Chapter 43 #2
“Vampires,” I finished. I backed up until I hit the wall. Pouran began muttering prayers, while Zain joined Keyon in attacking the vampires. They each took one, leading them away from us.
Vampires fed off fear—that was what Zain had told me—but it was hard to hide such an emotion now.
I watched as Zain effortlessly punched one, its shadows staggering backward, the hissing snarls growing louder.
It rushed him, pushing him onto his back, its teeth bared.
Zain didn’t seem concerned, even though he was on the floor.
In fact, he appeared to be more irritated that he was getting himself dirty on the floor. “I was trying to play nice, but fine.”
In one swift move his hands were gripping the vampire’s shadowy head, a tender touch, until he snapped it to the right, yanking it clean off its body and throwing it across the room.
At the same time, Keyon used his dagger to press the blade into the other vampire’s chest. Both vampires crumbled into dust, which might have been a beautiful show of symmetry if it weren’t so horrifying.
“You need to go inside and get the object now,” Pouran hissed at Azar and me. More shadows emerged, Zain and Keyon fighting them off.
“What’s the object?” I asked, hand on the door handle.
“No one knows,” Pouran said.
“So we’re supposed to just go in there and guess?” Azar asked, watching as more shadows emerged. Zain and Keyon were fighting two, and then three, each, and while they made it look easy, it wouldn’t be long until more came. We had to get out of here.
I pressed down on the handle, opening the door.
“You will sense the aura,” Pouran said. “You are of the same spiritual blood. The basements are not warded, so your magic, and essence that comes with it, is free to roam here.”
The room was completely black, too, and my eyes had only marginally adjusted to the dark. It didn’t seem wise to enter when I could see nothing in the room, so I willed fire into my palms until both my hands shone with flickering flames. My powers appeared to work down here.
“I don’t think that’s quite the purpose of your power, but sure,” Azar said, stepping around me to enter the room.
As we made our way inside, it appeared more like a storage closet than a place in which Zahhak’s soul was kept.
Shelves with books, vases, and bric-a-brac lined the walls.
It reminded me of my mum’s junk cupboard back in Hull.
Grunting and slow, long hisses were audible from in here. We had to be quick. I looked over my shoulder, and Pouran stood by the entryway.
“Aren’t you going to come in?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It’s warded against anyone who is not royal.” Her face turned ashen, and she backed away, out of view. A shadow crossed the doorway, heading toward Pouran outside.
I leaped out to find Pouran in the corner, dagger raised in front of her. She muttered her prayers, though who exactly they were to I wasn’t sure. “One step forward and I’ll gut you,” she said through gritted teeth, but it felt like an empty promise, fear coating her words.
“Pouran, they feed off fear!” I shouted.
“I know that,” she said.
Zain and Keyon had their hands full on the other side of the hallway. They were battling far too many shadows. Even though her words were sharp, it was clear Pouran wasn’t that skilled in fighting. The shadow charged, knocking her dagger out of her hand. It clattered to the ground.
With the flames emitting weakly from my palms, I didn’t have to think as I flung one of the fireballs at the shadowy figure.
The thing growled, stumbling into the wall and turning to me.
I wasted no time as I flung the other ball in my left hand at it with more force.
This time, it was set alight and began to cry.
Azar jumped ahead of me, grabbing the fallen dagger and then pressing it into the vampire’s chest. It crumbled beneath her into nothing more than dust.
“Thank you,” Pouran breathed.
I brought forth more flames, the act easy now, second nature.
Azar shook her head in amazement, and we went back into the room. “What exactly should we be looking for?” she asked Pouran, who returned to the doorway.
“It will speak to you when you’re near it. It could be anything. Typically, a soul is put into a container.”
“Like a genie in a lamp?” I asked.
“Are you speaking of One Thousand and One Nights?” Pouran asked.
“No, she’s talking about Aladdin,” Azar said, running her index finger along the shelf, coating it in an ungodly amount of dust.
“I don’t know of that,” Pouran said. “But yes, lamps can be used, bottles, vases, even books. All the item needs is a spell to contain the soul within.”
“Roxana!” Zain yelled. “Do you think you might be able to find it soon?”
I let out a cry of frustration as I scoured the shelves. I didn’t know what the hell we were supposed to be searching for—there was no moment in which any of these useless things spoke to me. Azar began flinging items off the shelves and throwing them to the ground.
“What are you—” I began.
“If any of them are him, we may as well break them now, right?”
“Sure,” I said, following her lead and throwing everything to the ground.
Smashing vases, picture frames, stomping on hardcover books, bending their spines.
When I reached for a tome with a thick spine, it wouldn’t budge from the shelf.
I yanked, feeling resistance, using all my might until a perceptible click sounded.
The shelves swung open, hitting Azar and me, and causing us to stumble.
“What the—” Azar began, until she saw it. This room led to another smaller room. Within it, there was only one table, and atop it—
Welcome, came a voice. It spoke from the gold samovar on the table.
Azar’s shoulder brushed mine as she took a step back from the object.
“A samovar?” Azar whispered. “His soul is contained within something used to boil water for tea?”
“Can you hear it?” I whispered. And rather than move away from it, my legs brought me toward it.
Azar only nodded.
The warrior and the traitor, the voice said. You are here to do the bidding of those of light? Of those who detest you?
More grunting, clashing of metal, and hissing. So loud it filled the entire room. We had to hurry. I stumbled over my feet and wrapped my hands around the urn. It was ice cold to the touch. The gold was smooth and slippery in my fingers.
I locked eyes with Azar as I raised it in the air.
Think of what you do, it hissed. Betraying your people, so insolent, he will kill you over a thousand coals, much worse than you ever remembered.
She nodded as I slammed the urn down. The lid fell off, but it didn’t break.
I willed the flames to lick my palms as I threw fireball after fireball at the metal urn, watching as the metal melted into the ground.
Azar created shadows that pushed the flames this way and that, pulling the urn apart until all that remained was warped bits of metal.
The palace vibrated, as though an earthquake had hit.
“Did it work?” I whispered.
“I hope so,” Azar said as we rushed into the hallway.
The ground was covered in ash—or rather, vampire remains.
Keyon had just finished killing a vampire, and Zain stood a little closer to us, bent down as he helped Pouran up.
Her face was pale, and she had been sitting on the floor.
Seeing her look so vulnerable confirmed something I already knew.
Not all jinn were the same, the idea that they were all evil and sadistic false.
Maybe Zain was finally seeing it too, from the way he gripped her and asked if she was okay.
She nodded shakily, dusting herself off.
“We found his soul,” I told them. “But it felt too easy.”
“That’s because you need to actually kill him now,” Pouran said faintly. “Destroying his soul broke his immortality, but he’s still alive and more powerful than most jinn.”
Zain joined me and put his hand on my back, rubbing soothing circles there.
“He’ll know what we’ve done. We have to go,” Keyon said, moving to the foot of the staircase. “Now.”
We rushed back up the steps, quickening our pace, sweat wicking my brow. All I could hear were our shallow breaths. We headed back to the ballroom, the garden in view, when we realized things were about to get a whole lot more complicated.
An army of royal jinn soldiers stood outside. They parted to reveal Zahhak at its center, snarling.
“Now you die.”