Chapter Ten
Tanika believed she was strong. A big girl. She ought to be able to drag a man across a perfectly flat, smooth floor. But no. Ophir’s big frame might as well have been an elephant. Her ballet flats refused to find purchase on the highly-polished marble, and she was forced to remove them, praying the police couldn’t ID a person from their toe prints.
Even in bare feet, it took her forever to slide him as far as the vault door. She paused to rest, staring into the room of safe deposit boxes. Globs of hardened gold adhered to the marble, and a crack marred the tile her metal box had hit. The box’s lid was bent, but she’d managed to force it back into its slot while waiting for Ophir to regain consciousness. When he didn’t, she’d had no choice but to move him herself.
She knelt next to him, smoothing her fingertips over his brows. She hadn’t thought a djinn could be rendered unconscious. Was mortality already creeping up on him? Her stomach churned with regret. He was hers, and now it was her turn to take care of him. They had to get out of here before the bank opened in…she glanced at her phone. Forty minutes. Shit! She grabbed his wrist and pulled again, inching him along the floor until he cleared the vault’s threshold.
Stepping over him, she moved his legs aside and pushed the heavy metal door shut, spinning the locking wheel. What would the employees think when they got here? She shook her head. She had to trust Ophir could cover their tracks—was somehow still covering their tracks. At least there’d been no alarms so far.
Grabbing his wrist, she pulled again, progressing to the corner of the short hall leading to the main lobby. Ophir’s hip snagged on the corner as she attempted to round it, and she had to tear his belt loop free of where it had caught on the baseboard’s ornate brass corner plate. Stupid, fancy bank.
Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades. She tugged harder, all too aware of the ticking clock echoing in the lobby. Someone would be arriving to open the bank at any moment. Dropping to her knees next to Ophir, she patted his cheeks. “Ophir, wake up.” She smacked him harder. “Wake up!”
His eyes rolled beneath his lids. Then his lashes parted the barest millimeter. He mumbled something unintelligible.
“We have to get out of here. The bank’s about to open, and I can’t drag you the rest of the way fast enough.”
A shiver rippled along his skin and seemed to reach into his bones. Then he rolled to his side, pushing upright on wobbly feet. Relief made her own knees weak. She wedged one shoulder under Ophir’s arm and led him toward the doors. Down the steps. Into the bright morning sun.
Across the street, a man jogged behind his leashed dog. A pickup truck zipped past, country music twanging from the open windows. No one seemed to take any notice of two people limping across the empty parking lot.
Cursing her choice of parking spot, she helped Ophir limp across the vast stretch of pavement to the convertible. The top was up, and she frowned, not remembering Ophir putting it up. But she’d been so frightened, he could have walked on his hands into the bank and she might not have noticed such a detail. As they neared the car, the soft top accordioned back, exposing the interior.
Elim sat in the driver’s seat.
Tanika let out a half scream, and Ophir nearly fell at the sudden loss of her support. He forced his bleary eyes to focus, catching himself with one hand on the top edge of the convertible’s windshield. Tanika was repeating, “No, no, no…”
Elim grinned at him from behind the steering wheel, his perfect white teeth as menacing as fangs. His face had lost its craggy lines, and the subtle fire in the depths of his eyes glowed with djinn health. “Where are we going next?”
Ophir somehow found the strength to straighten, glaring down at the djinn. “How the hell are you here?” He’d felt no flow of magic from the portal between the time it had emerged from the box until the crucible rendered it useless. “This shouldn’t be possible.”
“My dear mistress’s stubbornness taught me a few things.” Elim leered at Tanika. “One of which being that I no longer need a portal to move between realms.”
Still reeling from energy depletion, Ophir tried to focus. He’d known the crucible would cost him, but he’d counted on not needing much magic immediately after finishing the job. And never considered he’d pass out completely. Poor Tanika’d dragged him out all on her own. He turned to her. “Are you okay?”
Her lips were still formed around the word “no” and her skin was ashen. “You promised he’d be trapped on the other side.”
Guilt gnawed at his chest. “He should be. I don’t understand.” His guilt turned to anger, giving him strength. He squared his shoulders and faced Elim. “How are you doing this?”
Like a racecar driver, Elim lifted himself up and swung his legs over the car’s door, keeping the vehicle between himself and Ophir. But he didn’t act afraid. Instead, he pushed his shoulders back and shook his head as if enjoying a sea breeze. “The tiniest connection to an Earth-bound djinn is enough of an anchor, it seems.”
Outrage filled Ophir. He hadn’t felt any shifting of power, but this method of travel between dimensions was new to him. “You’re using me?”
Tanika sank to her knees on the pavement.
“I wonder what my range will be?” Elim turned his back and took a few steps away from the car.
Tanika started sobbing.
Ophir stalked around the hood, his legs protesting the movement. He needed to come up with another deal, and fast. “Wait. I have questions.”
Elim paused and looked over his shoulder, a slight smile on his lips. “What do you offer for answers?”
Dammit, he wasn’t ready for this. Not mentally or physically. If he only had something—anything—to use as leverage. Stopping his advance, he stared intently at the djinn. “Do you have access to full power?”
Laughing, Elim faced away and resumed walking. “The wish has released me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe the police have arrived, and I don’t want to be caught up in your mess. I have quite a few lost years to make up for.”
Elim winked out of existence as flashing lights appeared at the end of the street, headed in the bank’s direction.
Ophir wobbled back toward Tanika and pulled her toward the car. His glamour would make police look the other way—a useful spell for driving, and doubly useful now. He expended a tiny fragment of energy to strengthen the magic, fighting the nausea that swept in as a result. Was his extraordinary weakness from more than just creating the crucible? He’d have to think on that, but later. He shoved Tanika into the passenger side door just as a police car squealed to a halt at the bank’s front steps. The rumpled guard greeted the officers at the glass door.
Ophir sagged in the driver’s seat, Tanika equally wilted in the passenger seat. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the headrest. “That went horribly wrong. I’m so sorry, Tanika.”
Her shaking breath suddenly huffed to anger, and she began beating his shoulder with her fists. “You said he wouldn’t be able to come back!”
“I had no way of knowing.” His heart broke as he realized how badly he’d betrayed her. How much he’d underestimated Elim’s power. He grabbed her fists, self-recriminations making him feel like he weighed a thousand pounds. Love had made him impulsive. Reckless. He should’ve thought his plan through better. After essentially losing his portal, Elim had used Tanika’s unfulfilled wish to access Earth, so it should be no surprise he could find yet another thread to follow. A thread Ophir provided. Ophir swallowed, an idea forming. A horrific idea, but one that should work, using the only leverage Elim had provided.
He hugged Tanika’s balled fists against his heart. “I believe we can still banish Elim from this world.”
She stared at him, her breasts heaving, tears coating her cheeks. “How?”
He pressed his lips together, hesitant to speak the solution aloud. A solution that would finally grant him his eight-hundred-year-old wish. The wish he no longer wanted. “If I go back, he no longer has a channel.”
Her mouth fell open. “You can’t! You said you’d stay with me forever!”
“I know.” He stared sightlessly out the windshield. Every molecule in his body ached at the thought of leaving her. “But we can’t allow him to stay.”
In the rearview mirror, he spotted a police officer squinting the convertible’s direction. Dammit, their suspicion was too strong. Even the glamour could only hold up against certain levels of attention. Elim was probably watching from some nearby tree and laughing. Grinding his teeth, Ophir started the engine, slammed the car into drive, and peeled out, tearing up an edge of the grass between the sidewalk and street. As soon as he was several blocks away, he slowed again and pulled into an empty driveway.
Turning to him with knit brows, Tanika said, “I see a major problem. Didn’t you say you needed a portal? You can’t go back without one.”
He’d considered this when he first decided on this course. “The weakness I experienced is due to more than merely creating the crucible. I think it’s because of Elim. He used me as an anchor between Earth and our realm. I should be able to trace the path back to the source. Back to… home.” The word felt like poison on his tongue.
Still barefoot, Tanika jumped out of the car and started walking. He climbed out after her and jogged to catch up. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. I just want it all to go away.”
He stopped, letting her pull ahead. “I promised you I’d free Earth of his presence. And I mean to do it.”
Her steps faltered and her shoulders slumped. “It’s not fair. I only just found you.”
In three strides he was next to her, his heart in full agreement. Yet he couldn’t stay here with her, not with a potentially vengeful djinn stalking her. The only way to protect both her and the rest of humanity was to go back. “I have to do this. He’s a danger to you and every other person he meets.”
“Isn’t there another way? Would a wish break the connection?” She looked at him with hopeful eyes.
He shook his head. “We’re immune to each other’s magic, remember?”
She shoved both palms ineffectually against his chest. “I don’t want to have to choose between you and him! I lose no matter what!”
He opened his arms, relieved when she fell into them, pressing her cheek hard against his chest. Resting his chin atop her head, he breathed deeply of her sweet anise and citrus scent. “I’m so sorry.”
There was really nothing more to say. So he held her while she cried. He looked at the achingly blue sky overhead, took a deep breath of the morning breeze, full of the scent of cooking bacon and the rose bushes climbing a trellis on a nearby house. Ran his palms along Tanika’s bare arms, enjoying the velvet skin beneath his touch. All these things he would lose when he once again became pure spirit.
She turned her chin to look up into his face. “There’s no other choice. You have to go, don’t you?”
He nodded, and brushed his lips gently against hers. Her beautiful face crumpled into tears once again, and he crushed her tightly against him, never wanting to let her go. The world seemed to stand still around them, time losing all meaning, and yet barely any time at all passed. He would hold this in his memory for all eternity. Finally, he pushed her away, holding lightly to her arms.
“Now?” She whispered.
He wiped moisture from beneath her eye with a thumb and put it to his lips, tasting salt. Even the sad things he’d miss. “Before he has a chance to trick another soul.”
She stepped back, body rigid, eyes tight. The tendons on her neck stood out with repressed tears. Holding up her right hand, she regarded the palm. “I only have one heart line. Unbroken.” She held it out for him to see. “I love you, Ophir. I will until the end of my days.”
His chest was so tight, he wondered if it might not be possible to die right then and there. “And I will love you through all eternity.”
With that, he closed his eyes and focused on the tiny thread he now knew had always been there. The one that allowed him to do small magic, yet had never seemed large enough to allow a soul to pass. He pulled deep from what little energy remained within him, feeling for the djinn in his realm to anchor him, as Elim had suggested. There were plenty there to choose from. He stretched himself thinner than he ever thought possible, felt his cells vibrate, his molecules dissolve… and his consciousness become energy.