Authors: Kristan Belle
“Yes. I know and I am sorry for your loss. But, to us, it doesn’t really seem all that long ago.”
“What do you mean?” I leant forward in my chair, my eyes never leaving hers.
“Carrie, we have a different kind of life span to you. Djinn are capable of living for thousands of years. It is more of an existence than a life. In our time on earth, we live several different lives. This is just one of many.” She gestured to her body.
“Wow. Impressive.”
Marissa giggled a tinkling laughter that seemed to caress my skin. “Yeah, I guess it is pretty impressive.”
“I’ve just had a thought.” Harper said, turning his attention to Marissa and taking her eyes away from me. That was actually fine by me, though. I was out of coherent questions for now, anyway. “Marissa, do you think that I should contact Rhetka?”
“I guess that it would be worth a try. Anything is worth trying.”
“What’s Rhetka?” I asked.
“Not what. Who. Rhetka is the Queen of the Si’lat. She may have some kind of idea of what we could do with Milligan.”
A queen? A Djinn queen? I didn’t know what to think of that. I had to hope that they would all be able to work it out between themselves. I was clueless about all of this Djinn business.
“How do you even get in contact with her?” Was it like a normal queen where you had to request an audience? Did that really happen in real life anyway? It didn’t really matter. This wasn’t exactly a normal situation. It was about as far as we could get from normal.
“I have to go and see her.”
“Where?”
“It’s not really anywhere that you will be able to understand. It’s not just like getting in the car and going to another place. It’s not a physical place. It all goes much deeper than that.”
I gave him a dumb look and he laughed. “You keep saying that I won’t understand.”
“That’s because you’ve been given a lot to think about already. I don’t want to freak you out with information overload. I’ll explain it all when we’ve got some more time to spare. I can’t get into it now. I’ve got to go.”
“I’m going to be staying here with you.” Marissa said.
Harper nodded. “I don’t want you to be left alone until we have sorted this out.” He stood up.
“You’re going now?”
“Yep. The sooner, the better. If Rhetka can tell us what we need to do, then we can get this over and done with. If not, well, we’ll have to look for answers elsewhere.”
That sounded practical to me, but I didn’t like the idea of him leaving me here, even if Marissa was sticking around to babysit me. Harper didn’t bother to say another word. He simply walked over and kissed me on the top of the head. I looked up at him with wide eyes. I knew that he was doing all of this for me and all I could do was watch him walk out. I expected him to pick up his car keys, but he walked by the table that they sat on. He walked straight into his bedroom and slowly shut the door behind him. I looked over at Marissa in confusion.
“What?” She asked, smiling broadly. She knew what was wrong but she wanted me to spell it out for her.
“I thought that Harper was going to go and find that queen?”
She laughed, but there was no malice in it. “You thought that he was physically going to go to her? Carrie, we exist on a different plane. Well, we live here but also on a higher plane. It’s more of a spiritual thing. You can’t get there in a car.”
I could feel myself blushing. I should have thought of that really. Coughing awkwardly, I asked her, “So, what do we do while we wait for him? How long is he going to be?”
“What do you want to do? We’ll probably have most of the day, maybe more, maybe less, depending on how Harper gets on. Rhetka isn’t always easy to find.”
I thought for a moment and then my mood brightened. “Can we go and see Destiny?” That was one way for us to pass the time. But, it was also more than that. I needed to see her, especially now that I knew that this was all my fault.
“Destiny? Your friend that’s in the hospital?” I nodded. “Harper told me what happened to her.”
“So, can we go?”
“I’m not so sure.” She pondered for a moment. “Harper didn’t say anything about leaving the house. I don’t know if it’s such a good idea.”
“Please? It really would mean a lot to me.” I was almost pleading with her. I really needed to go and see Dee. I needed to get out of this house for a bit. I was getting fed up of these four walls.
Marissa looked at me for a moment longer. “I guess that we could take a quick trip.”
“Really?” I could have jumped up and down like a little kid, I was that pleased.
“As long as it is a really quick visit.”
“Can we go right now?”
“I’m driving.”
“Thank you, Marissa. Thank you so, so much.” I could have kissed her right about then, but I was too busy putting my shoes on and grabbing my purse.
It felt really good to be out of the house. The sun was out, the air was fresh and the day seemed to be brighter, a little more hopeful. I know that it was kind of blind hope, but it was better than nothing. I knew that it wasn’t all over yet. Harper was working a way out of it at this very moment in time. I just hoped that this queen person would be able to give us some help or ideas. If not, we were going to be back at square one.
We didn’t speak to one another in the car, but Marissa was a very soothing presence. I felt lighter. Do you know what I mean? I know that sounds kind of corny, but it was true. There was just something about her that made me feel relaxed. I had to laugh to myself. She was a Djinn. It was probably just like how it was when I was with Harper. She had that certain something that made me feel good about myself and better about the situation. I know that it could have been a partly selfish motivation on her part, because the better I was feeling, the better she felt. But, I knew like it was with Harper, it was just something that they did unknowingly, subconsciously. They were simply positive beings.
Beings. Not people. I still couldn’t get my head around the fact that Harper wasn’t strictly human. I just couldn’t process it. This was the kind of stuff that you read about. It wasn’t supposed to be happening in real life. But, this was my life and it had been for a long time. I just hadn’t known about it while it was there in front of my very eyes.
We pulled up at the hospital and searched around the car park for a parking space. It seemed to take forever. The longer that we drove around, the warmer that the car seemed to get. I had been happy to see the sun, but now I was just feeling hot. In the end, we had to park what seemed like miles away from the main entrance, but at least it meant that we could finally get out of the car and enjoy the light breeze. The sun beat down on us as we walked.
“What a beautiful day.” Marissa commented.
I felt the sun warming my skin. It was strange how a simple bit of good weather can make you feel better about the things that are happening in your life. If the day had been rainy and dreary, it would have made the weight of the situation even heavier on my shoulders. I was glad that the sun had decided to make an appearance.
We walking in through the doors and I shivered at the sudden onslaught of the air conditioning. The room seemed dimly lit after the brightness of the day. I looked around out of habit and was pleasantly surprised to see that Sylvie was sitting there with a broad smile on her face.
“What are you doing back down here? Is everything okay with your grandson?” I asked her as she stood up to hug me. I was really pleased to see her, to see a friendly familiar face in this bleak place, but I was concerned as to the reason that had brought her back down here.
“No, no. Nathaniel’s fine. He is doing very well. They think that he will be able to come home soon.” Sylvie said. She looked years younger now that the constant stress had left her face. Her eyes sparkled and there was a new youthfulness to her smile. “I came down here to see you.” She patted me lightly on the hand.
“Well, it’s good to see you.” I replied, meaning every word of it.
“And, this is your friend?”
I’d forgotten for a moment that I wasn’t alone. I was so used to coming here to the hospital with Harper or on my own. “Sylvie, this is Marissa. She is a friend of Harper’s who’s in town for a few days.”
Sylvie shook her hand. “Well, it’s very good of you to take some time out to come here. Do you know Destiny?”
Marissa smiled at her winningly. “No. I don’t know her, but I thought that it would be nice to spend some time with Carrie while I’m here, so I tagged along.” Well, that wasn’t exactly a lie and Sylvie clearly didn’t think that there was anything amiss as she smiled warmly at the pair of us.
“Anyway. I can’t stay too long and I know that you will want to get in there to see your friend, so I’ll let you get on. I need to get back up to Nathaniel. His parents are both working today so I have the chance to sit with him for a little while. I just wanted to call down here and see if I could catch you on the off chance.”
“Well, I’m very glad that you came down here to see me. Hopefully, I will get a bit of time to pop up and see you before he gets discharged.”
She hugged me warmly and Marissa and I left to go and see Destiny. There had been no change in her condition at all. She was just the same as she had been before. There were also no signs that she was going to come out of this any time soon. Marissa sighed and walked over to the bed. She laid the flat of her palm on Destiny’s forehead and closed her eyes for a moment before sucking in a breath and her eyes flew open.
“What is it?” I looked on with concern at the expression on her face.
“I can’t believe that Harper missed this. I guess that he was too upset and preoccupied with everything that was happening to her, and to you, that he overlooked it. I can understand that. But, if he had been able to read this earlier, then we may have been able to do something about it.”
“Marissa, what are you talking about?”
She closed her eyes again and placed a hand back on Destiny. A look of intense concentration crossed her face. “I can feel it. There is no wonder that the doctors have been clueless. This isn’t anything that they could handle. This isn’t something that they could cure. There are supernatural demonic forces that are keeping her under. It’s more than just a Shaitan at work here. I can’t read exactly what he is. He’s managed to hide most of his signature really well. It’s so frustrating. You know, like when a word is on the tip of your tongue?” She opened her eyes to look over at me.
“You mean that he is something more than what you thought?”
She nodded. “Something much, much more.”
“What do we do now?” I know that I was starting to sound panicked again, but forgive me. We’d just hit another bump in the road. I didn’t understand enough about this to know how much it was going to change things.
“Marissa?” She was staring off into space and she didn’t even look my way. I walked around the bed to shake her gently on the shoulder. She slowly blinked and turned to look at me, confused to find me suddenly standing so close to her. I stared at her wide eyed.
“I can’t get hold of Harper.” She said simply, like I should understand.
I looked at her like she was crazy. “You know, I really don’t think that I want to know what you’re going on about.”
“I just tried to reach him on the higher plane.”
I held up my hand to stop her. “I said I didn’t want to know. I just need to know what we have got to do next.”
“We need to get back to Harper. Now.” She put a hand up to her head and groaned.
“Are you okay?” I asked her. Marissa suddenly started looking rather pale and as she groaned again, she crumpled to her knees. I quickly bent down beside her. “Marissa? What’s wrong? What’s the matter? What’s happening to you?” I asked her, worried about what had happened to her so suddenly.
“He’s here.” She groaned, clutching her head and stomach, trying to curl up into a ball.
“Who’s here? What do you mean?” When she didn’t respond, I shouted, “Marissa! Tell me what’s going on!” She was scaring the life out of me. I could only assume that she meant that Milligan was here, but I couldn’t understand why she was having this kind of reaction to his presence.
“He’s coming.” She moaned.
Chapter Sixteen
“He’s coming.” She moaned, looking up at me. I saw the pain evident on her face, with tears streaming down her feverish cheeks. “I can feel him. He’s too strong for us. We can’t do that.”
She looked like she was going to scream or pass out at any minute. She said that we needed to get back to Harper, so that was what we were going to do. I grabbed hold of Marissa under her arms and tried to yank her up off of the floor. “Marissa! You have to help me!” I needed to get her out of here and away from Milligan.
“I can’t. I can’t move. He already knows that I’m here. He knows it all. I can’t.” She sobbed into my arm.
“You can and you have to. You have no choice. We have to get back to Harper.” I almost growled at her. There was no way that we could stick around here any longer. I had to get her out of here. I didn’t know exactly what was wrong with her, but I would worry more about this when we were far away from Milligan and safe. Well, relatively safe, anyway.
“Stand up.” I demanded. I could tell that she was trying to help me out at least. I half dragged her across the hospital room, but it felt like I was carrying a dead weight. I didn’t know what would happen if Marissa and Milligan were in the same room, and I didn’t want to hang around here and wait to find out. I didn’t want Destiny caught up in the fallout either.
I continued to half drag her out of the room and leant against the wall for a moment, panting slightly. I vowed there and then that if we all got out of this alive, that I would start working out with Harper more. I was ridiculously out of breath and I didn’t know how far I would be able to carry her.
“Please, Marissa. You need to try and walk. We’re going to attract too much attention with me dragging you along like this. And, we also need to move faster before Milligan gets here!” That seemed to get her attention. She braced her hands against the wall and a wash of pain flowed over her face.
“I don’t know if I can do this.” She whimpered.
“You have to do this.” I whispered in her ear as I hooked an arm around her waist to help her along.
Marissa tried to nod determinedly but the effort was ruined by a painful grimace. I helped her as much as I could. It wasn’t easy, though. She was only a slim little woman but she was still too much for me to be able to support. We just about made it out of the main doors and Marissa sucked in a huge breath of fresh air.
“How are you doing?” I knew that it was a stupid question, but I needed to know if she was going to make it to the car.
“Better. A bit better now.” She tried to smile at me as she attempted to straighten her body out. “He’s still inside. I can’t feel him quite so strongly out here.” She pushed herself off of the wall and I grabbed at her arm when she overbalanced.
“We need to get out of here. We need to get to the car.”
We set off towards the car at a limping trot. I could feel the sweat starting to trickle down my back in a steady stream. Now, I kind of wished that the day wasn’t quite so bright and warm already. Without a warning sign, Marissa bent double and buckled to the floor. I tried to keep hold of her, honestly I did, but she slammed hard down to the concrete floor.
“He’s here. He’s here.” She whimpered.
Fuck. I looked around wildly. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I had to trust in Marissa. He was out here somewhere and only getting closer if her physical reaction was anything to go by.
We were only a few spaces away from her car. We could make it. I was sure we could make it. I would drag her by her hair if I had to. We needed to get out of here this very second. We had to make it to the car before it was too late.
“Come on.” I hissed at her as I grabbed hold of her again. She was entirely limp in my arms and I could have screamed at the exertion. It took all of my strength to drag her the last of the way to the car. It wasn’t far, but dragging her struggling dead weight body, it felt like I had a hundred miles to go. I fell against the side of the car and Marissa dropped to the floor. I didn’t even have the energy to try and save her from hitting her head on the ground as she fell with a thud. I just had to hope that she didn’t do herself any permanent damage.
Bending down slowly on shaking knees, I patted down her pockets and rifled through her small bag until I found her car keys. Hitting the button, I unlocked the car and hauled Marissa into the back seat with the last of my waning strength. Slamming the door shut, I paused to glance around me one more time. I felt the blood in my veins turn to ice, freezing me to the spot. It was Milligan. Even I could feel him now.
I scanned the area again and then I saw him. He was standing a little way away from the main entrance to the hospital. He was just standing there motionless, watching my every move. I didn’t feel any of that usual pull towards him. I didn’t want him. I guessed that it was something that he could turn on and off at will. All I could feel was fear running through me like a torrent of water rushing over a waterfall. It drowned out every other sense in me.
He took a step towards me and my blood pumped into action once again. I could move. I had to move. Not just for my sake. I had to think of the others, too. I had to find a way to stop him. I had to find a way to get Destiny back. But, the more immediate problem was Marissa. She lay on the back seat of the car, her skin had gone from looking feverish to a deathly pale grey colour. She was shaking so violently that she looked like she was going to go into a fit. I had to get her out of here. I had to get her away from him. I could only hope that Harper would know what to do when we got back to him. I hoped that he would be there for us.
Milligan took another step. I dived for the car door and jammed the keys into the ignition. I didn’t even stop to put on my seatbelt. I didn’t have any time for that. The wheels spun on the asphalt as I reversed out of the parking space and I pressed the peddle to the metal to get out of there as fast as I could. As I slowed to turn out onto the main road, I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw Milligan running towards the car, faster than any human could have ever sprinted. There was a tiny gap in the traffic, not something I would have normally risked, but this wasn’t a normal situation and I floored it and got us out of there.
By the time we pulled up outside our apartment building, Marissa had stopped shaking. She still looked like death, but I had to hold on to that small piece of improvement. I’d tried calling Harper over and over again on the way back home, but he hadn’t answered. It was a fruitless exercise. I knew he was where a phone couldn’t reach him. I guessed that he was still off talking to the queen or whatever. I hoped that I would be able to find a way to get through to him when we got upstairs.
I helped Marissa out of the car and we half walked, half carried our way through the main doors and over to the elevator. I let her sag against the wall on our way up. That was fine by me. I couldn’t hold her up any longer as it was. I knew that I would need all of my strength to get her the rest of the way. I was struggling. Badly. I didn’t know how much more I had left in me.
The lift binged and I helped her out just as the doors began to shut behind us. I was thankful that we didn’t live too far down the corridor. I banged on the door and waited for Harper to answer. Shit. He was still obviously otherwise engaged.
I had to prop Marissa up against the wall again while I grabbed the keys from my bag. Opening up the door, I dragged her inside and kicked the door shut behind us. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with her. I thought about taking her to my room to rest, but I had the feeling that she would want to talk to Harper long before she got the strength back in her legs to be able to stand up.
“Where is he?” She asked me weakly.
“Harper?” I asked, distracted by the weight that I was lugging towards the sofa in the living room.
“Yes.” Even her voice was croaky and weak.
“I think that he is still in his bedroom.”
“I need to speak with him.”
“But, he’s not answering his phone. He didn’t answer the door. What if he doesn’t answer me when I try to wake him up?”
“Whisper this in his ear. It will bring him back from the higher plane.” Marissa pushed herself up on her elbows to whisper in my ear. “Venite ad me. Mihi opus est.”
“What does that mean?”
“Come to me, my need is great.” She opened her eyes and the pleading look she gave me nearly broke my heart. “Please, be quick.”
Okay. Well, that sounded simple enough. I didn’t know if it was going to work. I didn’t know anything about all of this. But, I had to give it a try.
I walked into his bedroom to find him lying on the bed, apparently fast asleep. Well, great. We’d been through all of this and he’d been here, catching up on some sleep?
“Harper?” I called from over by the door. No response. I walked over to the bed. “Harper?” I said in a louder voice. I gently shook his arm. He didn’t stir. He didn’t wake. He didn’t make a move. He stayed sleeping, breathing soft and even. Taking a deep breath, I leant forward to whisper in his ear. “Venite ad me. Mihi opus est.”
Harper shot bolt upright in the bed. It was just lucky that I moved out of the way quickly enough so that he didn’t head butt me.
“Carrie? How did you know how to do that?” He looked puzzled at his rude awakening. I knew better now, though. He hadn’t been asleep. He’d been off on that other plane that I didn’t understand about.
“Marissa told me what I needed to say to bring you back here.”
He looked sharply from me over to the open doorway. “Marissa told you?” I nodded. “Marissa!” He shouted and jumped out of the bed and ran out of the room. By the time that I ran into the living room after him, he was already sitting on the floor next to the sofa, gently cradling her hand in his.
“Marissa, are you okay? Talk to me.” He crooned softly. There were tears in his eyes as he looked over at me. “What happened? How did she get like this?”
“Milligan.”
Anger crossed his face. “Milligan was here?” He roared.
I had the decency to look a little sheepish. I now knew that we shouldn’t have gone out. We shouldn’t have left the safety of the apartment. But, in a way, it was a damn good job that we had. Now, we knew more. “Marissa took me to the hospital to see Destiny. I asked her to.” For some reason, it was important to me that he knew that none of this was Marissa’s fault. It was all on me.
“Don’t you know how dangerous that was?” He glared at the wall behind my head. I had the feeling that he wanted to direct that look at me, but even now, he couldn’t bring himself to take his anger out on me.
“I do now.”
“Marissa. Wake up.” He said as he gently shook her shoulder. When she opened her eyes just a crack, Harper beamed at her. “That’s it. Try to stay awake for me.” He said, soothingly.
“Just give me another minute to rest.” She said in a barely there voice.
Harper nodded. I knew that he wanted to know what was happening, but I also knew that he couldn’t bring himself to push her. He let go of her hand and turned all of his attention back to me. “What happened? Tell me everything.”
I sat down on the opposite sofa. I hated seeing Marissa looking so weak. It was all my fault. We should have stayed here.
“We weren’t there for very long. I had to go and see her. Especially now that I know that she was some sort of part of Milligan’s whole plan. I had to, Harp.” I looked at him imploringly, and he nodded. I was grateful that he understood. “Just as we were about to leave, it looked like she was getting a headache and then she collapsed on the floor. She said that he was too strong. She said that she could feel him. I had to carry her out of there. The further we got away from him, the better she seemed to get.”
“It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m just tired now.” Marissa croaked.
Harper flipped around to look at her. “You should close your eyes and rest, Marissa.”
“No. I can rest later. We need to talk.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for that later. You need to rest.” Harper said softly in a brotherly tone.
“No. Now.” Her voice was starting to sound stronger as she pushed herself to sit up. “We need to talk about this now.”
Harper didn’t argue with her any further. I guessed that he knew as well as I did that there was no point. He wasn’t going to win this argument. We waited for a moment for her to get somewhat comfortable before she started to talk.
“As soon as I touched Destiny, I knew. I knew what Milligan was. There were parts of him that were shielded but I got the general idea. I knew what he was capable of.” Her voice took on a whole new intensity.
“What do you mean?” He asked her.
“His mark was left all over her.”
“Why didn’t I feel it, then?”
“You’re too close and I knew what to look for. You didn’t. You were relying on the doctors. But, they can’t help her.” Marissa said. There was no real emotion in her voice now. She was sticking to telling the bare facts here.
“What did you feel?”
“He’s more than just Shaitan. He is driven by more demonic forces. He has demonic elements.”