I turned to Amesh. He was still carrying the lamp, but had put down the sword. "Tell Darbar to stop torturing those guys," I said. "And to lay off my dad. He's not going anywhere."
Showing shame, Amesh turned to his invisible djinn and ordered it to remove the captors from the holes. He assured Darbar he had control of the situation. It was nice to see the dramatic change in Amesh. Now that he was pain free, he was almost normal again.
Yet I was getting my hopes up too soon. He was desperate, having made his three wishes, and desperate people did desperate things.
"Darbar says they're to suffer as I have suffered," Amesh told me after conferring with his djinn. I chose not to argue, but turned to Lova instead. I wanted to see how she stacked up against Darbar.
"Lova, release all the prisoners from those holes," I said.
"Is that your third wish?"
"No."
"That's asking too much without making a wish."
"Lova, if you don't do what I say right now, we'll part company and you'll never see me again."
Lova was not ready to let me go. I had only one more wish to make and she had me. In minutes, she managed to lift the four boys—as well as Mr. Toval and Mrs. Steward—out of their pits. My dad went over to help his partners to their feet, while the guys collapsed on the floor. They had been in the longest and their legs were shot. Yet the good thing about this kind of torture—good in a relative sense—was that their relief was immediate. A minute after they lay down, their cramps began to ease up.
As they squirmed on the ground, I recognized two from the photos Lova had taken, Jemal and Omer. I could not help myself; I strode over and stared at them.
"I warned you jerks not to mess with me," I said in a cold voice.
The younger guy cried. "Please don't put us back in there."
"Behave yourself, and I'll think about it." I did not approve of torture but two of these guys had really hurt me.
Spielo was wandering around, dazed. But he did summon the courage to approach me. "Are you Sara?" he asked timidly.
"Yeah. I'm the evil American chick."
"Amesh didn't mean—"
"I know, I know," I interrupted. "Are you scared?"
"Yeah. Are we going to get out of here alive?"
"I honestly don't know."
"If we do, can you take me for a ride on your magic carpet?"
I had to smile. "Sure. We'll fly down to the beach."
We were in the middle of a crisis, yet my father was not with me. He continued to stay near his bosses, exchanging whispers with Mr. Toval and Mrs. Steward. Surprisingly, none of them looked scared. I assumed Darbar still had a hold on all of them.
But something was going on that I was missing.
I spoke to Amesh. "I need to talk to you alone."
He pointed to a spot near the weird vaults. "Over there."
"Wait. Tell your djinn to leave us alone so we can talk in private."
Amesh tried to tell Darbar this. But every time he spoke, it sounded like he was groveling. As a result, Darbar treated him as if he were already a thrall.
"He says no secret conferences are allowed," Amesh said, his voice tense. "It's time to complete the third wish. Those who attacked me are all here. The same with those who were behind the attack. I'm sorry, we've run out of time."
"We?" I asked.
"Your father and I."
"My father just wanted this place guarded!"
"Darbar doesn't see it that way," Amesh said.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father shoved to the ground.
"Sara!" he called out in fear.
I began to panic and turned on Amesh. "Order Darbar to stop hurting my father!"
Amesh tried but got nowhere. "He says that for my wish to be fulfilled, your father must die."
"What kind of wish did you make, exactly?"
Amesh sighed. "I wished for all my enemies to be destroyed."
Mrs. Steward and Mr. Toval backed away from my father. For once, the bigwigs appeared free of Darbar's grip. At least they were able to move around in a restricted area. It looked like Darbar was focusing his energy on delivering a final blow to my father.
I hurried to his side, feeling the weight of Darbar's presence.
"Be careful, Darbar," I warned. "My djinn will destroy you if I give the word."
My father shook his head. "Sara, no more deals with these devils. You don't know the cost. You think you do but—it's more horrible than you can imagine."
I knelt by his side. "Are you in pain?"
"I deserve what's happening to me," he gasped.
"Quit saying that. You didn't hurt Amesh on purpose."
"This isn't about Amesh. We wanted to keep this temple and these vaults secret. That was wrong."
"That was natural. I kept the carpet secret as long as I could."
He looked at me with weary eyes. "And now you've lost it."
I glanced at Lova. She looked at me. Waiting.
"Lova, you're to protect my father from Darbar," I said.
"Is that your third wish?"
"It's an order."
Lova smiled at me and my father. "No," she said.
To my left, a marble column suddenly cracked. The weight of the temple roof kicked a chunk of it loose, and it rolled toward us at high speed. I was not given a chance to change my order to a wish. All I could do was pull my father out of the way.
But his body refused to budge.
"Go, Sara!" he shouted, and shoved me aside. I tripped over the steps. My feet went up in the air, my head went down. It was concussion time all over again. The blow to the back of my skull, the second one today, almost knocked me out. It was only my fear for my father that kept me conscious.
I was lying on the ground, on my side, when the massive pillar rolled over his lower half. I heard a sound then that I'll never forget—a hundred human bones snapping. My father was not given a chance to scream, not even when the pillar rolled away and came to rest above one of the torture holes. He had been crushed.
On my knees, I groped my way to his side. His breathing was ragged. Blood leaked from his mouth onto the temple floor. His feet, his calves, his knees, his thighs, and his hips—they were flat. Red mush soaked his pants. He looked down and groaned.
"Oh, God," he whispered.
"Dad," I said, taking his hand. Amesh and Spielo ran up behind me. "Hang on a minute. I can save you."
His hand was drenched with blood and sweat. His words came out as a moist rasp. But I could hear him. I knew what he was trying to tell me.
"Let me be. I don't deserve to be saved." He coughed up red spittle. "The price is too great, Sara. Let me go."
Tears burned my eyes, like the fire that burned inside Lova's red orbs. It was not necessary to call her to my side. She was already near, waiting. In one hand she held the carpet, in the other she would hold my soul. I turned to her.
"Trakur Analova La," I said. "I, Sara, wish you would save the life of my father, Charles. Trakur Analova La, return him to the state of health he enjoyed before this awful injury. Heal him now, before he dies. This is my third wish with you, Trakur Analova La, and it is binding in so far as all wishes between humans and djinn are binding—as specified in the ancient laws governing such contracts." I stopped to catch my breath. "Agreed?"
Lova studied my father. "Agreed. But I will require your help again. This time I need your blood. It will speed up the healing, and we have little time."
"I'm a human being," I said. "My blood is not special."
"You are human, true, but the power of the Kalas flows through your blood," Lova said, as if that explained everything. She took my father's hand, and with a sharp fingernail on her other hand, she impaled my wrist and began to draw my blood in pulsating gulps. She spoke. "Focus on the healing. It will take both of us to save him."
I closed my eyes and let the white light pour down from above. My body was already hot—I felt as if my individual cells vibrated, and I
could feel my body's energy entering my father's body. I still felt weak from helping Amesh, and I suspected Lova was drawing off more of my blood than she needed. However, this blood-sharing strengthened our link.
Suddenly Lova's thoughts were clear to me. She was not just worried about healing my father. She was concerned about after, when she would make me a thrall. She had doubts she would be able to control a potential Kala. Very interesting, I thought.
But then a heavy sinking feeling paralyzed both my mind and body. I couldn't move an inch, and my thoughts were not free either. I was being drawn down into a black place where I sensed no normal human could survive. For a time I let myself sink deeper into the abyss because I could tell life was returning to my father. I heard him draw in several deep breaths.
But I was not a true Kala. A wave of very human fear shook me, and I attempted to escape the darkness. I knew if Lova let go of my father and focused on me—in my weakened state—she would have me, and once she had me, it would be forever.
With my eyes still closed, I sensed how she was psychically trying to enter my brain. She was coming in the back of my skull. But she was slow and clumsy. Before she could get inside my head, I willed my hands to rise and pulled her nail from my wrist.
As if from far away, I heard her complain.
"Your father still needs your blood," she said.
"Liar. You're taking it for your own use now," I mumbled. I swayed where I sat. With her nail no longer drinking my blood, my thoughts began to clear. On the surface Lova's plan appeared clever. Make me her thrall in the middle of the healing. Yet in her haste I believe she had made a mistake. She had not yet fulfilled my third wish. Therefore, by the Laws of the Djinn, she had no right to claim me as a thrall.
I finally had the strength to open my eyes.
My father's eyes were open, too. He was staring at me.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
He reached up and touched my hair. "Thanks to you."
I smiled. "I'm glad."
His hand dropped to his side. "You shouldn't have, Sara."
I squeezed his hand. "You would have done the same for me."
He shook his head. "No. I don't think so."
My father drew in a deep invigorating breath and sat up and stared directly at Lova. That surprised me. I did not think he could see her.
"Can you take her or do you need help?" he asked my djinn.
Lova hesitated. "Why would your kind help us?"
"The offer is there. It is up to you to accept it," my father said.
It was then my universe fell apart. Not over time, not piece by piece, but all at once. Everything I knew and trusted shattered. In seconds, I realized that I was not a powerful princess but the queen of fools.
Lova eyed me suspiciously. "She is strong. Her bloodline is ancient. I tried to take control during the healing but she repelled me. She'll be difficult to possess."
"What's going on here?" I cried.
My father ignored me and stood. He spoke to Mr. Toval and Mrs. Steward. He did not care that we all heard, even Amesh and Spielo, who looked ready to faint.
"As we suspected," my father said. "The first djinn's power over us has been negated by a collision with the more powerful second djinn. Darbar has lost the ability to fulfill Amesh's third wish. Therefore, the contract between them is now void. Amesh can no longer be made a thrall of Darbar."
Mrs. Steward spoke to my father. "Your plan was intelligent but it left too much to chance. If Sara had not used her djinn to negate the first djinn, we would have had to rely on other resources to fix your body and control her."
My father shrugged. "I know the girl. She is driven by a need to do what is right, no matter what the cost to herself. See how she didn't hesitate to save me?"
Amesh was as confused as I was. "Does this mean I'm free?"
"You're free of your contract with Darbar since he's unable to fulfill your third wish," my father said. "He is taking his lamp and leaving the area. But you're not free."
Amesh blinked and in that instant Darbar's lamp vanished from his hands.
"Best we kill them all," Mr. Toval suggested.
Amesh and Spielo paled. They tried to speak, but couldn't.
Mrs. Steward nodded. "Yes. Put them in the holes and leave them. If thirst doesn't kill them, the pain will."
I managed to stand. The cavern swayed—my blood-starved dizziness was like a wound. What they were talking about? They were like goblins in a childhood nightmare casually discussing how they would cook and spice their next human meal. I stared at my father and did not recognize him. His face was the same, but he was not. He was the nightmare.
"All this was a setup?" I asked.
My father studied me with clinical detachment. "Yes. I knew about your bloodline. It's why I moved into your house when you were a child. It's why I took you down here two days ago—to see how you would react."
"But I never left the Jeep," I protested. The words were no sooner out of my mouth than I realized how I had been used on my first visit to the job site.
Either the surroundings or my father's remark jogged my memory.
Mr. Toval and Mrs. Steward had approached the Jeep while we were sitting outside the cave. I remembered now. She had forced me to drink a bottle of freezing water and I had grown dizzy. It must have been drugged. Then there had been a gap—I had felt like my father was taking forever to return from the cave, but in reality he had taken me into the cave. Indeed, he had forced me to stand in the exact spot where I now stood and answer a question. He had asked it over and over again.
"Where is the carpet, Sara? The Carpet of Ka."
My answer had been "I don't know." They had asked two hours too soon. I did not find the carpet until after Spielo's accident, until that strange woman had led me to it.
Now, in the present, I had to focus on what my father was saying. He spoke almost mechanically, his voice free of emotion, his tone hypnotic.
"We assumed the carpet was down here but we were wrong. This morning, when you returned to the hotel, I was unaware you had discovered the carpet and been to the island of the djinn, although I saw a djinn follow you into your room. That made me curious. While you were in the shower, I found your pack and saw the carpet. I almost took it then but thought it would be best if I sent a team after it. That way you would waste a wish retrieving it, which would move you a step closer to becoming a thrall."
"Plus it gave us a chance to see how the pashupa worked on you," Mrs. Steward said in the same flat tone.
"You're the one who shot me with that green light," I said.
The old woman nodded. "You should be proud. It contained enough power to kill a dozen humans, and you recovered in less than an hour."
"Dad, how can you do this to your own daughter?" I pleaded.
"You're not my daughter. I'm not your father. But your bloodline was identified at an early age and steps were taken so you would grow up under my watchful eye. Our goal with you has always been twofold. First, we hoped you would retrieve the Carpet of Ka. Life after life it's been attracted to you, and to your bloodline. Second, we hoped to make you a thrall. That is why we're willing to help this djinn enslave you, if she should need our help."
I could not keep up. "Are you all djinn?"
"No. The djinn are actually our enemies. But you may have heard the old saying: 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' That is true for now, in this situation. The best way to neutralize your powers as a potential Kala is to make you a thrall."
I spoke sarcastically. "That works better than killing me?"
"Yes," my father said. It was impossible not to think of him as my father.
"What do you mean, the carpet has been attracted to my bloodline?"
"It's served many of your ancestors. For that matter, it served your mother."
"Mom?" I said.
"Your real mother, the one you call Aunt Tracy."
The revelations were coming too fast. I was going into sho
ck. Still, I recognized this particular truth almost before he spoke it. I had never felt close to my parents because they had not been my parents. Tracy was my mother. That meant...
"Was Harry my real father?" I asked.
"I suppose he still is. There's no reason to think he's dead."
"Who are you? What are you?" I asked.
"An Anulakai overshadowing a human mind and body."
"You mean, you're possessed by an Anulakai?"
He shook his head. "Possession implies lack of freedom. All we have become, we did so out of free choice. Years ago our research led us to the secrets of the Anulakai. Think of these secrets as a rare form of knowledge that taught us how to contact them and attune our minds to their minds. In return we were given power and insight, and freedom from emotions and other limiting human qualities."
"This process started when you discovered this temple?" I asked.
"No. It began years ago when we found a smaller site that belonged to the Anulakai. From it we gleaned enough information to find other sites. From all of these sites combined we were able to put together enough knowledge to contact our masters."
"So if they're the masters, you must be the slaves."
He shook his head. "It is an honor to serve them."
"What about this Shar Temple? It looks djinn to me."
"You are perceptive. This temple was built by the djinn before the Anulakai conquered this part of the world. We know it is connected to what you call the Island of the Djinn. That is why it became necessary to control it." He pointed to the structures along the side of the walls. For the first time I noticed they were giving off a faint humming sound. "These ancient devices keep the djinn away from here, and trapped where we want them to be."
"Where do the Anulakai live?" I asked.
"In darkness. Yet they crave light. For that reason, they come again and again to this world."
"From where? Another world?"
"You would not understand. Space is not a constant. When the time is right, they come out of the darkness and into the light." He added, "That time is now."
"Charles," Mrs. Steward interrupted. "Enough."
"Now we must get rid of all loose ends," Mr. Toval said.
My father nodded in their direction before turning back to me. "We harbor you no ill will. But you have the potential to be an extraordinary Kala, and we must destroy you before you awaken to your true powers. We tried to do likewise with Tracy, but she caused us tremendous damage before she could be stopped."