“Please don’t dismiss me,” he said. “I’m not like those fools you chased away, I may have some real answers for you. I have a hankering for some fine coffee and the very finest in the city is brewed in a small shop just two blocks away. Can I tempt you?”
Christa looked at Darrell, unsure if she should trust the otherworldly Ramon. Her friend shrugged. “We can’t keep ignoring this if people insist on throwing themselves at you on the street,” he said. “Let’s go get some coffee.”
***
Ramon led them to Marlon’s Java Shack, a small establishment with beautifully painted windows depicting scenes of happy people enjoying a cup of coffee on the colourful streets of Paris and Rome. Inside, the smattering of wooden tables were covered with red and white chequered linen and dressed with tall vases of sunflowers. Christa took a deep breath as they entered, savouring the heady aroma of freshly brewed coffee.
“Let me get this,” Ramon said as Christa and Darrell seated themselves at a table beside the windows. He returned with a tray of delicate, porcelain cups, each brimming with rich, dark coffee. “Now,” he said, pouring a generous helping of cream into his cup, “how much do you know about this Deiwo business?”
“Not much, really,” Christa said. “A few crazy people have jumped out at me and told me they’ve been looking for me. Then a guy I’d met in an occult shop accosted me outside the hotel and told me about some crappy prophecy a hippy called Cat Whiskers had written.” She smiled and sipped her coffee. “It all sounds insane.”
“Yet the description of the prophesised Deiwo sounds suspiciously familiar. A girl with immense powers and abilities, such as yourself. Surely that made you question yourself?”
“Of course it did,” Christa said. “But the sources I had weren’t exactly credible.”
“Do you find me more credible?”
“We don’t even know who you are,” Darrell said. “You’re just some guy Christa met once in a club.”
“That’s very true,” Ramon said, slowly stirring his coffee as he regarded Darrell. “You are very protective of your friend. That’s good. She may well have need of allies such as you in the times to come.”
“I know you’re jinn,” Christa said, attempting to brush his comment aside. Darrell fidgeted in his seat, eying Ramon with new wariness. “You also worked for Ms Bee. Are you here under her orders, for some reason?”
“No. The lovely Ms Bee and I have parted company. Much as I enjoyed the debauchery she encouraged, spiritually we did not see eye to eye. She worshipped Bredia, the false goddess.”
“So are you another Natrik worshipper?”
“I worship no one. The jinn were made strong and agile and fierce. We’re not supposed to spend our days on bended knee, grovelling before an overwrought egomaniac. Our very essence is woven from freedom, from the open road and the rolling plains. That’s where we should be.” He gestured behind him, at the road, at the cars crawling along it. “Out there.”
“If that’s true,” Christa said, “why did you come looking for me? Do you expect me to save the world from some vague evil, too?”
“Yes, I expect you to save this world,” Ramon replied. “But the evil is not as vague as you imagine. You were blessed with your gifts in order to bring down Bredia the Betrayer.”
He said this in such an understated tone it took Christa a few moments to process the information. She shook her head, scowling. “But Bredia was afraid of me. When Dylan and I went to see her she virtually escorted me back out of the building. Why would the world need some all-powerful Deiwo to bring her down? She seemed weak.”
“She’s weak now,” Ramon agreed, “but every soul she infects with her cursed stones, every jinn she creates makes her stronger. She’s biding her time while her power grows and when she is at full strength, when she has an army of jinn beside her, she will set the earth to burn.”
“Why?” Darrell breathed. His eyes were wide, his face pale as he followed Ramon’s every word. “Why does she want to destroy the earth?”
“Why does anyone with evil in their heart want to do such things?” Ramon shrugged. “Bredia is a creature crafted from hatred. It has simmered within her for millennia, and humanity is what she hates most of all. She doesn’t think they deserve to live upon the same planet that they scorn and mutilate. She dreams of supplanting them with a race of jinn, with the children she has made in her own image.”
Christa pushed her coffee away, her appetite lost. The table lapsed into silence as both Ramon and Darrell waited for her reaction. “I don’t know how much I care,” she eventually said, her voice quiet. “What has humanity ever done for me? I’m an outcast to them, a freak. The only time I ever felt accepted was when I was with the jinn, with the very people I’m supposed to destroy. Who’s to say that humanity deserves its position in the world? They kill each other in senseless wars. They’ve hunted animals to extinction and apparently caused global warming. Who’s to say the jinn wouldn’t make better caretakers of the earth?”
She looked up to see Ramon’s placid expression change for the first time. His mouth dropped open in shock and his face blanched.
“You can’t possibly mean this,” he said. “It is in your very nature to care for and protect humanity. You are the Deiwo.”
“Yeah, well this Deiwo’s only real contact with humanity was at the hands of the scientists who kept me prisoner at the Institute. I don’t owe humanity shit.” She stood up abruptly and reached for Darrell’s hand. “Come on, we’re leaving.”
As they made their way to the door, Darrell in stunned silence beside her, Ramon stood up and attempted to plead with Christa. “You can’t turn your back on this,” he said. “Do you think Bredia will let you live?”
Christa ignored him and pulled Darrell through the door, back out onto the street. As they disappeared into the New York crowds, Darrell snatched his hand away.
“What about me?” he said. “I’m not jinn. Don’t you care what will happen to me when Bredia starts purging humanity from the face of the earth?”
Christa sighed, suddenly feeling incredibly tired. “I’d protect you,” she said. “Anyway, it might all be crap. How can we trust Ramon?”
“I don’t suppose we can,” Darrell consented. “We did only just meet him today.”
“Exactly.” Christa yawned. “I don’t feel like sightseeing anymore. Can we just go home?”
Darrell nodded and put an arm around her shoulders, gently steering her back towards the hotel.
Fifteen
After bidding good night to Darrell, Christa returned to her own room, wanting only to crawl into bed beside Dylan and lose herself in the warmth of his skin, in the firm contours of his familiar bulk. She negotiated the darkened suite and entered the bedroom, frowning when she saw that the bed was empty.
“Is anyone in here?” she called out.
“Hi, Christa,” Rob shouted from the balcony.
“Hi,” she said, stepping outside and noticing that Rob was alone on the wide platform, smoking a cigarette and looking out over the buzzing lights of the city. “Where’s Dylan?”
“He’s, uh, in a bar, I think,” Rob said, his back turned to her. “He wanted a beer.”
“You didn’t go with him?” There was a strange tone in Rob’s voice. He sounded nervous, unsure of himself.
“I got all the beer I need right here.” He finally swung around to face her, a lop-sided grin on his face.
“What’s going on, Rob?”
“What do you mean, Christa? It’s just another quiet night in New York. Same old, same old.” He attempted to laugh but it faltered as it left his mouth, ringing harshly against the walls of the hotel.
Christa walked towards him, peering into his eyes until he flinched and looked away. “Something’s not right.” She tried to slip into the vampire’s mind, tried to see the secrets he was protecting, but all she could grasp at was a vast blankness. “So, Dylan showed you how to block your thoughts from me,” she said.
“Look Christa, I don’t know what the fuck you want, but just leave me alone, okay?”
Christa could see Rob was trying very hard to sound stern, but his voice wavered. “I’ll leave you alone once you’ve shown me what you’re hiding,” she said, beginning to advance on him. Rob backed away until the small of his back hit the railings surrounding the balcony.
Christa paused, suddenly wondering why she was doing this. She liked Rob. He was sincere and he made her laugh, she didn’t want to be terrorising him like this. She almost turned to disappear back into the hotel suite, almost left him in peace with his cigarette, but something was nagging at the back of her mind. Dylan was out in the city alone, conducting deeds he didn’t want Christa to know about. With a sick sadness swamping her heart, she realised that any secretive deed would almost certainly involve Bredia. Dylan had nothing else to hide from her, after all. She had watched him, often in a state of dizzy pleasure, while he mutilated and drank and obliterated life. A meeting with Bredia was the only thing in the world he would feel he had to keep from her.
“I’m sorry about this, Rob,” she said, her resolve resolute, “but I need to know where Dylan is.”
“Look, I told you he’s in a bar. He’s probably tearing the throat out of some drunk girl by now. Why don’t you–”
The words were strangled in his throat as Christa took a deep breath and tore into his mind, clawing against the walls he’d built to protect his thoughts until they began to crumble. Rob lifted his hands to his head, swaying on his feet.
“Stop that,” he gasped. He blinked and a thin line of blood escaped his left eye, running down the planes of his face and soaking into his beard. “That fucking hurts.”
Christa ignored him and pressed on, closing her eyes so she could better concentrate. Chinks were beginning to show in Rob’s mental defences, throwing out rays of light into her mind’s eye. “You don’t care for Bredia,” she said. “You don’t know why Dylan is so obsessed with her. That’s no surprise though, you certainly have no love for the jinn and Bredia is just another–” She paused, head cocked, tasting Rob’s own words as they formed on her tongue. “She’s just another stinking jinn bitch. Vile, low creatures. I want to fucking burn them all. I want to see them die in agony, just like Marie did.”
At the mention of his beloved Marie, Rob began to sob like a child. His shoulders shook with grief, his tears flowing into the tracks of blood drying on his face.
“You were angry with Dylan tonight,” Christa continued. She pushed further, deeper, prying Rob’s mind apart with the strong, practised fingers of her will until he fell to his knees and screamed, palms pressed to his pulsating temples. “You told him he was a loser, you begged him to forget this shit and leave the city. He could have a good life with me. Hell, he could rule the fucking world if he had my help.” She paused again, sifting through the facts, piecing together the information into a coherent whole. When she finally confirmed her worst fears, she bowed her head and sighed. “He refused to listen to you didn’t he, Rob? He went to her, anyway. Dylan went to Bredia.”
***
Christa sat cross-legged on a large armchair in the middle of the hotel suite, staring into the dark as she waited for Dylan to return. Darrell had agreed to let Rob stay in his room for the night, as long as the vampire was under strict instructions not to touch his neck. Rob had been in no condition to protest. Under different circumstances, Christa would have felt terrible for inflicting such pain on the poor man. But her head was full of images of Dylan and Bredia, fawning and simpering over each other. They blocked out all else and left no room for sympathy. Beside her was a large, expensive suitcase, packed with her best clothes.
Dylan didn’t make an appearance until half-past five in the morning. He sauntered into the room nonchalantly, wearing such a smug expression that Christa bristled in her chair, her eyes hardened to fiery anger. He seemed to sense something was amiss because he paused and turned around in the dark, his face lifted as though he was sniffing the air.
“Welcome back, Dylan.”
With a grim sense of satisfaction, Christa saw that she had startled him. He whirled towards her, his features etched with confusion.
“What the hell are you doing, sitting there in the dark?”
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
Dylan edged closer to her chair. “I’ve been to a bar.”
“So Rob said. That’s what his tongue said, anyway. His thoughts told me a completely different story.”
Christa heard his hushed intake of breath. “So you know,” he said. Then, his voice rising, “Fine, who the hell cares? I should have told you about my intentions days ago. It was cruel really, to let you continue thinking I wanted to remain with you.”
To her dismay, Christa felt her anger melting and grief taking its place. She fought against it, wanting to remain strong before Dylan. “You hateful bastard,” she spat. “You think its okay to use me until you’re bored and then throw me away like a piece of trash?”
“It wasn’t like that, Christa.” Dylan dropped to one knee before the chair and reached for her hands. “I wasn’t intentionally seeking another lover. Discovering that a creature such as Bredia existed was a complete surprise.” Christa snatched her hands away. “We had fun together,” Dylan continued. “Can’t you just be content with that? We never made any promises to each other.”
“No, what a stupid girl I am. I thought offering you my companionship, offering you my body and my life’s blood was enough to secure the tiniest amount of commitment from you.” She stood up and pushed him away before reaching for her suitcase. “Goodbye, Dylan.”
Dylan remained silent as she left the room and slammed the door behind her. It wasn’t until she reached the street outside that she remembered about Darrell, ignorant of her hastily wrought plans and currently sharing a hotel suite with a vicious killer. Cursing, Christa turned on her heel and walked back into the hotel, pausing before the reception desk.
“Can I leave a note for a guest?” she asked the woman sitting behind it.
“Certainly, madam,” the receptionist replied, smiling far too cheerily for that obscene time in the morning. She slid a sheaf of paper across the desk, each piece emblazoned with the hotel’s elegant header.
“Thanks.”
Christa quickly scrawled a note addressed to Darrell, telling him to leave the hotel and meet her at JFK Airport as soon as he woke up. Her task completed and her instructions left with the receptionist, her hand was on the revolving doors, her foot inside them, when a voice made her pause.
“Wait, Christa. I’m being an arsehole. I don’t think I want you to go.”
“You don’t think you want me to go? You don’t sound very sure, Dylan.” She tightened her grip on the suitcase.
“I’ve grown very fond of you.”
“There’s no way you’d stop seeing Bredia for me,” Christa replied, secretly hoping the opposite was true and instantly chastising herself.
“You’re right, I can’t promise that,” Dylan said, taking a step backwards when he saw the colour drain from Christa’s face. “I still have so much to learn from Bredia. Where else will I get the answers to my questions? I want to find out what it is I’ve become.”
“Fuck you, Dylan.” The receptionist looked up from her computer screen, startled. “Don’t worry,” Christa told her, “I’m leaving.”
She pushed through the revolving doors and spilled out onto the shadowed street, her heart hammering in her chest and her breathing uneven. She didn’t notice the sound of pursuing footsteps until they were almost upon her, moving too fast to belong to mortal feet. Christa stopped in the middle of a short section of business district, hemmed in on both sides by a row of glass-fronted buildings, so tall they blocked out all but the tiniest sliver of cloudy night time sky. Dropping the suitcase at her side she turned to face Dylan, her expression a glowering mask of rage.
“What the hell do you want now?” she scream
ed, unable to dilute the shrillness in her voice. “You’ve made your choice, can’t you just leave me alone?”
Dylan came to a halt a few metres away from her. “I don’t even know why I chased you,” he confessed. “I just didn’t want you to go.”
“Tough shit.” A wind leapt up, roaring down the narrow valley created by the towering office blocks and tugging at Christa’s coat and hair.
“Try to be reasonable,” Dylan said. His eyes were like two burning flames in the half-light, haloed in shades of midnight blue. “Can’t you see that Bredia is simply my mentor?”
“You are such a liar, Dylan. I stood and watched while you two pawed at each other like slathering puppies. It made me feel sick. You see her as much more than a mentor.”
Christa felt something rise out of her body: a sudden blast of raw, rage-fuelled power, unbidden and unstoppable. It broke from her in a wave and crested against the glass of the building beside her, causing it to groan and shake in its steel frames. She retrieved her suitcase and turned to leave, straightening her shoulders as she walked, refusing to look back at Dylan.
“This isn’t what you want,” he called after her. “I’ve seen into the darkest recesses of your soul, Christa. You don’t want to be alone anymore than I do.”
Christa stopped, aghast, rocking on her feet as the soft summer tarmac beneath her began to ripple. “How dare you presume to have seen into my soul,” she said, her back still turned to him. “You barely know me at all.”
“So I’ve been sharing my life with a stranger these past few months?” Suddenly he was directly behind her again, reaching for her shoulder and using his brute strength to spin her around and face him. He wrenched her neck in the process, making her wince with pain. “I see you, Christa. You’re just a little girl. You were scrabbling around in common jinn bars and staying in a filthy motel when I met you. I taught you how to live.”
Jinn Nation Page 17