Burn For Him (23 page)

Harper stood up abruptly.  “Demonic elements? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that he is like nothing we have ever dealt with before.  Did you get hold of Rhetka?”

“Not yet.”

“Good.  She wouldn’t be able to help us without all the information.”

“But, what exactly does this mean?” Harper sounded confused and he wasn’t the only one.  I couldn’t blame him. This was way too much for me to be able to follow.

“I don’t really know, not yet.  I just know that we aren’t going to be able to negotiate our way out of this one.  You can’t negotiate with Demons.” Marissa shook her head sadly.

“Doesn’t that mean that you can just kill him, then? If he’s not what we thought he was, doesn’t that make it simpler?” I asked the pair of them.

“No.  It’s still not as simple as all of that. He is still part Shaitan.  His clan would not let his death go unpunished.  It doesn’t really matter to them about the Demon part of him.  Plus, it wouldn’t be all that easy, anyway.  Demons are, well, you would probably call them our sort of cousins.  Our stronger cousins.” She looked from me to Harper.  “I don’t know if Rhetka will have a solution for this.  We might be on our own.”

Harper didn’t say anything.  He started to pace around the room. I wished that he would stop.  Watching him pacing was making me more nervous and anxious.

“So, what can we do?” I asked them both.  Neither of them seemed inclined to answer.  Well, that seemed ominous.  I didn’t know what it was that we were fighting.  They did. And, they still didn’t have a clue. Great.

I didn’t say a word as I got up.  They didn’t bother to try and stop me from leaving the room.  I knew that I wasn’t going to be going far, just as they knew. I went only into the kitchen to put my phone on charge. 

I called through to the hospital. I needed to check that Destiny was okay.  After knowing that Milligan was there, anything could have happened.  As it was, the nurse who answered the phone spoke to me like I was going crazy, telling me that nothing had happened in the last hour since I went into see her.  I didn’t really care what she thought of me. I was just relieved that Destiny was alright.  Well, as alright as Milligan had left her.

“Is she okay?” Harper asked me from the doorway, making me jump at his sudden appearance.  I hadn’t heard him come into the room.

              “Yeah, she’s fine. Just the same.”

Harper stepped into the kitchen and looked at me solemnly, “I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you from this.”

“You’ve got nothing to apologise for.  None of this is your fault.”

“But, I missed all the signs. I should have known.” Harper sounded like he was beating himself up. “I should have known that there was a Djinn involved.  I should have paid more attention.  Marissa picked up on it the moment that she came into contact with Dee.  Why didn’t I?”

“You weren’t looking for it.  You had no idea.  She did.”

“But, I should have.  That’s why I’m here.  I’m here to protect you.  I failed you.” Harper looked grief stricken.  I knew that no matter what I said that he would still feel this way.  I had to try, though.  I had to let him know that he wasn’t to blame in any way, shape or form.

“You haven’t failed anyone. I mean that.  None of this is your fault.  The only person to blame is Milligan.  This is his fault, no one else’s.” In that very moment, it was like I really could see the truth in the matter.  Milligan really was the only one to blame.  Harper couldn’t have prevented it. I couldn’t have stopped it.  Once Milligan had set his sights on me, there had been no going back.  He started all of this.  But, we were the ones that were going to finish it.  There was no use wallowing in self-pity like this.  We had to think what to do next.  We had to make a plan.

We had to do something.

“Who can you talk to? Will there be anyone who knows how we can stop him?”

Harper looked a little taken aback at my sudden change of pace.  “I’m not too sure yet.”

“Well, will any of your clan know something about this?”  I didn’t know how the whole clan thing worked, but it was as good a place to start as any.

“Again, I’m not sure.”

“Well, why don’t you go and find out.  Go to sleep, or do whatever it is that you have to do.” I grinned at him.

“We don’t sleep.” Harper playfully rolled his eyes at me.

“What? Never?”

“Never.”

Well, I hadn’t really expected to hear that when I first started teasing him. “You don’t sleep at all?” I asked again, just to make sure that I was hearing him correctly.

“Not at all. When it looks like we’re sleeping, we are simply leaving our human bodies, or our shells if you like, and we go to our higher plane.  It’s quite a handy thing really, that way it doesn’t look too strange to the humans that we live with.” Harper grinned and laughed at the expression on my face.

“Okay.  Too much information.”

“Awwwww.  Am I freaking you out?” He laughed.

“Just a tad.” I laughed.  “I don’t need to know exactly what you do.  Just go and do it.” I shoved him towards the direction of his bedroom.

“Will you keep an eye on Marissa for me?”

“Of course I will.” I was surprised that he even bothered to ask.  What did he think I was going to do? Leave her to her own devices? He knew me better than that.  He gave me a kiss on the cheek and went into his bedroom without another word.

Marissa was laid with her eyes closed on the sofa when I walked back in.  She was looking much better now than she had before.  There was some colour coming back into her cheeks.  She opened her eyes as I drew near her.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Better, thank you.” She smiled a little more strongly this time.  She propped herself up on one elbow and looked over at me.  “I’m going to see what I can find out.  To you, it might look like I’m sleeping, but –“

I put up a hand to stop her from explaining it any further. “I just went through all of this with Harper.  You take your nap.  Knock yourself out.  I don’t need to know the details.  I’m going to watch a DVD so I hope you don’t snore.” I smiled at her to let her know that I was kidding.  Sort of.

Marissa laughed.  “No.  I don’t snore.  We don’t really sleep.”

“Enough.” I held my hands over my ears like a little kid and she laughed again.

“Okay, okay. I won’t say anything else.”

“Good.  I can’t stand people being noisy when I’m trying to watch a film.” I threw her an amused look but she had already closed her eyes and it really did look like she was drifting off to sleep.

I decided to attempt another cup of coffee.  I was absolutely shattered.  I didn’t want all three of us to be sleeping at the same time.  Sure, I knew that Harper and Marissa weren’t actually sleeping, but they weren’t anywhere that I could easily bring them back from.  I couldn’t remember the phrase that Marissa had told me before so I guessed that I would just have to wait for them to come back from that other plane that they kept telling me about.

I sat back down and stared at the television.  I couldn’t even remember what film I had put on.  I could feel my eyelids starting to droop.  I couldn’t fight it. I was too tired and they just wouldn’t stay open.

“Holy crap!”

That yell brought me out of the light sleep and I sloshed coffee all over my legs.  Again.  I think that someone was telling me to give up trying to drink that disgusting stuff.  It was gross and I was more than happy never to have it ever again.  I looked over at Marissa with wide eyes.  She was now sat upright, looking like she had found the answers to world peace.  I had never seen such a jubilant smile before.

“What is it?” I asked, coming fully wide awake in the blink of an eye.

She turned to look at me slowly with a look of wonder on her face.  “I know what we need to do.”

Chapter Seventeen

“I know what we need to do.”

“What?”

She jumped up off of the sofa, showing no signs of the pain that she had been going through earlier.  “I need to get Harper.  We can’t do this without him.” And she raced off towards his bedroom. 

I took the time while she was gone to wipe myself down again. I was just lucky that the coffee had been stone cold this time.  My trousers were soaked through.  I really did need to change them.  But, as I heard their footsteps returning, I knew that I didn’t have the time.  I would just have to sit in wet trousers and suck it up.  This was more important than a little bit of discomfort.

They both waited until all three of us were seated before diving ahead.  “Tell us everything.” Harper said, looking eager.

“I spoke to Rhetka.  She couldn’t help us.  She had never heard of anything like this before.  She sent me to go and talk to Raina.  You know how knowledgeable she is.” Marissa and Harper exchanged a look between them that I didn’t understand.  But I didn’t want to interrupt and ask her who she was talking about.  I wanted to hear everything else that she had to say.  “She was very shocked at first.  I told her everything that you had told me and I told her everything that I felt.  I told her all about your friend Destiny and what happened at the hospital when Milligan drew nearer to me.  She hadn’t heard of anything quite like this, either.”

“So, did she have any suggestions?”

“Well, you know Rhetka.  She can be a little out there at times.  But, we spoke further and she thinks that an exorcism and a binding spell would work best here.”

“But, how can we do that? The clan will want to take revenge on us.  I can’t put everyone at risk like that.” Harper pointed out.

“I did mention that to her.  She thought of another way around that.  Rhetka said that we need to be able to individualise him.  We need to cut him off from his clan so that they don’t know what we’re doing to him.  Rhetka also said that they should not seek revenge as we are not actually ending his existence.  We are simply binding and imprisoning him.”

Harper nodded like he understood what she was saying.  I didn’t.  I hated to ask a stupid question, but I couldn’t hold it in a moment longer.  “You mean like a genie in a bottle? One that he can’t get out of?”

I half expected them to both laugh, but surprisingly enough, they both nodded.  “Yes. Essentially that’s right.  He’d be bound with water.  We are beings that are made of smokeless fire.  The water will stop him from being able to take form again.  Oh, and it needs to be holy water.” She looked at Harper when she said the last part and he nodded.  I didn’t know where we were supposed to get holy water from, but he obviously did.

“But, I thought that you said that all of those stories weren’t even real?” I looked at him puzzled.

“I said that we couldn’t grant wishes. I said we don’t live in bottles. I didn’t say anything much else about the rest of it.  Plus, in actual fact, I hadn’t ever thought that binding a Djinn would ever work.  I guess that I was wrong.”

“It won’t be easy, I can guarantee you that.  We need to find the correct incantations and a suitable vial to hold him in for an eternity.  It’s not going to be easy.” Marissa warned us.

“Well, I guess that we had better start looking into it.”

“Yes.  We don’t have much time.  If we do this, Rhetka says that it has to be tonight.  The moon is at its fullest which will help to strengthen the bond.  And, we need all the help that we can get.”

“Tonight?” I asked, shocked by how fast everything was moving.

Marissa smiled at me warmly.  “Don’t worry.  We can do this.”

“But, tonight?” I feared that we wouldn’t be ready, no matter how confident Marissa was.

“Yes. It has to be tonight.” Marissa said firmly.

“Where do we look?” Harper asked her. Marissa was clearly running this show.

“Internet.” Marissa replied as she dug her phone out of her pocket.  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.  They were supposed to be these supernatural creatures and they were looking for some mystical incantation, I thought that they would have been looking for something a little more otherworldly and sophisticated than the internet.

“But, how will we know what works and what’s a load of crap?”

Marissa carried on tapping away on her phone.  “Show us.  We’ll be able to tell which ones are genuine.”

I raised an eyebrow but made no further comment.  I had to trust that they knew what they were doing here.  I didn’t, so I just had to follow their lead.  I opened up Google with a grin to myself.

“What about this one?” I tried to hide a grin as I turned the laptop screen around to face them both.  Harper burst out laughing, but Marissa took my suggestion seriously.

“Not quite what we’re looking for.  I don’t think that it will work for us.” She said as she squinted at the screen.

Harper laughed again, “I don’t think that ‘Supernatural’ is going to help us out much here.  The Winchesters rock, though.”

“Damn straight the Winchesters rock. Dean and Sam would kick Milligan’s ass.” I said with a wink.  Marissa looked confused by our exchange.  I simply shook my head at her and got back to work. 

I wasn’t really getting very far as I didn’t know really what it was that I was looking for.  I tried showing them a couple more articles, but they still weren’t right.  After a while I decided to check out what was happening on Twitter and Facebook to pass the time.  It was all quite amusing to see the sorts of things that people were stressing out over on their statuses.  It was nothing compared to my own Djinn/Demon shenanigans.  What I wouldn’t give to only have to worry about what I was going to wear tonight.  Saying that, though, I doubted that I would ever willingly step foot in another nightclub again.

“I’ve got it!” Harper jumped up to show Marissa something on his iPad.  I didn’t bother to get up and go and look.  I knew that it wouldn’t make any sense to me, anyway.  I carried on scrolling through Google.  I was back to looking for anything that seemed to combine Djinn, demon’s and strange Latin chants.

“Here, come and look at this, Carrie.” Harper said as he turned to me.  “This is what will shield Milligan from the rest of his clan so they won’t know what’s happening to him.” I looked.  I had to.  I had no choice when he shoved the screen virtually under my nose.  As I’d thought, it made not the slightest bit of sense to me.  Latin mumbo jumbo.

“Cool.” I said, trying to sound enthused, but failing.

Harper sat on the arm of the sofa and looked at the laptop.  “Wait a minute.  Go back.” He said as he pointed at the screen.

I clicked to go back a page and looked up at him as he read it.  “That’s it! That’s the binding spell! Well done, Carrie! You found it!” I looked back at the screen but I clearly wasn’t seeing what he was seeing.  More Latin, that’s all.

“Can you print that out for me, please? And, this one too?” He asked as he passed me over his phone.  I nodded.  At least that would give me something practical to do.

“So, we’ve got the incantations for the binding and the individualisation, so now we just need to find the right exorcism.” Marissa said as she carried on scanning through her phone.

It was strange for me how totally normal this all felt. We were talking about getting rid of Milligan using some kind of magical spell.  Yep, totally normal stuff.

“I’d better go and get the things that we need.” Harper said.  He popped his head into my bedroom where I was turning on the printer and loading up the paper.  “I’m going to have to search the city for some of this stuff.  Is there anything I can get for you while I’m out?”

I shook my head at him. The only thing I needed was to be rid of Milligan.

“What’s wrong, Carrie?” He asked as he stepped into my bedroom.

“Everything’s wrong, Harper.  Is this really going to work?”

“Honestly? I’m not really sure.  It’s the only thing we’ve got to try at the moment. But, remember, if this doesn’t work, we’ll keep on going until we find the right thing.  That I can promise you.”

“I know, Harp. I’m just scared.”

He nodded.  “It’s right to be scared.  If you weren’t, I’d be even more worried about you.  This is huge.  You should be scared.”

I didn’t say anything else to him. I didn’t need to.  I watched him as he turned and walked out.

I called to Marissa to see if she wanted a drink or anything, but she declined the offer. I grabbed a can of Coke and walked back into the living room.  “Any joy?” I asked her.

“Not yet.  I feel like I’m getting close, though.”

There wasn’t much more for me to do. The incantations were printed and laying on the coffee table.  I walked over to the window.  I saw Harper pulling away in his car.  I wondered what else he needed to get.  I knew that holy water and some kind of vial or bottle was on his list.  I dread to think what else he might need to do this.

Within seconds of him driving away, I saw another car pulling up in its place.  I knew that car.  I sucked in a breath when Milligan got out of the driver’s side and leant casually against the car, looking straight up at my window.  I froze when his eyes met my gaze.  A sudden rush of longing ran through me.  I gripped at the ledge of the window so tightly that my knuckles turned white.  He just kept on staring.  I didn’t want to feel like that.  I really didn’t.  I didn’t want to think how badly I wanted him to come up here and take me any way he liked.  My finger nails dug into the plastic frame.  Pain flickered through my fingertips.  Pain I could concentrate on.  Pain seemed to take over the lust that I was feeling.  I felt a victorious grin forming on my face.  I could finally find a way to get over what I was feeling.  I felt so good to know that he didn’t have to have this hold over me.

I knew that he must have felt my resistance.  A shadow seemed to fall across his face.  He grimaced before yanking the car door open again and the car quickly screeched off down the street.

I turned to see Marissa studying me.  “What just happened?” She put a hand to her head, rubbing at her temples gently while looking at me intently.  “He was here, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you grinning like that?” She sounded and looked confused, but I couldn’t blame her for that.  She had to be wondering why I was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“I fought him off.” I said triumphantly.

“What do you mean?”

“I felt the lust trying to take me over and I didn’t let it.”

She stood up, looking suitably astounded.  “How? How did you do that?”

“I felt my own pain.  It wasn’t much either, but it was enough to be able to fight him off.”

“Do you realise what this means? This is amazing!” She looked as good as I felt.

“It’s great, isn’t it?”             

“It’s more than that.  If you can find a way to keep him out, he won’t be as powerful.  It will make it easier for us to be able to bind him.”  No wonder she looked quite so happy.  This little development was a definite plus. “And to make it even better, I think that I’ve found the incantation for the exorcism.  I need to check out a couple of things, but I think we’re nearly set.” She grinned over at me again.  “I can’t wait for Harper to get back.  So much has happened.”

“He’s only been gone ten minutes.”

“It shouldn’t take him long to get back.”

I sat back down on the sofa.  I didn’t know what to do with myself.  “So, what’s going to happen? Tonight, I mean.”

“Let’s wait until Harper gets back and then I only have to explain it all once.” She said, glancing back up from her phone, looking straight back down as if to dismiss me.

I fell silent.  Marissa clearly was too busy for further conversation. I didn’t have any other questions for her that sprung to mind.  I was just going to have to wait.  I sighed loudly.  I would wait but I never said that I would be patient about it.

“Can you print this one out for me, please?” Marissa held up her phone for me.  I took it off of her without a word.  All it seemed I was good for was photocopying and printing.  But, hey.  I knew that they would both have much harder jobs to do later, so who was I to grumble?

I heard the front door open and Harper walked back in, smiling in greeting as he paused at my bedroom door.  I didn’t bother running back into the living room after him.  I knew that Marissa would fill him in on what happened while he was out.  They didn’t need me in there.  I couldn’t really do anything to help them, I had nothing to contribute.  I was just human.  I didn’t understand any of what was going on.

“What’s wrong?” He asked as he came back to stand in the doorway to my bedroom.

“Nothing.” I tried to smile brightly.  “Everything?”

“You not fooling me, you know.” He looked over at me and narrowed his eyes.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot.  The emotion thing, right?”

“Talk to me, Carrie.”

“It’s nothing.  I’m fine.” I turned back to the printer, taking the pieces of paper to add to the pile of Latin mumbo jumbo that were waiting in the living room.

“It’s not nothing.  This would be a hell of a lot for anyone to take in.  You’ve learned a lot and had a lot to adjust to in such a short space of time.  Of course you’re not fine.”