Chapter 31
“What is this?” Castiel said, eyes narrowed in on me with distaste. I appeared to be the this.
Zain’s mentor was a Latino man in his forties, with bright blue eyes and short dark hair. He wore dark jeans, combat boots, and a Carhartt T-shirt, looking like he belonged at some millennial hipster brewery, and not like he was the conduit between Zain and the elders.
His apartment was in Central Park, an affluent area a fifteen-minute drive from my house.
The ceilings were high, the living room devoid of personality, all the furniture neutral and minimalist, like it was a show apartment.
Sage lingered in the air. I wrinkled my nose; I’d always hated the smell.
It was particularly strong now, irritating my senses.
Castiel crossed his arms, a good distance away from us on the other side of the living room.
“I need your help,” Zain said, his voice careful. He angled his body slightly in front of me, like he needed to protect me from his mentor. Objectively, it made no sense—this man was meant to be on Zain’s side—but he looked at me like he hated me.
I kept my chin lifted. I hated it here. I didn’t know why, but I did. The energy was off.
“Why would you bring one of them here, Zain?” Castiel asked, eyes still on me like I was a wild animal preparing to pounce at a moment’s notice.
I couldn’t see Zain’s facial expression but noticed the slackening of his shoulders. He edged forward, just an inch, blocking me from his mentor’s path. “We need your help,” Zain amended this time. “Roxana isn’t what you think—”
“Even if I am, I’d appreciate it if you both didn’t talk about me like I’m not standing right here.” I stepped out from behind Zain so we were shoulder to shoulder.
Zain’s eyes flickered to mine, and he sighed.
Distantly, I heard movement in another room, banging and grunting, metal clanging. I turned my head in the direction of the sound.
“There’s a training room here,” Zain explained, and I bristled.
There were other angels here? Remembering the ease with which Zain had snapped the neck of jinn stuck with me.
I wasn’t safe here; no wonder Zain had been trying to step between Castiel and me.
As though sensing my panic, Zain wrapped his hands around mine and murmured, “No one will hurt you here.”
“Debatable,” Castiel practically barked. I thoroughly disliked this man. “What are you doing, Zain? You didn’t bring the jinn here for us to kill, and you seem…close with her.” He raised an eyebrow at our joined hands.
“What do you know of Zal and Rabiya?” Zain asked.
Castiel’s eyes jumped from our faces back to our hands, and the words hung in the air. His mentor appeared as though he wanted to both cry and laugh, eyes tight, lips quirked upward. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He flicked his wrist, and I heard doors being locked. “Sit,” he ordered.
We perched on the end of one of the cream sofas, with Castiel opposite on a bouclé armchair. The air between us was thick, the sound of clanging metal in the other room far away now. “Zal and Rabiya,” Castiel mused. “You’re them?”
“It would appear so,” Zain said. “What do you know?”
“They’re perceived as an urban legend, though we all know they exist, that their souls are passed into new bodies every half a century or so.
The elders are secretive about when they land in new bodies, for obvious reasons, though I would have thought if my charge was one, I would have been informed.
” He looked closely at Zain, his eyes tight with something akin to sadness.
Then his gaze shot to me with nothing but pure hatred. I narrowed my own at him.
“Why would the elders be secretive about us?” I asked; it wasn’t obvious to me.
“You both really know nothing? You especially,” he said, pointing at me.
“I didn’t even know I was a jinn until a week ago,” I said.
At this, he let out a low laugh. “How does a jinn not know they’re a jinn? I could tell just by your scent.”
My mouth parted in horror at that. My scent.
“You didn’t know I was a jinn,” I said in a low voice to Zain.
He shook his head.
“Yes, well, Zain is a new angel. I’ve been at this game a long time now, and where there is jinn, there is smoke. It fills the room. Once you get a sense for it, you cannot ignore it.”
I couldn’t help but bow my head to the hem of my T-shirt and sniff. “You will not smell it,” Castiel added. “And perhaps Zain associated your scent with his past self’s foolish love for you, and maybe that blinded him from the truth.”
Zain stiffened in his seat next to me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, whether he would be swayed by his mentor’s words, his obvious distaste for me and my kind.
“I will concede, though, this one’s scent is more subtle,” Castiel added, like that was any consolation. “Like she’s attempting to mask it.”
The accusation was left in the air.
“We took a potion,” Zain admitted. “To stop jinn from tracking her.”
“Interesting,” Castiel said. “But she’s not a purebred jinn, is she?”
“No,” Zain confirmed.
“Still, a jinn is a jinn,” Castiel continued.
“What do you know about them—Zal and Rabiya?” Zain pressed again.
Castiel looked to his mentee for a moment before sighing, like he was disappointed.
“Zal and Rabiya’s story is not one of love but of manipulation and deceit.
Rabiya was a jinn princess living in Persia who was bored and wanted any opportunity to piss off her family.
She pushed the boundaries of what a jinn princess was allowed to do, mingling with humans, taking and discarding lovers, leaving a trail of men who were desperate to wed her.
And then she met Zal, one of the best angel warriors we had.
He was noble born but abandoned by his father at birth due to a superficial birth defect. He had extraordinary powers.
“Zal fought battles gallantly, was the best warrior ever known, led armies. But he fell, foolishly, for Rabiya, believing her to be human. She seduced him using her powers, and when he fell in love with her, only then did she tell him the truth. He was too entangled in her magic, her lies, to leave her. The problem was that she allegedly fell in love with him, too, despite hating his kind. They wouldn’t leave each other, and her father disowned her, encouraged by her grandfather, who hated nothing more than our kind.
They lived a life on the outskirts of Persia, in poverty. ”
I had to bite my lip, dig my fingernails into my thighs to stop from contradicting his words.
It was as though Rabiya was dormant within me, but upon hearing the rendition of our story as something out of a horror novel, rather than what it was, a love story, she wanted to break free to correct him.
I felt Zain shake his head, but rather than correct his mentor, he said, “And they had a child, right?”
Castiel’s mouth raised in a cruel smile; then he sighed. “Evil incarnate, yes.”
My hands were slick, and I pressed them against my skirt. Evil incarnate. I was unable to speak and kept my gaze on the beige rug that lay on the floor between us. Dust particles decorated the top layer of the fabric, and I had to focus on that or else I felt like I would scream.
“Zal and Rabiya were too wrapped up in each other, too blinded by infatuation that they didn’t end his life when they should have.
He was born with a black soul, eviler than any jinn before him, with the powers of both jinn and angel.
A force to be reckoned with. He matured much faster than any normal child, and by eight years old he was leading armies to rebel against order in Persia and beyond.
He caused devastation, genocides, war, famines.
Events that took great pains to erase from history books. ”
I shook my head. “No,” I said quietly, raising my head to be met with Castiel’s raised eyebrows.
“It would seem you’re not so dissimilar to Rabiya after all. Incapable of hearing the truth.”
“What happened then?” Zain asked, an edge to his voice. He put a strong hand on my waist and pulled me to him.
“Unnaturally, both sides came together. Even jinn were unhappy with this thing’s powers, the work it was doing.
There’s a balance between good and evil.
Both, to an extent, must exist for the world to function as God intended.
You cannot have a world that is purely good, with no evil.
Humans need tests, need the bad to appreciate the good, and vice versa.
“The jinn, though, were more pissed that they were being rendered obsolete. Lower jinn who enact smaller acts of evil were not being noticed, and the balance of the world was tipped too firmly in one direction. That, and jinn royalty does not like competition. This boy was unstoppable, unpredictable. He could have easily overthrown the Jinn King. And so, both light and dark exterminated him.”
“What was his name?” I asked, without even commanding my mouth to speak.
“Armeen.”
My heart swelled, and I had to shut my eyes.
“And how old was he when he was killed?” I asked.
“Eight years old.”
I snapped my gaze to Castiel. “He was just a child.” Younger than Ehsan.
“He was an abomination,” he said levelly.
Zain’s grip around my waist tightened. “And what? We were killed, and now we’re reborn to suffer the same fate?”
“A treaty was made between jinn and angel. No romantic union between a jinn and an angel can ever be forged again, to stop whatever Armeen was from existing once more. The problem is, as you know, some souls are reborn into new bodies each time they pass. And sadly, your souls are tied to each other. I’m unsure if Rabiya put a curse on you, Zain, but you two inevitably find your way back to each other, despite external efforts to avoid it. ”
“We were both born in Shiraz,” I said slowly, ignoring his accusation. “But I moved to England and you to America. Was that on purpose, to keep us apart?”
Castiel shrugged. “Probably. But like I said, no one told me that my mentee was Zal reborn. I know as little about your current predicament as you do.” His tone was laced with bitterness.
“We obviously don’t plan to have a child—we just want to live like somewhat normal teenagers,” Zain said.
Castiel leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “If you want to live, it’s simple: Stay away from each other.” He turned his gaze on me. “You go back to England. Forget you ever met each other. That’s the only way. Being together will only alert them.”
“Alert who?” I asked.
“The elders, the highest power of greater good,” Castiel said with reverence. “They’re immortal and remember all too well the destruction Armeen created. And Zahhak, if he knows you two have met…”
“Zahhak?” I asked, faintly recognizing the name.
“The Jinn King,” Castiel said.
“He already knows,” I said.
Castiel shot me daggers. “You’ve spoken to the Jinn King?”
“He’d been coming to my dreams, even before I knew what I was.”
“He organized a group of jinn to try to kill us in the middle of the road over a week ago,” added Zain.
“Well,” Castiel said. “You’re shit out of luck.”
Silence ensued. I turned to Zain, who looked somewhat devastated until he noticed me staring and softened his expression.
“What? That’s it?” I snapped.
“You’re already in contact with the Jinn King; there’s little that can be done. He knows you’re together. It doesn’t really matter if you’re together in that way, just being in the same room is enough to trigger feelings. To restart the cycle.”
“Why did you think he would help us?” I asked Zain, irritated. Castiel seemed to just want to rub how dire the situation was in our faces, and I couldn’t stand it. “And it stinks in this room.” I mumbled the last part, sick of the stench of sage.
Castiel made a clucking sound. “It’s meant to repel your kind.”
I shot him a dark look, which he ignored, directing his attention to Zain.
“Listen, it might not be too late for you. As long as you stay away from each other. Zain, remember your purpose. Remember, Hassan. You’ve been chosen to lead him.
You, no other angel. What love you have for this girl cannot be worth throwing away what you were born to do. ”
Despite my distaste for this man, his words rang true. No love could be placed before Zain’s duty, the good he had the potential to bring. Even as a part of me insisted he could have it all: love me and fulfill his destiny as an angel.
“Let’s go,” Zain said, standing and taking my hand.
“Wait,” Castiel said, voice strained, like he found this very difficult. He was clearly warring between wanting to help Zain and wanting to end me, which was just great. “You’re my charge, and I have to guide and protect you, no matter what.”
Zain’s jaw was set. “I can protect myself, protect Hassan, protect us.”
Castiel didn’t seem convinced. “If you insist on being with her, he’ll have to be reassigned to another angel.
But look, I’m going to go up later this afternoon and find out what they know.
In the meantime, don’t do anything hasty.
” He sighed, like what he was going to say next was very difficult for him.
“I’ll give you the details for a high-level sorcerer.
She can retrieve more details about your pasts. ”
“We can do that?” Zain asked. “See our past selves?”
“It’s not usually advised, but…” Castiel gave us long, assessing looks. “Your circumstances are exceptional.”
He reached across the coffee table for a notebook and scribbled an address before ripping the page and handing it to Zain. Then he flicked his hands, and the door unlocked. “Now go,” Castiel said. “I’m busy.”