You do nothing. Just stay out of the way.
Ari gaped as Jai shot by her in a blur, disappearing into the dark of the alley. Panic suffused her at the thought of the ghulah hurting him and Ari gripped asphalt, dashing into the alley. The smell of garbage and beer flooded her nose and tickled her upchuck reflex. Ari’s breathing sounded overly loud and she clamped a hand over her mouth, willing her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
A yell rent the air and Ari dove forward, the sounds of glass smashing and loud rustling setting her heart to pounding.
“Jesus Christ!” a guy cried out in fear, his voice reaching Ari only seconds before he appeared out of the dimness, blood seeping from the fleshy bite in his neck. Pale and weak, completely discombobulated, he fled past Ari and out into the street.
Screw this!
Petrified, Ari marched into the alley, the shapes of dumpsters and garbage bags spilling out into the dirt infested space forming before her as her eyes adjusted. Stepping tentatively over what smelled like urine, Ari wrinkled her nose, trying to hear past the rushing of blood in her ears.
A bloody hand lay limp on the ground and as soon as she saw the blood, the strong, thick, nauseating scent of copper made her gag. Disbelief and screaming unreality wept through her as she followed the hand to the rest of the body. It was one of the boys. Hurrying forward, Ari was just about to fall to her knees to inspect him when a gust of wind blew past her, carrying Jai in it. He slammed into the wall beside her, dirty garbage bags breaking his fall as he slid down it with a wincing scrape of leather against brick.
“Jai?” she squawked, making a move toward him only to be stopped when a large hand wrapped around her throat. Ari was turned and lifted off the ground, her feet dangling as she struggled to draw breath. The jinn’s female façade smiled up at her sweetly, her mouth covered in gore from where she’d been eating the boys. To Ari’s horror, her jaw elongated unnaturally, revealing huge sharp teeth. Ari closed her eyes, shutting out the image of blood and flesh dripping from the ghulah’s mouth.
“Another Hunter from the Guild, I presume. I don’t know why you bother when you know you’re not allowed to kill us.”
She squeezed tighter and black spots started popping up all over Ari’s vision. Biting her nails into the ghulah’s hand, Ari raked them deep and the jinn winced just before Ari lost consciousness.
Jai pounded a fist against the enchantment the ghulah had placed around him while she choked the life out of Ari. Before she’d gripped Ari, Jai had been able to think clearly. The ghulah was more powerful than she should be, almost as if she were borrowing power. When the barrier went up around him, his eyes had zeroed in on the talisman she wore around her neck. A sorcerer’s talisman. She was drawing power from it. His only thought had been of removing the talisman from her neck and destroying it. That is… until her attack on Ari unraveled him. The emotions that rushed through him as he banged and punched the invisible wall keeping him from rescuing her were nothing like how they described. There was no one thought in a moment like this. There was terror and fury and panic and vengeance. It was unrelenting and painful as it clawed and clouded his brain, reducing him to a saliva-ridden animal desperate to eviscerate the jinn who dared to hurt what was his.
When Ari’s eyes rolled back in her head, Jai stilled, staring in disbelief as the ghulah released her. Ari’s body hit the concrete with a thud as she collapsed, sprawled out on the dirty ground, unconscious, seeming dead, her hair spread out in a halo around her head, her throat red raw from strangulation. The rise and fall of her chest, however, eased him, and rationale returned to him.
The ghulah took a few steps towards him, a smug smile on her painted face. Jai found his fury, drawing a foot across the ground like a bull readying to charge.
“I’ll deal with the girl once I’ve gotten rid of you for good. What say I lower the barrier and we play this nice and fair half-breed?”
No way was he telling her he wasn’t a half-breed Hunter. He needed the advantage the element of surprise would provide. The barrier dropped and Jai fell back on good old-fashioned human training.
He threw a punch. Her nose broke under his fist.
Howling the ghulah clasped her face. Her retaliation, the buzzing that erupted in Jai’s ears, almost made him laugh. It was a wasp enchantment—a hallucination that wasps were crawling in his ears and into his brain—to make him think he was being smothered alive by them. With a wave of his hand, he killed the enchantment, something a half-breed could never do.