Arabesque

Munif

The trap was set, now Munif needed the targets to cooperate. Not an easy task when dealing with two, unforgiving Carac. He and the three Jassaj agents saw the summoners leave the flat in the old quarter. They turned the corner and hurried through an alley to the main thoroughfare. Munif and his companions followed closely, just enough two make their presence known.

The plan was to funnel the Carac to a dead end street where surrender would be the only option.  It was simple, effective, and minimized any collateral damage. That was assuming a lot, and Munif knew it. He was sure of his intuitive abilities—and he always heeded them. Yet, an odd feeling of dread gnawed at him. He shook it off, attributing it to the persistent stress of the past several days. What he'd devised left no escape for the summoners—unless they could fly. There was no reason to allow a trifling uneasiness to distract him now.

Munif and his company maintained the farthest distance possible between themselves and their quarry in order to avoid detection. But he could not help noticing that there was something odd about the manner in which the summoners moved; their gait was not that of men fleeing from danger. They ran smoothly and with purpose. Neither looked over his shoulder. Neither seemed to suspect they were being followed. So why did it seem as though the Carac were leading them? Munif became anxious; a sense of foreboding continued to distract him.

A small object dropped from beneath the robes of one of the fleeing men. And then a second fell. Munif slowed down. The Jassaj passed him without pausing. One looked back with raised eyebrows and tilted his head, indicating that the quarry was getting away.

One of the objects had lodged in a muddy footprint. Munif stopped, noting the surroundings. They were in a narrow alley. A filthy grate ran along the edge of a walkway beside a tall building. Munif picked the object up gingerly, fingering what appeared to be pumice. There was a strange odor to it, similar to rotten eggs. It crumbled from porous rock to ash but was not hot to the touch. Something about the stone was familiar, but Munif could not quite place it. When he realized that the chase had gone on without him, he quickly set off to rejoin it.

He put on a burst of speed, hoping to regain precious seconds. He could see the Jassaj closing in on the summoners. They had trapped the Carac with no means of escape. The summoners paused briefly, then turned to face the three Jassaj.

Munif was suddenly aware of a change in the air. Something is wrong, he thought. And for reasons he did not understand, he made a sudden, unexpected decision. "I cannot be seen by the summoners," he muttered to himself.

"If you make one move, you will die," said one of the Jassaj to the Carac.

Then everything went terribly wrong.

An inhuman scream erupted from the shadows of the cowls where the summoners' faces should have been.

Munif knew at that moment that he and his agents, not the summoners, were the prey.

 Ala'i protect me!

The low screeching wail made the hair on Munif's body stand up in terror. From beneath the folds of cloth, a pulse of white-hot light issued forth and engulfed the Jassaj. Hot wind blasted past Munif's legs, to be sucked into the entities that rose before him.

He dove head first toward the filth-ridden grate, throwing it up and sliding under it, letting it clang into place above him. The fate of the other agents was out of his control. As soon as he slid inside the grate and tried to curl up, he realized it was not large enough to protect one person, let alone two. He felt warm blood flowing down his forehead as his head and shoulders collided with the stone wall. Even with his eyes closed, he could see the bright light, and he knew what was coming. He tried in vain to pull his legs under the grate as he curled into an awkward fetal position.