He hesitated before making eye contact. “I know you don’t trust me, but I want you to know I have your back. No matter what happens in there, I’ll be sure to get you out so you can go home to your daughter.”
The thing was… I believed him. I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to trust a witch, but… after everything I’d seen of the man, I didn’t think he was evil. He’d always tried to help me and others, so why wouldn’t he now? I hated that I believed him, but I did. So I said, “I’ll try to get you home, too.” And I would. Yeah, witches had screwed me over in the past, but Basil hadn’t, so I would do everything in my power to protect him if need be.
He nodded, then closed his eyes and called on his magic. The wind picked up, smelling like a summer storm, and when Basil opened his eyes again, lightning was flashing in them. He shot me a cocky smirk, then pushed his arms forward and a howl of wind rushed by, almost knocking me over.
A second later, a glistening shield, with only a few spots of cloudy black shadow magic, surrounded the jinn.
The evil being let out a loud screech, so Basil and I nodded at each other before we stood and charged.
Chapter Nine
Basil
I didn’t know what happened in the past hour and a half with Grim, but something seemed to have changed. He was being… kind. And he kept staring at me like he’d never seen me before. It was unnerving, but since he wasn’t being a dick, I’d take it.
Giving myself a mental shake to get back in the game, I nodded at Grim, and we took off toward the target. The jinn was pushing its magic against mine, and my magic was bending. What the hell? It wasn’t breaking, but the fact that it could even push my magic like that made me nervous as hell. If the jinn kept it up, it might puncture a hole in the shield that was holding it inside.
Blaze hopped off my shoulder and grew into his full dragon form. He stepped in front of me to help block me, just in case, but I moved to the side so I could keep my eye on the jinn. That didn’t make Blaze very happy. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Grim eyeing the huge-ass dragon, but he didn’t comment.
“Is there any chance of transportin’ the jinn?” Grim yelled over the sound of my wind magic as he shifted his weapons in his gloved hands.
I shook my head. “Not as long as it’s fighting me.”
Grim nodded and stepped forward, then yelled at the jinn, “You have one chance here, Saral. You can come with us peacefully, or you can fight us ‘til one of us kills ya. What’ll it be?”
The jinn cocked its head to the side, regarding Grim in a way I wasn’t comfortable with, then it cackled and hissed, “Hunter and witch together cannot beat me, silly child. I’ll give you a choice. Run and live, or stay and die.”
Grim sighed before facing me. “Guess it chose option two. Ready?”
Unfortunately. “Yeah. Jinn, last chance. You’re fighting the Power of Three.”
The jinn roared at us, slammed its hand against my shield, and broke free. Before I could erect another shield, the jinn tackled Grim to the ground. Blaze stepped forward to grab the jinn with his teeth, but Grim and the jinn were grappling, and I could tell that Blaze was afraid he’d hurt the hunter.
Grim yelled out, slashing his dagger and chakram at the thing. I saw blood flying, but I didn’t know whose it was. In a moment of panic, I drew on more magic than I normally did, wrapped it around the jinn, and yanked with everything I had. The jinn flew off Grim, but it kept chopping through my magic to get to him. It was like a wild beast, and nothing like the civilized creatures jinns usually were. It must’ve been hopped up on blood magic. That… was damn terrifying.
The creature made a wild jump toward Grim, and without thinking—and even quicker than Blaze could react—I called a lightning bolt down from the sky, hitting that bastard straight in the chest. The lightning my brothers and I called upon looked like normal lightning, but it was anything but. It had magic, power beyond what was typical in this realm, it was so strong, nothing could fight against it.
So I blasted that asshole straight in the chest, frying it after only a few seconds. As the jinn fell forward, lifeless, a few wisps of magic floated out of its back. At first, I assumed it was the jinn’s magic, but after I observed it for a moment, I realized that it was the souls of the people the jinn had consumed.
“Holy shit,” Grim said as he walked over to stand beside me, limping a little.
“Are you alright?” I asked as Blaze went back to his bearded dragon form and crawled up my body to my shoulder.
He waved me away and pointed to the souls. “Are those…?”
“Yeah, they are. Not only did we take down this asshole, we saved a few souls that haven’t been digested yet. I might need to call my brother in to help them pass over.”
“What?”
I waved him off and called Delaro. “Hey, I just killed a jinn and a few souls he’d consumed came out of him and are sorta floating around. You and Nik think you can set them free?”
“Yeah, sure. Where are you?” Delaro asked.
“I’ll text you the address.” I hung up, texted him, and turned to Grim. “My brother’s on his way. You want to haul the body into your truck so you can get paid?”
“But you took him down.”
“And I stole a zillion bounties from you already. Plus, you helped. You pulled me in to begin with. I don’t care about the body or the bounty. Let’s get it in your truck.”
He stared at me for several long seconds before sighing and nodding. We got the body in his truck, and he walked off to make a few phone calls.
Delaro, Nikolai, and Grayson arrived a few minutes later. Del took one look at the scene and grimaced. Because of his Bonded cat—that was a bakeneko, or something like it, basically a ghost cat—Delaro was able to move between this realm and the ghostly plane. He even saw ghosts on this plane. Nikolai helped him figure out how to free the spirits so they could move on, so the two of them helped souls whenever they came across them. I was pretty sure my little brother was like a fucking saint or something.
Because of that, I let him do his thing while I stood back with Gray and watched. A minute later, Grim walked back over to watch as well, but he asked, “What are they doing?”
Gray answered, “Freeing the spirits so their souls can move on.”
Grim eyed him for a second before nodding. “They’re freeing them? Not… capturing them?”
Gray turned angry eyes on the hunter, and who could blame him? Grim was being a dick, but what was new? I was used to it after a few months, but I didn’t really want Gray to kick Grim’s ass, as entertaining as that would be. So I stepped between them, shot Gray a smirk, then turned around and sighed at Grim, saying, “You really still think we’re evil, huh?”
He shook his head and shrugged at the same time, as if he couldn’t make up his mind. Considering he’d thought I was demon spawn or something before, I’d take his indecision as a step in the right direction.
Waving him off, I turned back to Gray and asked, “Do you guys have this or do you want us to stick around?”
“No, you can go. Nik called Alec on the way here, so BCA agents should arrive any minute.”