The Council Summoned

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According to legend – as if it could be true – the Jinn were the first inhabitants of the Earth. They thrived in the harsh condition for countless years before humanity. But in order to make room for humanity, the Jinn were cast to another dimension – one that parallels the human’s. The Jinn have the capability of entering other dimensions and universes easily. They often get blamed for paranormal encounters – ghosts, shadow people, and demonic possessions. And, well, it’s true. It is believed that the evil itself is a Jinn.

The Jinn had been a peaceful species. The Drevnimi – the seven Jinn that were supposedly alive when the species was first created – spoke of how beautiful the Jinn were. They were created from smokeless fire. The Drevnimi claimed to have witnessed humanity’s beginnings and warned against listening to their lies, but the Jinn ignored them. The humans sung to them, sung them songs from a book so old the pages seemed to be as old as the Drevnimi. The songs captured them, quite literally, and ripped them out of their plane of existence. At first, the humans only asked them questions, but the questions began to get darker, until there were hushed rumors that the humans were beginning to prepare for enslavement. The Drevnimi had warned, and the Jinn had ignored.

The Jinn were taken to King Solomon. The king – described by the humans to be wise and fair – subjected the Jinn to harsh slavery and cruel conditions. The Jinn tried to usher the younger ones out into safety, but the humans had lined the place with salt. The salt almost killed several of the smaller and weaker Jinns. All throughout the king’s reign, and fifty years after his death, he tortured the species. He shut misbehaving Jinn in bottles and threw them in the sea. The Head of the Council had been there when the corpse had fallen. An earthworm had eaten through the cane that held the corpse in position, a threat to all Jinn. After the corpse had fallen, the Jinn realized they had been tricked, and their anger burned against humanity. They had been forced to endure endless suffering and abuse at the hands of the mindless humans.

After the king’s death, the humans began to learn new enchantments through ‘prophets’. One such song ripped the souls out of them. The process was painful and left many Jinn mentally unstable. The humans bound their souls to items – Lamps. They cursed the Jinn – each new Djinn that was created was to have a Lamp. A howling still echoes through the lands of the desert on occasion, reminding the Arabs of the way the Jinn had been tortured.

The humans then tried to separate them from the objects. It seemed, however, that the damage was permanent. Once a Djinn was forcefully separated from its soul the second time, it died. The Arabs didn’t stop – not until a hundred thousand Jinn lay dead from their hands, their souls crumbled. The Jinn weren’t bound by bodies – they were fire, burning incessantly and creating their own energy. The Arabs were amazed by what happened to dying Jinn – their souls turned to ash and their body erupted into smokeless fire. And, because they were amazed, they continued trying to separate the souls from the objects.

Not until the Jinn began fighting back. It was the first step in creating the rivalry between man and Jinn. The Jinn didn’t outnumber the humans, but even just one Djinn could overpower them. The humans were taken by surprise as the more powerful ones infiltrated their bodies and began crushing their chests, murdering the humans. The lesser Jinn collected the ashy remains of the souls of their fallen friends and family and loved ones. The ground was stained with blood and smokeless ash – a scene that still haunts many Jinn. The sun scorched above them, and humans were screaming, begging for mercy while they could still breathe. The Jinn didn’t grant them mercy.

Broken and embittered, the Jinn returned briefly to their plane of existence. It was then that they began to separate. While they were all Jinn, there were several… ‘ranks’. Those ranks vary depending on strength or behavior. The Amir is the most common Jinn. Ummaar, the plural of Amir, is the type that dwells on Earth with the humans. The Amir is typically found serving the humans that finds its Lamp. While the Amir is the weakest of the Jinn, they can easily overpower most obstacles they face. The next ranking are the Shayteen. A Shaytaan is comparable to ‘devils’ or ‘demons’, and are often the cause of many demonic possessions on Earth. The Ifrits and the Marids are the most powerful and dangerous. An Ifrit is rarely nice, and was the subject of most of King Solomon’s more horrific punishments for disobeying. A Marid, while slightly weaker than an Ifrit, is larger and more imposing than the Ifrits. Ifrits and Marids rarely leave the dimension that the Council is in. There are many more ‘ranks’ or ‘types’ of Jinn, but those are the most common four.

The Jinn formed the Jinn Council for many reasons. They would lead the Jinn into becoming the dignified species that they had once been, a far cry from the obsequious servants that the humans had tried to force them to become. They would make sure that they never faced such a disaster – at all costs. While the Ummaar were becoming enslaved every day, the Jinn Council watched over them. There were very basic rules that an Amir had to follow, and Council ensured that those who didn’t follow the rules were punished. But for the most part, they didn’t impose themselves on other Jinn.

Eventually, the Jinn Council began to work on repairing the curse that the humans had given them. The Ifrits began to manipulate time in an effort to rid themselves of the shackles of the Lamps. The Head of the Council, a nameless Ifrit, began murmuring to the other members of Council, whispering to them that if they could manipulate time and reality, then were they not gods?

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The Head of the Council’s whispers eventually grew in volume and more people began paying attention.

The Head was right, wasn’t it? If they could manipulate the very fabric of existence, then they were Gods. They were no longer the weak and servile slaves of man – they were reaching their potential, and it was time that they claimed their birthright. It was time that they avenged the deaths of the seven Drevnemi. The children of the Drevnemi were strong, and they were able, and they were remorseful for ignoring the pleading warnings from the Drevnemi. The Head of the Council was prepared.

They had been manipulating Time for a while – changing minor things here and there, and then began practicing their powers on major events. The Ifrits were the one in charge of the Mission. The Head of Council itself, however, didn’t take part on the rewriting of history. The Ifrit remained a studious observer, watching as the timeline changed and made notes of all the changes. A few people didn’t die when they were meant to, or perhaps a war never happened, or maybe a war that hadn’t begun previously erupted. The Head of Council didn’t care too much about the effect its meddling had on the human’s universe.

The Head of Council stared outside the chamber windows. The world that they resided on was trapped in severely cold conditions. The Jinn paid it no mind. On this world, however, the Jinn were immune to the effects of the blistering weather. Many times, the Jinn did not need to venture out of the Council’s building. And when they did, they simply took their true form; particles of energy. And energy didn’t feel cold – granted, they moved slower in the cold, but it was the only option. A human would very quickly die in the cold, which was something they didn’t worry about. If they were to bring a human to their universe, it would surely be to die.

A Vetala sat on the floor in the Council’s meeting room. The other members of Council sat in a circle around it. While the Ifrits and Marids were perhaps the strongest type of Jinn, the Vetales were the most intelligent. There were rumors that the Vetales were the speakers of the dead Drevnemi, but the Head didn’t put much thought into it. The Vetales were not limited by the laws of time or space. The Vetales see into the future and the past. They were the only Jinn that hadn’t been captured by the Arabs, supposedly because they had foretold the enslavement.

The Vetales could not take humanoid form, but they could possess dead humans. The Vetala in the middle of the circle had done such. The corpse it had chosen was that of a small girl that a group of Marids brought back from the human world. The body had begun decomposition when the Vetala entered her, but had stopped when it settled into the body. The stench of death still wafted from it, but the Jinn around it didn’t seem to mind. The child’s hair had already fallen out as had most of the teeth. The Vetala was covering its eyes with its hands.

“Head of Council.”

The Head looked at the members of the Council on the floor. The Ifrit sat on the floor as well. “What do you have to say, Vetala?”

The Vetala looked at the Ifrit, a frown on the corpse’s lips. The hands lowered, and the milky eyes found the Ifrit’s. “You brought me here because you are having a problem that you cannot solve,” it said slowly. “You have been meddling with the time stream. Did you not think that I would notice, Ifrit?”

The Ifrit frowned and leaned towards her. “I did not send you here for a lecture, Vetala.”

“No, but you sent for me to tell you the truth,” the Vetala answered, raising the corpse’s chin boldly. “And what you have done to it senseless and reckless. If the meta-universe collapses, it would be the Council’s fault,” it continued.

The Ifrit stared at the corpse. The corpse returned his gaze evenly. “If you aren’t going to anything other than reprimand me, I’ll have you sent away.”

The corpse’s lips pulled into a smirk. “The question you would like to pose is how to manipulate Time so that the Arabic enslavement of the Jinn did not happen,” it said, lifting its hand to display a panorama of the scene. The picture that the Head of the Council knew too well: dying humans and the bloody Jinn, the smokeless fire and the ashy souls.

“Yes.”

There was a small murmur amongst the other Marids and Ifrits at the group. The corpse stared at them until they quieted, and then raised its eyes back to the Head of the Council. “It cannot happen. Time will not allow it.”

“There are species that can manipulate time even better than us,” the Head of the Council argued. “Why is it that they should be allowed more power than us?”

“Perhaps you should ask yourselves the opposite. Why should we be allowed more power than the rest of the universe?”

“Because we are better,” the Head of the Council said hotly. “We are Gods. They are lords.”

The Vetala’s lips twitched. “No,” it replied, and picked itself up and glared at the Head of the Council. “Your words are dangerous,” it insisted. “We are Jinn. We are not Gods.”

The Ifrit snarled, and stood, staring down at the corpse of the small girl. “You’ll watch your tongue about what you say.”

“Do you want the truth or do you want lies?” it countered, glaring up at the taller Jinn. “I can surely give you both, just as surely as I can tell you what will happen.” The Vetala swiped a hand at the panorama view of the bloody scene from the liberation of slavery. It was replaced with more fire and a sense of sorrow. “You will fight and you will lose.”

“The Lords of Time do not know what they have.”

“They do,” the Vetala insisted. “That is why they have gone to war! That is why their species has nearly died. They were foolish to think they owned the universe, and you are foolish to think you own the entire meta-universe.”

The Ifrit snorted. “They were too weak. We are not weak. Our potential is much greater than a lord’s.”

“And yet you do not have the wisdom of a God,” the Vetala replied coldly. “Tell me – how do you intend to run a Council when there are no members left alive?”

“You are defective. Marids,” the Head of the Council said, looking down at the members still sitting on the floor. “Take the Vetala to the salt room.”

The Vetala clenched its jaw as a Marid grabbed the corpse’s shoulder. “You can kill me, but believe this, Head of the Council. You will regret the day you ignored the Vetales, just as you regret the day you ignored the Drevnemi. History repeats itself.” The Vetala pushed the Marid away and raised the corpse’s chin. “You will regret this,” it promised as the Marid pushed the corpse out of the room. The Marid had sent many Jinn to die in the salt room.

The salt room was next to the Council’s meeting chamber. After a few moments, they could hear the Vetala’s shrieks of pain while it was deteriorating from the salt. Soon, though, the Vetala quieted and the Marid reentered the room. The Head of Council put its hands behind its back and smiled at the remaining members.

“Do not let the foolish Vetala convince you that is wrong to claim your birthright. We were meant to rule Time, brothers,” the Ifrit told them. “We will learn their secrets and there will be nothing that we cannot do.”

The rest of the Council began nodding and smiling at each other. “We are Gods,” the Head of the Council continued. “We will capture the Lords of the Time, and we will take their friends. We will return the Ummaar and their masters, and we will extract their knowledge.”

“We are Gods,” a Marid said hesitantly. The Head of the Council smiled encouragingly. “We are Gods,” the Marid said again, louder. “We are Gods!” This time, the room was full of Jinn screaming the phrase.

And with that, the Head of the Council’s whispers grew into a battle cry.

We are Gods.

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The battle cry’s echoes distributed itself across the Council’s building. It echoed through the ears of the Jinn, and it drummed through them as a combined heartbeat. They were embittered and scorned, and it was time that the Jinn rose to their natural place. They had always been destined for great and beautiful things – the Drevnemi had told them so, thousands of years ago when the seven were still alive. The residue of their souls, the pallid ash, had been carefully preserved throughout the years, encased and put on seven pedestals. The eternal fire lit the seven pedestals, a reminder to all of what the humans had stripped them of. Life and freedom.

The Head of the Council stepped down into the basement, observing the work of the lower members in preparation for their… prisoners. The Head of the Council didn’t approve of the word, but a Vetala had pointed out that the Lords of Times and their humans were being taken against their will. Still, ‘prisoner’ was a barbaric sort of word. He preferred to think of the Lords of Times and the humans as… ‘reluctant guests’. Several Ummaar had already been summoned and were working on preparing two of the many chambers for their reluctant guests. The Head of the Council chose the Ummaar because of the knowledge they possessed of humans.

The Council had made a unanimous decision to split the two sexes up. The Jinn had studied animals before, and they knew that the males tended to rarely get along with other males, and the females’ friendship was thin and shallow with other females. Of course, the Jinn had not bothered studying the humans or Lords of Time extensively. If the two sexes did forge friendships, however, it would be of little consequence. They were only bringing them there to pick apart the brain, and perhaps subject a few to rather thorough tests. The Jinn were not ‘sexed’, but rather they were both sexes and neither at the same time until they chose a humanoid form. And even then, many still chose to remain ambiguous.

“I see you have made little progress,” the Head of the Council said, observing the female chamber with a frown. “Do human females and the Ladies of Time really require such frivolities?” the Ifrit asked.

The Ummaar jumped and turned towards the Head of the Council’s voice. “Yes,” replied one of them, stepping forwards shakily. “We know that the general favorite color is ‘pink’, although with the rise of feminism, many of the human females are drifting farther from the ‘pink’, and are favoring bolder colors such as—”

The Head of the Council stared at the Amir witheringly.

The Amir shut its mouth and looked down at the ground. The other Ummaar turned their backs hesitantly, returning to the work presented to them. They had been working on the room since they had been summoned a day earlier. The Head of the Council had only summoned a few of the Ummaar for the labor force. They had originally been hesitant to help the Council, but the Head of the Council had already sent two or three of the Ummaar to the salt room for disobedience.

“I expect for you to finish before I come back,” the Head of the Council said, not taking its eyes off the one that had spoken before. “I do not care if the female humans or the Ladies of Time find their room ‘attractive’. Do we have an understanding, Ummaar?” it asked.

The Ummaar nodded. The Amir that had been talking with the Head of the Council nodded as well and moved towards the other group of Ummaar. “Yes,” it said, nodding its head quickly. “We will expedite our efforts.”

One of the largest chambers that the Council possessed was to be used for the female humans and Time Lords. Of course, if the Jinn had needed a bigger room, they could have simply created one. They had found through their census that there seemed to be far more ‘females’ than ‘males’. It was a curious discovery, but one that had little to no relevancy on the mission for knowledge. The chambers were a standard shade of light gray for the Council’s building. The Head of the Council had ‘urged’ them to only put in necessary items – beds, perhaps a ‘food device’, and very little else. The Ummaar, however, had added roses as decorations, and one of the Ummaar wrote a small note saying ‘we’re sorry’ and tucked it under one of the pillows carefully.

The Head of the Council didn’t understand why such things were necessary. The Jinn certainly didn’t need flowers or comfortable beds or food to continue thriving. The Jinn could merely exist and that was enough for most of them. The Head of the Council shook its head, deciding that it was no wonder Jinn were the superior creature if they didn’t need to indulge in such a way. He opened the door to the chambers for the human males and the Lords of Time. The Ummaar had scarcely decorated the room; beds and a food dispenser.

“Excellent job,” the Head of the Council said. The Ifrit walked the stairs leading to the Council’s meeting room. The doors to the chambers had been enforced with the strongest energy the Head of the Council summoned. It had made the Ifrit tired, but it had regained its strength. The Ifrit sat at the end of the table, watching as the Marids and other Ifrits began preparing the ‘other’ rooms for their guests. The other Jinn were not to have their own rooms. They would work for the Head of the Council in extracting knowledge from the Lords and Ladies of Time.

“Head of the Council,” a Marid said, approaching the Ifrit. “I believe that we are prepared for our guests,” it said. He gestured to the Ummaar that had been decorating the female chambers. One of the Ummaar, the one that had spoken to the Head of the Council, was missing. “The Amir was disobedient… it was sent to the salt room,” the Marid shrugged. The other Ummaar glanced fearfully at each other.

The Head of the Council nodded and stared at the rest of the Ummaar. “Show them to their chambers, Marid,” it ordered. The Marid grabbed the three remaining Ummaar and led them forcefully out of the room. The Head of the Council turned to the rest of the Council members.

“It is time now to inform the rest of our kind what we have begun,” the Ifrit said. “It is time to begin our war.”

The Council joined hands, their energies tangling with each other. And all across space and time, each Amir felt a familiar and painful tug as they were summoned to the Council’s room. And their owners would feel it also, the experience of summoning – exploding and imploding at the same time as they were whisked away to the Jinn’s universe.

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A small gray ball of fluff was currently yawning and stretching on Blue’s couch. The cat’s wide green eyes stared up at the Djinn. Blue was curled on his couch, a blanket wrapped around him as he continued reading the thick book in his hands. He wasn’t necessarily interested in it – it was a French book that Mattie had left behind for him – but it was one of the only things that Mattie had given him. Well, besides a deeper and painful look into emotions – love, loss, and… Blue shut his eyes and rested his forehead against the book, a sigh pushing from his lips.

His own dark eyes glanced beside him and reached out towards the kitten. It purred and nuzzled into his touch. A smile tugged at his lips and he put the book down and snuggled into the couch with the kitten beneath his arm. The cat squirmed, but Blue tightened his grip slightly. The kitten resigned itself to its fate and continued purring, licking his fingers. “You’re a cute little cat,” he whispered to it, kissing its head cheerfully. The cat stared at him with large green eyes, probably silently asking why it was being subjected to such torture.

He liked cats.

Blue sat up, looking down at the creature with a frown. Mattie had been obsessed with cats. Before Mattie, Blue had nearly never been in the form of a feline - he had mainly only been a dog to protect his owners. But the only thing that Mattie had needed to be protected against was the disease that slowly ate him away. And it slowly ate Blue up, too, watching the beautiful human make wishes for everyone but himself – for his little sister, for his mother, for Blue himself – and then, finally…

Kill me, the man had whispered quietly.

Blue shivered. The cat padded through the cat door, escaping to freedom. Blue watched as it trotted down the apartment hall and regally walked down the steps through the window in the door. He flopped back down on the couch and covered his head with the book. He had poured over the book a thousand times and still he hadn’t been able to find some sort of clue – some hope that could bring Mattie back from the dead. Blue swallowed thickly and wished he could stop thinking about it. He paused for a moment, almost hoping that his wish would come true.

But it would seem that a Djinn could only grant wishes, not receive them.

A sharp pain lit his body on fire. He gasped, grabbing the book tightly as the energy expanded and contracted simultaneously. Each time he’d been summoned there was always a fair amount of pain as the molecules separated and split. But this time was different – the pains struck at his core, making him want to tear his hair out. He finally gave up on the humanoid form, slipping into the cloud of energy. It made the pain only somewhat more tolerable. Finally, he felt the familiar last, violent tug of the summoning process. This time, however, the tug lasted a fair deal longer.

And when it stopped he took his humanoid form again, falling to his hands and knees. He blinked at the ground, blinking as he fought to stay in control of his lunch. He looked up, confused by the foreign scent of other Jinn. He opened his mouth to say something, but eventually shut it. The Jinn in front of him didn’t seem particularly keen on talking, however, so Blue once again tried to find words to convey what he was feeling.

“Erm, what?”

“Amir,” the Marid in front of him said. “Stand.”

Blue stood slowly to his feet, staring warily at the creatures in front of him. He had been summoned to the Council before, but they had given him warnings. It had been centuries ago – when the Jinn had first liberated themselves from humanity. Blue had killed a few humans and the Head of the Council had offered to erase his memories. Blue kept them, though the Ifrit didn’t give the younger Jinn a choice. “What is this about, Marid?” he asked, frowning. “Surely the Head of Council is too busy to wo—”

“We are preparing for war.”

…war?

Blue stared at the Marid. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” he asked politely, straining his ears. “We don’t interfere with anyone else. We’re just Jinn,” Blue argued.

The Marid frowned. “Are you refusing your services?” it asked. It glanced in the direction of the salt room. Blue didn’t need to be told where the salt room was in relation to him. He could smell it.

“Why should I offer them? Surely you Marids and the Ifrits can handle this without Ummaar.” The tone in his voice may have been slightly bitter – the higher level of Jinn often bullied the Ummaar – so why on earth were they now choosing to use them?

The Marid frowned and took Blue’s arm, but an Ifrit pushed passed him. The Ifrit took Blue by the hand and led him away from the salt room. Blue followed with a frown, glancing around the building for hiding spots. Finally, the Ifrit stopped walking. “Mattie.”

Blue swallowed thickly and took a step away from the Ifrit, embarrassed. The Jinn didn’t approve of interspecies relationships, and… the Amir looked down, feeling the wave of emotions hit him again.

“Haven’t you been wondering why you’ve been thinking of him lately?”

“I think of him every day,” Blue said quietly. “Not just lately.”

“We’re fighting for time, Amir,” the Ifrit said, placing its hand on Blue’s cheek. Blue pushed it off with a scowl. “Once we get the secrets from the Lords of Time, we will be in control.”

The Time Lords? Blue looked up with a quick frown – he’d been a servant to a Time Lord. Memories of harsh words and cruel looks came to the surface. “Yeah, so? You want to use me because I know a Time Lord?” he asked bluntly.

“That is part of the reason,” the Ifrit said vaguely. “Your reward would be Mattie.”

“He’s dead,” Blue snapped irritably. “I killed him!”

“But if we could control time, we could erase his death,” the Ifrit said smoothly. Blue took another step back, a frown on his lips and a ‘no’ on his tongue. “He could be yours again. Wouldn’t you like to be loved again?”

The Ifrit gestured next to him, and an image of Mattie flickered. The young blond man was grinning brightly, the brown eyes reflecting the sky and even the glasses that Mattie had to use to read. Blue’s breath hitched and he looked away, wondering if his heart could break if he didn’t have one.

“He could be alive.”

“I’ll do it,” Blue whispered, casting a quick glance to the image of his former owner. “I’ll help you.”

[Deleted]

They’d been through a lot together. Aixa was beginning to relax around Pippa without having realized he was tense. Perhaps it wasn’t the perfect ownership for a Djinn, but it was perfect enough for him. He was finally comfortable with someone, and although Pippa wasn’t totally as relaxed as him, Aixa figured they’d come pretty far since she had threatened to bash his head in with a bat. Being kidnapped by creepy shadow little girls that had been slowly draining Aixa of his energy the more he tried to use it did slightly help spur the friendship along. And although Pippa had been terrified, Aixa had never been so proud of a human before.

Aixa sat on her couch, yawning widely. At first she had felt bad about him sleeping on the couch – although honestly she was probably just terrified he’d get mad about sleeping on the couch and condemn her to a life of misery and never ending woe. She’d gotten over it eventually, and Aixa was content with the couch. Mostly he just slept in the form of a kitten curled under the blankets, although sometimes he was too exhausted to switch forms out of the humanoid. He wouldn’t tell her that he was just too tired to be anything other than human.

He didn’t want her to worry, and maybe she wouldn’t, but he still didn’t want to admit that ever since they had gotten home after the scary shadow energy-sucking monster zoo he’d felt… off. It had been easily the worst time of his life. He’d lived through the liberation of the Jinn but he didn’t remember it – just knew the basics from other Jinn. But there at the ‘zoo’… Aixa had tried not to let Pippa or the Doctor see it, but he’d been convinced he was going to die. It terrified him – the more he had tried to use the energy, the more it had been drained from him. And Aixa realized, quite suddenly, that he wasn’t prepared to die. He didn’t want to.

His limbs still ached and he sighed, wondering when he was going to get his strength back up. He leaned his head back on her couch and covered his face with his hands.

“Are you okay?”

The small and quiet voice startled him. He picked himself up wearily from the couch and smiled at her. “Don’t worry about me,” he said cheerfully, offering her a wide grin. Her face remained the same, and his smile faltered. “I’m okay, Pip,” he assured her eventually.

“I bought a cookbook,” she told him, walking to the kitchen and pulling out a cookbook carefully. She prodded the book with a spoon to check for spiders or other venomous insects before opening it. “It’s for no-salt or low-salt diets.”

“Diabetes?” he said, observing the cover of the cookbook behind her. He rested a hand on her arm, but pulled away when she tensed underneath him. “Is that what I have? Diabetes?” he inquired, taking the book from her and flipping to a particularly delicious-looking dish. “Do you want to try it now?”

“Aixa, these are for dinner,” she frowned. She opened her mouth again, but shut it at the pout he was giving her. She knew very well that even if he was weak he could still overpower her to get to the stove. And anyway, the threat of the werewolf ex-boyfriend still lurked in her mind. “Sure,” she said. “Let’s have it for breakfast.”

Aixa rubbed his hands together in excitement and bounced over to her oven, turning it on as high as it would go and beginning to fish around her cupboards for random assortments of food.

“Wait!”

“What?”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m cooking!”

“It’s a recipe. You follow it.”

“I… huh?” he asked, staring at her as though she had two heads. “I’m supposed to do what it says?”

“What did you think the recipe was for?” she asked, staring at him with wide eyes as she got out of the range of the canned foods falling from her cupboards.

“I thought they were suggestions,” he admitted.

However, when she said nothing further, Aixa looked at her and frowned. She was clutching her chest and looked very uncomfortable. “I’m dying!” she squeaked. Aixa took a step back and fell out of the chair he had been standing in to get in her counters. “I haven’t even told my family I loved them! What about my little sister?!” she panicked.

Aixa stared at her, trying to decide whether she was being melodramatic or if there was something seriously wrong. She cringed, and Aixa felt it. He was being summoned. But that didn’t make any sense. His Lamp was still on her finger, and it wasn’t because Pippa was dying either. He hadn’t felt this way when Charlemagne had died. He took a deep breath.

“Pippa, you’re going to be okay,” he said gently, helping her on the ground. “Just shut your eyes and think of… of… I don’t know, kittens.”

“You’re bad at this!”

“Well I’ve never had my human summoned!” he argued, his breath hitching as a violent tug went through his body.

His knees and elbows hit the marble floor with a dull thud. Aixa rolled on his back, convinced that hitting the humanoid funny bone was nearly as bad as being summoned to another dimension. Pippa seemed to get over it slightly faster, rubbing her chest and looking around with wide eyes.

Aixa took the form of a hyena, growling and yipping at the Marids who were walking towards Pippa. “Don’t touch her,” he snarled. “What do you want with us, Marid?”

“Amir, you will hold your tongue.”

The hyena whipped its head in the direction the voice came in. A small boy was standing in the entrance of the room. The pale blue eyes found the girl. “Head of the Council,” Aixa recognized, shifting to his human form and standing in front of Pippa.

“Again?” Pippa whispered, referring to the fact they had been kidnapped. Again.

“I’m sorry, Pip,” he responded, wishing the Jinn could have planned their little abduction a little later. “I didn’t know.”

“We are at war, Amir.”

“Why? For what? Why do you need me?”

“We are gaining our birthright. We are taking it from the Lords of Time.”

The Time Lords… the Nomad, the Doctor…

The Head of the Council took a step forward, staring up at the taller Jinn with a cold expression. “You will help.”

“Will I?”

“Unless you want to be murdered in the salt room,” the Ifrit said casually. Its pale eyes drifted to Pippa and its lips twitched into a snarl. Aixa put himself in front of the girl again, glaring down. “Your job is simple enough. We require you to… extract information from the Lords of Time and the humans who accompany them.”

Aixa looked over to the direction of the salt room. “Fine, I’ll help you. Just let Pippa go.”

The Ifrit scoffed. “The human female will stay with us. Marids.”

A Marid grabbed Aixa, pulling him from Pippa. The Amir scowled and tried to change forms desperately. “Pippa! Pippa!” he shouted, trying to shove the Marids off him.

Pippa struggled against the Marid that grasped her easily. “Aixa,” she whispered, watching as the others took her Djinn down a hallway. She could still hear Aixa’s feral howls as he demanded to be released. She looked up at the Marid, her heart hammering in her chest as the boy… the ‘Head of the Council’ looked her over.

“Did he tell you he killed one of his masters?” the boy asked, tilting his head curiously. “Take her to the female guest chambers, Marid.”

Pippa followed the Marid silently, trembling. Once it pushed her into the room, she leaned against the wall and slid down, burying her face in her knees. All her life she’d been afraid of the boogeyman – she avoided dangerous situations like the plague, she looked both ways before crossing the street multiple times, she avoided having to cross the street, and now? Now she had been taken from the comfort of her own home as she’d been kidnapped by the boogeyman.

Across the Council’s building, Aixa was being slammed into a room. Several other Ummaar looked up at him. Aixa ignored them and sprung to his feet, trying to escape from the room. The Marid scowled and looked down at him. Aixa took the form of a hyena and took the Marids’ leg in his jaws, crushing it. The Jinn howled, and the other Marids pulled the Amir off. “Amir,” one of the voices said coolly, and Aixa realized it was the Head of the Council. “If you do not cease fighting, your mistress will no longer be a welcomed guest.”

Aixa fell back to the other captured Jinn and stared at the small figure of the Head of the Council. The door shut and was sealed. He sat down numbly. “I’m sorry, Pippa,” he whispered, and he was reminded of a thousand years earlier when he wondered if he was capable of sorrow and weeping. He buried his face in his knees, embarrassed by his sobs.