Release the Djinni by Jenny Schwartz

Author:Jenny Schwartz [Schwartz, Jenny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-01-19T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Usually, Niki worked her magic alone. She’d structured her life carefully to keep people and their demands at a distance. She asked nothing of them and she gave nothing of herself. But here she was in Hugh’s arms, on his lap, and she didn’t want to leave.

“It’s not really magic,” she said to him. “Not yet. First, I must find if I can sense Farhoud’s spirit like a shadow in Solomon’s old spell. If I can, then I’ll see if the power of the broken curse is sufficient to sustain a tie between Farhoud and me that I can follow even through dark magic. So, since it’s not magic, your angelic nature won’t interfere with it.” She concentrated on the stopper of the glass bottle that had been her prison.

The frayed power of the broken curse lingered around the stopper like anemone tentacles, searching, luring, beautiful and greedy. She brushed them cautiously aside. Later, she might want their power. For now, they were too reminiscent of being trapped inside the curse.

Her head buzzed as she intensified her focus, trying to reach for the memory of Farhoud in the glass. Sustained concentration was an everyday part of her scholarship, but this went beyond concentration, being a cross between meditation and dissection. She had to see clearly and yet sink beneath sight into the world of spirit and power.

She gripped Hugh’s wrist with her free hand and threw her entire consciousness at the stopper.

It blazed across her spirit senses in the manner of a comet, exploding with thundering impact. Her head arched back in an extremity of agony and she shifted unconsciously to incorporeal form.

The assault was too much for her solitary soul. Every human who’d wished on her bottle now burned against her spirit. They were all there. Every memory. Every demand. Every desire—healthy and hateful.

God, this is what I ran from.

They whirled around her in a mad clamorous dance, striking, slicing, piercing her spirit.

“Give me…I want…I order you…She is mine…I will command…Obey me. Obey.”

Their selfish greed blistered her spirit. Her masters had been cruel, their lust for power brutal. The more they had, the more they demanded.

The things she had seen…the things she had done. Solomon’s curse had been as hateful as a demon’s. Not until the curse was set had he understood that humans couldn’t safely command the immense power of the djinn. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

She’d poisoned an oasis at the wish of a vengeful merchant, salting its water, killing its date palms. She’d destroyed homes, stolen treasures, broken relationships. So many had suffered from the wishes she’d fulfilled until she withdrew further and further into her prison. Finally, nudging fate till her bottle lay hidden in the Isfahan curio shop. Hidden, forgotten and safe.

Now the whirlwind of memory, so powerful on the spiritual plane, caught and crushed her.

“Farhoud,” she gasped. For a second his memory was there, with its wistful hope of healing that she’d ignored. “Farhoud.” She seized the memory and its tie to the flame of his spirit.

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