King of Babylon- Chapter 6

King of Babylon

by Dark Sploosh

Chapter 6: Three Devils

“Go,” Jinn uttered. He turned me around with one massive arm and nudged me towards the stairs. Shanzi and Anna were already moving up them.

“Wait,” I said, looking back at Jinn, “where are we going?”

“Can’t leave this way,” he said, giving me another small push. Groaning, I took off up the steps, hoping I didn’t have to climb the whole thing. Jinn stayed right behind me the whole time, which I knew had to be hard for him. As a djinn he probably could have burst ahead and climbed the entire stairwell in thirty seconds. Keeping pace with me to protect me seemed like he was walking away from a stampede.

Not that we got far before I remembered what that stampede was. Those people getting cut down by the red djinni, people who had no idea what was going on. No one down there would stand a chance against the inhuman attackers.

“Jinn, wait!” I said, stopping.

“Lachlan, hurry!” he urged.

“No, we need to go back and help those people!”

He gave me that look, the one I knew from movies and from personal experience, the one where someone thought you were crazy and it wasn’t worth what you were going to do. I could hardly understand it myself, but I knew those people down there were scared and dying, and running away would be wrong. If Jinn argued, I was just going to have to force him with a wish if that was what it took!

But Jinn interrupted my thoughts by smiling. His smoky eyes burned into mine with some kind of tangible joy.

“Damn good master,” he said, and then he turned around and ran back down the steps, disappearing from my sight.

“Anna!” I called out. She stopped and looked back at me, the urgency on her young face scaring me.

“What?”

“Hold on to this for me,” I said, shoving my laptop into her arms. Before she could argue, I turned and took off after Jinn. By the time I reached the bottom and burst out into the lobby, I was met with one hell of a sight.

Of the three djinni I had seen, only one was left in the lobby, standing over a fallen woman. He was a strange sight, wearing some kind of black cloth wrapped around his muscular body that gave off the slightest crimson glow. It was so faint that I could tell his skin was normally coal black like Jinn’s. A crown of gold hair tumbled down from his head, braided into numerous tails that ran down to his chest.

I had barely a second to take all this in, however, before Jinn came running out of nowhere and decked the red guy right in the face. It was so powerful I could feel it across the room, or maybe that was the sound of bone smashing into a skull with enough force that I felt it ripple through my chest.

A normal human would have been half-decapitated by that. But the red djinn simply stumbled back and braced himself against the wall, rubbing his cheek as if he had been smacked. Then he pushed off the wall and struck out at Jinn with wild arms, but Jinn ducked under them. He grabbed the red djinn around the legs, and with what looked like a simple motion, flung the opponent right over his shoulder. The red djinn landed on his back, crying out in some tongue I didn’t understand.

But then my eyes fell on the people lying on the floor around me, and I realized I had something I needed to do. Jinn wasn’t having any trouble anyway.

There were about ten people collapsed on the ground in the lobby. I didn’t want to think about how many of them might never get back up, so I started searching desperately for ones that still moved. It wasn’t hard; a woman lying on her stomach next to me was shaking.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I got down near her and placed my hands on her. She looked up at me with eyes that I had never seen before, the kind that taught me what true fear must have been.

“H-help,” she whispered.

“Get up,” I said, taking her hand. I helped her to her feet, glad she wasn’t making it hard for me. I glanced up at the front doors. We had a clear shot at them; Jinn and his enemy were grappling over by the front desk.

The woman and I ran for the doors, and when we got outside I could see all the people stopped on the street, staring at the hotel and probably wondering what was going on. I looked up at all the buildings around me, and realized this was the first time I had even seen Chicago in person. Wonderful circumstances and all.

“Can you call for help?” I asked the woman. She nodded, biting her lip and reaching into her pocket.

“This is crazy,” she muttered as she drew out her phone and dialed 911. “I don’t even know what happened, I didn’t see anyone!”

She seemed like she would be fine, and anyway there were still people inside. I ran back at the doors, hearing the woman shout after me as I disappeared back into the hotel.

I walked in just in time to see that Jinn had pinned his enemy to the ground. Without hesitation, he grabbed the red djinn around the neck, and I looked away because I knew what was coming. I still heard the massive, sickening crack. I didn’t know if it sounded worse than I expected because it was real, or because it was djinni muscles breaking a djinni neck. Probably both.

“Two more,” Jinn said as he rose to his feet.

He looked around, focused entirely on the attackers, and took off down the only way they could have gone, towards the elevators. I looked around at the people on the ground, and realized I was going to need help to get them all out faster.

“It’s safe now!” I shouted, hoping someone was still alive to hear me. “If you aren’t hurt, please get up and help me get everyone outside. I got someone to call for help, there should be ambulances here soon.”

To my immense relief, about five people got up and looked around, as if trying to find the source of the chaos. But that left four who still wouldn’t get up. I cringed when I saw that there was blood on the ground around them.

The people who were fine started moving, getting to the wounded and helping them up. I saw one man check another on the ground, and after a second he got up and moved on to another. That pretty much confirmed the worst.

Still, I was lucky to get a group of people who were this calm. I knew I wouldn’t have been able to help if they had been hysterical, but maybe not being sure what was going on helped. If they had been able to really see the three djinni that had attacked them, maybe they wouldn’t have been so calm.

They all left out the front door, except for one man who turned and suddenly ran further into the building. I also shouted after him, but stopped because I realized he probably had family somewhere in the building. He wasn’t going to listen to me.

The last living people to leave the lobby were two men shouldering another who had a bleeding leg and a pale, shell-shocked face, giving him words of encouragement. As they past me, one of them turned and nodded for me to come out with them.

I just shook my head back and ran after Jinn. I passed the bodies of the unmoving. Two dead people in the lobby. I hated it, but I could whine and blame myself later if I had to. The two other djinni had gone on, which meant that there would be more people who needed help.

I rounded the corner and saw the elevators, but Jinn was gone. I pressed the nearest call button as I looked around. Did he even know how to use an elevator? My answer came in the form of a terrible shriek from somewhere above me, echoing down to the ground. Tearing, grinding steel and iron. It was for just a moment, but it made me back away from the elevators for just a moment. And then I noticed that one of the doors was already wide open, pulled apart and crushed into the walls.

The empty blackness beyond it terrified me, because all I could think of was what was going on up above. Then that sound came again, this time the wailing screech dragging on like an anguished cry, and I wondered what could come crashing down from above. I imagined myself going up in another elevator, only for the conflict above to sever the cables holding the car and send me plummeting to die.

My elevator car arrived, the doors opening. I turned to head back to the stairs.

Standing right there was another djinn, red as his allies, his golden hair drawn into long, ornate braids and a murderous grin on his face. I almost backpedaled for the elevator, but it was no use, I would be dead in a second, and then-

It had been a few seconds, actually. The djinn still stood there, smiling that death grin. This one had done to his teeth what seemed standard with djinni fingers and toes, and the mouthful of perfectly cut knives that fell one by one into place said one thing: “I’ve got you trapped.”

Or that’s what he wanted to say. All I heard was, “I don’t know what an elevator is.”

He took a step towards me. I took a step back into the open elevator, resisting every single muscular urge to run inside, because then he would know what I was up to, or at least figure out he should stop messing around. Instead, I let him take one more step forward.

With the tiniest gesture I hit a button for the thirtieth floor, high up. As far from this guy as possible. He took a few more steps, and a deep growl rippled out of his throat. Laughter too, taunting me through those teeth.

The doors began to close. The djinn raised his hand, the clawed nails begging to be brought down, and I fell and cowered on the floor, giving him what he wanted. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t hard to act.

Then the doors closed, and I was gone. The elevator jerked away, as down below I heard the sound of the doors being forced open, torn apart just like the other pair.

I growled something under my breath, fear and victory and disbelief all spilling out through my teeth in some guttural noise. I imagined the djinn’s face down below when he pulled open the doors, only to find the room that had been there just a moment before was gone. I was safe, and now I-

He could still sever the cables. I screamed as the image burst into my mind again and fumbled for the buttons, smashing down on them, hitting all the of floors right above me, begging the damn elevator door to open.

The car slowed to a stop and the gate opened wide. I ran out into the hallway and away from that nightmarish room that had been my savior for just a moment. And then I realized I still had no idea what I was doing or where Jinn was.

“Jinn!” I called out, looking around, knowing it would be ridiculous for me to have gotten out on the same floor he climbed out onto. Looking around I saw that all the elevator doors were intact too, so the chances fell to below zero. I needed to get back to the stairs, find my way up.

Something threw me to the ground. Hard. It was only seconds later that I realized that a sound had gone with it, but I couldn’t remember it. It must have been loud though, because I couldn’t think about anything else. On the ground near me was a bent, ripped plate of steel nearly a half foot thick. It was one of the elevator doors.

I looked up at and saw those teeth, no longer grinning but bent into rage. The djinn stood in the open doorway of the shaft, and in its darkness his skin blazed a crimson red that human eyes hadn’t seen in hundreds of years, and his eyes locked onto mine. In that split second I saw they were neither amber like Jinn’s, or sapphire as Shanzi’s were. They were gold. The most horribly sick looking gold I had ever seen in my life, burning with infinite disgust.

“Go fuck yourself,” I choked out. I was going to die, can you blame me?

A scream filled the air, like a beast in agony crying out with all of its energy. But it didn’t come from me. It came from above me. Something golden, a beautiful gold, fell like lightning down the shaft. It stuck the crimson beast before me, and the monster let out a guttural roar that belonged in hell. Thick streams of dark blood spilled onto the carpet, and then the djinn disappeared from sight, pulled back into the darkness. He roared again, the sound disappearing below as he fell to his death, if he wasn’t already dead.

The gold light was gone. Something pulled me to my feet, I felt powerful hands on my shoulders.

“Where’s Jinn?”

“Shanzi?”

I turned to look at her, but the movement made my legs weak, and I had to brace myself against the wall. The djinni warrior stood before me, and it wasn’t really concern I saw in her eyes, but it was softer than her usual gaze, and in that moment it felt good.

“Why leave you?” she asked me. There was blood all over her clothes and skin, which in the light had faded back to ash.

“I-I don’t…he went to some other floor to find the other one.”

“Other one?” I did not like the way she said that.

“How many are there?” I asked. Shanzi spat out a word I didn’t understand and checked both ends of the hallway, but we were completely alone. Alone, in this great big hotel? Where were all the people fleeing their rooms, or at least coming to check on the noise?

“Need to go,” Shanzi muttered. “Get on.”

She bent down on one knee, and I realized she wanted me to climb on her back. I wasn’t going to argue, so I did. It was strange at my age to be doing this, and even stranger when she stood up like it was nothing. It made me very small, like a child again.

I knew where she was going with this, so all I could do was hold on as Shanzi ran through the open door and jumped into the shaft. I closed my eyes and pressed my head against her as we fell. I imagined the sick feeling in my stomach and the stinging rush through my veins was what bungee jumping must have been like. It wasn’t so bad. Until we stopped.

There’s no slow down moment when a djinni you’re piggybacking on halts her fall by smashing her fists though the wall. I cried out, nearly lost my grip around her neck as I was jerked straight down. Somehow my fingers managed to keep a hold of her, and that was just enough. A second later she simply hopped through another destroyed gateway and we were back in the lobby.

“Hold on,” I gasped as I let go and felt to the floor. My legs shook and I nearly collapsed, but I managed to hold on after a little stumble.

“What?” she barked. “Need to go!”

“But Jinn’s-”

“Jinn’s fine. Trust me. Now go!”

I nodded and started running, heading back in the direction of the front doors. Shanzi held back so she could stay by my side. Once again, I didn’t notice anyone else around me. Where the hell were all the people in this building? I passed by the two bodies by the doors, but that was still all there was.

We burst out into the open air, and right into a tremendous crowd. All their eyes focused on us, their mouths all calling out a cacophony of words I couldn’t comprehend. There were police officers holding them back, and one of them approached us. He gave Shanzi a strange look, but then focused on me instead.

“Is there anyone else inside?”

“No,” I said, trying to get more air into my lungs. “No, no there’s…its empty.”

“That’s impossible, what’s going on in there? We’ve barely seen anyone come out!”

I tried to make sense of that, but before I could do anymore thinking, whoever pulls the strings up there decided he had one last surprise in store.

Something deep inside the building rumbled. This wasn’t quiet or quick. This was loud and forceful. The ground shook and buckled, tossing me off my feet as the entire glass façade of the building shattered and the glass rained to the concrete. The whole crowd went tumbling. Everyone except Shanzi hit the ground, and as I rolled over to look back at the building, I gasped and shielded my eyes.

A wave of pure white smoke exploded from within, washing over everything. In seconds the whole world went back and dark, and it was like the sun had been snuffed out. It was cold, and I could feel how unclean the air was all around me.

The rumbling continued, louder and louder, drowning out all sound. My senses were gone, and all I could think was one single thought: the building’s collapsing.

We were too close.

Someone grabbed my arm, must have been Shanzi. I didn’t care if it didn’t make sense, or that I didn’t know where Jinn was. I still screamed it, letting all that dirt and filth into my already bleeding lungs as the words escaped my throat.

“I wish the building was saved!”