Rebels of the Lamp, Book 1 (23 page)

Rath was, indeed, getting annoyed. He stomped at the fakes, but they were too fast. He couldn’t pin either of them down.

“Ignore them!” commanded Xaru. “Finish the boy!”

Ignoring pests was not in Rath’s nature. He kicked at the doubles, and then swung at them with the fists that held Parker. The rat genie was just too slow to make contact. Finally,
enraged, he dropped Parker so that he could have full use of his hands. Rath balled up his fists, timed his blow, and crushed the fake Reese and the fake Theo into the ground. Satisfied, the genie
lifted his fists. He seemed perplexed to find nothing but sand beneath him.

Theo and Reese were already dragging Parker back to be near Fon-Rahm.

“Are you okay?” said Reese.

“I got the wind knocked out of me.”

“And your head almost exploded,” said Theo.

“Yeah,” Parker admitted. “There was that.”

With his head recovered, Fon-Rahm was himself again. He rained blows on Rath and Yogoth until their fight was over, and then turned to Xaru. “It is over, Xaru. It is finally
finished.”

Xaru, exhausted and bloodied from the battle, took in the scene. His brother genies were spent and useless. The children were out of his reach. The professor was already lining up two old jars
and a wine bottle, ready to trap him and the others. His fire, once stronger than a blowtorch, was dying.

“Go quietly,” said Fon-Rahm. “Do not make me hurt you anymore.”

The professor was ready to begin her chant.

“I won’t be trapped again, brother,” Xaru said.

“You made your decisions yourself, Xaru.”

Xaru stared off into the distance. “There are things I know that you don’t, Fon-Rahm. Things Vesiroth thought you would disapprove of. Things he thought you would not
understand.”

“Stop talking in circles.”

“If I can’t rule the world, no one can.” Xaru closed his eyes and floated into the air. He raised his arms to his side and began to chant to himself.

Fon-Rahm was confused. “What is it? What is he doing?” he asked Professor Ellison.

“It’s Vesiroth’s spell of destruction. It was designed as a fail-safe, one last weapon that would destroy his enemies and leave him standing. I didn’t think anyone else
knew it. If Xaru finishes, everything surrounding this building will be vaporized.”

Yogoth came out of his stupor and joined Xaru in the air.

The professor said, “Make that everything for miles.”

Rath pulled himself up and joined his brothers from the ground. Lights started to flash around them.

Fon-Rahm launched a volley of lightning at the chanting genies, but Vesiroth’s spell had created a shield around them. The lightning dissipated as it hit.

“I can’t reach them through the shield,” said Professor Ellison. “Can you bring it down?”

“No. It is too strong. The energy needed to breech will obliterate them as well.” Fon-Rahm was stuck. “I cannot stop them without destroying them.”

“You know that can’t happen,” said Professor Ellison.

“I may not have a choice.”

The professor was using a Sharpie to draw arcane symbols of containment on her bottles and jars. “I just need a few more minutes.”

“There is no time!” said Fon-Rahm. “If I do not stop Xaru now, he will finish his spell!”

“Let him finish, then!” Professor Ellison snapped. The kids were shocked. Ellison pushed Parker aside and spoke directly to Fon-Rahm. “You and I will survive!”

Fon-Rahm could hardly believe what he was hearing. “But the children, the town...”

“There are other children and other towns! There will always be more people. It will be easier to trap Xaru after he finishes the spell. He’ll be tired. He’ll be weak. Let him
do what he wants.”

The chanting from the genies was getting louder. Parker could feel the air around him changing. He knew the spell was almost complete.

“Fon-Rahm, don’t listen to her!” he said. “I command you to destroy Xaru and protect us!”

Fon-Rahm hesitated.

“You can’t do it, can you?” said the professor. “It’s because you know I’m right. The greater good takes precedence over your master’s whims.
That’s why you wouldn’t obey Vesiroth in the first place. You know that if you destroy Xaru and the others, their power will return to Vesiroth and he will walk again. What is the
sacrifice of one pitiful town and three children next to that? Let them die!”

Static electricity filled the air. Lights and smoke swirled around. The end was coming.

Fon-Rahm looked to the genies, and then to Parker.

“This is a decision I cannot make,” he said. “You must command me.”

ONLY WEEKS AGO, PARKER WOULD
have made the decision in an instant. He would have ordered Fon-Rahm to annihilate the other genies, no matter what
the cost was to anybody else. Now he was torn. He wanted to save himself and his friends and his mother, who was unconscious less than five hundred yards away. He wanted to tell Fon-Rahm to blast
Xaru out of the sky, and deal with the consequences later.

But he wasn’t sure.

What if he made the wrong decision and the world was condemned because of it? What if he unleashed Vesiroth and more people died than would die here? The decision was too much for any seventh
grader, so Parker did what any seventh grader might do. He turned to his friends.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, looking to Theo and Reese. “This is bigger than just me. I need your help.”

They stood in silence, thinking, for as long as they dared. They knew they didn’t have much time.

“We have to let Professor Ellison trap them,” said Reese. “We have to save the world, no matter what.”

Parker nodded. “Theo?”

Theo said, “No! We can’t! You heard the professor! Everything will be wiped out! My parents are here! Your
mother
is here!”

The lights spinning around them grew more intense by the second.

“They’re almost finished!” said Professor Ellison.

“Parker, I don’t want to die,” said Theo.

Parker said, “I don’t, either.”

Theo, tortured, stared at the floor and nodded. Reese put her arms around him. Parker spoke up to the giant Fon-Rahm. “Let Xaru finish. Even if it means we’re destroyed.” He
looked to his friends. “It’s what we decided.”

“You would make that sacrifice?” said Fon-Rahm.

Parker took Reese’s hand. “We would.”

Fon-Rahm nodded. “And that is why humanity deserves to make her own decisions.”

With that, Fon-Rahm made the only choice that made any sense to him. He turned his immense power on Xaru and the other genies. Professor Ellison cried out, but he ignored her, concentrating all
of his firepower on the shield. The shield buckled and fell, and the genies, powerless, were engulfed in Fon-Rahm’s storm of lightning.

Xaru cackled as the Nexus took him. “You were always a fool, Fon-Rahm. This is only the beginning.”

Xaru let out one final scream as he, Rath, and Yogoth were vaporized.

ALL WAS STILL.

Parker, Reese, and Theo stared at each other. Fon-Rahm knelt down so he could speak to them on their level.

“We’re still alive,” said Reese.

Parker said, “Why, Fon-Rahm? Why did you do it?”

Fon-Rahm had a gleam in his eye. “I do what I am compelled to do,” he said.

Parker smiled at him, and the genie smiled back.

Theo was not interested in anything so touchy-feely. Reese had to hold him back from attacking Professor Ellison. “She would have killed us!” he screamed. “She wanted us
dead!”

“Let her be,” said Reese, staring daggers at the professor. “She never pretended to care about us.”

The professor smirked. “Children. You think you know everything.” She held out her prism and craned her neck to talk to Fon-Rahm. “I believe you have something that belongs to
me.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Fon-Rahm placed his hand over the prism and closed his eyes. All the power the professor lent him returned to her in a purple fog, and Fon-Rahm shrank to his
normal size.

“You should have kept it,” said Theo. “It might’ve come in handy.”

“It was never mine to keep.”

Parker turned pale, remembering suddenly that his mother was still passed out on the grass. “My mom!”

He started to run out of the building, but Fon-Rahm grabbed him. “She is not hurt. Now that Xaru is gone, she and the others will awaken with no knowledge of what happened here.”

“I have to see her!”

“Shouldn’t we get our stories straight first?” asked Theo. “I mean, how are we going to explain all of this? We destroyed an entire building.”

“I can just have Fon-Rahm put it back the way it was,” Parker said.

Reese shook her head. “It won’t last. In a day or two it’ll be a pile of bricks again. And this time there might be people in it.”

Professor Ellison took a step back and looked at what remained of her office. “It was an old building,” she said. “And I often smelled gas. I believe that I put a few
complaints in writing over the years.”

Reese said, “Really?”

“No. But I’m sure I can whip up a convincing forgery or two.” She looked at Parker and Theo. “You might as well run along to your parents. No one needs you
here.”

They didn’t have to be told twice. Parker and Theo sprinted across the university campus, leaving Reese, the professor, and Fon-Rahm behind them.

All over Cahill University, students and faculty were waking up. They were groggy and confused, but they were safe and they were alive. An administrator found himself dangling
halfway out of his Saab. At first he thought it was strange, but then he forgot all about it, the way you might forget an intense dream the second you wake up. A sophomore wondered in a vague way
why she had decided to take a nap facedown in the middle of the quad instead of going to class, but the thought quickly vanished from her head, replaced by more pressing concerns like her GPA and
the fact that her roommate kept eating all of her ramen noodles no matter how many times she told her not to. A custodian was only slightly curious as to how it got so late. He would put off
cleaning the men’s locker room until tomorrow. There was plenty of time.

Theo found his parents on the sidewalk. His father weighed more than two hundred pounds, but Theo hauled him to his feet as if he were a small child. Theo’s mother ran her fingers through
Theo’s hair, and he grinned like it was Christmas.

Parker’s mother was coming to on the ground next to a bench. She blinked at the sun as if she had been asleep for weeks instead of hours. Parker wanted to run to her, but he stayed back.
He didn’t know what to feel.

Then his mom looked at him. She squinted as if she couldn’t quite make him out.

“Parker?” she asked.

That was all it took. Parker ran to her and threw himself into her arms. He hugged her as if he hadn’t seen her for three thousand years.

His mom hugged him back. “I missed you, too,” she said. “I missed you so much.”

Professor Ellison and Fon-Rahm watched respectfully, as far as the genie’s tether would allow. The professor couldn’t stop her eyes from misting over.

“Do not tell me you are going to cry,” said Fon-Rahm.

She composed herself with a snort. “I haven’t cried since Thomas Jefferson insulted my cooking.”

Reese had gone back to the archaeology builing for one last look. She was out of breath when she caught up to them.

“Everyone from the Path is gone,” she panted. “All of the bodies and everything. I couldn’t even find Nadir. And there’s something else. Your lamps are
gone!”

Professor Ellison shrugged as if she had been expecting the news. “Well. I suppose I had better get back to work, then.” She allowed herself another moment to watch Parker and Theo
with their families. “Tell them I said good-bye, please. I’m sure I’ll see them around.” She turned back to her office and shouted over her shoulder to Fon-Rahm.

“Keep your eyes open. Things are about to get much, much worse.”

THE MERRITT HOUSE WAS FILLED
with people and the smell of roasting turkey on Thanksgiving. Uncle Kelsey sneaked a swipe of mashed potatoes before
they were ready, and was rewarded with a playful slap from his wife. He was in a great mood. The explosion that destroyed most of the Cahill University Archeology building was chalked up to a gas
main rupture, and just by sheer luck, not a single person had gotten hurt. Plus, some secret donor had already pledged enough funds to rebuild the entire structure. There were good people in the
world. Reese helped Theo set the table in the other room. Her parents lounged in front of the TV, her dad happily watching football while her mother shook her head and wondered why anyone in their
right mind would allow their kids to play a game in which somebody might be seriously hurt.

Parker’s mom sat with a smile on her face, happy to be with her family and some new friends. Maybe today was the day that she would tell her son that she had decided to move to New
Hampshire. Her original plan was to wait until Parker’s dad was out of jail, but he was in for another year at least, and time was too precious to waste. Parker needed a family and, looking
around, it seemed to her like he had one here. When he got out they could all move in together. She had already started looking for a job and a place where she and Parker could stay. It was going
to be great, she thought, a new start for all of them. And New Hampshire seemed like the perfect place. It was so quiet and peaceful.

Parker stood outside and watched them all through a window. “My mom, Reese’s folks, my aunt and uncle. They don’t even know that anything happened. Everything seems like
it’s back to normal, but nothing will ever really be the same again, will it?”

“No,” Fon-Rahm said from the shadows nearby.

“I wish my dad could be here.”

“Is that a command?”

Parker thought for a moment. “No. I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”

“Your mother cares very deeply for you. I would tell my mother how much she meant to me. If I had a mother.”

Parker grinned. “You’ve got me.”