Bound (Secrets of the Djinn) (14 page)

“No one will be sacrificed,” a booming voice says from the doorway.  “You know why she must stay,” Hank continues.  “I made a promise to her mama and I plan to keep it.”

Every single eyeball in the room is now pointed at him.  Malik is the first to speak.  His words are slow and controlled.  “You did what?”

Hank lumbers into the room and to my surprise, he wraps his bear arms around me and squeezes, pushing all the air from my lungs.  Fortunately, he releases me before I pass out from oxygen loss.  “Your mama’s spirit came to me and asked me to protect you.  I gave her my word.”  His eyes find his wife’s and Mrs. Gregori looks away.  Is that shame on her face?

“What do you mean, ‘she came to you’?” Zane asks.

“Are you a medium?” Malik asks.

Hank nods his head.  “My mother was a powerful necromancer.  I don’t have the sight like she did, but strong spirits like your mother can communicate with me.”

“Holy shit, Hank.  Why didn’t you ever mention this?”  Brielle asks, stunned like the rest of us.

Hank shrugs.  “Don’t like to talk about it much.”

“Can you speak to our parents?” Brielle pushes, hope springing into her eyes.

Hank shakes his head and it’s obvious he’s about to dash her hope.  “That’s the reason I don’t speak about it.  I can’t talk to spirits who’ve moved on, no matter how hard I try.” 

“Our mother
hasn’t moved on?” I say softly, not really directing my question to Hank.  It’s simply a thought that found its way to my tongue.

Hank’s voice is gruff now with emotion.  “She ain’t gonna move on ‘til she knows you’re okay.”

Zane rears on his grandmother, something akin to hatred in his eyes.  “You knew this and you still held a gun to Skye’s head and made her leave?”  The anger and animosity in his words make Mrs. Gregori shrink into her chair.

“I was protecting you,” she wheezes, her face turning ashen.

“You need a pill, Lily?” Hank asks, noticing her waning pallor.  Her heart is obviously close to giving out.

“I’ll get them,” Brielle says, dashing from the room.  We hear her footsteps on the stairs as she pounds up them to retrieve Mrs. Gregori’s nitroglycerin from her bedroom.

Nothing more is said about Hank’s revelation while we wait for Brielle.  Roman attends to Mrs. Gregori, checking her pulse and asking her about pain.  She tries to push him away, but a stern look from Hank, who has moved to her side, makes her stop.  Brielle comes back with the pills and Mrs. Gregori places one under her tongue with a shaking hand.

Hank
says to the rest of us, “Why don’t you go on now?  I’ll look after Lily.”

“I should stay and monitor her condition,” Roman says.  I suspect he doesn’t want to go anywhere Malik is
and I don’t blame him. 

I am all for leaving the room.  My mind is numb and it’s a good idea for me to find someplace to sit down before it stops working altogether.  This has been a hell of a couple days.

Chapter
16

Zane, Malik and Brielle follow me out and we make our way upstairs.  When we reach the open second floor sitting room, Zane heads straight for the whiskey on a small table against the wall and grabs four glasses and the full decanter.  He sets the glasses on the coffee table and pours the caramel colored liquor generously.  He hands me a glass and motions for Malik and Brielle to take theirs and he sits on the arm of my chair.  Holding his glass up, Zane says, “To the secrets we hold, may we all live through them.”

Interesting toast since he and Brielle are the only ones not keeping secrets.  Still, “I will do my best.”

Brielle tips her glass to me.  “May Skye’s ‘best’ get better.”

Malik smiles at her and clinks his glass to hers.  They are sitting on the couch together not quite touching but close.  “To finally meeting in person the bravest siblings I’ve ever come across.”  He says siblings, but he’s only looking at Brielle.

Embarrassed and shy for the first time since I met her, Brielle changes the subject.  “I had no idea Hank is a medium.  I always thought mediums were scam artists.”

“Most probably are,” I say.  I move my eyes to my brother.  “Did you know our mother hasn’t moved on?”

Malik shakes his head.  “No.”  Though he doesn’t say it, he’s just as bothered by the knowledge as I am.

“What do you think is holding her back?”  What I’m really asking is, am I responsible for our mother not finding peace after death?

Reading my mind, Malik says, “I can think of a hundred reasons.”

We sit quietly for a moment, no one else wanting to add to this line of conversation. 
Where else can the conversation go?  Finally, unable to stand the silence, I ask again, “Why are you here, Malik?”

Brielle stiffens as if my words will make him disappear when she has just met him in person for the first time.  Malik’s hand crosses the small gap between them and slides her fingers between his.  To me, he says, “You were right.  It is my responsibility to teach you
about your power.  I must also stop asking others to do what I should be doing.  Keeping you safe.”

It’s obvious
both Brielle and Zane are chafed by the words.  Brielle attempts to draw her hand away from Malik’s, but he squeezes it gently, not letting it go.  Zane opens his mouth to respond, but closes it again as the truth of what happened in the last twenty-four hours clamps onto his vocal cords and keeps them silent. 

Once again, the silence becomes nerve wracking and I have to speak.  “Was I always this much trouble?”

Without any hesitation, Malik says fondly, “Yes.”

Brielle shakes her head.  “I knew it.”

Downing the rest of his drink, Malik sets his glass on the coffee table.  Looking at Brielle and then Zane, he says, “Might I steal a moment alone with my sister?”

Both siblings want to say no
but they don’t.  Zane leans down and kisses my cheek.  “I’m going to check on my grandmother.”  His words are still full of anger toward the old woman, but lurking underneath is his genuine concern for Mrs. Gregori’s health.

“I’ll come with you,” Brielle says.  She extracts her hand reluctantly from Malik’s and follows Zane down the stairs.

When they are both gone, I say to my brother, “What’s really going on, Malik?  You were adamant about us staying apart with you behind the veil and me here.  What changed in the half hour since we saw each other last?”

Malik rises from the couch.  “Let’s have this discussion on the other side of those doors.”  He indicates the glass doors
leading out to the wide, long deck.

Whatever he has to say to me, he doesn’t want it overheard.  Resigned, I rise from my chair and follow him outside.  For a moment, Malik simply stares out into the trees.  Each second that ticks by without him speaking feels
like millennia.

“You
need not worry about the old woman.”

My heart skips a beat.  “What
do you mean?”

Malik’s eyes stay on the trees.  “
She is bound to me.  She is now unable to do you harm.”

Oh my god, he can’t be serious.  “Malik,” I hiss, “wasn’t that a little extreme. 
How can you be so cruel?”   

Malik shakes his head and finally turns to me.  “You are naïve in the ways of our race.  Even when you were behind the veil, you didn’t seem to understand the harshness of our life.  I suppose it’s my fault.  After our parents were killed, I did my best to insulate you from as much as possible.  I am a killer, Skye.  I’ve killed without remorse and I will do so again.  I killed our uncle to protect you, and I will kill anyone else who is a threat to you.  Even if you were not the powerful creature you are, I would be as fierce in my defense for you are my sister and you matter to me above all else.  Never forget that the djinn were banished from this world because of our brutality.  Behind the veil, the insult laid upon you when the old woman threatened your life would be tantamount to a death sentence.  It is for your sake and that of your human lover that I restrained myself, choosing to bind her instead.  As for Roman, the only reason he still stands is because it must be you who kills him in order for the mark to be removed.  If it is not, you will bear the mark forever and it will always be a vulnerability.  Your enemies will use every weakness against you, as I suspect Beelzebub already has.”

I fight against his words, trying not to hear them or the meaning behind them.  A brutal race.  Killers.  Vulnerable.  Weak.  I am all of those things.  There is no denying it.  Not to myself, not to Zane and his family and certainly not to my brother.  “Can’t we choose to be different?  Aren’t the djinn born with freewill just as the humans are?”

“Is there not brutality here, Skye?  Is there not war and
pestilence, cruelty and rage?  Does having freewill prevent such things on this side of the veil?”

He is speaking to me as if I’m a child.  “Yes, Malik, all of those things
exist here.  But there is also good.  There is love, kindness, generosity, forgiveness.  Don’t those things exist behind the veil?  Are we from a race so brutal, so remorseless, we are no longer capable of such things?”

I see the pain in Malik’s eyes.  As much as I didn’t want to hear his words, he doesn’t want to hear mine.  Just above a whisper, he says, “Yes.”  I’m not sure if he’s talking about the djinn or about himself.

A chill follows the path of my spine.  Crossing my arms tightly over my chest, I say, “Then what am I supposed to save?”

“There is hope, Skye.  There is always hope.”

The dichotomy between those words and his earlier ones makes my mind reel. “How can there be hope when there is no remorse for evils committed?”

A sad smile touches his lips.  “There are some with hearts purer than mine.  You will give them hope, show them a different way to exist.”

I stare at him for a long moment.  Finally, I say, “Do you have hope, Malik?”

His answer is just as long in coming.  At last, he says, “I have faith in
you
.”

“Is that different than hope?”

Malik goes back to staring at the trees.  “You asked me the same question when you were a young girl.”

“What did you tell me?”  Another memory lost to whatever spell was used to erase my previous life.

The corner of his mouth curls up.  “I told you that hope implies there is a chance that what you desire may not happen.  Faith denies that possibility.”

He’s not making sense. 
“How can you have faith in me without faith in our race?”

He turns to me again.  “Even the broken need something to believe in.”

The pain on his beautiful face is tragic to witness.  I walk to him and wrap my arms around him, and in my mind, I remember doing it a thousand times before.  “You’re not broken.”

Wrapping his arms around me, Malik holds me close.  “You are the only one in the universe who believes that.”

My head against his heart, I reply, “Then the rest of the universe can go to hell.”  His shoulders shake slightly with laughter and he hugs me even tighter.

Chapter 17

Stepping back from my brother, I ask, “Does anyone else know about the binding?”

Malik shakes his head.  “I
forbade her to speak of it.”

My shoulders droop.  “Malik, I can’t keep this from Zane.  It’s too big, too devastating to our relationship if he was to find out another way.”

Malik cocks his head and assesses me.  “Does he really mean so much to you?”

I
’m not quite sure how to respond.  His question holds more than one inquiry.  Do I value my relationship with Zane above Malik’s desire to keep me safe?  Would I rather throw Malik under the bus making everyone hate him for what he has done because I won’t protect him as he protects me?  Is my loyalty first to Zane and then to Malik?  No.  “You’re my brother.  I will always be on your side.”

The beginnings of a smile form on his lips again.  “Tell your human lover the truth, Skye.”

“Must you keep calling him that?”

He chuckles.  “Fine, tell Zane the truth. 
Better?”

I nod.  “Yes.”

Malik’s voice sobers.  “Hold him close to your heart, Skye.  Each part of your heart that loves him puts a wedge between you and Roman’s mark.”

My
cheeks flush.  “I’m not with Zane because it’s the only way to stay away from Roman.”  Guilt crowds into my mind.  Maybe at first, but not any longer.

“You always led with your heart.  This time, I believe its heading in the right direction, even if Zane is human.
  His adoration for you is obvious and he treats you with respect.  He would give his own life to save yours.  He won’t lead you astray.”

I’m not sure what to think of
his comment so I change the subject.  “What about Brielle?  How do you feel about her, do you want her?”