Kiss Me Deadly: Tales of a Paranormal Romance

qualifies me as possessing your ‘essence.’”

Comprehension dawns and his expression is suddenly clearer than I’ve seen it all night. “Oh,” he says. Then: “Wait a minute ... why would it work on you and not on me? I already tried to teleport and got bounced.”

I shrug. “Look, this isn’t a scientific experiment. It might not work. I just have a feeling that it will.”

Because although I fed on Adam’s blood—and despite the fact that an evil Djinn said I still have a soul— there’s no denying the fact that I did die when I was eighteen years old. My very unscientific plan involves somehow “confusing” the magical barrier.

And speaking of that, I’ve been keeping half an eye on whatever Bilal is doing, and it doesn’t look like we have any more time. The spirit jar’s contents are going crazy, swirling like a tiny tornado on crack.

“Stop arguing and do it,” I say, turning my back on him. The Afarit is bringing the jar to its lips. Oh my gods, I think. Is it going to do what it looks like it’s going to do? My eyes focus on the spirit jar’s lid; the magician’s hands are slowly unscrewing it, and the creature wearing his image has finally stopped chanting. I resist the temptation to look back at Adam and instead draw the knife out of my messenger bag.

What? You think I’m not prepared? I’d remembered to grab it before we left the alley.

You never know when you might need an iron blade to kill an Afarit.

Adam has his eyes closed. Anytime now...

The knife still has my blood on it, which is probably why it successfully teleports through the barrier with me—I’d hoped it might (I’m not just a pretty face, you know). The world disappears, and for a second my stomach is upside down and my head is spinning and I have no idea where I am. One minute I am at Adam’s side, hoping that his Djinn mojo will somehow catapult me inside the bubble, and the next I am right there next to the Afarit. Up close and personal with a killer wearing the face of a power-hungry magician.

“How—?”

I cut off its question with the dagger.

I’m not interested in trading witty repartee or gloating over how clever I am. I only want this to be over.

The iron blade sinks into Bilal’s heart, and the creature screams. Black blood pours hot and thick onto my fist, but I ignore it and keep hold of the wooden hilt. My other hand grabs the jar before it falls to the ground, my reflexes only just quick enough to snatch it out of the air.

I have to be fast. Luckily, girls are good at multitasking.

I let go of the knife and screw the lid back onto the spirit jar. The Afarit falls to its knees and tries to pull the blade from its chest, but I’m not finished yet. The candles are my next target—I begin kicking them over one by one. As the circle is broken, so the magic breaks and the barrier drops.

Adam practically falls on top of me. He’s been waiting with his nose all but pressed against the invisible shield.

“Where is she?” he gasps. “Please...”

“Here, it’s okay.” I hand him the precious container and turn my attention to the book. That stupid, goddamn book. Everything began with it, and now everything is going to end with it.

I force myself to take a deep breath. I am terrified and exhilarated just thinking about what I’m about to do. Theo is going to kill me.

Oh no, I think, smiling to myself like a smartass. He already did that once.

You won’t get me to admit it out loud, but I take a huge amount of guilty pleasure in picking up the only candle that’s still alight. I touch the flickering flame to one of the brittle pages of that sacred Arabic text and watch it burn. I hold onto it until the last possible moment and then let it fall, still burning, to the crimson carpet.

The Afarit is crawling on the floor in agony and its eyes—Bilal’s eyes—widen as it sees the bright flames consume the book: the book that we used to summon it in the first place. Adam and I step back and enjoy the drama unfolding on the stage. How appropriate that this is where we should all end up. It’s the perfect final curtain call.

Black smoke begins to roll off the creature in choking waves, but it’s still not dying, or disappearing— whatever is supposed to happen. I glance at Adam, wondering what I missed. He is cradling the spirit jar, and his eyes are bright with unshed tears. I swallow my own sadness at the sight, and I know what else we have to do.

But this is not my role. There’s only one person who can complete this part of the ritual. I step farther back, giving him space while still keeping the dying spirit in view. We don’t want any last minute surprises.

My senses are good enough that I can easily hear what Adam says to Hasna before he releases her forever. I will take those words with me wherever I go, for the rest of my very long life. I will keep them close to my heart and share them with nobody. They are not my words to give.

Adam smashes the jar and white light flies like a comet from the glittering shards. The impossible brightness hangs in the air for a moment, shivering like a swarm of beautiful fireflies or a miniature firework display especially for us.

Cool air brushes my face like a blessing, and then the light fades. I look down at the carpet, and there is nothing left; nothing but broken glass, candles scattered like strange confetti ... and a large pile of ash.

We are silent for a couple more minutes, although I can hear Adam’s soft breathing. I think we’re both saying good-bye to Hasna, even though I never knew her. It seems like the right thing to do.

I take Adam’s hand and lead him slowly away. I wonder what the theater employees will think when they arrive for work tomorrow, but we’ll be long gone by then. I’ll be on a plane across the Atlantic, on my way back home to Theo. I’ll have a lot of explaining to do, but right now I just don’t care.

Tonight, at least, I know that I did the right thing.

Tonight, I am still Marie O’Neal.

Lost BY JUSTINE MUSK

1

I’ve always been good at finding lost things, but three weeks after a car accident dumped my best friend in a coma, I was the thing that felt lost. And nobody knew where to find me.

Except for one person.

There’s an abandoned white house on Bel Air Road, two blocks up from where I live. On an afternoon in early March, I didn’t know that I was going there. I thought I was taking the dog for a walk.

“C’mon, girl,” I said. The little red-haired dachshund wasn’t jumping around my feet or straining for the door the way she usually did when she knew we were about to do our loop up the hill to the white marble lion that sits outside the front gate of one of the mansions. I always touch the lion’s paw, as if to tell him “see, we made it,” and also for luck.

But it was as if Paloma knew that things weren’t quite right in her world, that her mistress was still shaken from visiting Josh in the hospital. I took Vermeer calla lilies in a glass vase to put on his windowsill. I wanted them to be the first thing he saw when he woke up. (If he woke up.) The nurses all thought I was Josh’s sister, because that’s what his mother had told them. It was what my English teacher might call a “mythic truth”—even if it wasn’t true on the outside, it felt true on the inside.

I had known Josh since kindergarten, when both of our sets of parents were still together. When we were six, we sat cross-legged in the corner of the tennis court in his backyard and pricked the tips of our little fingers with a sewing needle and squeezed out drops of blood. Then we wrapped our pinkies together and swore we’d be blood-siblings for life. Corny, I know, but what can I say. We were six.