Harley Merlin 12 by Bella Forrest (story books to read TXT) 📗

In this instance, it has served me well, though I cannot sleep. And I feel so ugly these days. I am not the beauty I ought to be.”

“I think you look pretty good, considering.” Santana flashed him a grin. I could tell immediately that they would get along like a house on fire. Or, a djinn on fire.

“You flatter me.” Abdhi wafted his hand at her. “But you don’t need to lavish compliments on me—I have already vowed to lead you to the Storyteller, so I’m a safe bet. If I do this, I might have a good night’s sleep at last.”

“Where do we find her? The Storyteller, I mean?” I returned to the task before he got carried away. However, Nayla was the one who answered.

“Only a djinn can find the Storyteller. Abdhi knows where to take you, fear not, but he can’t announce the location aloud. It is, by all accounts, of utmost secrecy, and I would not wish to break djinn legislation.”

Abdhi nodded. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, though I wish you’d come in daylight. I hate traveling in the dark. Weird, I know, considering my kind are tied to Darkness, but we all have our quirks.”

“Yeah, we might’ve forgotten about the time difference,” Santana said apologetically.

“At least you won’t be dealing with jet lag. I might have changed my mind if I had to haul two zombies around.” Abdhi’s wisps of smoke rolled over his body, as if amused.

I was glad we had found a path to the Storyteller, but I had my doubts about this assigned djinn. I had enough trouble with the one inside my body. Abdhi sounded like either a lot of fun or one hell of a headache. Nevertheless, he could take us to the one person who might be able to help Kadar, and my future with Santana. That was more than worth the headache.

Nineteen

Raffe

After we’d said a polite farewell to Nayla, who had a handshake of steel to match her fierce exterior, she’d plucked an emerald from the indoor stream in her office. I hadn’t noticed the emeralds at first glance, which made me wonder if they had been concealed somehow. Regardless, she gave the gem to Abdhi so we could travel quickly through a djinn portal to where we needed to go. Given that the Arabian Peninsula was the djinn’s homeland, it made sense they’d have easy access to the emeralds that allowed the djinn to form their unique portals. I supposed Nayla controlled the emeralds so the djinn in her employ couldn’t just flit off whenever they pleased.

Abdhi gripped the gem in his palm and beckoned us close. “Santana, if you’d care to take Raffe’s hand?”

She smiled and put her hand in mine while Abdhi seized my wrist. His fingers burned against my skin, though it would’ve been worse for Santana. He closed his eyes, and the emerald enveloped us in a blinding flash of green light. My stomach lurched as my body started to disintegrate and twist up through Abdhi’s portal. Beside me, Santana flowed from solid to wispy matter and spiraled up into nothingness.

The portal spat us out in the heart of the Arabian desert. The bitter cold hit me, and harsh grit stung my face like a thousand tiny hornets as the icy winds swept the sand off the dunes. A clear night stretched above, with no light pollution to mar its majesty. There were more stars than sky, and I could almost see the blend of shadow and light that made up the Milky Way.

“I bet you wish you’d brought your jackets now.” Abdhi’s black smoke rippled, creating two solid legs. He wasn’t the sort of genie from human stories. No harem pants here, only a golden loincloth to hide his dignity, if he even had dignity to hide. Djinn in their natural form were brand new to me, and I didn’t know how things worked without a human host.

Santana swung her backpack to the ground and pulled out a thick sweater. “I came prepared.”

“Oh, I like you. You can stay.” Abdhi flashed his sharpened teeth in a grin. Apparently, Santana was a djinn magnet. Even Zalaam showed her a healthy respect.

“So, is the Storyteller nearby?” I took a sweater from my own bag and slipped it on. It took the edge off the biting cold, while Kadar warmed the rest of me. After all these years, he’d gotten used to sharing a bit of heat when the weather turned cold. He sensed me shivering and went into radiator autopilot.

Abdhi started to walk. “We have a long trek ahead of us, so brace your quads. You’ll need them in these dunes.”

“You can’t just portal us to the Storyteller?” I glanced at the undulating desert, some of the dunes towering hundreds of feet. With Kadar and me weakened, I didn’t fancy my chances of surviving a long journey.

"Where’s the fun in that?" Abdhi replied jovially. "And no, I can’t. The Storyteller never stays in one position and has fortifications preventing other djinn from popping in unannounced. But I have her location, so get those legs moving.”

“I’m here, Raffe. You’ll be fine.” Santana looped her arm through mine and set off, tugging me along.

We’d barely walked ten minutes before I ran into my first bout of trouble. The sand might as well have been a quagmire of mud. Every step made my thighs burn and my lungs strain, my feet slipping as we ascended a vast dune. My body craned forward until I was almost horizontal to try to keep going, my balance totally out of whack. Kadar’s illness made physical exertion that much harder for me, too. Santana helped me along as best she could while fighting the sand herself. Abdhi had no issues. His didn’t make a single imprint in the tumbling grains.

“Abdhi, could you tell us about other kinds of djinn? Director Al Kaabi would have told us more, I think, but we got off