Master and Apprentice (28 page)

Kit shuddered and bowed his head. He didn’t ask again.

All the moisture in my mouth and throat evaporated. “I’ll come back,” I said. “Swear to God I will. I have a score to settle with your leaders, and I’m going to get rid of them. One way or another.”

Billy’s hollow laugh echoed Kit’s earlier sentiments. “You can’t. You just a low-gen scrub, same as us. These bastards are gods.”

“Maybe. But I’m a thief, and I’m gonna steal their fire.”

Three sets of eyes regarded me with doubt. “If you say so.” Billy grimaced. “Better shag ass, thief. Somebody’ll be comin’ along soon, and they won’t wanna chat.”

I didn’t bother repeating the promise. I went for the table and climbed down after Ian, pulling the trapdoor shut after me, expecting to immediately hear shouts and pounding feet above. No one up there moved.

“Ian?” I whispered. My vision adjusted quickly to the dark, but I didn’t see him anywhere.

“Over here.” His voice came from a dimmer gray patch near the back of the building—the hollow spot Billy had mentioned. “They were not lying about the snare spell, at least.”

“Good.” I went invisible and made my way over. “We crawl out, you fly us away.”

“With all your newfound abilities, you cannot fly?”

“No. And I’m real broken up about it too.”

I wanted to imagine him grinning, but the picture wouldn’t form. His smiler was permanently out of order.

Small puffs of dust formed in the air as Ian squirmed his way out. I followed fast, forcing my throat closed so I wouldn’t cough. Outside, I stood and risked a quick glance around. The rows of buildings seemed quiet. No one occupied the immediate area. I didn’t feel any surges of angry power, didn’t hear any alarms or shouts. The kids inside were probably giving us a few minutes to get away.

Or it was a trap. I still couldn’t rule that out.

I found the slight depressions in the dirt that marked Ian’s position. Feeling for him was awkward, but once I made contact I could see him. I threw up a shield around us both. Ian gave me a strange, questioning look, but he didn’t say anything. He turned his back and I held on. Christ, this part always made me feel like an idiot.

Ian tensed and took off. In less than a minute, we cleared the compound fence and headed out over the endless forest. No one came out to stop us.

That sealed it for me. I’d come back and free them. Somehow.

“C
an you get to the monastery?” I shouted over the rushing air.

Ian took a long time replying. “That does not seem wise. We should evade them.”

“I don’t think they’re going to look there, and there’s something I have to check out.” Ian didn’t know about the fire. I had to hope they wouldn’t expect us to head somewhere so obvious. At least not right away. I suspected they’d try there eventually, though. All of them were smarter than the average Morai.

I caught myself thinking in generalizations and stopped. That was a bad idea. Besides the turning-into-snakes part, I couldn’t assume I knew anything about any of them—the full-bloods or the scions. They were individuals, just like people.

Aside from deciding where to land, neither of us tried to chat in-flight. I knew I’d have to talk to him soon, and the conversation wouldn’t be easy or pleasant. But that could wait until we weren’t rushing along five hundred feet from the ground—which was something I was trying really hard not to look at. I watched the sky for a while. It was gray and overcast,
deepening to almost black in a few spots, the thick kind of cloud cover that made it impossible to tell where the sun hid. I’d lost track of time so completely that even if the sun was out, I wouldn’t know whether it was late morning, afternoon, or early evening. I was on survival time now. Every minute I didn’t die stretched to five or ten on the flip side.

I smelled the monastery before it came into view, an uneasy blend of charred wood, spent magic, and death. Ian stiffened beneath me, giving me momentary flashbacks of our unplanned skydive before I realized he’d caught the scent too. “They burned it down,” I said. I didn’t bother explaining who “they” were. It’d be hard enough convincing him that it hadn’t been Calvin beating the shit out of him for the last two days.

He relaxed a fraction. Soon enough, the remains of the place were visible. Calvin had been right about the fire not burning farther than the building. In fact, it didn’t even look like any of the ground outside what used to be walls had been scorched. The pile of blackened rubble remained a perfect square. The stone wall bordering the grounds, and the statue of St. Jude, were untouched. At least the bodies of the three scions I’d shot were gone.

I leaned closer to Ian. “Can you take us down at the back, where that phone booth is?”

He didn’t say anything, but we dropped lower and came in where I asked. I slid from him with a familiar swell of gratitude for solid ground under my feet.

Ian staggered a few steps and sat down abruptly, his back to me.

I stood there, torn between investigating my hunch and talking to him. Everything in his body language said
fuck off—
slumped shoulders, bowed head, arms tucked in defensively. But we wouldn’t be able to stay in one place for
long until this whole mess was settled one way or another. And there were things he had to know, even if he refused to believe them.

I circled him and sat on the ground facing him. “Are you still hurt? Physically, I mean.”

“Tired.”

“Yeah, me too.” I sighed and fidgeted. Where should I start? “Look, Ian. I have to tell you—”

“The children let us go.”

He spoke with horrified discovery, like he’d just waded into the ocean for the first time and found it full of blood instead of water. Whatever I felt, it had to be infinitely worse for him. He’d spent a thousand years hating the Morai, killing them, and it wasn’t all because of the curse. He wanted them wiped out.

“They fear me.” His body curled in tighter. “Children. I would never …”

“It’s a cult,” I said. “They’re brainwashed, at least the older ones. But I don’t think it’s taking so well for these younger guys. Ian, they’ve grown up hearing stories about you. Lies. Or at least embellishments. They can’t help it.”

He shuddered. “They are too strong. I have failed … everyone.”

“We’re not done yet.”

Ian lifted his head. He didn’t speak, but his eyes said everything. He was done, even if I wasn’t. He had no fight left in him. If I couldn’t get him to care, I’d be on my own.

“Don’t you want to know how I learned all this weird shit?”

He blinked. “Yes.”

“Calvin taught me.”

“You …” For an instant life flashed into his features. He
went slack again fast. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“Because it’s the truth.” Once I started, the words wouldn’t stop. “He has a twin sister. She looks exactly like him. Sounds just like him too. Her name is Vaelyn, and she’s batshit nuts. She’s the one who’s been working you over. See, she’s coming into her cycle, she knows you’re already fertile, and she wants a djinn baby. Calvin knows a spell that temporarily restores a djinn’s reproduction, for three days. That’s how they got these scions.”

Ian held up a hand. A cautious interest crept into his expression. “Slow down, thief.” He frowned. “This still does not make sense. A female could not have produced these descendants and become fertile again so soon.”

“They’re not hers,” I said. “The twins have a brother. He’s the one those kids keep calling Father, even though he’s not. Their father, I mean. He’s their grandfather, or something. He impregnated a bunch of human women, and had his spawn breed again when they got older. Now they’re working on generation three.”

“There are three djinn?”

“Yes, but Calvin isn’t on their side.”
I hope.
“He was with me, trying to teach me how to use my power, and they came for him. He helped me get away.”

Ian shook his head. “I am trying, thief. But I cannot believe a Morai would help anyone associated with me. And what could he possibly know of your abilities?”

“Earth magic.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s been studying this realm for two thousand years. He said the human sorcerers died out, but the magic is still here. I can use it.” I pressed a palm to the ground and felt the warmth bleed through me. “I think I have to be in contact with the
earth somehow. But it doesn’t hurt to use, like djinn magic does.”

“Of course,” Ian whispered. “If there is magic native to your realm, you should be able to use it as we can our own in the djinn realm.”

“Right. Only problem is, I have no idea what I can do. It’s not exactly common for humans to wander around using magic. You guys all grew up with it.”

Ian sat up straighter. “How did you get to me?”

“I used the ground, the same way you use mirrors. Only it’s backward. There has to be blood on the other end to guide me, instead of me providing it on this end.” I glanced away. “Plenty of your blood on the floor back there.”

“Hmm.” A pained look crossed his face, and he fell silent and retreated into himself again.

“Ian,” I said. “There’s something else you need to know.”

“I suspect I will not wish to hear it.”

“Yeah. You won’t.” I traced a finger idly through dirt. I hated to mention anything associated with Akila, but there was no getting around it. “Your fertility isn’t the only reason these assholes wanted you. The brother is working for Kemosiri.”

Ian jerked stiff and went deathly pale. His eyes flared wide. For a minute I thought he’d pass out. Finally, he let out a breath and slumped on the spot. “Perhaps I should save him the trouble and present myself to Kemosiri,” he said. “I have no reason to fight him any longer.”

I wanted to tell him he was wrong. To assure him that he had something to live for, a purpose in being here. But anything I said would’ve came out awkward and meaningless. I couldn’t even point out that nothing would have changed what happened, because I knew he’d find in hindsight a hundred things he failed to do, that he never could’ve guessed needed to
be done. I’d torture myself the same way if anything happened to Jazz. And I’d never stop.

I leaned back and stared at the threatening sky. Above the clearing that held the remains of the monastery, a lone bird flew in looping circles, catching air currents and banking with graceful ease. It completed a circle and wobbled. Then dropped a few feet.

The bird steadied, made a tight loop, and dove straight for us.

My jaw fell in my lap. “Ian,” I said. “Did I mention that Tory escaped?”

He favored me with a bleak stare. “No.”

“Incoming.” I pointed.

The bird—definitely a hawk, a big one—was fifty feet away now, and shuddering like a plane with a blown engine. It gave a few feeble flaps of its wings, failed to straighten out, and hit the ground rolling. It glowed when it stopped, the shape of it swelling and forming arms, legs, torso, head.

Tory flopped on his back with a gasp. “I don’t suppose either of you has a frog or a rabbit on you,” he said in cracked tones. “Never been very good at that whole dive-and-snatch thing.”

A laugh ejected from my throat before I could stop it—and Ian cracked a hint of the first genuine smile I’d seen from him in days. It wouldn’t last, but it was nice to pretend for a minute that we would be around long enough to feel normal again.

It took Tory a few minutes to remember he wasn’t a bird. He’d been circling the mountain for two days, looking for me. His shock at finding both of us settled in after he stopped compulsively scanning the area for small game and trying to clean his feathers.

I brought him up to speed—the unexpected effects of the soul bind, the twins, the brother, the kids who’d helped us get out. He avoided looking at Ian while I talked. When I finished, he ran his fingers through his hair and grimaced. “They’ll come after us,” he said. “I’m sure they’re already looking. I don’t know … fuck.” He broke off hard, stared at the ground. “I thought you were dead, Ian. I left you there alone. Shit. I would’ve come for you. I swear I would’ve.”

“You would have been destroyed.” Ian roused himself from his stupor and cast him a stricken gaze. “Do not punish yourself for that, Taregan. I am glad you escaped.” He clasped his knees to his chest. “Though I do wish you had not followed me there. What they made you do …”

Confusion flickered through Tory’s mask of misery. “What did they make me do?”

“You do not know?”

“I do,” I said. “I saw it.” The unwanted memory branded me—being in Ian’s head, watching Tory come after him with a knife, the horrified out-of-control expression on his face. “They made you torture him. They were controlling you.”

“No. They couldn’t have.” Tory looked from me to Ian, then back to me. “They swarmed us the second we got there. There were so many. I tried fighting them, but they were human and … well, hawks aren’t very lethal to humans, so I didn’t bother trying that. I knocked some of them out, but I couldn’t kill them. Ian must’ve taken a dozen of them before they brought him down.” He swallowed and dropped his gaze. “That’s when I took off. I knew you were supposed to destroy him, and I couldn’t … I just couldn’t.”

“Impossible.” Ian’s voice wavered and dipped. “You
were
there. You cut me. You broke my bones. They took control of you, used you.”

Tory looked like he’d been gutted with a dull spoon. “I didn’t,” he whispered. “I swear, Ian, whatever you saw, it wasn’t me. I wouldn’t have let them take me like that. Not to torture you. Never.”

“Shit,” I blurted out. “It was the brother.”

They both stared at me.

“Calvin and Vaelyn’s brother. It was him. He tricked Calvin into casting the fertility spell on him by making himself look like a different djinn, a guy Calvin thought was a scholar like him. He must’ve taken Tory’s form.” The only reasoning I could think of for it disgusted me almost as much as the way they used the kids. “He did it because it’d hurt you more.”

“Hold on.” Tory’s hands clenched and turned his knuckles an angry white. “The Morai can’t do that. It’s powerful illusion magic. Only the older Bahari can pull off shit like that.” He pounded the ground with a fist. “This whole thing reeks. Nothing is right.”