Exquisite Captive

by Heather Demetrios

  The Marid hums under her breath as she walks, deftly maneuvering the paintings through the narrow streets of Venice. They pass gardens and balconies, where young humans drink from bottles of beer. The smell of meat lingers in the breeze, but the ghoul is not tempted—he likes his meals rare. Warm from the kill.

  The Marid passes a shiny car—cream, with the word MASERATI written in small silver letters on the back. She reaches out her hand and touches it, her face sad. The ghoul smiles, watching her. Oh, how he loves it when they are sad.

  The ghoul quickens his steps.

  “Jahal’alund,” he says. He knows the Marid does not see his true self. He appears to be a Shaitan jinni with curly black hair and a slight Spanish accent.

  The Marid straightens her paintings and offers a smile. “Well, jahal’alund to you, too. I didn’t know there was another jinni in the neighborhood!”

  “Can the jinni help you?”

  The Marid shakes her head. “I’m almost home. I’ve carted these things around a thousand times, believe me.”

  The ghoul is uncertain as to how to proceed, but then the Marid catches sight of the large mood ring on his middle finger. “Oh, I love mood rings. Where did you get it?”

  The ghoul smiles. “The jinni got the ring in Barcelona.”

  “The jinni?” The Marid cocks her head to the side. “English kinda new for you, huh? You speak, what, Spanish over there?”

  The ghoul nods. “Yes, the jinni speaks Spanish. The jinni speaks many languages now.”

  The Marid raises an eyebrow. “Okay, amiga. Well, I’m headed this way,” she says, pointing down the road.

  “What a coincidence. The jinni is also going in this direction.”

  The ghoul walks with her, asking the Marid questions about Venice Beach and her art, and the Marid talks and talks, never noticing the way the ghoul licks his lips or leans in for a quick sniff of her hair. It is dark in the streets, so they walk slowly with the Marid’s cumbersome load of paintings. The ghoul feels anxious. He wants to set more fires, and he needs this kill to gain access into the Aisouri’s home. He’d expected a bisahm to protect her residence, hence this necessary little detour for one more disguise.

  They reach the Marid’s bungalow in a few short minutes, a tiny house in the Venice canals.

  “Well, this is my place. I’d invite you in, but I’m actually leaving right now. You should come to Habibi sometime. I bartend there, so I can get you a free drink or two. We can evanesce over there together, if you want.”

  The ghoul smiles and as he steps into a sliver of moonlight, the Marid stares. Her face goes slack as she takes in the part of his body that the moonlight touches. It reveals a large, thick arm, the flesh gray and peeling.

  The Marid tries to shove her key into the lock, forgetting, for a moment, all about magic. The ghoul moves closer and the Marid throws her hand against its face, slicing the rotting skin on his cheek with her key.

  “Ah, so the Marid likes to play rough too,” the ghoul says.

  “Get away from me,” she screams.

  The Marid begins to evanesce, but the ghoul’s arms are unnaturally long and he simply reaches out and throws her against the side of the cottage, breaking her connection to her chiaan. What little smoke she’d produced disappears into the sea breeze. The Marid tries to stand, but she sways like a drunk and the wall is red and sticky from where her head hit it.

  “So beautiful,” the ghoul whispers, as he pulls her roughly against him. “The ghoul will taste her now.”

  He’s ravenous, filled with an insatiable hunger. The flesh calls to him and he drools over the Marid’s face as his teeth lengthen and move toward her. The kill, the kill.

  His mouth opens wide.

  The last thing the Marid sees is the gaping hole of his mouth bearing down on her head. She closes her eyes and thinks of her father. Of the place in Arjinna where the sky meets the sea. All that blue. All that—

  The ghoul is in the frenzy of the feed, so hungry after his exertions on the hills of the city earlier today. It’s not long before he finishes his meal. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand, then his body twists and his red smoke mixes with the blue of the Marid’s as he evanesces to Hollywood.

  23

  AS SOON AS NALIA’S FEET TOUCHED MALEK’S GRASS, a wave of heat and smoke crashed over her. Haran’s inferno was already devouring the next-door neighbor’s house, and in a matter of minutes Malek’s property would be next. The security post at the gate had been abandoned and the house was dark. The property had a long-deserted air, even though she knew Delson and the servants had just left. The sound of the blaze was deafening, and here and there Nalia heard the piercing cry of sirens.

  She reached her hands to the sky and focused her chiaan on the clouds above her. They weren’t visible, but she pushed up, past the smoke, further and further, her energy reaching as high as it could until she could draw enough moisture from the air. She felt dizzy, but she pushed on, using the last of her strength to ensure the storm would cover the whole city. When she could stand the pain no longer, Nalia swept her hands out toward the fire. There was a crash of thunder as the sky cracked open and a deluge of rain poured down, soaking the fiery cobras that Haran had unleashed on the hills. Nalia collapsed onto the grass, her face and palms to the sky as the rain pounded against her body. Creating the storm required massive amounts of chiaan, and her skin responded greedily to the water, soaking up its energy.

  She could feel her chiaan strengthen as the storm fanned out over the city. The flames lingered on the edge of Malek’s property, but they were no longer spreading. The storm wouldn’t last long—she’d only had enough energy for one huge burst, but now the humans would be able to put out the rest of the fires themselves. Nalia struggled to her feet and checked to make sure the bottle of blood was still secure in her pocket. Then she headed over to the conservatory. She could barely see the glass house in the torrential downpour; it was almost invisible under the sheets of rain.

  A shout: “Nalia!”

  She turned around. Raif was a few feet away, walking toward her. Just seeing him brought back the afternoon’s disappointment—the kiss that had woken her up and buried her at the same time. As he got closer, she could see the fury on his face that he barely held in check.

  “You’re not changing anything, you hear me?” he shouted. “We made a vow, I trusted you—”

  Now she was angry. “First of all, you never trusted me! Zanari already admitted to spying on me. And second, why don’t you listen to what I have to say before you start assuming things?”

  “The words I want to change the terms of our agreement seemed pretty clear to me.”

  Nalia angrily pushed away the wet locks of hair that kept falling into her eyes and took a step closer to Raif. “There’s a ninety percent chance that I’m going to die tonight,” she said.

  Raif was silent, his mouth slightly open, whatever words he was going to say forgotten.

  “We both know it,” she continued. The rain was punishing now, harder than before, but she didn’t care. “My master’s gone. There’s no way I’m getting the bottle before Haran finds me. I called you because I’m going to tell you how to get to the sigil without me. So, don’t worry, you’ll have your precious godsdamned ring.”

  She turned and started toward the conservatory. Tears pooled in her eyes; it wasn’t easy being a hardened soldier when your heart was broken. No wonder the Ghan Aisouri frowned on romance.

  “Fire and blood.” Nalia wiped the heels of her hands across her face. Now that she’d allowed herself to cry just that once in the traffic jam, it was as if her body had forgotten how to stop.

  She threw open the conservatory’s door and stumbled inside. Humid warmth and the scent of hundreds of flowers and plants enveloped her. The rain pounded on the glass panes above, but its sound was muted, as though she was underwater. Nalia pushed deeper inside, past tendrils of fragrant jasmine and clusters of hibiscus and frangipani. She almos
t felt safe, surrounded by the quiet beauty of the flowers, sheltered from the storm.

  Then Raif shut the door behind him.

  “Hey,” he said. His voice was surprisingly quiet, gentle. “Nalia, look at me.” She didn’t turn around, but she heard him draw closer. “Please.”

  Rain beat against the glass panes that surrounded them, blurring the world outside so that it seemed as if they were the only two people left on Earth. She felt his breath on her neck and then his hands were on her shoulders, turning her around. Raindrops had gathered on his eyelashes, tiny diamonds that dripped onto his face whenever he blinked.

  “I made a vow to free you from your master,” he said.

  “I’m releasing you from it.” Nalia tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t let go of her.

  “You can’t release me unless I agree, and I don’t agree.” Raif’s eyes reminded her of the predator cats that roamed the highest points of the Qaf Mountains, fierce and deadly. “I’m getting you away from that skag and his bottle and the way he looks at you and hurts you, and it’s not up for discussion, not at all. Do you understand me?”

  Raif reached up and wiped away the rain and tears on her cheek with the back of his fingers.

  “You hate me,” she whispered, reminding him.

  When he answered, his voice was rough. “No I don’t.”

  Not now, she thought. After a lifetime of wanting to be loved, she didn’t think she could bear it if it finally happened just before she was about to die.

  “Raif—”

  A soft smile tugged at his lips. “I think you’ll find I’m just as stubborn as you are.”

  Lightning flashed outside, bright and hot. They moved at the same time, his mouth meeting hers, hungry and gentle and warm. His chiaan poured into her, faster than before, and it fused with her own, twining through her. She tried to resist it, didn’t want to be this close to Raif, to be distracted from what she knew she had to do—

  Raif leaned against the table next to them and pulled her closer, his kiss deepening until she didn’t know what was her and what was him. The kiss lasted forever, and no time at all. It was the first experience Nalia had of feeling safe, truly safe, and for a little while it didn’t matter that this might be the last beautiful moment of her short life. She drank it like nectar, filled herself up with him, gorging on the want and the need and the intense sensation of her energy in someone else. There was only Raif, and kissing him was moonlight dancing through widr leaves and the taste of sun-ripened fruit, juicy and sweet. The sigh that escaped his lips as she pressed against him was a caressing wind. His arms became the circumference of her world, his breath the air she breathed. His lips fed her starved heart and she pulled him closer, drank in the smell of him, the taste of him, until she was drunk. If Nalia could make a wish, it would be for this moment to go on forever.

  But wishes like that were impossible.

  A fire truck, siren blaring, sped past the house, the harshness of the sound cutting through her delirium.

  “Raif,” Nalia whispered. Breaking away from him was like coming up for air, only she didn’t want to breathe.

  His eyes held hers for a long moment and when she tried to speak, he put a finger against her lips. “Now do you understand why I can’t possibly imagine leaving you behind?”

  She pressed her lips against his fingers and he let them drop. “You are the most confusing person I have ever met, and that is saying a lot,” she said.

  He smiled. “You’re a bit of a puzzle yourself.”

  It was too much like a dream, this moment. The heady perfume of the tropical flowers, the rain, and the way the crimson tangerine of the distant fires flickered across his face, stained-glass shadows that perfectly captured the passion Raif carried inside him. Nalia had to wake up—to wake them both up. It was as if they were under a spell and had forgotten everything that mattered.

  She let her glamour fade away so that the Ghan Aisouri tattoos appeared on her arms, then she looked up at Raif, her violet eyes gazing into his emerald ones. Raif stared, as though he were seeing her for the first time. In a way, he was.

  “I’m glad the glamour doesn’t cover everything up,” he finally said, the tips of his fingers brushing across her birthmark. Nalia stood still under his light, gentle touch, confused. Showing her the eyes of his enemy was supposed to have pushed him away, not drawn him closer.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured, his eyes moving from her birthmark to her eyes.

  She’d wanted to remind him what she was, that no matter how they felt, they weren’t on the same team—couldn’t be. But he kept blocking her path, refusing to let Nalia show him what needed to be done.

  “Where’s the Raif Djan’Urbi who defied the Ghan Aisouri?” she said quietly. “The one whose people come first, the one who’d rather die than see the Amethyst Crown on my head?” She had to make him see and there was no time. Hurting herself—and him—had to be brutal and swift. “Will you bow before me when I ride by on my gryphon? Be my consort, kiss my lips and my feet?”

  Raif was quiet, a thoughtful expression in his eyes. Nalia waited for the look of disgust that would cross his face when he came to his senses and realized he was kissing the enemy. Because somewhere along the line he’d forgotten and he needed to remember or all of this—his trip to Earth, her intimacy with Malek, hiding from the Ifrit—it would have meant nothing. If they both died fighting Haran, who would save her brother? Who would end Calar’s reign of terror or stop the dark caravan?

  She saw the battle he was fighting inside, the arguments he was losing and winning.

  “Would you die for your empress, Raif? Die for me?” Her voice was low, a knife in the dark. “Because if you stay here right now, you will. Do you understand? This isn’t some little resistance skirmish, this is Haran fighting a Ghan Aisouri on Calar’s orders.”

  He smiled and took one of her hands between his own. “What you’re trying to do right now—it’s not working. You want to know why?”

  Nalia trembled, but she threw her shoulders back, lifted her chin. She tried to infuse her voice with the regal disdain the empress had perfected. “Why?”

  “Because I know you. I can feel you inside me right now. And what I feel is good and brave and fierce and fucking beautiful. And you don’t give a damn about the throne or power. Zanari told me about your brother, so don’t even pretend that you care about anything more than saving him. And if you want me to kiss your feet, don’t worry, because I intend on kissing every inch of you the first chance I get, so if you want me to start with your feet I’m more than happy to, My Empress.”

  Nalia’s eyes grew wide. “Gods,” she breathed. “I am way out of my league here.”

  A smile dusted his face and he pulled her against him. “Yes you are.”

  “Raif, this is insane,” she said into his chest. “Please listen to me.” She held up her tattooed arm and traced her finger along the pattern. “Lefia,” she whispered. The word of power unlocked the magic in her skin and the eight-pointed star began to glow. “It’s a map.”

  She pressed her finger against the star until a hologram-like image appeared above her arm.

  “That’s the cave where Solomon’s sigil is hidden. It’s in Earth’s greatest desert.”

  Raif barely glanced at it. “I’m not going without you,” he said.

  She kept talking, as if he hadn’t said a word. “You’ll have to be quick—grab Zanari and get out before Haran arrives. I’m going to transfer the map to your skin, but when—if—I die, it’ll disappear. So you have to go now or you won’t be able to get to the cave.”

  “Nalia, you’re wasting your time,” Raif said, his voice tense.

  She ignored him. “Once you’re inside the cave, you just have to hunt for the ring. Follow the stars that look like this one. That’s all I know. Zanari’s power is perfect for this, so thank gods she’s a seer.”

  “But she’s been trying to look for the sigil for almost three years. She’s never f
ound anything.”

  “That’s because she wasn’t inside the cave. Remember, the sigil is protected from everything on the outside. But once you’re in . . . you’re in.”

  “Why can’t you just evanesce with us to the cave?”

  “Haran’s able to track me now. I can’t lead the Ifrit there. And, besides, Malek will summon me and then I’m right back to where I’ve started with Haran and any other Ifrit Calar wants to send my way. I need to finish this. I want to finish this. Tonight.”

  Raif shook his head. “No. Just no, okay?”

  She took the bottle of blood out of her pocket. “You’ll need my blood to get inside the cave and to unlock the stars that lead to the sigil. This is plenty, but I just wanted to make sure.”

  Raif grabbed her other hand and turned her wrist over, then rubbed his thumb over the scar from their binding ritual.

  “I made a promise to you—and you to me. We’re getting that sigil together and we’re getting out alive together. Keep your blood. I won’t leave you to be butchered by Haran.”

  “I might survive.”

  “That’s not good enough for me.” Raif ran a hand through his hair, sighing in frustration.

  She looked up. “Raif, at the end of tonight, I’m going to be either dead or a slave. But that doesn’t matter anymore. You’ll be alive. So will Zanari and my brother. That’s what I meant about changing our agreement. At this point, all that really matters is getting Bashil out of Ithkar. Honestly, if it hadn’t been for him . . .”

  Would she have tried to kill herself? Plenty of jinn on the dark caravan had. Nalia couldn’t imagine giving up like that, but there were nights when it had felt like Bashil was the only thing keeping her heart from the point of her jade dagger.

  “Will you do it?” she asked. “After you get the sigil, will you rescue my brother?”

  “You don’t need to bribe me to rescue your brother.”

  “Then it’s settled. I’ll give you the map, you’ll get the sigil, rescue my brother, and get Calar the hell out of Arjinna.”