“Are you still here?” the djinn barked, his eyes glowing red. Black smoke puffed from his red-tinged shoulders, his face twisting up in a nasty grimace.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I replied for the millionth time. “I’m staying here until Raffe comes back again.”
“You’ll be in for a long wait, then. What if he never comes back?” The djinn laughed darkly. I didn’t like the warning in his voice.
“Shut up,” I shot back. “If you even attempt to take over Raffe’s body, you’ll have me to deal with. You don’t scare me, with your smoky wisps and your glowy red eyes. El Diablo is part of my culture, you jumped-up gremlin, and I’ve seen worse than you rolling out of the bars on Día de los Muertos.”
The djinn paused. “Where did mousy little Raffe find the balls to charm a girl like you, eh? How’d he snag such a divine specimen? It’s not every sexy vixen who’d sit at a man’s prison, staring right into the darkest parts of him without flinching.”
I cast him a withering look. He stared right back, his red eyes flickering with a rush of blue light.
An explosion of bat-like creatures erupted from the depths of the djinn’s body, each one slamming into the side of the box before bursting into violent blasts of black light. I staggered back, a scream slipping from my mouth. If even a single sliver of the djinn’s energy got through the glass box, there’d be trouble. Fortunately, it held the demon’s fierce power.
My heart might never recover, though, you sly asshole—nobody scares me like that and gets away with it.
“Hmm… maybe you do flinch,” the djinn mocked, cackling.
“Yeah, if you hurl a thousand bats at a person, they’ll flinch, you arrogant asshat!”
“Temper, temper.” His eyes stayed a glowing blue. If red means angry, does blue mean amused? I was still figuring him out when another ball of crackling energy hit the sides of the box. A shimmering pulse flared along the edges, pausing at the veiled gaps in the exterior in an attempt to push through. I let out a huge sigh of relief as the cage continued to hold. Nice try.
“Can you stop now? Seems like a waste of energy to me.”
“You worried about me burning out your main squeeze?” He walked up to the glass and leered through, his eyes shifting back to red. “He thinks he can push me down, squashing me into all the extra bits of himself. Do you know what happens when you have to sit in the dark for weeks on end, waiting for a moment to catch your true breath?”
“No, I don’t.”
“It makes you angry,” he hissed. “And not just angry… furious. Hatred builds up inside your veins like adrenaline, and when you get that sliver of freedom, out it pours! A molten stream of pure loathing.” He snapped elongated fangs at me and smashed his hands into the glass. Another silvery shimmer rippled over the edges, attempting to seep into the runes like an elaborate lock-pick. Once again, the cage held.
I glowered at him. “Seriously, you need to stop banging on the glass. What, do you want me to feel sympathy for you? Give me a break. You share his body, not the other way around.”
The djinn grinned. “I really hope you’re still around when I break out of this cage. You’ve got this strange way of making me feel calm—all I have to do is picture my hands around your throat, squeezing so tight your skin bulges and your eyes pop out, and I instantly relax. So very soothing.”
I refused to give this demon the satisfaction of seeing me frightened. Although, to be honest, he was starting to get to me a little bit. I’d never seen any creature, of the human or spirit world, that held as much malice and violence in its heart. Hatred poured out of this demon in waves. I didn’t need to be an Empath to feel it. He wanted to do everyone and everything harm—I saw it in the shadows of his shifting eyes.
“My Orishas would kick your ass if you even tried it, pal.”
He turned his back and leaned up against the glass. I preferred being able to see his face.
“Have you ever felt the sweet sadness of an Orisha’s energy being devoured?” he asked casually, weaving an orb of raw, golden energy between his palms. The smoke billowing off him plumed thicker.
I cleared my throat. “No.”
“There is no sensation like it. It’s like electricity in your veins, awakening each cell, bringing everything to life in the most astounding way,” he said. “And you are brimming with them. I can almost taste them on my tongue.” He licked his lips, laughing softly.
He walked into the middle of the cage and gathered the smoke around himself, filling the interior with it. No matter how hard I squinted into the damn thing, I could no longer see him padding around. Better the devil you can see… Checking the gaps in the cage wall, I breathed a nervous sigh of relief that not a single wisp of smoke managed to get through. This was all just a game, for the djinn to amuse himself.
He thundered toward the glass and crashed into the wall with all his might. An enormous explosion went off around him. Flames erupted from the sparks, licking toward the ceiling of the box, growing taller and more volatile by the second. I could feel the heat through the barrier.
“Help me…” the djinn begged, pressing its palms to the wall. “Don’t let me burn alive.”
I stared at the demon, aghast. “This is just some stupid trick. Stop it, now!”
“If I burn, Raffe burns.”
Can Raffe survive this? With the fierce heat radiating out, nipping at my skin, I wasn’t so sure. Then again, I had major doubts that the djinn would burn its host alive. After all, for the time being, the djinn needed Raffe more than Raffe needed the djinn.
“You’re bluffing,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.
“Are you willing to take that risk?”
“Stop it, okay? You’ve had your fun. I’m very impressed. Yadda yadda yadda.”
Through the thick smoke, the djinn’s face started to melt. Raffe’s face started to melt. It trickled down from his skull like red wax against a candle, dripping from his jawline onto the floor. Everything started to slide across bone. I jumped away from the cage, screaming at the top of my lungs. The only problem was, nobody would come to my aid—this room was soundproofed. I howled like a banshee as I lunged forward again, beating at the glass until my hands stung from the blistering heat.
“LEAVE HIM ALONE!”
Like time moving backward, the smoke drew itself into the djinn’s body, the flames receding, the melted contours of Raffe’s face sliding back into place, until all that remained was the demon. He stood there smugly, in one piece.
“No need to get your panties in a twist, my exotic beauty. Haven’t you ever heard of an illusion before?” He cackled, clearly enjoying my panicked screams. “You should have seen your face. I shall dine on that for weeks to come, when Raffe shoves me back into the darkness. Soothing and amusing—you’re quite the package.”
“Piss off!” I snapped, struggling to recover a normal heartbeat. I’m going to need a whole lot of therapy after seeing that. Getting the image of a sliding face and melting skin out of my head was going to be impossible. I guessed that was the point.
“Raffe can’t keep me down for much longer,” the djinn went on. “I’m stronger than I used to be, and he’s getting weaker by the year. Not that he could get rid of me, even if he wanted to. We’ve been together since birth, fused at the core. He and I have grown up together. Sweet, really, if you think about it. Aside from all the unfortunate little flare-ups.” He flashed me a grin. “That little girl never stole our toy trucks again, though. Hard to pick something up when you don’t have hands.”
I gaped at him. “You’re lying.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Why do you want to get out, anyway? I know you say you hate Raffe, but the two of you must have shared a lot. You both probably have some kind of mutual respect for one another, after a lifetime together,” I said, in a vain attempt to soften him up. Demons liked to talk about themselves; they were selfish to a fault. I once let an El Cuco talk about himself for so long that the sun came up and chased him away.
He shrugged. “We’re so used to each other now that we despise one another. He liked me when we were kids. I let him get away with naughty things. He doesn’t like that so much these days. Although, if he let me out for just an hour or two every day, I could get away with some other naughty things… if you catch my drift?” He winked, his red eyes turning blue.
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “How did you two end up together in the first place? You don’t see djinns too often anymore.”
“The boy wonder hasn’t told you?”
I shook my head. Keep him talking. Keep him talking until Raffe comes back.
“Raffe’s birth happened on a very special day,” the djinn began sarcastically. “His… or, rather, our mother was a tremendously powerful woman. A little too powerful for her own good. On the day she gave birth to Raffe, the pain of labor happened to bring on a Purge. I was expelled as a monster, but I lingered in the womb—staying small and secret—until my energy fused with that of the baby. Raffe came out all pink and bawling, with me attached to him on the deepest cellular level.” He grinned, evidently proud. “Our mother died, but what else can you expect? It’s not easy pushing out a djinn.”
I quickly covered my horror at his casual words about Raffe’s mom. “You can’t leave him, then?”
“A small price to pay for being able to wander around, instead of being shoved in a glass box.” He gazed up at the enclosure. “I realize the irony, but at least I get to see some of the world. There are others of my kind who aren’t so lucky. They’re chased and destroyed, or put in charmed boxes. Raffe and I can’t be separated. We’re bros.” He chuckled to himself.
“What would happen if someone tried to separate you?”