Chapter 17: Ben
Although it had been an agonizing experience facing my family, telling them what I’d done and that I didn’t know when I might be able to see them again, it was also strangely liberating. At least now they knew what the situation was.
When I’d first left The Shade, during those months that I was away, it had always played in the back of my mind that my parents didn’t know where I was or what had happened to me. I had brought no phone with me, so for all they knew, I could be dead. The thought of them worrying had been a constant stress. Now they knew, and although they were clearly horrified, they didn’t have to suffer the added fear of the unknown.
I couldn’t have felt more grateful to River for the way she had comforted my mother when my mother had needed it most. I glanced back down at River’s pretty face as we stepped back through the boundary. Her eyes were set forward in determination. I realized I had never known a girl as strong as her. Even my sister, for all her bravery… I honestly wasn’t sure that she was capable of carrying herself with the same levelheadedness as River.
I didn’t know exactly what had made River the way she was—I guessed it was rooted in her upbringing, and the difficult childhood she’d had—but at that moment, I didn’t think it was possible for me to adore or respect a woman more.
Although Aisha, who’d brought us up to see my and River’s parents, was still waiting for us within the boundary with a look of slight impatience on her face, I stopped River in her tracks. I slid an arm around her small waist and raised my other hand to support her head as I tilted it backward and kissed her deeply. No words from me were needed. I could see from the look in her eyes as I raised my head again that she understood what her gesture had meant to me.
Then I resumed my hold on her hand, and we closed the distance between us and Aisha. I could’ve sworn a scowl crossed the jinni’s face on witnessing my display of affection for River, but it passed quickly. Aisha cleared her throat, flicking aside a lock of her curly black hair.
“Was there anything else you wanted?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “But first let’s return to your atrium.” I’d already decided that I wanted to spend as little time as possible in the upper atrium to avoid bumping into Jeramiah, Michael, and other unsavory characters, so I had requested Nuriya to allot me an apartment down in the jinn’s abode.
“As you wish,” Aisha replied smoothly.
A thick mist appeared from nowhere and surrounded us, and the next second, we were standing in the Nasiris’ gardens, a few feet away from the border of the sparkling swan-dotted lake.
“And now?” Aisha asked, raising a brow.
I paused, pulling my mind away from thoughts of River and my family and fixing it on my next move.
“I have a question,” River said.
Aisha forced a smile. “What might that be?” she asked, the tone of her voice bordering on patronizing.
“All that time Ben and I were staying in The Oasis, how come you never made us aware of your presence? We had no idea that this place was inhabited by jinn—we thought it was just home to Jeramiah and his coven. Nobody would tell us why we’d been branded with these tattoos and who’d put them on us.”
“Ah,” Aisha said. “Well, half-blood, we deliberately keep ourselves hidden from new members… It can be quite overwhelming for them at first. Initially we tend to let them get used to their new life here and we try to make sure their stay is as comfortable as possible… then once we feel they’re ready to be introduced to us—perhaps after a few weeks, sometimes a month or two, depending on the person—they are brought down to visit my aunt, Queen Nuri.”
“So that’s why you keep the entrance to your atrium well hidden?” River asked. “So new members don’t come across it easily?”
“Precisely,” Aisha said. “That—and also if there was ever a raid on this place, we would be the last to be found, and the last to be disturbed.”
That last snippet of information caught my attention. “How could this place ever be raided?” I asked. “Isn’t it under your protection?”
“Yes, of course,” Aisha said quickly—a little too quickly. To my surprise, she looked a little flustered suddenly. “I just mean if a vampire happened to be careless and let a hunter capture and gain entrance with him, for example.”
I eyed her curiously, not buying that explanation. The question played on my mind. What being could ever be powerful enough to break in and raid a place protected by an ancient family of jinn?
Aisha changed the subject. “It’s about time for lunch. Why don’t you join us? Queen Nuri will be there, and you’ll get to meet the rest of my family too.”
Lunch. The last thing I felt like doing was sitting down for lunch, but if this was going to be a family lunch with all the jinn present, perhaps River and I would glean some useful information. Besides, River might be hungry.
“Do you want to?” I asked her.
River paused, looking from Aisha to me. “Um… Okay,” she replied.
Aisha looked relieved and forced another wide smile. “Splendid. Unfortunately, Ben only drinks human blood, but you, River, will adore the food. I promise you that it’ll be quite unlike anything you’ve ever tasted before…”
“What do you jinn eat exactly?” River asked, looking rather unsettled.
“Oh, basically the same as humans… But my older sister, who loves to cook and usually plays chef of this place, really has a way with spices.”
“Okay,” River said, still appearing uncertain. “Thanks.”
The jinni led us away from the gardens and toward the kitchen. As we drew near, I thought we were going to enter it, but instead, we passed right by it and she stopped us outside the next door along.
Aisha twisted the door handle and stepped inside. We followed after her, arriving in a grand circular dining hall. Right in the center was a long banquet table. It was immaculately set with golden plates and silver cutlery, and tall vases of irises decorated the center of the table.
Aisha gestured toward the chairs. “Well, take a seat wherever you want,” she said. “Just don’t sit at the head of the table. That spot is reserved for my aunt. We’re a little early, but everyone else will be arriving soon. I’m going to see my sister in the kitchen. Wait here.”
She vanished, leaving behind a veil of mist. River and I looked at each other, then back at the table. I pulled up a seat somewhere along the middle of it for River to sit down, and then took a seat next to her myself. River’s eyes were wide and nervous as she took in the beauty of the room. I reached for her hand and planted a kiss on the back of it. Then we waited for the jinn to arrive.
We weren’t waiting long. After perhaps five minutes, Aisha reappeared with another female jinni and a trolley loaded with steaming pots, jugs, and serving spoons.
“This is Safi, my sister,” Aisha said. “Safi, this is Benjamin Novak and his half-blood.”
I couldn’t miss the way she didn’t bother introducing River properly. I eyed Safi and was surprised by how much older she looked compared to Aisha.
Safi appeared quite uninterested in us. She glanced our way briefly before proceeding to place jugs of deep purple liquid on the table.
The door to the room creaked. I looked round to see more jinn had just entered the room. A lot more jinn. There must have been at least fifty of them. Nuriya and her lover Bahir were the only ones that I recognized, but most of them had similar features to Nuriya—except a handful with lighter hair, who apparently were members of the Nasiri family by marriage rather than blood. The jinn glanced at River and me already seated at the table, before making their way to their own chairs. I groaned internally as Aisha rushed to occupy the other seat next to me before someone else could take it.
Observing these strange creatures closely, I was surprised to see them sitting as if they had a backside. They looked perfectly normal while seated.
Nuriya gave River and me a warm smile.
“Good af
ternoon,” she purred. She sat down at the head of the table.
I couldn’t bring myself to smile back. The expression I returned looked like more of a grimace.
Once everyone was seated, Safi began making her way around the table with her trolley, delicately doling out portions of food onto each of the plates. She worked with surprising speed, and soon she had reached River. She began planting various preparations on River’s plate—most of which I couldn’t put a name to. There was a portion of steaming white rice, some kind of exotic-looking salad and a type of flatbread, but there was nothing else on her plate that I could recognize by either sight or smell.
Safi planted a generous jug of blood in front of me along with a tall glass. I looked at it, my mouth already watering. I didn’t miss River eyeing it with disgust before she set her focus back on her own plate. I filled my glass to the brim.
Once everyone had been served, Nuriya stood up and gazed around the table. She held a crystal glass filled with that odd purple liquid, which, going by the smell, I assumed was some kind of juice rather than liquor.
“I’d like to introduce you all to Benjamin Novak and River Giovanni,” she said smoothly. “I believe that this is the first time most of you are meeting them.”
There were mutterings of, “Good afternoon.”
“This really is quite a special lunch for all of us,” she said. “It marks the day Benjamin Novak became a permanent member of our family. He has become eternally ours, and we eternally his.”
Way to kill my appetite…
The rest of the jinn eyed me with a lot more curiosity after that little speech.
Nuriya sat down, and everyone began to dig into their food. For a while, I held off starting on my blood. I was too interested to see exactly how these creatures ate. But it turned out that there was really nothing interesting about it. I wasn’t exactly sure how their bodies worked, having no visible lower half, but they appeared to consume food quite ordinarily, the way a human would.
I raised my glass to my lips and took a sip from the blood. That sweet, succulent blood. I still hadn’t tasted anything like it. Jeramiah had told me it tasted so good because they kept the humans well, but I was interested in getting confirmation from the jinn.
“What is it about this blood?” I said, looking directly at Nuriya. “It’s unlike any other I’ve tasted.”
She raised a silk napkin to her mouth, daintily wiping her upper lip before responding. “We take good care of the humans upstairs,” she replied, offering me another wide smile. “They’re fed lots of fresh milk and other wholesome foods… As well as a homemade juice that my dear niece Safi here concocts herself.”
My eyes set on Safi, who was still standing next to the trolley, watching with apparent pleasure as everyone tucked into her food.
“What’s in the juice?” I asked.
“It’s mostly plant-based,” she replied, shortly.
I hadn’t realized that diet could have such a drastic effect on the taste of human blood.
I looked down at River, who had begun chewing on the most recognizable substances on her plate—she had mixed the salad with the rice, and was eating it with the bread.
“How is it?” I asked in a low voice, as the other jinn began to chatter amongst themselves.
River’s expression was conflicted as she chewed slowly and thoughtfully. “It’s… delicious,” she said.
“All you’ve touched is bread and rice salad!” Aisha’s voice came from my right. Apparently she had been observing River and me closely. She raised her own plate to River and gestured toward a lumpy reddish preparation in the center of her plate. “You must try this next.”
River eyed the dish cautiously. “What is this exactly?” River asked the jinni, indicating one of the lumps as she rolled it around on her plate.
“Stuffed and fried potato,” Aisha answered.
“Stuffed with what?” River asked.
“That would be spoiling the surprise. Just try it, I promise you’ll love it.”
River looked reluctantly at the lump, then, scooping it up with a spoon, raised it to her mouth. Gingerly, she took a bite.
“Ouch!” River spat the lump out into her napkin and clutched the side of her jaw. “It’s so hard! What the hell is that?”
Aisha giggled before proceeding to place one of her lumps in her mouth, then chew and swallow it with no problem at all.
River gaped at her. “How can you eat that?”
“Easy.” After Aisha had finished swallowing, she bared her teeth, revealing how thick and sturdy they looked. Certainly not the jaws of a human.
“What was that?” River asked again.
It was Safi who answered: “Bone.”
River glared at Aisha. “Why would you ask me to bite into that?”
Aisha just giggled in response.
“What kind of bone?” River asked.
“The only kind of bone we eat here,” a female jinni on the other side of River replied. “Human bone, of course.”
River’s face drained of all color.
“Ground human bone is also in the salad dressing,” Aisha added cheerfully. “That’s what makes it so nice and thick.”
River doubled over. The next thing I knew, she had vomited all over the floor.
I abandoned my glass of blood and bent down to help her up. But she gagged again and threw up a second time. Her knees were trembling. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, looking the jinn over with sheer disgust, the same way many of them were eyeing her after watching her vomit all over the dining room floor as they had lunch.
I’d hoped this luncheon would be an opportunity to learn more about the jinn. Clearly, this hadn’t been the brightest of ideas.
“Let’s go,” I muttered, picking River up. “Lunch is over.”
Chapter 18: Ben
Neither River nor I bothered to apologize for her throwing up in the middle of the lunch. It was their damn fault for not warning River what she was eating.
Carrying River, I brought her back to the apartment that Nuriya had allotted to me. It was on the fifth floor, and while not nearly as large as the others, it was still infinitely more luxurious than the apartment I’d inhabited in the upper atrium.
I took her straight to the bathroom. She bent over the seat and vomited some more, then washed her mouth out and downed gulps of water. I handed her a towel, which she wet and wiped her face with.
She still didn’t look recovered.
“I need to take a shower.”
“Okay,” I said, backing out of the bathroom and heading to the room next door—my bedroom. I kept the door open so that she’d easily find me after she’d finished.
She entered the room about ten minutes later, wrapped in a bathrobe. Even now, she didn’t look quite right. I led her to the kitchen and pointed to a bowl of fruit that had been set on the table.
“Dig into some of that,” I said. “It will help take any aftertaste away.”
She chose a ripe papaya, cut it in half, and began eating its flesh with a spoon.
I placed a glass of water next to her. She looked at me gratefully before downing the whole thing in a few gulps.
After she had finished the whole fruit, she slumped back in her chair. Although she was calmer, she still had a look of horror on her face.
“I can’t believe I actually swallowed… some human.” She shuddered. “God.”
I looked at her grimly. “Welcome to my world.”
She looked at me with newfound understanding in her eyes. She nodded, gulping, before changing the subject. “I guess now we know what Jeramiah must’ve been grinding.”
“Yes,” I said. “I suspect that’s why they feed the humans so well. It’s not to make their blood rich for the vampires. It’s to make their bones strong and healthy.”
“All that calcium in the camel milk,” River muttered.
Our conversation trailed off. I sat with her in the kitchen until she showed signs of rec
overy. After ten minutes, she stood up.
“Okay,” she said. “I need to get dressed. Is there anything I can change into in this apartment? My old clothes are disgusting by now.”
We returned to my bedroom and I pulled open the tall closet. This was the first time that I’d looked inside, so I didn’t know if there would be anything suitable. But, surprisingly, alongside men’s clothing were shelves of women’s clothing. River picked out the most comfortable-looking thing she could see—a light cotton dress—and I left the room while she changed.
Now that she had recovered, as much as I loathed to see Aisha again after the misery she had just caused River, thanks to Nuriya delegating my wishes to her, I had no choice.
Once we left the apartment, we didn’t have to travel far before I spotted her. Apparently the jinn had finished lunch by now and were leaving the dining hall. I sped up, reaching Aisha before she could turn down a staircase.
“We need to talk,” I said.
She turned around, and as her eyes fell to River, there was an infuriating smirk on her face. Then her expression turned to mock apology.
“Listen,” she said to River, “I’m sorry. You’re half vampire. I didn’t know that you’d have such a reaction to tasting a bit of human…”
“I have another wish that you need to grant,” I said, not wanting her to rub the traumatic experience in for River even more. “And this one carries a lot more weight than what I’ve asked of you so far. I suspect that you’re going to have to take me to Nuriya to have it fulfilled.”
“What is it?” she asked, planting her hands on her hips.
“I need you to get rid of the bloodlust I have for humans.”
“Why do you want to do that?”
“Can you do it or not?” I asked, unwilling to indulge her in even a single unnecessary question.
“Well, what do you mean exactly? You want to become a human? I can’t see how else you would stop craving human blood. As a vampire, it’s just ingrained in your nature to want it.”
A Soldier of Shadows Page 9