The Angel: Tales of the Djinn, #3 Read online

  Tales of the Djinn: The Angel

  Tales of the Djinn, Volume 3

  Emma Holly

  Published by Emma Holly, 2016.

  Tales of the Djinn: The Angel

  Emma Holly

  Digital edition

  Copyright 2016 Emma Holly. All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission of the author.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the vendor and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This story is a work of fiction and should be treated as such. It includes sexually explicit content that is only appropriate for adults—and not every adult at that. Those who are offended by more adventurous depictions of sexuality or frank language possibly shouldn’t read it. Literary license has been taken in this book. It is not intended to be a sexual manual. Any resemblance to actual places, events, or persons living or dead is either fictitious or coincidental. That said, the author hopes you enjoy this tale!

  Tales of the Djinn: The Angel is an approximately 100,000-word novel.

  eISBN-10: 0-9967718-3-2

  eISBN-13: 978-0-9967718-3-2

  Discover other exciting Emma Holly titles at www.emmaholly.com

  Cover photos: bigstockphoto.com/Inga Nielsen, shutterstock.com/Igor Kireev

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Disclaimer

  THE ANGEL

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Chapter One

  About the Author

  Other Titles by Emma Holly

  THE ANGEL

  Georgie thinks her life is perfect. She’s got an angel for a boyfriend, a library imp to teach her magic, and a mysterious wealthy guardian who funded a childhood most girls only dream about. When sexy genie Iksander claims this life isn’t hers, she tells him to screw himself. When he proves it—then asks her to help the endangered citizens of his home, she has a choice to make . . .

  Book 3 in The Tales of the Djinn

  “Well thought out and surprising! I thoroughly enjoyed this one! A great continuation of the Djinn series.” —amazon reviewer, texas girl makes good

  PROLOGUE

  —

  THE ANGEL

  Not yet aware, the angel floated in a still, sparkling sea.

  Companions as numerous as stars mingled with the angel’s unformed essence. Like them, it neither dreamed nor woke. These celestial beings were all love, all peace, all joy—though none in the light-filled nursery knew the words. Galaxies might burst into being or end without troubling them.

  The idea of anything besides perfection didn’t exist.

  The idea of difference from one another barely did.

  A tiny beat of pleasure zinged through the angel, a glimmering photon of curiosity. What would it perceive if it were an “I” and not a “we?” Would the experience be beautiful? Frightening? Would the angel be inspired to love its Creator more?

  It thought it might like that.

  For just a blink, the angel realized it was conscious. The change startled it. It rolled, its potential edges almost coalescing.

  No, it thought, calming itself and spreading out again. Not yet.

  When it was called, it would go. Its Creator would know the moment, and its Creator was within it. Nothing it decided could be anything but right.

  Until that happened, the angel would enjoy imagining its future . . .

  CHAPTER ONE

  —

  THE GLORIOUS CITY

  Sultan Iksander knew it was time to go.

  Empress Luna’s curse rolled inward on his city in a slow but inexorable wave, petrifying every djinni the towering circle touched. Warm flesh turned to marble statues, unwakeable and unknowing. Though they’d had warning of the danger, undoing the spell proved impossible. Three days the empress took to weave her magic, marching about their walls with her black-garbed army. On the second night, she offered Iksander one last chance to avert the catastrophe.

  Her terms were two-fold. First, he must marry her. Second, he must relinquish his throne to her. The first demand he might have learned to suffer. The second he couldn’t subject his people to. Luna was dark ifrit—a djinniya who’d given her soul over to evil. She’d done so by brutally murdering Iksander’s beloved wife, Najat, though the sorceress had known the act would damn her to djinn hell.

  When Iksander said Luna knew, he meant it literally. Unlike humans he’d heard of, djinn very much believed in Iblis and his infernal realm. How could they not? Djinn were beings of magic, the actual embodiment of dimensions humans struggled to find faith in. Luna was willing to face eternal torment to revenge herself on him. He’d rejected her romantic interest, so she’d killed her rival. To her, the choice had seemed reasonable.

  What such a woman would do to Iksander’s people didn’t bear thinking on.

  His innermost circle—three trusted friends and his vizier—had convinced him it was better to turn to stone than live beneath a thumb so depraved. Though Iksander wasn’t sure this was true, he’d heeded their counsel.

  Now he stood at the window in his splendid palace office, putting off the moment when he must enact their “Hail Mary” plan. Before the curse could petrify them, Iksander, Arcadius, Joseph, and Philip would slip away through magic portals—different ones for each, to maximize their chances of escaping. Once on the human plane they’d lay low, gather strength, and find some way to return and break the spell.

  Or so they hoped. Iksander was far from certain they’d succeed. Regarding himself, he wasn’t convinced he deserved to. His misjudgments, his failures, had led them to this precipice. He ought to suffer with his people.

  Unless that was the coward’s choice . . . The days when djinn had been the Creator’s favorites were ages gone, their period of grace cut short by a refusal to bow to new creations. Humans had supplanted djinn as the deity’s pets: forgiven everything and asked nothing. Maybe the Almighty wanted the Glorious City’s ruler to work for his redemption. Iksander couldn’t say, but his chest ached at the thought of leaving everything he loved. The only life he’d known was here.

  His memories, even his guilt seemed to demand he stay.

  To his right beside the window, a gilded ormolu clock ticked on a shining rock crystal pedestal. No one but Iksander heard it chime softly for the tenth hour. Normally, this wing of the palace bustled. This morning, the rooms were eerily abandoned. Iksander had sent the servants to their friends and families, to make what goodbyes they wished. As a result, he lingered here alone.

  You have to go, he urged himself. You have no more time to waste.

  The palace complex cr
owned a hill overlooking the great city. Outside the window, a shimmer in the distance behind the palms of Victory Park drew his eye. Spying it stalled his breath. The rippling, barely visible wall of force had to be Luna’s curse. It had reached the royal quarter’s edge, barely a mile from Iksander’s watching post. The crest of the forward wave pierced the clouds, higher than the finest flying carpet could surmount.

  The faint sound it made recalled a whale’s low rumble.

  Iksander shuddered with visceral dread. Was this what humans felt on seeing tidal waves roar toward them?

  Though this wave progressed more slowly, it could no more be stopped than a tsunami. Last night Joseph the Magician, his friend Arcadius’s servant, had tricked the enchantress into accepting a devious gift: a beautiful arm cuff Joseph had pretended was a token of repentance from Iksander. Within the finely detailed gold, the sorcerer had hidden a miniature spell. As soon as she slid it on, Luna had sealed her fate. What she did to Iksander’s people, she now did to herself and her army. Evidently, she hadn’t cared. She’d triggered her curse anyway.

  Because she’d been outside the walls at the time—magical ground zero, so to speak—she’d be locked in stone already. Her soldiers too. No one remained to utter the anti-charm, assuming there was one.

  A new movement caught his attention. In the distance, tiny toy-like figures stumbled into the grassy park, unable to resist their instinct to flee what logic knew couldn’t be outrun. One figure fell and Iksander gasped. Even as the man tried to rise, the curse swallowed him. He turned ice-white from his feet up.

  Luna’s curse had frozen him in place.

  “Move,” Iksander ordered himself, aloud this time.

  He moved, breaking into a run in his office’s outer chamber. Here, on long rows of velvet-cushioned chairs, countless ambassadors had sat elbow to elbow with laborers—anyone welcome to request an audience. Iksander had done his best to be fair to everyone.

  Fairness demanded he do his best today.

  His bejeweled slippers were too smooth-soled for traction. He skidded on the polished floor as he hit the corridor. Cursing, he caught himself on a carved marble rail. The reception hall below was a long way to fall. He’d accomplish nothing if he broke his neck before reaching the treasure vault. That room was four floors lower, where the interdimensional portal he meant to go through was located.

  Telling himself he had time to watch his steps, he restrained his pell-mell gallop down the grand stairway as much as his nerves allowed. He was hot underneath his tunic, an uncustomary sweat having broken across his skin. Maybe he should change form. His smoke shape could move faster. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how his somewhat ordinary personal magic would react with the empress’s. The atmosphere had begun to buzz with her approaching power. Iksander faltered as a new alarming sound became audible: the frightened cries of djinn being overtaken by the curse.

  He shook himself and moved faster, darting into an enclosed stairway to access the treasury floor. As he hurried down the steps, his broad shoulders bumped the walls, his mane of wavy golden hair sticking to his face. Perhaps he had an extra second to tie it back, but perhaps he didn’t.

  Ignoring the inconvenience, he struggled with the diamond knob on the final door . . . then remembered its hinges swung outward.

  The narrow passageway the door opened on was dim. He was underground now, and there were no windows. Though the air was cooler, it also was strangely thick. His pulse skipped as he spotted a tall veiled woman facing him six or so yards away. She was dressed like an upper servant but not one he recognized. Her stillness created the impression she’d been waiting for him to arrive.

  The clammy pool of perspiration in the small of his back increased.

  “Are you lost?” he asked, politeness overruling paranoia. “Do you need help getting to safety?”

  The woman laughed throatily. “What safety might that be, Iksander?”

  Her voice was cultured . . . and horribly familiar. Suddenly he knew why the air felt strange. Her dark magic had weighted it.

  “Y-you,” he said, helpless to avoid the stutter. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “Not dead,” Luna corrected, still amused. “Merely turned to stone.”

  As she walked to him, hips swaying, her brazen femininity mesmerized. Long past adhering to rules of modesty, she threw back her veil gracefully. Despite the repugnance her fallen nature stirred, her moonlike beauty shone bright to him. Her straight silken hair was silver, her eyes the milky blue of glaciers. Iksander didn’t want to, but he remembered how kissing her red mouth felt.

  His shame at having betrayed his wife with this monster crashed over him.

  “What do you want?” he asked, his voice scraping his throat harshly.

  She smiled. “Merely to gaze upon your beloved face one last time. I have, after all, done all of this for you.”

  For a heartbeat, he accepted what she said. He wracked his brain for the right response. Should he plead with her to reverse the curse? Reason? Promise? Would anything change her twisted mind?

  Then he remembered where they were. She shouldn’t have known where to find him. He and the others had kept their plan secret. Either Luna meant to stop him fleeing through the portal, or she intended to make use of it herself.

  The first option would be bad. The second he’d rather die than let happen.

  The simplicity of the choice steadied him.

  “It’s not too late,” he said, lying unabashedly through his teeth. “You and I can still make peace.”

  She answered, unruffled. “I am ifrit now. What do I care for peace?” Her lips curved, two deep dimples appearing in her smooth cheeks. “There is, however, one small favor you could do me.”

  “What would that be?”

  She extended her arm and pointed, indicating a golden hatch set into the left-hand wall. Though studded with jewels and decorated, the vault entrance was a serious security device. “Please unlock the door to your treasure room.”

  Joseph had set spells against the code being hacked. Iksander concluded she’d already tried and failed to crack them. He appreciated knowing the head magician’s skills were up to thwarting Luna in this at least.

  “I don’t believe I shall,” he said.

  To his surprise, the enchantress laughed. As she tossed her head, her sterling silver hair floated on her amped energy. “Oh Iksander, if only you’d shown this strength of mind when I convinced you your precious Najat had been unfaithful. Then again, everything you do is too little and too late.”

  He wished he could deny it, but Najat had died thinking he hated her. For that, he’d never forgive himself.

  “Nonetheless,” he said simply.

  She cocked her head. “Truly? You’d rather your statue form spend eternity here with me?”

  “If it must.”

  She blinked. Perhaps his grim tone took her aback. She was the empress of the City of Endless Night. From the moment she’d married its late emperor, she’d had power and beauty and position. She was accustomed to men falling for her—on their knees, preferably. Iksander wondered if she knew his friends were escaping too, or if she thought he was his city’s one last hope.

  Before he could resolve the question, the atmosphere in the passage thickened, causing him to jerk slightly. His skin crawled with distaste at the seething sensation. The curse must be rolling closer, possibly at the palace now. Did Luna realize this? She hadn’t reacted. Perhaps she’d gone nose-blind to her own magic. If Iksander could keep her distracted long enough, this standoff would solve itself.

  Luna pushed up her sleeves, baring the golden cuff Joseph had used to bind her fate to that of her victims’. The redness of the skin around it suggested she’d tried removing it many times.

  “Very well,” she said. “We’ll do this the hard way.”

  Iksander braced as she closed her eyes and began whispering. Her magic was unlike any he’d encountered. Light djinn didn’t do death magic: couldn’t,
actually, and remain what they were. Luna had sacrificed animals and djinn to enact her curse. Even with such resources, so large a work should have exhausted her supply of power. Evidently, she’d stored plenty for herself. Iksander fought to remain where he was while his muscles struggled to obey her.

  She’s attacking you, he reminded his helplessly fascinated will. You’re entitled to defend yourself.

  He drew his scimitar and swung. He was a warrior-sultan, not one who sat on a couch. His stroke should have cleaved her skull in two. Instead, his blade hit an invisible shield. The forged steel shattered, glancing off his clothes and clattering to the floor.

  The empress hadn’t flinched at his attack. When she opened her eyes, her pale blue irises glowed like flames.

  “Unlock the door,” she said in a voice layered many times on itself.

  Iksander’s body jerked toward the golden hatch.

  I have cried unto Thee, O Lord, he thought frantically, the familiar psalm springing to his mind. Incantations others had used successfully often worked better. Let my prayer come unto Thee. If it be Thy will, help me now.

  He guessed it wasn’t. Utterly against his wishes, his fingers spun the gears for the combination. The mechanism worked on sigils and not numbers. He set the first wheel to the symbol for the lion’s constellation, the second to the glyph for the planet Mars. The third was the Hebrew letter Yod, the fourth a white lotus. The Open Sesame was tetramorph, which his vocal cords fought to utter.

  He groaned, his conflicted throat seeming to boil with fire.

  “Say it!” she ordered.

  “Tet—” he said, sweat running into his eyes. He clamped his jaw against finishing the word. The temperature had gone dank like a prison cell. He saw something that both terrified him and inspired a desperate hope. A gel-like essence bulged through the wall of the passage a stone's throw behind his enemy. The rainbows wavering on its rippling surface reminded him of oil slicks.