Jinn Nation

by Caroline Barnard-Smith

  They finally found the bar on the third floor down. It ran around the circumference of the curved wall: long, gleaming mahogany flanked by black leather and chrome bar stools. Dylan hopped up onto a stool and signalled to one of the bartenders, running a hand along the polished mahogany surface before him.

  “Now this is pure class,” he said. “Looks like it exists in jinn joints after all.” He grinned at Rob who perched on a stool beside him.

  “If you think the giant smurf in the fish tank was classy too, I don’t know you any more, man.”

  Dylan laughed at his friend as the bartender approached, a short, dark haired girl in a smart black and white uniform. “What’ll it be?” she asked in a bored drawl.

  “We’ll have four Jack and cokes.” Dylan paused, his grin widening. “And a smile.”

  The girl’s breath caught in her throat as she looked up at him. She turned away, fighting to suppress the smile breaking on her lips. “I’ll be right back,” she murmured.

  Christa slapped Dylan’s arm. “I’m right here,” she protested. “Do you have to flirt with the bar staff in front of me?”

  “So you are,” Dylan said. He gripped her waist between both hands and swept her towards him, leaning in to kiss her.

  “You’re in a good mood,” Christa said once she’d broken away.

  “But of course,” Dylan replied. “I’m in New York with old friends and new acquaintances; I’m deliciously full from that sweet young thing in the subway station–” He stopped as the bartender returned with their drinks and took a long swallow from the glass she set before him. “And now I’ve got a Jack and coke,” he finished. “Death doesn’t get much better than this.”

  He swivelled round on his seat to gain a better view of the floor and noticed Darrell looking at several large jars set on the bar beside him. Inside were large, roughly hewn chunks of meat and weighty, glistening portions of unidentifiable organs, swimming in a clear solution. “You fancy a bite?” Dylan asked him. “Probably tastes just like those pickled eggs you have in English pubs.”

  Darrell backed away from the jars, obviously embarrassed at having been caught staring. “No I think I’ll leave it, thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  The crowd at the bar was growing steadily larger. Dylan watched a lean woman with black satin cat’s ears pinned to her head lean over the bar to order a drink, exposing a long tail curling from beneath her hot pants. On the other side of the room, a man dressed in what looked like a cerise PVC babygro caught his eye and stuck out his tongue, waggling it to emphasise the long split carved down its length. The two sides of his tongue looked like separate alien entities, dancing in the dank of some humid cave. Dylan smiled at him and turned on his stool, his attention drawn to a beautiful woman, her elegant ball gown at odds with her shaved head and opaque contact lenses. Every reveller in the club seemed worthy of study. A roar of raucous laughter erupted from a group of middle-aged women in string bikinis, their entire bodies tattooed with animal prints: leopards and zebras and snakes. One of them closed her eyes as she laughed and Dylan saw that even her eyelids were tattooed with minute snake scales. Beside them, a woman with wild, flame coloured hair was arguing with an aging man in a long trench coat and thigh high stiletto boots.

  Dylan glanced at Rob. His friend had finished his drink and was striking up a conversation with a busty woman dressed as a demonic schoolgirl. Her pigtails danced against the collar of a see-through blouse as she talked, a spiked whip in one hand and a lolly pop in the other. Rob, whose long, plaited beard usually drew its own wide eyed stares, looked practically normal amidst the freaks and geeks of The Fabric of Dreams.

  The music suddenly cut out with a splutter and a deep, male voice resonated from the sound system. “Ladies and gentlemen, jinn and kin, girls and ghouls; please put your hands together for this evening’s surprise entertainment. The Fabric of Dreams proudly presents Bredia the Betrayer!”

  Excitement rippled through the crowd and a glut of people surged towards the railings running around the centre of the room. Several whooping jinn jumped down from the floor overhead, springing from the balcony to land before the bar like agile cats.

  “Bredia’s here?” Christa whispered beside Dylan. “I can’t believe it.”

  Dylan simply nodded at her, his attention consumed as he scanned the crowds before him, trying to peer over their heads and around the room. His dried out, coal stone of a heart seemed to grow large against his rib cage as trembling expectation raged within him. When a tall shape appeared at the back of the room and drifted towards him, emerging from a door Dylan hadn’t noticed before, he leapt up to stand on his stool. Rob followed suit while Christa and Darrell looked on, afraid their sense of balance wouldn’t be so flawless if they were to attempt the same.

  The crowds parted before the advancing figure, moving so gracefully she might have been floating. She stepped through a small gap in the railings and Dylan braced himself, sure she meant to jump down to the floor below. Instead she kept walking, seeming to hang suspended in mid-air as she reached the centre of the room - the centre of the long drop running throughout the building - and simply stood before the crowds, feet firmly planted on nothing.

  “It’s a glass floor,” Rob said, guessing Dylan’s confusion.

  Dylan followed the direction of his gaze and saw that his friend was right. At the very heart of the room lay a thick, circular glass floor, hemmed in by the ornate railings. “How inventive,” he breathed.

  The jinn pressing against the railings on all sides were hushed as a harsh spotlight exploded into life overhead, illuminating the solitary figure beneath. There was a gasp, followed by laughter and applause.

  “Good evening, my darklings,” the woman said, her voice amplified by an echoing microphone studded with silver diamante. It caught the light and glittered in her hand. “Welcome to The Fabric of Dreams.”

  Dylan turned to Rob, eyes wide, mouth pulled taut in a grimace. “It’s a man,” he spat.

  Rob looked as if he wanted to laugh and was trying very hard not to. “It can’t be the real Bredia,” he said. “This must be a fucking joke.”

  The woman beneath the spot light swung her ample hips from side to side as the first strains of Frank Sinatra’s It Was a Very Good Year began seeping from the sound system, a wide smile brightening her heavily made-up face. Her hair was long and glossy, backcombed to near gigantic proportions and falling in gentle curls to her waist. Dylan refused to acknowledge these details. He crossed his arms over his chest, appalled at having been duped, at having been excited at the prospect of seeing Bredia and instead being presented with a man in a low-cut dress.

  “You can call me Bredia,” the woman was saying over the music. “Vixen in your dreams, bloody vengeance in your nightmares, goddess of your hearts.” She began to sing in a rich, smoky voice. “When I was seventeen, it was a very good year. It was a very good year for small town boys who didn’t mind bites. We’d hide from the lights, eating kidneys and spleens, when I was seventeen.”

  The song met with rapturous approval from the watching crowd, but Dylan jumped down from his stool in disgust. “What a farce.”

  “He’s very good though,” Christa said. “If he wasn’t so tall, you’d think he was a real woman.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Dylan said. “I can always tell.”

  “It’s the Adam’s apples, right?” Darrell said. “It’s hard to disguise them.”

  Dylan stared at him until he turned away and pretended to busy himself with draining the last of his drink.

  While Bredia gyrated and crooned her way through her impressive repertoire, ending with an enthusiastic rendition of Love Me Tender (“let me eat, all that lies below”), Dylan stood at the bar, back turned to the stage, slugging back glass after glass of sweet whisky. He waited until the performance was over and the applause had died away before slamming his fifth empty glass down on the bar and finally turning around. Bredia was making her way back towa
rds the door on the far side of the room, hand raised in a queen’s half-wave as she slipped through the crowd.

  “I’m going to have a word with that freak,” he said.

  “What’s the point?” Christa said. “You know he’s not the real Bredia.”

  “I want to ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, impersonating a jinn goddess,” Dylan said, wiping sticky alcohol from his chin. “Come on,” he told Rob, “you’re coming with me.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” Rob said. He looked annoyed but rose from his stool all the same, following Dylan as he began to push his way through the jinn still surrounding the glass stage.

  “We’ll just stay here, shall we?” Christa called after him, her voice edged with irritation.

  Dylan ignored her and pressed on, barely glancing at the jinn who stared at him as he barged through the door after Bredia like a snorting bull, head down and shoulders squared. He traversed a short corridor leading to a door with a large star pinned to it, displaying Bredia’s name written in glitter. Without pausing to knock or even check that Rob was still behind him, Dylan pushed the door open with a bang, startling Bredia who was in the process of changing. Her long wig languished on a mannequin’s head perched on the dressing table. Dylan lunged at her and she jumped back with a squeal, unable to match his speed and move out of his path. He gripped her by the throat and forced her back against the wall, staring up at her with drunken lunacy shining in his eyes.

  “How dare you call yourself Bredia?” he growled at her, tightening his fingers around her throat until her eyes watered. “I’m tired of these tricks, these lies and games. I know the Goddess is in this city. Why won’t somebody just tell me where the hell she is? Just tell me.” He shook the hapless individual squirming against his grip until she began to choke. A thin line of vomit escaped her mouth and ran along her jaw line.

  “Give it a fucking rest, would you?” Rob said behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Do you want to kill him?”

  With a grunt, Dylan released Bredia and stepped away. Her hands flew to her bruised throat and she doubled over, trembling with fear and fighting to regain her breath. Eventually, she was able to look up at Dylan. “What do you guys want? I don’t have any money on me. Just some credit cards and my cell. You can take them, just leave me alone.”

  “I don’t want your bloody cell phone,” Dylan said. He had begun to calm down and now he felt slightly foolish. What had he thought this drag queen was going to tell him? He glanced at Rob, sighing when he saw the perplexed look on his friend’s face. “Relax,” he told him. “I’m not going to kill him.”

  Bredia had sunk to her knees and was muttering to herself on the floor. “I knew this would happen. I knew this shit would go down. Couldn’t be content with running the website. Oh no, I had to get out there and live life. I had to have me a singing career. Well, this is where it gets you. This is where it gets you.”

  Dylan could hardly believe what he was seeing. “Do you even have jinn stones in your miserable stomach?” he roared, making the woman cry out. “I’ve never seen such a snivelling, cowardly excuse for a creature of the night. You act this way, yet you have the gall to call yourself Bredia?”

  The woman wiped away her tears on the edge of her skirt. “The act’s a tribute,” she said, “personally endorsed by Bredia herself. I love the Goddess. Imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery.”

  “Personally endorsed by Bredia?” Dylan said. “Does that mean you’ve met her?”

  “I count her as a close, personal friend.” The woman glared up at Dylan, a new defiance lacing her words. “I’ll tell her about this. She won’t like it. She won’t like it at all.”

  “If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have charged in here the way I did,” Dylan said. He smiled at Rob. “I should apologise to Bredia myself, I’ve obviously made a terrible mistake. Tell me, where would I be able to find the Goddess?”

  Bredia lifted herself from the floor and rose to her full height. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”

  Dylan bowed his head. “I was only angry because I love the Goddess so much. I believed you were mocking her. Now I see my foolishness, your act was actually an inspiring tribute. I wish to see Bredia for myself, to tell her how deeply you’ve impressed me.”

  When he looked back up, he could see the woman was flattered. She pouted and ran a hand through her short, course hair. “I suppose I can see how an overeager fledging such as yourself could mistake my act for mockery.”

  Dylan suppressed a grimace. “So you’ll tell me where to find Bredia?”

  The woman looked from Dylan to Rob, one hand on her hip. “You guys just want to pay your respects?”

  “Yes,” Dylan said. “That’s all.”

  With a long, dramatic sigh, the woman walked to the dressing table and scribbled something down on the back of a club flyer. “Here,” she said, thrusting it at Dylan. “This is Bredia’s address in the city. Now get out of here. Your little outburst has played havoc with my throat.” She stroked it with long, tapered fingers. “I’m going to have to gargle.”

  Dylan grabbed for the flyer and quickly pocketed it. “We’re sorry for the intrusion,” he said, pushing Rob towards the door.

  “Yes well, manners don’t cost anything,” Bredia called after them as they shuffled into the corridor. Dylan waited until the door was firmly closed before turning to Rob. “I’ll show him some bloody manners,” he growled.

  “Fuck it then,” Rob said. “He’s just another jinn bastard, you’ve got what you wanted; why didn’t you rip his guts out of his ass?”

  “Because I want to check out this address first,” Dylan said, grinning. “If it’s a fake, then I’ll come back and rip his guts out.”

  Rob smiled, nodding his approval.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Dylan said. “I don’t think subway tramp and whisky mix, I want to get some fresh air.”

  As they made their way back towards Christa and Darrell at the bar, Dylan fingered the folded flyer in his pocket. A dark excitement was stirring within him. If the address was real, he would soon be meeting the mighty Bredia. When Christa came into view he rushed at her and lifted her up from the floor, feeling the quickening of her heart against his chest as he kissed her.

  “What happened?” Darrell asked Rob, trying not to look at Dylan and Christa.

  “Well, Bredia’s hair isn’t real,” he answered, laughing.

  Dylan lowered Christa back down and grasped her hand in his. “Come on, we’re leaving. I’m hungry.”

  “Already?” Christa said.

  “People are like McDonalds, one never fills you up.”

  Christa wrinkled her nose but was unable to hide her smile. She maintained a firm grip on Dylan’s hand as he pulled her behind him and weaved between the jinn, climbing the floors of the club until they reached the exit and the humid New York night beyond.

  Twelve

  Thad had been waiting outside The Regency for an hour, palms sweaty, brow creased beneath the rim of his pork pie hat. He felt weak, angry at himself for not being brave enough to approach the hotel and go inside. Instead, his buttocks were becoming steadily numb from sitting on a hard bench across the street, his hands shaking and rustling the paper he was holding in front of his face. He swallowed, trying to focus on his task. When I’ve spoken to the girl, Lord Natrik will gift me with blessed jinn stones, he told himself. I’ll never be afraid of anything again. He smiled, feeling calmer. The girl couldn’t stay in the hotel forever. He would simply keep watching for her, and be ready when she appeared.

  Another hour passed before Thad glimpsed Christa over the top of his newspaper. He had begun to nod off in the early afternoon heat, his eyelids growing heavy as he pretended to scan the horoscope section for the fifteenth time. Startled into alertness, he discarded the paper in a trashcan and strode across the road towards her, determination hardening his features.

  “Hello,” he called, realising for the first tim
e that he didn’t know her name. “Hey, miss. Please stop.”

  Christa didn’t seem to have heard him. She continued to walk along the sidewalk, dodging passers-by who refused to move out of her way. Thad briefly closed his eyes before breaking into a sprint. He stopped in front of her, arms outspread.

  “Please, miss. I have to talk to you.”

  Christa stared at him with a mixture of amusement and bewilderment, as if he was just another New York crazy. “Piss off,” she said.

  She turned to walk past him but Thad grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. “You’ve met me before,” he said. “You know me.”

  Christa’s eyes flashed and her nostrils flared. “Let me go.”

  Thad began to feel the buzzing behind his eyes again, the slow, insidious pulse of something bright and alien infiltrating his thoughts. “No,” he gasped, releasing Christa’s wrist. “No, you won’t do that again. If you do, I’ll scream. There’s lots of people around and I’ll scream and scream.”

  The anger drained from Christa’s face, replaced by confusion. “Who the hell are you?”

  “My name’s Thad Gorski. I run Gorski’s Esoteric Texts and Occult Supplies.” Thad spoke quickly, afraid if he didn’t get his words out fast enough he would lose his nerve and bolt back down the street.

  “Yes,” Christa said. “I remember now. You’re the strange little man who wants to be a jinn.”

  “That’s me, I guess.” Thad laughed nervously and ran a hand through his hair. “I have to talk to you about your destiny.”

  “What?” Christa said, her voice rising. Thad inwardly cursed himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m nervous and I don’t often speak to people outside of the shop. I shouldn’t have blurted like that.” He shook his head. “Damn, I wish I was better at this. Maybe Lord Natrik should have chosen someone else.”