Free Rebels of the Lamp, Book 1 by Peter Speakman

strike even a minor blow. I am too weak. Xaru knows he has the
upper hand, and he will soon come to the well-reasoned conclusion that he does not need me at all. Clever genie!
    Tarinn was right. I have unleashed magick beyond my control.
    Fon-Rahm has vowed to do battle, but he and Xaru are too evenly matched. Neither genie could destroy the other.
    I saw Xaru reading my ancient books. What could he want with the knowledge within? I saw the spell he wished to cast and I burst into laughter. Xaru is indeed my son and heir.
He had been hard at work mastering the spell I used to create him and his cursed brother, Fon-Rahm.
    Xaru wishes to create genies of his own.

13
    THE ESCALADE HIT A RUT and bounced high on its twenty-two-inch chrome wheels.
    The bike trail was rough going, but the Cadillac could take it with no problem. It had four-wheel drive and a beefed-up suspension, along with the V-8 engine, a huge navigation screen, and wood
trim in burled walnut and olive ash. The men in suits had stolen a very nice car.
    A car, however, even a car as dope as this car, could not be expected to glide smoothly over the rugged terrain next to this particular Cahill, New Hampshire, bike trail, and this car
didn’t. The bouncing threw off the driver’s aim, and his shots thudded into the dirt harmlessly instead of blowing holes straight through Parker Quarry.
    Nadir, the driver of the Slade, swore. Not out loud, of course. He had taken a vow of silence when he had taken control of the Path, and he was not going to break it over some undersize American
teenager in a Dodgers T-shirt. He swore to
himself
. He had expected the lamp to at least be stationary, buried still, or perhaps on the shelf of a museum too stupid to realize what they had,
but now here he was chasing two children down a trail made for dirt bikes, not three-ton luxury trucks. This was getting annoying. Nadir was not a man who welcomed annoyances.
    He shut out the yapping of the Path members in the backseat and swapped out a clip for his submachine gun. The gun had once belonged to a police officer in Illinois. The police there had
executed a raid on Nadir and his men, thinking that they were part of a terrorist group. The police were right, sort of. Nadir was a terrorist, all right, but not like any terrorist the cops had
ever seen. After the raid was over and all of the police officers were dead, Nadir took the gun. He liked guns and he hadn’t been able to bring any of his favorites with him, airport security
being so tight these days. He and his men had to dispatch the policemen with swords and knives, just like in the old days.
    Parker rode faster than he ever had before in his life. He could hear the Caddy roaring ever closer when he caught up with his cousin.
    Theo was stunned to see him. He figured he had left Parker in the dust when he turned off the main road.
    Theo said, “What are you—”
    He didn’t get any further than that, because Parker rammed his bike into him, crashing both of them into the wide drainage ditch that ran next to the bike trail. They tumbled down the side
of the ditch, smashing their shins and elbows on rocks and hard ground as they fell, tangled up in their bikes. When they landed, thought Theo,
if
they ever landed, he was going to kill
Parker.
    They landed, finally, knotted together in a cloud of dry dirt. The canister from Cahill University slid to a stop a few feet away.
    Theo gasped. He was already furious at Parker, and that was before the jerk ran him off the road. He could hardly believe his cousin was that intent on keeping the stupid canister.
    “You could have killed me!” Theo said. “You could have broken both my legs!” He wasn’t in any actual pain, but that didn’t mean he was okay. He was certainly
scraped and definitely bruised.
    And the worst part was, Parker wasn’t even looking at him. He was staring at the top of the ditch, some six feet up.
    When Theo asked, “What is wrong with you,