Rockslide’s battle cry brought me back to my senses. He’d taken my orders to heart. Everywhere I looked, bodies lay broken. There was more than one civilian within that mass of death. My apartment building was fully engulfed now, but the firefighters were staying well back from the carnage. Gunshots rang out, and I was forced to duck behind my ruby friend.

“What the fuck is going on?” I yelled.

Rockslide threw a chunk of concrete at an approaching formation of police. “Thine orders were to kill them all.” He sounded ashamed. “But I can only destroy those who attack me.”

Dozens of bodies littered the area, and he was upset because he hadn’t killed enough people? Seeing the fallen cooled my bloodlust. Emily’s soul was safe within me. It was time to get out of here.

“We need to leave!” I heard a bullet whiz by my head. “ Now!”

“I’m afraid thy realm is inaccessible,” Rockslide said.

He sounded like he was sitting down to tea. I took a longer look at him and hissed. His body was pockmarked with holes and orange fluid leaked from them. The smaller holes closed as the viscous substance filled them, but the larger craters remained. His movements were slower than when he fought Haliniel, yet he didn’t seem to notice the damage he was taking.

I looked to my Abued and realized why genies didn’t tie their homes to immovable objects. The threads that marked my realm were plainly visible, but I had no way of reaching it. I unraveled the energy that kept my home intact and grabbed Rockslide’s arm. I screamed and jerked my hand back instantly. Skin sloughed off my fingers as the superheated fluid started working on my bones.

I wove a few threads and pulled the heat away from my hand. In a few moments, ice crystals formed, cooling the burned appendage. I’d have to heal it later. I slung the excess heat at an approaching SWAT truck.

“Can you take us to your home?” I asked.

Rockslide’s eyes literally lit up. “It would be my honor.”

The world around us flashed, and I was back in the oppressive darkness of Rockslide’s realm. Except, it was no longer completely dark. A statuary resembling my living room stood amid a circle of red light. The light met the darkness forming a wall of crackling energy. My heart skipped a beat when I saw a copy of Emily’s statue in the center of the room. The acrid sulfur smell was replaced by the scent of Emily’s perfume. Damn, I thought the big guy liked me, but this seemed like a shrine to Em.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” I said.

Rockslide’s wounds started closing faster as he resumed his standard form. My hand throbbed. Knowing I wouldn’t find any, I looked around for the threads of chance to heal it. I was surprised to see a few wispy trails of color. They were insubstantial, but, in time, I knew this place would be home to a little chaos.

Rockslide sat on a stone chair and smiled. “I was hoping thou wouldst.”

“You’ve got a statue of Em here too?” I said, trying to ignore the pain returning to my destroyed hand.

“I thought thou would appreciate a reminder for when she is gone,” he said.

“But,” I said with some heat, “she just died.”

Rockslide bowed his head. “I’m sorry. I did not anticipate her demise would be so soon.”

“Neither did I,” I spat. “Why did you make it if you weren’t expecting her to die?”

My words were filled with accusation, and Rockslide seemed to have noticed. He looked at me with large, pleading eyes. Goddamit, it was like he just chewed up my good shoes.

“I was expecting her to die,” he said. “She is mortal, after all.”

Oh, right. I slumped onto the couch and put my good hand over my face. Now that I was no longer in the Duat, I couldn’t feel Em’s soul, only a faint warmth in my chest.

“Can you hear me, Em?” I whispered. There was no reply.

I looked down at my hand. Blood seeped from what few vessels remained, flowing over the bare bone. New skin slowly grew where the blood pooled. It felt like pins and needles stabbing into me as the nerves reconnected. I watched it for a long time. The more skin that grew back, the faster the process went. It was a self-strengthening cycle, like Rockslide’s orange fluid. I guess being immortal had its perks.

I looked up from my healing hand. “How do I find the Zaeim Aljiniy?”

Rockslide trembled. “Why wouldst thou wish to?”

“Because,” I said, “they’re fucking shit up, and I need to stop it.”

“Tis forbidden to challenge them,” Rockslide said.

“Just like it was forbidden to help me against Haliniel? I think you’ll find you have a lot more freedom than you think. You just need to fucking use it.”

Rockslide seemed to think about that for a minute. “To disobey is to suffer the Ammit.”

“What?” I asked.

Rockslide shivered, flinging orange fluid across the room. “Souls who suffer the Ammit are denied rest and memory, forced to wander the Duat aimlessly. They wait to be called upon by the Zaeim Aljiniy, to return to life and prove themselves worthy. There is only one punishment greater.”

“Yeah,” I said, rolling my hand, gesturing him to continue.

“The Almawt Aladhi Yueishuna,” he said. “Tis the living death. The soul remembers only the moment of dying over and over as they wander, longing for the abyss.”

“Can that soul be brought back?” I asked, remembering Ma’at saying they were torturing a genie with rebirth.

“I wouldst hope not,” Rockslide said. “Wouldst thou let such a creature loose?”

I had to admit, the guy had a point. That would make anyone insane. And Jinn had gone through it for hundreds of years. Was she really trying to kill other genies, or trying to get herself killed? I couldn’t imagine that kind of existence.

“How do we find them?” I asked again.

Rockslide deflated. “It would be a perilous journey, and thy powers would not avail you.”

“How,” I demanded, “do we find them?”

Rockslide shook his head. “Thou must enter the Duat and travel down Iteru past Shati Almawt, through Nafaq Alakhira, and into Aaru.” Rockslide looked at me, the facets of his body occluded heavily with what I recognized as fear. “In Aaru, thou needs to find The Hall of Ma’at and pass the forty-two judges. Then thy quest is complete. Thou will be in front of Osiris, Anubis, and Qed-Her, the Zaeim Aljiniy.”

Fucking hell, I thought. I didn’t recognize any of those damn names, but I had a pretty good idea I’d already gone through most of that just a little while ago. Fucking bitch could have at least told me.

“And how do we get into the Duat?” I asked.

Rockslide’s features stiffened. “We die?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” I said.

“My apologies, David Jinn,” Rockslide said. “I do not know. Perhaps if thou had a sponsor? But I do not think the living may remain long in the Duat.”

No kidding. That was a damn understatement. I had that magical water keeping me going, and I only lasted a few minutes. Or had it been hours? Now that I thought about it, I didn’t feel any passage of time, and Rockslide wasn’t acting like I’d gone anywhere.

“Do you remember me leaving earlier?”

“Yes,” Rockslide said with confidence. “You left your Abued with me.”

“No, I mean after that. When we were fighting.”

Rockslide looked uncertain now. “Thy presence faded momentarily but…thou did not go anywhere.”

So, Ma’at managed to pull me into the Duat, but not all the way. Was that a safety measure, or the limit of her power? A soul for a soul, a life for a death. Did I need to die for Em to live again? And what the fuck did it mean, when the sun meets the moon? Fuck it. Ma’at said Em was the key, which meant whatever I had to do needed to be done in the Duat.

“Okay, big guy,” I said. “We’re going to rest here for a bit and heal up. Then we’re going to the realm of the dead. Can you bring us out of your home somewhere other than the place we were when we came here?”

“I can,” Rockslide said.

A half-remembered image popped into my head, and I smiled, silently thanking Ma’at. “Good. When we’re healed, bring us out at Alharan Almuqadas.”