The Dark Rising

  “You mean the Islamic bible?” I looked up at him in interest, and he nodded. “No.”

  “Okay, how about Aladdin and the Magic Lamp?”

  “The one with the genie? Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” I answered.

  “Well then you've heard of the jinn."

  “Genies? They're real?” I laughed, wondering why I found this theory so ridiculous since I, myself, was a witch.

  “Not necessarily in the way you're probably picturing them,” he said.

  “In Arabic, Muslim, and even Egyptian cultures, the jinn were believed to be a race of God’s children that predated man.”

  “Really?” My interest was piqued now.

  “Yes,” he answered. “There are a lot of different folklores and traditions concerning the jinn, but basically they were considered spirits of the desert, something between angels and man. They consisted of species like satyrs and nymphs. Some legends claim they were God’s chosen people, who grew to inhabit the whole earth, building up massive cities and progressing in advanced technologies the more they gained his favor.

  “However, as in many societies, they began to transgress God’s laws, turning toward things of sin and wickedness in their worldly pursuits. They fell out of grace with God and brought His wrath down upon them. The legends say God sent a powerful army of angels to confront them, forcing them out of the places they had lived in.” Hex looked me in the eye as if studying my reaction to everything.

  “What happened then?” I asked, thoroughly enthralled with his story.

  “God created man and gave the earth to him, and the jinn were forced to wander as spirits on a different plane, cast out of heaven, not acknowledged on earth, left to dwell in whatever spots they could find, while having to watch man as he inhabited the planet in their stead.”

  “Wow.” My mind started conjuring images of ancient battles being fought between powerful races of old.

  “Reportedly, there are both good and bad jinn who often try to affect the way things go about in the world today,” Hex continued. “There are even rumors the jinn have possessed men and women to help propagate their own species.”

  We entered a darkened doorway. Hex snapped his fingers and the light came on to reveal a mirrored room with padded mats on the floor.

  “This is my training room, and now it will be yours,” he said and he gestured for me to sit.

  I settled down on the soft mat, thinking about the things he had told me, while he crossed the room and pushed on two sets of mirrors.

  One mirrored panel popped out to reveal a wall of many kinds of weapons, and training devices, the other had dozens of glass tubes filled with different substances. He picked one of these vials up and brought it over to where I was seated, handing it to me. It was full of a bluish liquid.

  “What's this?” I asked turning the test tube in my fingers.

  “That's the jinn,” he replied.

  I looked up at him wondering if he had gone completely insane. Maybe I was dealing with a total nutcase here. He had been alone for a long time.

  He laughed.

  “Your emotions are so easy to read. We'll have to work on that. I’m not crazy,” he said.

  “Then explain what you mean please. How can this be the jinn?” I questioned.

  “I told you that some believed the jinn possessed others to propagate their own species, remember?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “My mother always claimed my father had been possessed by a jinni when she conceived me,” he stated.

  “So you're saying what? That you're a … a jinni?” I responded, hearing the psycho alert sounding off in my head.

  “More or less. I'm part human, part jinn,” he replied watching me. “I can see from your expression you’re going to require a demonstration,” he sighed, looking slightly exasperated with me.

  I nodded. “That would be helpful, yes."

  “All right. I want you to watch me carefully. Do not take your eyes off me,” he instructed.

  “Okay,” I said, looking straight at him.

  Suddenly he disappeared in a puff of black smoke.

  I jumped to my feet in surprise, staring at the blank space where he had been.

  “I’m behind you,” his voice said, and I jumped, swinging around to face him.

  “How'd you do that?” I asked incredulously.

  “I’m a jinni,” he replied while I sat staring at him with my jaw hanging open. “You can close your mouth now,” he added with a boyish looking grin.

  I snapped it shut, and glanced back down at the test tube.

  “So how's this a jinni?” I lifted the vial up to him.

  He reached out for it.

  “When I figured out I had these powers, I drew some blood and began to analyze it. It took me several years, but I finally isolated the cells and this tube is the result of all my hard work. It contains one dose of cells … cells which could possibly pass the same power onto another individual.”

  “Possibly?”

  “I've never been able to test the theory on anyone,” he explained.

  I smiled and crossed my arms. “So are you asking me to be your guinea pig?”

  “Not if you're unwilling.” He smiled back at me.

  “I might be,” I replied, after a moment of consideration. “But only after you explain everything to me about the powers of the jinn and all your theories of how it could affect me.”

  “Deal.” He extended a hand to me.

  “Deal,” I said, taking and shaking it.

  I dreamed of Vance that night.

  My breath caught when I saw him sitting at a lengthy table in a tall wooden back chair.

  The chair was turned sideways and his long, Levi clad legs extended out in front of him crossed at the ankle, the rest of his body slouched in the seat. He was wearing a plain red t-shirt which was stretched both across his sculpted chest and where it came in contact with his biceps. My pulse leapt up in tempo at this sight and he stirred restlessly, almost as if he could sense my perusal of him.

  His eyes were closed and his hair was messier than usual, like he'd run his hands through it several times in frustration. He hadn’t shaved either and his lower jaw was shadowed with rough stubble.

  I noticed one of his arms was draped across the table next to him and he held something, a glass I realized when he lifted it to his lips to take a swallow.

  The red liquid inside splashed as up the sides of the container when he slammed it back down.

  Blood. He was drinking blood.

  A figure passed in front of him, moving to sit in the chair next to him, a woman in a light flowing dress.

  Mayla.

  Vance’s eyes flashed open, his irises flaming red with an intensity I'd never seen before and he scowled at her.

  It occurred to me that perhaps this wasn’t just a dream … more like a vision, and I watched the two of them closer.

  Mayla slid another full glass of blood toward him across the wooden surface.

  “Are you feeling better?” Her voice dripped with concern, and she reached out to rest her palm against his forearm. Anger surged through me at her casual familiarity with him.

  Vance shifted uncomfortably again, this time looking around the room.

  “What's the matter?” Mayla asked him, squeezing his arm and he turned to look at her, settling back down in his chair.

  “Nothing,” he replied, moving to take a drink again, requiring her to break contact with him. “The blood is helping though,” he added after he sat the glass back down.

  Mayla stood and went to stand behind him, reaching out to massage his shoulders and neck, and I felt like I was going to explode at the sight of her caressing his masculine body.

  “You're so tense,” she drawled while she worked him over and his head dropped forward as he let her attempt to work out his muscles.

  I would've given anything to pop her head off of her shoulders in that moment, the way Vance had done to Brian, my jea
lousy over the situation rising to the surface.

  Once again Vance looked around the room. He stood abruptly, moving out of Mayla’s grip and her hands dropped back to her sides.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, confusion written over her face.

  He turned and grabbed up his leather jacket off the back of the chair.

  “Out,” he replied shortly, his booted feet moving with a soft clunking sound on the wooden floor.

  “Don’t forget what we talked about,” Mayla called out after him as he walked out the door.

  He didn’t acknowledge her at all and my vision followed him outside. He swung his jacket on in the sweltering heat before he strode across the swampy looking yard to where his motorcycle waited. Flinging his leg over the seat, he jumpstarted the engine, taking off down the small dirt road.

  I watched him while he drove, following him as though I were seeing him on a movie screen. He paused at a crossroad before turning onto the larger of the two roads, accelerating quickly, peeling out and spewing the earth beneath into the air behind him.

  The engine roared as he raced under the moss draped trees through the night, moving faster and faster until I was sure he was pushing the bike to its limits. He moved with ease, almost as though he and the motorcycle were one living being, racing, leaning, twisting and turning together over every curve and bend in the road.

  Suddenly he hit the brake hard and he screeched recklessly in a full spin to a stop. Dirt and gravel sprayed around him creating this dramatic effect as the dust slowly settled back to the earth.

  He was breathing heavily as he glanced around in the darkness, peering into the areas which his single headlight didn’t penetrate.

  “I can sense you, Portia,” he stated. “I don’t know where you are or how you're doing this, but I know you're here.”

  My lips trembled and I ached to reply, but I was afraid at the same time.

  He lifted his head slightly and he sniffed the air before turning to face my direction.

  “I can smell your blood,” he said, closing his eyes, and a look of pure ecstasy crossed over his features before they popped back open. “You smell good too,” he added.

  My body stared shaking when he got off the bike and strode toward me, coming to a stop right in front of me. He reached his hand out, moving it though the air and I could almost feel the caress of it.

  “Where are you, Portia?” he asked and one corner of his mouth tilted upward, revealing one of the masculine dimples that graced his face.

  “Some place safe,” I answered him, reaching out to touch that lovely crease, only to float through him.

  He raised a hand to his cheek, passing his flesh through mine in the process and I sighed at the almost contact.

  “You’re speaking but I can’t understand what you're saying.” His eyes searched the area in front of him.

  I figured the magical charms Hex had placed around his hideout must be keeping me from being seen and heard. What I found fascinating was the way we were connected. He was awake and I was dreaming, something which we'd never done or tried before.

  “Come back to me, Portia,” he said as I moved my hand to airily brush my fingers over his lips, and he closed his eyes in response to the contact, his breath catching for a moment before he exhaled deeply. “I need you,” his voice pleaded with me, desire laced through it.

  “I can’t,” I responded, but I closed the gap in between us, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Not yet.”

  “You’re speaking again,” he said, though he still didn’t open his eyes.

  I couldn’t help myself. I reached up and placed my lips against his, rubbing them back and forth as I attempted to kiss him in the way which I so desperately wanted too.

  I was totally lost in the sensitivity of that moment and I imagined myself being solid in his arms. Instantly I was. He grabbed me around the waist, pulling me roughly to him and I groaned out loud when he deepened the kiss, assaulting me with heated lips.

  My hands tangled into his hair and I clawed at him, trying to get even closer to him, starving for his touch.

  He let out a soft moan and he pushed me backward until I found myself pressed up against a tree. His hands moved to cradle my face, twisting his tongue together with mine in a time old dance and I thought my heart would pop out of my chest.

  “I want you. Here, now,” he spoke into my mind. I felt him shuffling through my thoughts.

  I released him in horror, trying to break the link he'd created. Realizing the whole thing had been an illusion, my heart sank to my toes. He'd managed to tap into my mental awareness somehow, conjuring a fake little make out session for my benefit while he tried to gain information to my whereabouts. We still stood in the exact same location we'd previously been, neither having moved an inch.

  “Stop!” I yelled, crushing my head between both of my hands, trying to find a way to close him out. “Leave me alone!” I cried pathetically.

  “Ah, now … you don’t really want me to do that, do you baby?” he said seductively. “I can taste your desire. Come back to me, Portia. I need you.”

  I needed to wake up to break the connection and quickly. I forced myself to take several steps away from him. His eyes popped open and I knew the second he lost the direction of my location because he wasn't inside me any longer. He glanced about, searching for me.

  “Hold still!” he said gritting his teeth, frantically trying to sense me again.

  I sobbed to myself, taking one more look at him before turning around to run back through the bayou.

  I sat straight up in bed, panting, my chest heaving with heavy sobs.

  Hex was at my side in an instant. “You’re okay. It's just a dream,” he said, attempting to calm me with his soothing voice.

  I tried to compose myself enough to speak. “No. It was way more than a dream. I linked with him somehow. He got into my head.” I moaned as I buried my face into my hands. “It was all so real."

  “What happened?”

  “He used his magic to trick me,” I whispered with horror.

  “Then we need to make sure it never happens again!” Hex stated firmly.

  Learning to close my mind against Vance’s probes was brutal. The first thing I learned, was Hex was a tough teacher. He expected, no, demanded my complete attention and concentration.

  He taught me ways to build mental barriers and then attacked those barriers using several different forms of distraction, the foremost being he would use his jinn powers to slip into my head and possess my thoughts. Every time he succeeded in doing it, I was rewarded with a painful shock down my spine, and I had to start all over again.

  It was helping though. I felt my resistance to him building, causing him to take longer to get through my psychological blockades. The mental exhaustion was beginning to overtake me after working at this for two days solid, only breaking for meals.

  At night I would plop onto the soft cot made up for me, covered in a sheen of sweat, looking like I'd done an intense aerobic workout for hours, often too exhausted to even dream, let alone reconnect with Vance.

  During our breaks for eating, Hex would fill me in on anything and everything he knew about the jinn. Most of his information had been gathered from myths and folklore, then tested on himself to see if he could do them.

  He'd discovered he had the ability to evaporate, as he called it, and re-appear in a new location. He was only capable of doing it for small distances of a few feet, but he could do it in rapid succession which helped him cover more distance.

  He also learned by trial and error he could to slip into people’s minds enough to control their thoughts for a brief moment. Most times he was only able to affect one thought, maybe two, before he needed to exit the space. He attributed that to the fact he was still mostly human and couldn’t fully possess someone like an actual jinni would be able to.

  The other thing he'd discovered was he had incredible speed capabilities for a significant amount of time befor
e physical fatigue set in. He'd applied his swiftness to some intense weapons training, becoming a formidable fighter.

  These were all things he hoped to pass on and train me to do. Every day he asked me if I was ready to try it out and I kept putting him off, telling him to ask me the next day while I continued to consider.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him. I just worried there might be unseen side effects. After all, he was born with these capabilities, I was altering my DNA. I tried to weigh out the pros and cons of such a decision.

  Hex decided to go into one of the neighboring towns to purchase some supplies. He was also going to contact my family for me to help alleviate any worries they were experiencing. He left strict instructions for me that if I heard a knock on the door, not to open it under any circumstances. He knew how to get back in without detection, so anyone who came knocking would not be him.

  I asked him if he'd had visitors come strolling by before. He told me I was the only person, beside him, who’d ever seen the place. I found this information interesting.

  My mind wandered over thoughts about why he felt he could trust me enough to bring me here. What if I'd been some crazy witch who would’ve told all of his secrets?

  Of course, there was the fact of my being chased by a demon warlock and he'd probably slipped into my head to read a few thoughts long before I awakened.

  I didn’t know how I felt about that.

  I sat up, and stood to walk around the bunker a bit. The place was comprised of five rooms. This one, the main living quarters, held a small but tidy kitchen area down one wall with a dining table out in front. In the middle of the room sat a single sofa and one end table with a lamp. The sofa faced the opposite wall from the kitchen pointing toward a tiny television, with a built in DVD player on a table. A few documentary DVDs occupied the shelf beneath.

  On the two remaining walls were our respective bedrooms. Those consisted of a cot and a nightstand with a couple of drawers for belongings. Both of the nightstands were Hex’s, but he'd emptied one and moved it to my wall after my arrival. Not that I had anything with me, my drawers were empty.

  Hex scrounged up some old sweat suits of his, giving me something to be my personal wardrobe. They were way too big for me, but I didn’t complain because, well, they were clothes.