He arched an eyebrow. “You getting some ideas in that pretty little head of yours?”
“No, I’m just interested.”
“A separation would kill him. I might survive, but Raffe would die.” He seemed to delight over every word, his glowing eyes darkening to jet-black shadows, before flickering blue again. Anything remotely evil thrilled him. I bet you squat in Raffe all day, every day, thinking up ways of harming people. I’d already heard a few colorful examples.
“Would you want to hurt him?”
The djinn paused, his eyes glowing a brighter blue as he looked at me. I figured he was getting used to me or something, because I hadn’t seen the red in a while. The scarlet of his skin faded, and the smoke dispersed. Raffe was coming back to me.
“Raffe?” I murmured. He nodded slowly, as though it hurt to move. Eager to help him back into the real world, I approached the box and put my hand through the hole by the door. The forcefield surrounding the box allowed people to reach through, but didn’t allow anything—spells or smoke or otherwise—to leave. Before I could react, his hand shot out and grasped my wrist, yanking my arm farther through the hole. His skin turned scarlet again in the blink of an eye. My body thudded into the solid glass pane, a shiver of pain snaking up my arm as he twisted my wrist in a way bones weren’t meant to go. He cackled maniacally, pulling harder. Raffe was still buried deep—the djinn had tricked me. I knew how strong djinns were. He was going easy on me, taking his time, savoring my fear as we stared at one another through the glass.
He froze, his expression changing at a rapid pace. The red color faded from his skin, the smoke dissipating, the light going out in his eyes. He staggered back, releasing my wrist and gripping his stomach. A moment later, Raffe came back to me. He looked up at me with his midnight eyes while his chest heaved with the exertion of pushing the djinn back.
“You have to be more careful, Santana,” he gasped. “We’re fused together, but he keeps some of his thoughts hidden from me. There’s a dark room in the back of our mind that I can’t reach. I’m not allowed in… He’s dangerous. Really dangerous. As in, potentially deadly.”
He gripped his stomach harder as the red tone reappeared, spreading out over his skin with a flurry of black smoke. When Raffe lifted his head again, I knew the djinn had returned. He hadn’t had enough of me yet. I rolled my eyes at him, annoyed by his persistence. Clearly, when Raffe relinquished control, the djinn became even more temperamental, battling for superiority.
“Well, that was unfortunate,” the djinn rasped. “I was just starting to have fun. That’s the thing about Raffe—he’s a perpetual killjoy. He could rule the world if he would just let me have my way for a while. The boy has so much potential because of me. Instead, he keeps me locked up, or turns me loose every couple of months when he needs some added pizazz.”
I almost burst out laughing. “Pizazz?”
“Yeah, like rounding up gargoyles. I can’t say that wasn’t a hoot, but it’s frankly offensive that he only lets me out when he needs something.” He pouted dramatically. “All he does is use me. But do I ever get a whisper of thanks? No.”
I stared at him in disbelief. I hadn’t known Raffe could change so quickly, and it terrified me. He hadn’t been able to control the djinn, to stop it from taking over his body again. Did that mean he really was getting weaker? I hoped not. After all, there was no easy way to separate the two of them, if things started getting out of hand. But, if Raffe didn’t manage to find a way to permanently subdue the djinn, I had a feeling he’d end up in a glass box in the Bestiary. It would be the only way to keep him, and others, safe. Right now, this semi-peaceful coexistence was just about the only thing keeping the djinn under control—as long as it remained mutually beneficial in some small way.
Still, I sensed that the djinn was scheming a way out. Given all that time he had to think about things, stuck inside Raffe’s head, it was inevitable that he would eventually come up with something. Oh, Raffe…
“I’m sure he’s grateful for your strength,” I said, keeping him sweet. “I know it’s gotten us out of a scrape or two.”
“You’d think so, but he’s never breathed a word of gratitude,” the djinn retorted. “He’s never even given me a name. Can you believe that? Would you be happy, walking around this earth with no name? It’s rude. It makes me feel like an object. A thing.” A note of genuine annoyance rose in his strange voice. “A nameless djinn! Whoever heard of such a thing? Even our worst enemies wouldn’t leave us nameless, but Raffe refuses to give me one. What does that make him, huh?”
“Is that why you’ve been acting up lately?” I asked. Raffe had been struggling more than usual, and it felt like I was getting to the root cause. Demons were notoriously proud creatures. The fact that he had no name probably burned him up inside… more than usual.
He scowled at his reflection. “I’ve asked Raffe for a name. I told him I’d behave more if he’d just give me a name, but he keeps saying that he won’t.”
“You don’t deserve a name,” Raffe’s voice suddenly cut in.
The djinn growled in the back of his throat. “I do. Everyone deserves a name. You said you’d give me a name when we were kids, but you never did. Old Daddio stopped you every time.”
“You can’t just torment me because I won’t give you what you want,” Raffe’s voice chimed through.
“Of course I can. In fact, that’s my plan—to annoy you until you give in. I’m tired of not having a name. It’s embarrassing.”
Raffe appeared. “Well, what name do you want?” His tone was reluctant.
“That’s not how it works, and you know it,” the djinn spat back. “You need to name me, you lazy idiot. You can’t leave all the heavy-lifting to me.”
“Then what else are you good for?”
I stepped up to the glass. “Hey, calm down, both of you. Why don’t you make a couple of suggestions, Raffe, and see if he likes them?”
“Yeah, do as the nice lady says,” the djinn mocked.
“How about… Cyrus?”
“No way.”
“Paolo?”
“Really?”
“Harold?”
“Oh, come on, now you’re just messing with me.” The djinn folded his arms across his chest.
I smiled. “How about Kadar?”
The djinn turned to me. “Kadar?”
“It means ‘powerful’ in Arabic,” I replied.
“I know what it means, smartass. I just didn’t expect you to suggest such a name. Or know a lick of Arabic.” A grin spread across his face. “I like it. Kadar… Yes, Kadar will do nicely. Thank you, Santana. At least one of you has some compassion.”
With that, he disappeared inside Raffe, allowing my adorable sweet-cheeks to return to the surface. He shook out his body, as though attempting to fling every fiber of the djinn out of his muscles.
“Is he gone?” I asked.
“For now,” Raffe said. “I think you made him happy. He’s content at the moment.”
“You can feel that?”
He nodded. “Right now, it’s like I’ve got a cat curled up in my chest, snoozing on a warm window ledge.”
“You know, you should have given him a name a long time ago,” I chided.
“How come?”
“Don’t you know that names have power? If you know the djinn’s name, that gives you greater control over it.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that, but my dad has always worried a name would somehow give the djinn more power,” Raffe muttered. “I wasn’t willing to risk it.”
I wondered if Leonidas had an ulterior motive in preventing Raffe from controlling the djinn, but that was a whole can of worms I didn’t want to open. “Are you safe to come out?”
“I am. The key is in the bowl over there, if you want to do the honors?”
I hurried over to the bowl and took out the key, before bringing it back and freeing Raffe from his prison. Hours had passed, and a sudden wave of exhaustion crashed into me. If the djinn had taken this kind of a toll on me, what must’ve poor Raffe ended up feeling every time?
“I’m sorry if I said anything… rude,” he said, dipping his head. “I have no control over what the djinn says or does when he’s in the box, especially in cases like today. Nothing sets him off like an argument with my father. Now that I think about it, he’s probably pissed that my dad kept me from giving him a name all these years.”
“Well, you’re okay now, and that’s all that matters,” I assured him. “Oh, and the djinn has a filthy mouth, but I won’t hold it against you. I know it wasn’t you speaking.”
“I think the only thing we agree on is how much we hate Leonidas Levi,” he said. “You know, he was supposed to be a father to me, but, to this day, he still blames me for my mom’s death. He blames us both—the djinn and me.”
“I’m sorry, Raffe.” I took his hand in mine and held it tight.
“Maybe he’s right. She did die in childbirth, after all.”
I shook my head. “That wasn’t your fault. Nobody could have seen something like that coming. It was a tragic, terrible coincidence.” My voice grew steely. “The only person your father needs to forgive is himself, for not taking care of you the way your mother would have wanted. He let her down, and he let you down. He’s the only one who should be sorry.”
Eleven
Harley
Daisy sped along the coastal highway, the Pacific raging to her left. Rain pounded relentlessly at the windshield while the wipers worked overtime. They were practically screeching. Eek-eek. Eek-eek. The spark from the tracer spell had taken Wade and me out of San Diego’s city limits, toward Carlsbad.