.” He looked around wildly. There, against the base of wall, where the tiles met the floor, a long trail of shattered marble stretched.

“You left your copy here?”

“It seemed safe enough.” His voice sounded far away. “I spelled the locks on the place myself.”

He moved to the line of rubble like he was sleepwalking. He didn’t want to, but he stooped to gather up a handful of stone debris. The statue had been destroyed so violently some of the stone was dust. His double’s spirit was gone—along with the remaining portion of Joseph’s power.

“Did someone break it?” Yasmin asked.

“Mario, I expect.” Yasmin sounded more horrified than he did. He simply sounded numb. He rose. He almost smacked his palm clean against his thigh before he stopped himself. He ought to show respect for the loss. He’d never be the magician he was before.

He also didn’t have to be a eunuch.

A joy so fierce it shamed him spread through his chest. In seconds, he flashed hot from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.

Stupid,
he thought. And selfish. If he’d had his full power, he might not have failed everyone tonight.

“Why do you suppose he broke it?” Yasmin asked.

Who cares?
the selfish part of him chortled.

“I don’t know,” he said aloud. His second hand clenched the sheet he was still holding. “Maybe he heard Cade and Elyse coming up the stairs. Maybe he shattered my statue so he could hide under this.”

“They would have sensed him,” Yasmin objected.

“Maybe not. Human magic works differently on us. And Elyse isn’t experienced. If she did sense his presence, she might not have known what the feeling meant.”

“At least they’re not dead,” Yasmin said.

She’d stepped closer, as if she were tempted to comfort him with a touch. Tingles swept his skin as he registered her nearness. His selfish side pointed out he had nothing to lose by taking a woman now. He couldn’t screw up his chances of reuniting with his double. That ship hadn’t simply left the harbor. It had sunk.

His cock began to harden, the heat and heaviness of his arousal incredibly seductive.

Stop,
he ordered. He might be able to take “a” woman, but not this one. This one was Iksander’s.

He forced his mind back to her last comment.

“I hope they’re alive,” he said. “I can’t be sure without knowing where they went or what menace Mario might have waiting on the other side.”

“Did he re-key the portal from the last time it was used?”

“I don’t know. With so low a charge remaining, I can’t tell.” He rubbed the ache between his eyebrows. “I suppose I could pull some of palace’s magicians off other jobs, but everything they’re doing is important.”

“Do you have to use
palace
magicians?” she asked.

He looked at her. To his surprise, she’d pulled her veil down to speak. He supposed she thought it didn’t matter. She didn’t know he was capable.

He struggled not to react to her extraordinary beauty. Looks like hers explained why the practice of veiling had begun. “Recharging nexuses is a special skill, not to mention taking a lot of power.”

“But I was thinking,” she said, her cheeks gone pink from her own boldness. “The kids who start up the view cafés have a lot of power. They’re self-taught, but maybe you could train them well enough for this. You know, if it isn’t a breach of security or something.”

“That
is
an idea,” he said, immediately seeing the possibilities.

“We could maybe start at the café my brother Balu frequented. I hear people liked him there. If they knew it was for him, they’d be happy to help you. Better still, those magic geeks all know each other. They could point you to more candidates.”