The Hour of the Crow

Chapter 13: A Demon Made of Shadows

Pitch black. No sound but his own ragged breathing. The world had dropped into a bottomless hole and there was no beginning, no end. Only darkness and cold.

"Arran?" Inna's voice drifted toward him from some place far away, like an echo in a long tunnel. Which made no sense, because she was stuck in the opposite cell.

"Are you all right?" he shot back.

No answer. Worry clenched his guts, so he scrambled to his feet—quite the challenge with his hands still bound—and pressed his chest and face against the iron bars. "Inna?"

The darkness blinked. Two blazing red eyes, flames and mist and churning lava, opened mere inches from Arran's nose.

Screaming, he reeled backward and nearly tripped over his own feet. A sharp jolt of pain pinched his still injured ankle and annihilated part of the soothing effects of Zohra's ointment. He tumbled onto the cot.

He thought he heard Inna call his name, but the sound was muffled, dreamlike.

The torches outside his cell flared up again, though their fire burned green and blue, contributing to a haunting atmosphere. The air inside compressed within the walls and the building pressure weighed him down, clogged up his airways. His blood sang an anthem of death in his ears. If hell were a prison, this was what Arran imagined the cells to look and be like.

The bars did not stop the creature of shadows and flames; it passed through them like water, seeping onto the floor and swirling in a dense, shapeless mass of smoke. The eyes remained fixed on Arran, pinned him to the cot with an intensity that scorched his skin. Arran's instincts told him to run, but the Amulet's now colder weight in the hollow of his neck reminded him of the role he had to play.

However, the djinn didn't need to be reminded. "MASTER." Its speech scraped against the inside of Arran's skull, not so much a voice as a thought planted into his brain.

He cleared his throat. "I suppose."

"WHY DID YOU CALL ME?"

Whatever you do, don't faint. "I need a favor."

The djinn laughed—at least, that was how Arran interpreted the hollow boom reverberating in the air, like a thousand doors slamming shut at once. "I DO NOT BESTOW ANY FAVORS, NOT EVEN ON MY MASTER. IF YOU WANT MY HELP, MAKE A WISH AND PAY THE PRICE."

More than one alarm bell rang in his head with increasing insistence. Wishes? Price? Inna had been right; the djinn's services were not free of charge. "How many wishes do I have?"

"YOU ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS."

"That's not an answer," he grumbled under his breath. Those red eyes pierced his own, though, reading every thought behind his—hopefully—straight face.

For just a moment, the tornado of darkness and smoke took the shape of a man, tall and broad-shouldered and imposing. Arran blinked, and the silhouette had dissolved again.

"THREE WISHES. FOR EVERYTHING I GIVE YOU, YOU GIVE SOMETHING BACK TO ME. THE PRICE IS NEGOTIABLE."

"And when I've used up all of my three wishes?" The djinn didn't respond. Its—or his?—offer was clear: after those three wishes, the deal was over.

Only three wishes. Would it be smart to use one of them now already? His imprisonment in these dungeons was without doubt only the beginning of a whole series of misfortune and pursuit by faceless enemies. At some point, his life might depend on those wishes, even though the djinn was obligated to protect him from direct harm.

In that moment, an icy venom slithered through his veins. Shuddering, he looked down at his arm, just in time to spot a dark line, a cursed parasite, crawling under his skin. He might need the djinn to get rid of that particular problem as well.