Dylan took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. Even Bredia’s scent was intoxicating, her skin smelt of citrus fruits and summer grass. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” he said.
“I know you have.” Bredia reached down and picked up one of Dylan’s hands, holding it in her lap and entwining her fingers through his. “You must be desperately lonely; a creature of such power is often a creature alone. Is that why you sought me out? To find a like mind? An individual as ancient and powerful as yourself?”
Dylan found himself nodding almost involuntarily. He was lost in her warm, smooth skin, in her gently curling hair and fathomless eyes.
“Yes,” Bredia mused, “I can see why you desire my company. Fortune is truly shining upon us this day because I have also desired yours. I have followed your progress with no small interest, Dylan. A vampire who carries the gift of the jinn within himself is a unique and fascinating being who deserves to be at my side.”
Dylan grinned. He felt drunk, as if he was glutted with the pearlescent blood of the freshest, softest young girl. The room, the red blazers, even Bredia’s throne had fallen away. All he could see was the shining face of the jinn goddess, cast in shimmering blue. “There was more I wanted to say,” he said. “I had questions, I know I did.”
“You wanted to know about the true nature of the jinn, the true nature of the stones you had thrust inside your stomach in some moment of exquisite madness.”
“Yes,” Dylan breathed. “That’s it exactly.”
“You might as well question the nature of the world itself. Could you explain vampirism to me, Dylan? In a concise and eloquent manner?”
Dylan gaped and closed his eyes, feeling foolish at his momentary loss for words. “I suppose I could try,” he eventually said. “To be a vampire is to know strength and beauty and joy. It is to know darkness, and to love and covet that knowledge. It is to revel in blood, in the life force of humanity.” When he opened his eyes Bredia was gazing at him intently, her head cocked to one side.
“I’m impressed,” she said. “That was indeed concise and eloquent. It was also entirely your interpretation. If I was to ask the same question of a dozen vampires, I should receive a dozen different answers. It is the same of the jinn. Each jinn experiences the power of the stones differently. Each jinn finds joy in a different facet of the darkness that connects us all.”
“I understand,” Dylan said, squeezing Bredia’s hand in his own. “The nature of the jinn changes for every individual, but we’re all connected by the hidden world that humanity never sees. Not until it creeps up behind them and slits their throat.”
“Well, I’m glad you understand,” Christa said behind him, “because this all sounds like pretentious horse shit to me.”
Dylan whirled around to face her, jolted from his dreamlike, intense communication with Bredia and extremely angry for the interruption. “You’re not supposed to understand,” he said. “You’re not a part of this.”
Christa’s face twisted with rage, but the brimming hurt in her eyes was impossible to disguise. “Would you prefer I just leave?” she said. “Shall I leave you alone with your precious Bredia?”
Dylan grimaced. Only Christa would have the bald audacity to talk about the jinn goddess as if she wasn’t sitting on a gilded throne directly in front of her. “You will show some respect in this place,” he said through gritted teeth. “Or so help me, powers or no powers, I will break every bone in your pre-pubescent little body.”
Christa took a step backwards, shaking her head as if trying to dislodge his vile words from her memory. “You heartless bastard. Why have I travelled all this way with you? I’ve given you the use of my gifts, my body, even my blood. Why did I bother?”
A small shriek of fear and surprise sounded from one of the red blazers behind them as the blue carpet rippled and bucked, knocking the hapless man to the floor. Bredia’s staff moved forward in unison, surrounding Dylan and Christa and baring their teeth in a warning.
“Are you fucking joking me?” Christa screamed at them. “Do you really think you could stop me if I wanted to hurl your holy skank from her ridiculous throne?”
“Enough,” Bredia said, rising to her feet and holding up her hands. “Step down, let’s give Christa some room.”
The red blazers obeyed, marching back to their former positions along the carpet, but their eyes remained fixed on their queen and the couple stood before her.
“I’m sure none of us want to see another senseless loss of jinn life,” Bredia said to Christa. “Dylan is, after all, half jinn, and you seem very fond of him. How may I placate you?”
Dylan couldn’t look Bredia in the eye. His mortification seethed within him like a living thing, numbing his senses. He barely registered the hint of panic running beneath the Goddess’s outwardly calm tone.
“You can let us leave,” Christa said. “And you can keep your bloody hands to yourself. I share Dylan’s bed, not you.”
“Christa,” Dylan hissed. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Keep your mouth shut,” she said. “You’ve said quite enough for today, don’t you think?”
She swept up the carpet, head high and shoulders back, pausing before the doors and turning her fiery glare on Dylan when he refused to follow. He looked back at Bredia, torn between his lover and his queen. The Goddess nodded discreetly, her eyes downcast but full of understanding. She knew that Dylan would visit with her again, she was willing to let him go this time. He smiled at her, acknowledging her silent request, and walked the length of the room to join Christa, trying to ignore the icy stares of the red blazers.
The journey back to street level was negotiated in silence, Christa’s hands balled to fists at her sides and her entire body turned away from him. They walked for two slow blocks before she spoke, both struggling to comprehend what had just happened.
“Why did you say those things?” she said, stopping beneath a brightly coloured billboard.
Dylan sighed, feeling completely deflated. He had been so eager to meet Bredia. He’d wanted to make a good first impression and gain her favour. Now he was wondering if he really would be able to summon the confidence to stand before her again. “You embarrassed me,” he said. “We were in the presence of a goddess, a jinn queen, and you behaved like a spoiled brat.”
“I don’t know why you asked me to come with you. She’s not my queen, I don’t even like the jinn. The things they eat disgust me.”
“Are you saying I disgust you?”
“No, you’re different. You don’t tear peoples’ insides out and devour them while they’re still warm.”
“But it’s okay to drain a person’s blood until every drop is spent and they die in my arms?”
“I–” She turned away, covering her eyes with the sleeve of her oversized jacket. “I don’t know anymore.” Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, “I didn’t deserve to be spoken to like that, by you or Bredia.”
“Fine, I’m sorry,” Dylan said, suddenly feeling too weary to argue. “I was a git; a great, slathering, foul-mouthed bastard.” He began to relax when he saw that Christa was fighting to suppress a smile. “I shouldn’t have let Bredia question you about Ernie Coldblood, and I shouldn’t have let her hold my sodding hand. If I’m truthful, I was a bit overcome. I mean, she’s an honest to God jinn queen. You don’t meet one of those every day.”
“She didn’t look like a queen. The way she was dressed, you’d be forgiven for mistaking her as a prostitute.” Christa stared at Dylan, defying him to disagree.
“Well, her outfit certainly didn’t leave much to the imagination.” He shifted uncomfortably as Christa continued to study him, searching for any signs of deceit. “I may have been impressed by her control over the jinn, but she certainly wasn’t my type. I like women who move through the world with class and old-school glamour. Bredia struck me as a brassy, common sort of woman.” Dylan sent a silent apology out to the jinn goddess as he spoke, praying t
hat Christa couldn’t see the true infatuation shining in his eyes. Thankfully, she smiled and nodded, satisfied with his penance. “May I take you to dinner?” he said, returning her smile. “I promise to do much grovelling between courses in lieu of my hideous transgressions.”
Dylan held Christa close to his side as they wound their way through New York’s cluttered streets, yet his thoughts remained with Bredia. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking of her smooth, shimmering skin and thick, glossy hair. Of the scent of citrus fruits and sweet summer grass. As they walked Christa chattered beside him and Dylan nodded at appropriate junctures, but he barely heard a word she said.
Fourteen
“He called you pre-pubescent?” Darrell sat back on the sofa and crossed his arms over his chest. “I hope you punched him in his ugly face.”
Christa sighed, her eyes turned towards the window. “I made him leave, and he apologised. That bitch Bredia looked pretty scared too.” She laughed. “I suppose that means I’m more powerful than a goddess. She was definitely afraid of me.”
“I don’t know why you put up with Dylan’s shit,” Darrell said, his expression sulky. “What do you see in him, anyway?”
“Well, believe it or not before we came here he was a lot of fun.” Darrell looked unconvinced. “I just need to get him out of the city and back on the road,” she continued, “away from Bredia. Then you’ll see the real Dylan.”
“What if you can’t get him away from Bredia? He seems obsessed with her.”
“He’s not with her now though, is he?” Christa snapped. “He’s not busy kneeling before her tacky throne and kissing her feet. He’s here in the hotel, with me.” She paused as an unbidden rush of nausea overcame her. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Christa barely made it to Darrell’s bathroom in time. As she retched over the toilet on her hands and knees, she heard her friend pad softly to the closed door.
“Are you okay?” he said. “What’s going on?”
Christa reached for the toilet paper and wiped her mouth. “I’m fine,” she called back. She flushed away the evidence and opened the door to find Darrell still standing on the other side, his face pale and concerned. “I think I have some food poisoning, or something.”
“Do you want some water?”
“I’d like some fresh air, actually. Let’s get out of here.”
Once they were outside, Christa took Darrell’s arm and steered him in the direction of the small park on the other side of the street. He looked round at the stunted trees and overflowing trashcans with a look of distaste.
“What a dump.”
Christa laughed. “Let’s be tourists for the afternoon,” she said. “We could get the subway to Times Square, or see the Statue of Liberty. We could even–” Her voice trailed away when a group of youths on the other side of the park turned as one towards them and began advancing, their eyes wide, full of expectation. Darrell tightened his grip on her arm.
The obvious ringleader stepped forward, an older, wiry man with small glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. His shoulder length, knotted hair was woven through with strands of iron grey.
“Deiwo,” he said, smiling widely and clapping his hands together. “This is such an honour.”
“Not this crap again,” Christa said. “How do you people keep finding me? I’ve searched on the internet but I couldn’t find anything about a sodding Deiwo.”
The man was so shocked he took an involuntary step backwards, treading on the foot of a rotund young girl wearing black lace and a PVC corset. “We keep our business a secret,” he stuttered. “Password protected. We only wish to serve you.”
“To serve me in what capacity? What, exactly, are you here to do?”
The man blinked. He had obviously believed no such explanations would be necessary. “We’re here to help you, of course. In any way we can.” He paused, looking round at his congregation. “We’re here to help you save the world.”
A silence followed as Christa and Darrell gaped at the earnest group before them, not sure if they should laugh or flee.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Christa finally said. “I’m not a Deiwo, I’m not a saviour. I’m just someone who’s getting very bored and wants to get the hell out of this park.”
A teenager with a shaved head and a bull ring hanging from his septum stepped forward and put a shaking hand on Christa’s arm. “You mustn’t talk like that. You must accept your fate.”
“That’s enough,” Darrell said, slapping the youth’s hand away and drawing Christa to his side. “Get out of our way.”
Instead of moving aside to let them pass, the group crowded closer, murmuring and reaching to touch Christa’s clothes and hair. Christa tried in vain to twist from their grasp, knocking away hands and pushing back a short, greasy skinned boy in a red hooded sweatshirt who was hovering far too close to her face.
“Accept us,” the ringleader cooed. “Accept our love, blessed Deiwo.”
Just as Christa was weighing up the possibility of a mass killing in broad daylight, wondering if she and Darrell could get away without being seen if she were to make the groups’ collective eyeballs explode, a loud voice boomed from behind them, making everyone pause and look up.
“Let the lady alone.”
“This is none of your business, dude,” the ringleader said.
Christa craned around to see who the voice belonged to and saw a very tall, slender man standing with his back to the piercing summer sun. It shone through his waist length, midnight black hair, highlighting his long pointed nose and heavyset brow.
“You’re either very brave, or very stupid,” he said to the ringleader. “If you continue this harassment I’ll be surprised to see you leave with all your faculties intact. Isn’t that right, Christa?”
“That’s right,” she replied, squinting at the man through the blinding sunlight and wondering how he knew her name. The hands gripping her clothes began to loosen and she turned back to the group, new fire in her eyes. “I’ve burnt down a house with a dozen people inside,” she told them. “They begged for their lives and tried to escape, but I turned them back to perish in the flames. Imagine what I could do to you.” Several youths faltered and fell back. “Now, get out of our way and leave me alone.”
All but the ringleader broke from the circle they had created and drifted away, their faces wan with grief and fear. Their leader stared back at Christa, his hands on his hips and his eyes wild. “You can’t shirk your responsibilities,” he said. “You’re the Deiwo, you must accept us.”
“Accept this.” Christa pushed her will outwards, plunging her non-corporeal fingers deep into the man’s soul and sifting through his memories like an office worker rifling through a file cabinet. She passed over the murky, half-remembered fragments of his childhood and paused before the echoing expanse of his adolescence, pulling out a memory that still made him wake in the middle of the night and laying it bare at the forefront of his brain, making him relive it as though he had stepped through a portal into time.
He was sixteen years old, hollow-faced and so painfully thin he was often accused of suffering from an eating disorder. His father, a pot-bellied man with a penchant for food-encrusted white T-shirts, was shaking him by the shoulders, so hard he felt as if his head would break from his spinal cord.
“Worthless, good-for-nothing layabout,” his father screamed. “There’s no way I could’ve seeded you, boy. Your whore of a mother must have spread her legs for some stinking junkie, you’re no son of mine.”
His father’s face was so close to his he could smell his hot, rancid breath, could see the numerous blackheads glistening across his bulbous nose. “I told you I needed the money,” he said. “You said it was okay. It’s for school, for the field trip.”
“Don’t you lie to me, boy. I know you better than you know yourself. You think you can steal from my wallet while I’m sleeping and get away with it? You probably spent it on drugs.”
�
�I don’t do drugs, Dad.”
“Liar!”
His father’s fist crashed down so swiftly, the boy had no time to dodge the onslaught. He heard a dull, breaking sound and the left side of his face exploded in a red blaze of pain, making him crumple to the floor. He cowered on the threadbare carpet, attempting to shield his body as the fist came down again, this time into the soft meat of his stomach. He clearly remembered asking his father for the field trip money. The man had even smiled and ruffled his hair as he handed over his wallet, telling him how pleased he was that he was taking more of an interest in his education than he ever did. But that was when he was sober, in a moment of coherence and clarity of the type that was becoming increasingly rare these days. Now the acrid fumes of cheap whisky issued from him in waves, scrambling his brain and dissolving his memories.
Christa had seen enough. She pulled back from the quivering ringleader, leaving him open-mouthed amid the sudden brilliance of the sunny New York park.
“What just happened?” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “You’re not the Deiwo. You’re evil, you’re a monster.”
“If you don’t piss off,” Christa said, “I’ll show you a monster.”
The ringleader shook his head at Christa, but let himself be led away by his group. Christa waited until they had coerced him out of the park before finally turning to the mysterious long-haired man.
“How do you know my name?”
“We’ve met before,” he said, stepping closer. “Although it was very brief. My name is Ramon, I was at the club in Kansas with Ms Bee.”
Christa regarded the man for several moments before recollection dawned on her. “You were the guy at the bar who brought me my drink.”
“That is correct.”
“What are you doing in New York?”
Ramon laughed, a sudden flash of embarrassment colouring his cheeks. “I have come to seek the Deiwo, of course.”
“Not you, too.” Christa began to turn away but was stopped by his hand on her arm.
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