First chapter of my master-fanfic, here we go! Please r&r, it would really make my day!
Philippa Gaunt had left her past behind. She was living in the here and now, and she was happy.
Once, a mere year ago, she and her brother had been djinn. For her, it felt like an eternity ago that she had possessed the power to fulfill wishes or turn people into animals. These powers had been a huge responsibility, and she didn't miss that one bit. It was pretty exhausting for a developing teen to have to repeatedly save the world, be threatened by villains, watch your family break apart, then get fixed, and as soon as everything looked up again, the next adventure was in store... Granted, she and her brother John hadn't had a completely awful time. Actually they had learned a lot, made friends, met interesting people, seen a lot of foreign places and occasionally had lots of fun. Sometimes, Philippa felt a bit bored with her life as it was now, and also much more mature than her "ordinary" friends, but all in all she had no regrets about sacrificing her djinn powers for the good of the world the year before, and she knew that neither had John.
She was living in the here and now. She was happy.
Philippa hummed a song to herself as she closed her diary. Writing a diary was a habit she had acquired when she had been trapped in Iravotum, and to the present day she loved continuing it. Sometimes she thought about sharing the stories in her diary with other people. She could pretend like it was something she had made up, that would be fun, wouldn't it...? People would think she had the most vivid imagination.
Alright, she had finished her homework, written her diary, it was three p.m. ...time to visit Isobel.
Philippa left her room and went over into John's. "Hey, John, I'm heading over to Isobel's, are you coming?"
"Naah, I'm meeting up with Vi later."
Over the last year, Philippa and John had grown apart a bit. They had never been the stereotypical do-everything-together sort of twins, but they had still been mostly together due to their adventures with their uncle Nimrod. Now that there were no adventures anymore, and visiting Uncle Nimrod had become a rare event, they had developed in different directions – as is often the case with people maturing. Also, John lately spent most of his time with his new girlfriend.
Violet was a nice girl who had started attending their school after the summer break. Her short hair was dyed purple, which went nicely with her name and had caught John's immediate attention as she first entered their classroom. As the teacher introduced her to the class, she had looked over to where John was staring at her and, Philippa reminisced, almost drooling on his shirt, and given him a winning smile. Three weeks later, they had started going out.
Philippa said goodbye to her brother and went out into the late fall afternoon. It was pretty cold, maybe it would snow soon. But Philippa wasn't as conscious of the cold as she had been when she had still had her djinn powers. That was another upside to the new situation.
She took the subway to where her friend Isobel lived. Philippa was glad that she was now able to just hang out with her school friends in her free time, completely without worries. She liked maintaining friendships, and had always felt a tiny sting of conscience when going on another adventure and neglecting school and her mundane friends. It was nice just meeting up with another girl, leafing through magazines, listening to music and chatting about school and the boys at school.
When she left, it was already dark and even colder. She huddled up in her coat and scarf and went looking for a taxi or the next subway station. The wind was cold, and New York wasn't that nice of a city at night. Philippa remembered that when two guys catcalled her and another one gave wolf-whistles as she passed. Philippa sighed. Some guys...
She walked further along the street, until she noticed she was being followed.
She turned her head a bit and saw four young men, the catcallers among them. They kept a leisurely but steady pace, absolutely sure that they would catch up with her in the end. Philippa walked faster. Maybe it was just a coincidence...maybe they weren't following her at all...
As she took a few random turns and they were still behind her, she dismissed the possibility of coincidence. Damn. She fumbled around in her handbag, wishing a can of pepper spray would magically appear there. Situations like that were the downsides of having no djinn powers.
She didn't have pepper spray, but she found a small can of deodorant. Well, spraying that into someone's eyes was bound to hurt too, wasn't it?
Suddenly she could see two more men coming out of an alley in front of her. Oh no. She had not just been followed, she had been chased. And unfortunately this was a quiet neighborhood, and there was nobody else on the street. Nobody she could call out for help.
Philippa gathered up her courage, gripped her little bottle of deodorant tight and whirled around. She had withstood catastrophes, cultists and insane Ifrit. She could handle a few misguided boys out on the prowl, djinn powers or no. Nonetheless she wished that John was there.
"Could you please leave me alone" she said in a steady voice that sounded braver than she felt.
She expected one of the men to smirk and say something like "I love women who got fire" or "Learn to take a compliment, sweetheart", but none of them smirked, and one hissed: "Die, abomination".
That's when Philippa knew she was in serious trouble.
She cast wild looks between the men, who now started circling her. One of them, the one who had hissed at her, suddenly had a knife in his hand, ready to lunge.
"PHANTASMAGORIA!" someone yelled.
Knife guy made a surprised sound as he fell down on the sidewalk, which was still slightly wet from this afternoon's rain. He lost consciousness as soon as he hit the asphalt, his eyes turning upwards and then closing. There was a faint, sulfuric smell in the air. Djinn powers, Philippa thought wildly. Someone's using djinn powers. Then PHANTASMAGORIA had been a focus word, but none she had ever heard before.
Philippa's other attackers were as surprised as she was. They looked around; apparently they had not expected resistance. "They said the girl had no powers" someone muttered.
"That wasn't her" a voice, the one that had yelled out before, said. "Over here, dingbats."
It was a voice Philippa knew, a voice from the past. One she had thought she never had to hear again.
Out of an alley stepped...Rudyard Teer?! He was carrying a flashlight.
"Why don't you leave the lady alone, huh?" he said. "This guy" he gave the fallen one a prod with his boot, "has learned already what happens to those who mess with me. Want another lesson, anyone? Volunteers?"
Suddenly, someone grabbed a fistful of Philippa's hair from behind and pulled her back. "Piss off, snake boy, or the girl gets it" she could hear someone growling near her ear.
"Maybe" Rudyard said, smirking, "Maybe you'd really be faster than me, and the girl would get it. Tough. But then your trouble would only be starting." He flicked on the flashlight and pointed it into several of the surrounding alleyways, where everyone could now see shady figures peeling out of the darkness. "I'd also like to direct your attention to the rooftops" Rudyard said and pointed up. His flashlight made even more silhouettes up on the roofs come into view. Philippa tried to count them, but there were too many and the light went by too fast.
"We've got you surrounded" Rudyard said snidely. "Did you really think I would be stupid enough to come here by myself? You're outnumbered, see, so if I were you, I would let go of the lady and run for it. Run back to your bosses and tell them who they'll be going up against. Tell them we'll be watching. Got that?"
The ambushers looked at each other and sped away, leaving the fallen one behind. Leaving Philippa alone to deal with Rudyard saving her life.
"You...you saved me" she stuttered.
"Yeah. You alright, Miss Philippa?" he asked, as if it was nothing to him, as if he went around saving her every day. "Not gonna faint or something, are you?"
"I don't faint" Philippa said. "I've been through worse situations. A lot of those at the hands of you and your father... anyway, thanks for just now."
"No big deal" Rudyard said and turned to leave.
"Wait! You can't just go away now! I have about a million questions!"
Rudyard turned around again. "What?"
"Why? Who were these people? And who are all these people with you? And weren't you supposed to be trapped in a jade armor?"
Another two guys stepped up besides Rudyard. Philippa recognized some of those who had been on the rooftops earlier. One of them (Philippa flinched horribly because she mistook him for Iblis, until she saw that he was younger and his hair was too dark) laid a hand on Rudyard's shoulder and addressed her with: "Those were actually just four questions. And we're afraid we can't answer any of them."
"Oh come on, now" Philippa said. "This is all too weird. I have a right to be in the know. Who are you, anyway, Iblis junior?"
Rudyard shook him off and said: "This is Odair, my older brother. The other guy is Jared, my other brother. Up on the roofs are Charlie, also my brother, and Johnathon, my...well, you can guess..."
"Oh, don't tell me: is he your brother?" Philippa guessed wryly. "Are all sons of Iblis on the street tonight? What are you doing here?"
"Well, that's what we can't tell you, Miss Philippa. We were told that it's best for you to not know too much." Rudyard now turned to his brothers. "What are we doing with garbage butt here?" he asked, pointing at the man he had taken out with his djinn powers.
"Is he...?" Philippa asked.
"Sleeping" Rudyard answered curtly. "Do we just leave him?"
Odair Teer thoughtfully scratched his head. "No, that would be a waste. Mr. Uppity Marid said we need information..."
"But do you think he would condone our way of getting information?" the one named Jared asked.
"Eh, who cares. We'll just run him by dad. I mean, do you think dad would care...?"
"Right now? Absolutely." That was Rudyard again.
"Anyway, we take him with. Who knows, maybe he wants to tell us stuff. There have been stranger things happening" Odair decided. He mumbled something – probably his focus word – and watched as the unconscious man – no, djinn, obviously – dissolved into smoke, which poured into a bottle in Jared's hand. "And you go home now, miss" he said to Philippa. "Go home and, please, try to forget this ever happened."
Philippa was in no mind to just blindly obey that, but the Teer brothers were all staring at her, and there were other eyes hidden in the shadows, and she was trembling from the cold and the shock that was only coming slowly, and this was all rather intimidating, so she hurried home...but with no intention of forgetting anything.
Alright! So what's Philippa going to do now? What the hell were Rudyard and his brothers even doing? And who were the shady attacker people? And what bloody maniac names his son Odair? That and other interesting stuff in the chapters to follow!