Jinn Nation

by Caroline Barnard-Smith

  “Who’s Lord Natrik?”

  Thad brightened, hoping he had regained Christa’s interest. “He’s the spiritual leader of the jinn, the keeper of the scared flame that gives them their power.”

  “I thought Bredia was the leader of the jinn?”

  “Bredia is a modern, decadent god, worshipped by fools and children. It pains me that even the jinn don’t know their true lord and master is Natrik, Lord of the Flame.”

  “You really like him, don’t you?”

  “I am but his servant,” Thad said, bowing his head. “It was Lord Natrik who bade me speak with you. It’s of the utmost importance.”

  Christa considered his plea, obviously amused. “Do you want to speak to me here? On the street?”

  “There’s a park across the road,” Thad said, stammering slightly. “It would be more private.”

  Christa gestured before her. “Lead the way,” she said. “But just be warned, if you do anything I don’t like, I’ll hollow out your head like a Halloween pumpkin.”

  Thad could only nod. His tongue suddenly seemed to be wedged to the roof of his mouth, making it impossible to speak. They crossed the road in silence and he opened the park gate for her, closing it behind them. The park was small and tired, the grass dry, littered with cigarette butts and empty beer cans.

  “How delightful,” Christa said. She laughed and selected a bench to sit on, wiping it with her hand before seating herself. Thad sat beside her, careful to keep his distance. “Okay,” Christa said, “I’m giving you ten minutes before I get bored and leave. Make it good.”

  Thad took a deep breath, his hands flexing in his lap. “Lord Natrik appeared to me during a–” He paused to wipe several fat droplets of sweat from his brow. “He appeared during one of my rituals. The jinn god can see and hear all things. He knew that you’d visited my shop and he was very interested in you.” The patient amusement began to slip from Christa’s eyes. “He told me you were a Deiwo, a woman with a destiny that is in danger of not being fulfilled.”

  “This sounds like horse crap to me,” Christa said. Her voice was low and laced with quiet menace, yet she remained seated, her hands curled to fists at her sides.

  Thad shook his head. “No, I wasn’t imagining Lord Natrik. He spoke to me, it was real.” He shuddered. “If you won’t believe me, see for yourself.” He turned away, unable to look at Christa, and bit his bottom lip. This time when the fluttering at the back of his brain started, he didn’t pull away or shout out. Mercifully, it was incredibly brief. Once the probing fingers had retracted from his mind, he turned back to Christa. She was looking at him thoughtfully.

  “You don’t believe you’re lying,” she said. “Which means you were either incredibly high, or you’re telling the truth. To be honest, both possibilities give me the creeps.”

  Thad wasn’t sure how to respond to this. He decided to press on with his well rehearsed speech. “I did some research for myself after my encounter with Lord Natrik. As you know, I have an impressive occult library at my disposal.” He smiled with pride, faltering when Christa failed to look impressed. “Anyway, after much toil, I discovered some interesting texts discussing a prophecy that would come to pass in this time, at the beginning of the twenty-first century.”

  “I hate ancient prophecies,” Christa interrupted. “What relevance do they have any more? Did you know the Book of Revelation was written by a guy in a cave hopped up on magic mushrooms? Who wrote this little beauty? A Mayan? An ancient Egyptian?”

  “No. This particular prophecy was foretold in 1965. By a mystic of some renown called Cat Whiskers.”

  “Great. A hippy who’d blown too much Woodstock-grade pot up his arse. See what I mean?”

  Thad gaped for several seconds, his train of thought shattered. “Anyone can be a vessel for prophecy,” he finally stuttered. “In many instances, hallucinogenic drugs have proved useful in lowering the veil between the worlds and lighting the path to divination.”

  Christa sighed. “So what did this Cat guy say?”

  “Mr Whiskers prophesised that at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the world would find itself being torn apart by turmoil. Monsters would ravage the streets by night and a demonic force would rise in the west. To combat these threats, the gods of the land would create a Deiwo, a human in their own image. A girl with mighty powers and far-reaching vision. She will rid the earth of the demons and pave the way for a time of peace that will last five hundred years.”

  “So let me guess, I’m the magical girl, right? I was cooked up by gods in some mystical chemistry lab?”

  “Don’t take this lightly,” Thad said, leaning across the bench so that his face hovered before Christa’s. “Lord Natrik told me you’re on the wrong path. If you don’t grasp your destiny, your birthright, the world will fall into ruin.”

  “But you don’t know how the world will fall into ruin, or why, or what it is I’m supposed to do to stop it?” Christa said, sliding away from him. “How conveniently vague.”

  “Prophecy is often vague,” Thad said, urgently searching for a way to convince Christa of the importance of his message. “It’s our job to look beyond a simple text and decipher the hidden meaning. We have to–”

  “That’s enough,” Christa said, cutting him off. “Your ten minutes are up.”

  Thad wanted to argue with her, to urge her to take him seriously, but her eyes had become dark, blank pools that stared straight through him and filled every cell of his body with terror.

  “You can go away now,” Christa said.

  Thad rose from the bench as if compelled and began to back away. “You know where to find me if you need me,” he said, instantly regretting the words. He never wanted to see the girl again. Saviour of the world or not, she exuded a bristling menace that made his insides twist in on themselves. He pictured Lord Natrik’s face floating in the candle smoke and grimaced. The jinn god would want him to help the girl if he could, of that he was certain. “I’m always at the shop,” he finished, reaching for the park gate and flinging it open. He didn’t even wait for the girl to reply before disappearing back onto the street, losing himself amidst the bobbing heads of the pedestrian traffic.

  ***

  Christa remained seated on the bench until the light began to recede and dusk’s velvet shadows raced in to claim the city. Eventually, after smoking half a pack of cigarettes and shooing away a succession of inquisitive rats, each the size of a man’s fist, she rose to her feet and began the slow walk back to the hotel. She made her way to the lift and without thinking, asked the man operating the controls to take her to Darrell’s floor. They made the brief journey in silence and when the doors opened, Christa brushed past the young, nervous man without tipping him. She caught his stray thoughts as she disappeared down the corridor: “Stuck up bitch”, but dismissed them and kept walking. Darrell opened his door at the end of the hall before she had a chance to knock.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Apparently I’m Buffy the bloody Vampire Slayer.”

  “What?” Darrell hovered in the doorway for a moment before ushering Christa inside. “Come in, sit down.”

  Christa followed him into the room and curled up in the corner of a plush sofa while Darrell busied himself before the mini bar, returning with two open bottles of beer. He sat beside her and drank his beer in silence, watching her face for clues as to her obvious distress. Eventually, Christa turned to him and tried to smile.

  “I’m being silly,” she said. “It was just another nutter, like those girls in the subway station.”

  Darrell blanched at the memory, his face becoming tight and drawn. He swallowed another mouthful of beer. “Then why has it upset you so much?”

  “Because now I’m wondering about everything,” Christa suddenly cried out, startling Darrell. “I’m wondering why I am the way I am, and why the Institute wanted to lock me up. I’m wondering how those girls knew who I was. I’m wondering if the guy I was talking to to
day was telling the bloody truth.”

  “Slow down,” Darrell said. “I don’t understand what you’re going on about, Chris.”

  Christa looked into Darrell’s kind, brown eyes and felt herself begin to relax. She steadied her rapid breathing and drank from her beer. “I met this guy in an occult shop last week,” she began again. “I was looking for information about Bredia so we could get the hell out of the city and back on the road. He didn’t know anything, but then he showed up outside the hotel today and said he had to talk to me.”

  Darrell listened without interruption as Christa relayed everything Thad had told her. When she was finished, they gazed at each other over their empty beer bottles.

  “Do you believe him?” Darrell eventually said. “Do you think you’re supposed to save the world?” He turned away, trying to hide his smile.

  “You’re allowed to laugh,” Christa said. “It does sound ridiculous when you say it out loud.” She set her bottle down on a glass coffee table and flung herself back against the cushions of the sofa. “But I keep thinking about the Institute,” she said, her voice quiet. “Why were they so interested in me? Or in you, for that matter? We never questioned it, we were just happy to get away. But maybe–”

  “We were so young, Chris,” Darrell said, standing up and retreating back to the mini bar. “How were we supposed to understand what was happening? They were just scientists, they didn’t really know anything. Fuck them, who cares?” He fished out two more beers and drank half the contents of his bottle in one long swallow before passing the second one to Christa. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about it again.”

  “You’re right,” Christa said. She laughed, but the sound was forced and hollow. “Why would government-sponsored scientists know anything about a prophecy written by a guy called Cat Whiskers?”

  “Do you think that was his real name?”

  “Maybe. Maybe his parents were called Flower and Tree Bark and they lived in a tepee in the desert.” She kicked off her shoes and drew her knees up to her chin. “Thad Gorski’s not the only one who thinks I’m a–” She paused, still feeling foolish. “A Deiwo. The girls in the subway station said they’d read about me on the internet.”

  Darrell finished his beer. “So what? Other people must have read Cat Dude’s crappy prophecy. If they’re sensitive like us, if they can read the world and see which way the shit’s blowing in, it wouldn’t take them long to pin it on you. You shone like the sun while I was looking for you, Chris.” Christa smiled at him and he swore under his breath. “Yes, I’m getting drunk. But it’s true, I was able to follow the trail you left across this country because the things you can do generate so much–” He flailed for the right word and frowned when it refused to come to him. “They generate so much power,” he finally said. “It was like chasing glowing bread crumbs, as if you’d burnt imprints of yourself into the streets. If I could see that with my limited abilities, surely other people can too?”

  Christa thought about this as she sipped her beer. It made sense. Better than that, it made a kind of sense she could force herself to believe, even if some nagging corner of her soul had seen truth reflected in every word of Thad’s story. She didn’t want to be a saviour or a Deiwo. She wanted to get drunk with Darrell and get back on the road with Dylan. She wanted to see the carnival in Rio and feel fine sand wriggling between her toes in Hawaii. She certainly didn’t want to be responsible for ridding the world of dark powers and the sort of demon that was currently sharing her bed. She opened her mouth wide and tipped her bottle back, letting the yeasty bubbles slip down her throat and draining the beer in one fluid motion.

  Darrell grinned when she held her empty bottle out to him. “I think there’s some vodka in here somewhere,” he said.

  “Good, pour me a large one.” Christa lit a cigarette and waved it in the air like a dull sparkler, making shapes and smoky patterns that drifted towards the open window and evaporated. Darrell waved a glass in front of her face, full of gently fizzing coke floating beneath the oily sheen of a generous measure of vodka. Christa took a large mouthful and waited for her nagging fears to join the smoke from her cigarette; to float away and dissipate amid the concrete and tarmac of the city.

  Thirteen

  “Yes of course, follow me please.”

  Dylan regarded the tall, long limbed woman before the doors, one eyebrow raised. He had expected resistance when he requested to see Bredia, maybe even a fight. He had begged Christa to accompany him in case he needed to draw on her mental reserves in order to flee from the building. Instead, he had been greeted with smiles in the lobby of the vast high-rise where Bredia lived, standing shoulder to shoulder with corporate offices in a wealthy, leafy corner of Manhattan. They had been given polite directions to the top floor and now this woman, her shock of stubby, neon pink dreadlocks making her seem both striking and imposing, was waving them in to see the jinn’s sacred goddess as though they were about to meet a common bank manager and ask for a mortgage. Dylan felt Christa staring at him, wondering why he was stalling. He reached for the handles of the ornate double doors but they opened inwards before he could touch them, flanked by two more doormen dressed in red and gold blazers who stepped aside to let them pass.

  “Dylan,” a voice echoed from the far side of the vast room. “What an exciting day this is, I have so longed to meet you.”

  Sitting at the head of a long, blue carpet, poised on what could only be described as an enormous throne that shone like polished ebony in the sunlight slanting through the floor-to-ceiling windows, was the jinn queen. The throne was carved into the shape of an immense dragon which curled above her head and bared its multi-layered fangs at the room. Bredia beckoned and Dylan began to walk up the length of the carpet, no longer aware of Christa or of the red-blazered lackeys who stood to attention on either side of him. All he could see was Bredia, bristling with so much ancient power the air around her seemed to waver and ripple like a desert mirage.

  Her skin was a smooth, dusky blue colour, infused with some glittering element that caught the light and made her entire body sparkle like the rarest diamond. She smiled, revealing tapered, brilliant white teeth. Dylan’s breath caught in his throat as he beheld her large, oval eyes, opaque and mesmerising, and the pointed face that accentuated her high cheek bones and full, rosebud lips. He had never set eyes on such an exquisite creature. Finally pausing before the throne, padded with gilt-edged cushions, he stared up at Bredia for several seconds before speaking. At close quarters he was able to study her clothes, or lack of them. Her black tunic was slashed to the navel, displaying high, tightly rounded breasts. With a sudden stab of acute embarrassment, Dylan realised he was becoming physically aroused.

  “Do you know me?” he eventually said, hoping there was more confidence in his voice than in his heart.

  Bredia swept her long mane of thick, black hair over one shoulder and laughed. “Of course I do, I have eyes everywhere. You’re the fabled vampire-jinn, the rarest of creatures.”

  Dylan glanced behind him, stunned to have his secret spoken of so openly. The red blazers remained mute, their eyes impassive, staring straight ahead.

  “Don’t worry yourself,” Bredia said. “Nothing leaves this room. My staff know I would rip their tongues out of their heads before I let that happen.” She smiled, turning to Christa. “You must be the witch who overcame my Coldbloods.”

  Christa straightened beside Dylan. “I’m not a witch.”

  “Maybe not, but you’re also a rare creature. Few people could break through the barriers created by jinn stones, lesser or not. I was sad to hear of Ernie’s demise. For all his foul-mouthed coarseness, he was one of my most loyal servants.” She pursed her lips and stared at Christa, demanding an explanation.

  “He would have killed us all,” Christa said, “including Dylan.” Dylan flinched, embarrassed. He would rather that Christa not remind the jinn goddess of his failings the night the Coldbloods burnt to death. “Besides,”
she continued, “Ernie Coldblood was a bastard of epic proportions. I won’t apologise for what I did.”

  Dylan watched, horrified, as Bredia and Christa glared at each other. He felt sure one of them would snap and crush the other with a mere glance at any moment. “Christa doesn’t mean it like that,” he said. “She’s trying to say that it was a them or us situation.”

  “I did mean it like that,” Christa said, a jarring mixture of hurt and anger coating her voice. “We watched them eat Rob’s girlfriend in front of us, for Christ’s sake. We had to sit there and listen to them both scream. You were as relieved as anyone when they all burst into flames and we could escape.”

  Dylan scowled at his lover, suddenly wishing he hadn’t felt the need to bring her here. Why had he been so afraid of confrontation? He had fought countless battles in his long life and had never shied away from them, or felt the need to insist on back up. With a shiver of disgust, he realised that he was beginning to rely on Christa and her powers far too readily.

  “Please don’t be upset,” Bredia said, leaning forward to touch Dylan’s arm with long, silken fingers. “Believe me, bereft as I am I would have been more so if you had been harmed. I didn’t realise the full extent of the Coldbloods’ plan. I thought they were merely interested in taking their revenge on the witch for embarrassing them in Arizona.”

  Dylan could literally feel Christa’s indignation, could sense her hot, angry eyes upon him, but decided to ignore her. “You may have eyes everywhere,” he said instead, “but that doesn’t explain how you know what I am. Very few people are privy to that information.”

  Bredia smiled and motioned for Dylan to move closer. He did as she asked, leaving Christa alone on the long blue carpet. “I can’t tell you everything that is in my power to know,” she said, tracing a finger along Dylan’s hairline. He fought not to show any physical signs of delight. “A lady has to keep her secrets.”