Jinni's Wish (Kingdom, #4)

“Who is Tristan Black?” Jinni asked as the roar of twisting metal became deafening.

She smiled, tugging the square shaped pendant from his hand and slipped it around his neck. It settled with a flutter of warmth, spreading like tingling feelers through his body. He glanced down, the pendant had flared to life, a bright and glorious undulating royal blue. He didn’t feel it, didn’t have to push energy through his body to keep it on, it simply stayed put.

“You are, Jinni.” And with those final words, she disappeared in a bright flash of color.

He barely had time to turn, when the world erupted into chaos. The plane crashed into trees, a wing tip ripped through his midsection, causing a momentary shiver of discomfort.

Rocks and debris flew like shrapnel, pelting and sailing through his face, his chest. With one final groan the plane sank to its belly, kicking up clumps of grass and dirt in its wake. Then all was silent save for the licking of the flames curling out of the wreckage. Black smoke billowed high into the heavens.

But the strange and empty silence didn’t last long.

In moments there were groans, and then screams as humans kicked and clawed at their metal coffin.

A latch was turned with a loud squeal, and then a man appeared in the black doorway. Bathed in shadow and covered in soot, he wheezed and coughed. “Come,” he called to someone with a voice grown hoarse.

Fire grew higher.

Shadow man turned and then dragged a body out. A woman, judging by the length of her waist length black hair.

Her eyes were closed, her full pink lips scratched and oozing blood.

The man was tugging on her arm. There was a mechanized motion to his body, unnatural. His movements were robotic.

Jinni floated closer, drawn to the man for some odd reason. Quickly glancing inside the aircraft he noticed many misshapen lumps, humans clawing and crying to crawl away from the greedy flames that’d already claimed some. The stench of sizzling flesh and hair reached his nose.

He turned his back, again drawn to the man who continued to drag the woman out. Now that he was out in the moonlight, Jinni could see him better. The stranger was covered in blood, a large gash stretched across his forehead.

There was something about him. Something unusual that teased at the corners of Jinni’s mind. He’d seen the strange movements before. Human, but not quite. Off.

And then he looked into the stranger’s eyes and knew. They were dead and empty. Hollow, with no life.

Jinni reached out to touch the man’s shoulder when a terrible roar quaked behind them and a shot of glowing steel flew through the air, throwing the stranger flat on his back as the metal bounced off his skull and pierced the side of his neck.

He slumped in a heap next to the woman.

Cocking his head, Jinni finally looked down at her.

Ash and soot could not hide the rich caramel color of her flesh. She had a button nose and a small rosebud mouth, black hair curled becomingly around her heart shaped face. Then she opened her eyes and they were warm and molten brown, alive but glittering with pain.

In that moment something strange happened to Jinni. He sucked in a breath as heat zipped down his spine, curled long fingers through his heart and for the first time in years… he felt it beat. One strong, powerful flex of muscle in his dead chest.

“Help me,” she breathed, and then her eyes rolled back into her head.

How had she seen him?

Something a lot like panic clawed through his skull. It made him twitchy and with a violent shudder, he gripped the pendant in his fist. The ghostly echo of one time and one time only flitted through his head.

“Make it so,” he murmured and then winced as the fire engulfed him. Energy poured out of the stone.

It was like sinking in lava, feeling that terrible heat coat your flesh, sear your lungs. He screamed, dropping to his knees as the flesh covered his soul, bones and tendon knitting a patchwork frame throughout.

The plane roared as another flying spray of hot metal sailed through the air, whizzing pass his cheek. He hissed at the violent heat, shuddering at the sweat that coated his naked limbs.

He had to pull her away. Had to save her before it was too late.

Standing on feet that felt foreign and unsure, he dropped to his knee. Gritting his teeth, he tried again. Forcing his brain to remember what having a body felt like.

Somehow he managed to get his uncoordinated limbs to cross the distance to her and latched onto her wrist. There was strength in this body he wore.

With a loud grunt, he pulled her dead weight against his chest. Heart thumping wildly at the feel of her. She was soft, fleshy in all the right places, and it felt wonderful.

Hefting her against him, he walked in a drunken line deep into the woods, away from the exploding plane. She mumbled incoherently when he gently sat her down.

Then he went back for the man.