“You mean an advance group in front of an army? I don’t know... how do you feel about making mundanes irrationally insecure and defensive?”
Darren grimaced. “I hate that we have to worry about anti-Talent bias when we have bigger fish to fry.”
“Yeah, you won’t feel that way if we all get burned at the stake.”
“Speak for yourself,” Darren teased. “My guide will get me out of trouble.” The second he said the words, butterflies woke in his stomach. Bennu would save him if he could, but his absence worried Darren more than he wanted to admit. He offered Les the next word on the list that might work. “Guru?”
Les retorted, “Naked guy on a mountain. Roué?”
“Roo-ay? What the hell is that?”
Les’s monotone suggested he was reading straight out of the dictionary. “A debauched man, especially an elderly one. Old and selfish. It might work for the evil half of the ifrit family.”
“It sounds stupid.”
“Which is tons better than sounding terrifying,” Les countered, and then he sighed. “I know, I know. I need to stop with the fear-mongering. Boucher is going to kill me if I can’t get a grip.”
“He gets it,” Darren said. Hell, Kavon was on the terrace, and the bond was locked down tight. That suggested he was dealing with his own fears.
“Nothing scares Boucher. I hate him a little for that.” Les quickly changed the subject. “So, rapscallion sounds too goofy and potentially culinary, but what about profligate?”
Darren frowned. “What the hell are you looking up?”
“Villains. If you’re going to drag me into a comic book plot, then I’m giving these evil ifrit a comic book name.
“I thought that meant something else, but I’m going for a hard no either way. Most English speakers use the word guides, so the names should be related to that.” Darren frowned. “I wonder if the evil ifrit will go for someone interesting rather than someone with power. Everyone puts their lives on social media these days, so we could we make a list of people whose hobbies include jumping off cliffs and cave diving?”
Les’s snort made his opinion clear. “I dare you to suggest that to Milton. That man does not have patience for anything he perceives as stupid, and that’s a stupid idea.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Darren scrolled though the synonyms the computer had suggested.
“And face it, we need a name that doesn’t have the baggage ifrit does. We need the general population to think of our guides and any invading ifrit as separate species or the anti-Talent hate is going to get worse. I still miss the way the islanders saw guides as just one more part of nature. When I transferred here...” Les sighed, but Darren had known the man long enough to hear what he didn’t say. He had struggled with the depth of the prejudices that existed in the DC area and even in the rest of the country. Hawaii was its own world.
“Docent,” Darren said.
“What’s that?”
Darren read from the definition. “A person who is a knowledgeable guide, especially one who conducts visitors through a museum and delivers a commentary on the exhibitions.”
Les didn’t answer immediately, which was a good sign. “That works. It’s got a nice boring connotation. No one is irrationally afraid of museum workers. So, for our jail breakers, how about durance?”
“Endurance?”
“Nope, no en. Just durance. It’s an archaic word for imprisonment.”
“I thought you were trying to avoid triggering fear. Bringing up prison seems like the wrong move.”
“Hey, people understand prisons. It’s way less scary than Islamic demons, and if they think of evil ifrit as prisoners then they might consider the docent the good guys who put them in that prison.”
That was brilliant. “Durance it is.”
“Awesome!” Les sounded pleased. “That’s one item off the Armageddon shopping list.
Darren flinched. He wished he could protect his friends, and for the first time, he had a bone-deep understanding of Kavon’s overprotectiveness. Les didn’t have a docent. He didn’t have enough Talent to defend himself. And worse, he had a wasp guide. The two of them would throw themselves into any fight, no matter the cost to themselves. That terrified Darren.
And while they didn’t know whether they were hunting one durance or several, the ice walls of the ifrit prison were cracking.
“So, what’s the next step?” Les asked.
