Jinn Nation

by Caroline Barnard-Smith

  Kalena instantly brightened. Her tears evaporated and her wide smile returned.

  “Okay,” Christa said, lowering herself onto an upended palm tree trunk, bleached smooth in the bright Hawaiian sun, “why have the fae been trying to find me?”

  “Because we were worried about you. We’d always known where you were, but then you took up with that vampire fellow and dropped off the map. It’s harder to keep tabs on someone when they keep moving around.”

  Christa grimaced in horror. “You keep tabs on me? What, do I have a chip in my neck like a bloody alien abductee? What the hell do you mean?”

  “Oh, don’t be upset,” Kalena pleaded. She moved towards Christa, so graceful and light upon the sand she could have been dancing. “It’s only because you’re so important, you must know that. You’re the Deiwo, we follow the imprints left by your power in order to keep you safe. We need to help you to–”

  “Why can’t you people just leave me alone?” Christa shouted, jumping up from the tree trunk and cutting Kalena off mid-sentence. “I’m so sick of this, I just want to be normal.” She stepped over the fallen palm tree and began walking in long strides back to the hotel straddling the skyline behind her.

  “Wait, Christa, please don’t be angry,” Kalena called after her.

  Christa kept walking, a determined look hardening the lines of her face. As she reached the gate leading to the hotel’s gardens, the bright moonlight illuminating the night time dark around her trembled and dulled. When she finally looked back towards the beach, Kalena had disappeared.

  Nineteen

  Senses still strung tight after his nightly hunt, a seeping smell made Dylan pause at the apartment’s entrance. It was the stench of fresh blood, fear and sweat.

  “Rob,” he shouted, slamming the door closed behind him. “I thought we said no more food in the flat.”

  His only response was the sound of shuffling from the bedroom followed by a suspicious hush. Dylan threw the bedroom door open, in no mood for Rob’s childish games. His friend was neatly tucked beneath the blood stained duvet, one arm cradling a naked woman. Her skin was so pale, so sapped of life, a network of delicate blue veins was clearly visible along the length of her shivering body.

  “What the hell is this? The maid just changed those sheets.”

  Rob looked away, angry at being caught out. “I just wanted something for myself,” he said. Then, turning back to Dylan with a snarl, “I fucking need her, man. You get to move from one woman to the next. First a psychic or whatever the hell Christa was, then a fucking goddess, for Christ’s sake. But what do I get? I get the one woman I wanted to be with ripped apart by stinking jinn, that’s what I get.”

  “Are you telling me you were trying to turn this woman, Rob?” Dylan’s voice was low and menacing, his expression hard.

  Rob would usually shy away from Dylan’s anger, would flatter him and back down in an effort to appease him. This time though he leapt up from the bed, letting the woman crumple to the pillows with a small murmur. He stood before his one-time mentor, stark naked and seething with rage. “You’re not going to push me around this time,” he said. “I’m doing this, whether you fucking like it or not.”

  “Have you gone completely insane?” Dylan shouted back, trying to keep his eyes fixed on Rob’s face and not on his nakedness. “Has the British climate pushed you over the edge? Even if I thought this was a good idea, it’s impossible. If we did it together, she probably wouldn’t survive. How were you going to turn her alone?”

  “I don’t care,” Rob said. “I have to try.” He staggered backwards and sat down heavily on the bed, his anger rushing from him as quickly as it had arrived. When he looked back up at Dylan, his face was stricken, his eyes pleading and haunted. “Please help me,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I hate being alone.”

  “But you’re not alone, you have me.”

  “That’s not the same and you fucking know it.”

  Silence bloomed and deepened until the only sound in the room was the woman’s pained, shallow panting. Dylan found he was wracked with indecision. The turning of a mortal into a vampire was a sacred act, one not to be taken lightly. Subjects should only be chosen after much consideration, and only once it had been determined that they had the rare aptitude for immortality. These were the rules of Dylan’s kin, the unholy scripture laid out by The Ancient Order. But The Ancient Order had been destroyed, taking their beliefs and complicated laws with them. And hadn’t Dylan himself been turned in just such a fit of wanton abandon, taken from the gutter by the vampire Gwyneth simply because she took a liking to his azure eyes? Even Rob’s induction into immortality had been an idle diversion to stave off boredom in a small town.

  Finally, Dylan sighed and sat on the bed beside Rob. “Could you please put some clothes on?” he said. “I can’t talk to you when you’ve got your dick hanging out.”

  Rob stood to retrieve his boxer shorts and slid them on, his face sullen.

  “If we’re going to do this,” Dylan said, “you have to make me a promise first.”

  Rob nodded slowly, trying not to smile. “Anything, man.”

  “You have to promise to look after her. She’ll be your responsibility; I’m too old and too impatient to be showing a fledgling the ropes. You have to teach her how to feed, how to take care of herself. You have to keep her safe. Can you promise me that?”

  Rob raised his right hand, relief and joy dawning on his face. “I solemnly fucking swear.”

  Dylan turned to look at the woman in the bed, picking up one of her limp arms to feel her wrist for a pulse. “She’s weak,” he said; “you’ve pretty much drained her. I suppose we should feed her.” He grinned up at Rob. “You got us into this mess, you can go first.”

  Rob climbed onto the bed and crouched beside the woman, smoothing her long, honey-blonde hair back from her face.

  “What’s her name, anyway?” Dylan said.

  “Jenna. She plays drums in a band.”

  “And does she understand what you are? What she’ll become?”

  “As well as anyone who’s seen too many movies.” He laughed. “She almost came in her panties when I showed her my fangs. Shit, I love vampire groupies.”

  Gently, Rob turned Jenna onto her back, exposing her milk-pale breasts. Hesitating for only a moment, he brought his wrist up to his mouth and bit down hard on a vein, grimacing as his fangs slid through skin and tissue until ruby droplets of blood rose up and dripped down the length of his arm to pool on the already sodden duvet.

  “Hurry,” Dylan said, “don’t waste it.”

  Rob parted Jenna’s dry lips with his fingers and laid his weeping wrist over her mouth, squeezing his arm with his free hand to pump the blood inside. Jenna remained still, her breathing now so faint the rise and fall of her chest was barely perceptible.

  “Is it working?” he said, leaning over to peer into her face.

  “Let me try.” Dylan bit his own wrist in one quick, precise movement, bringing it to Jenna’s lips and applying pressure until her mouth began to work automatically, latching onto his skin and drawing the blood onto her tongue like a baby suckling at a mother’s breast. “That’s encouraging,” Dylan said. “Look, she’s starting to feed on her own.”

  He let Jenna drink from him for as long as he could stand, until the dark blur of unconsciousness began to press against his senses and the ragged wounds at his wrist started to scream. “You have to finish it,” he told Rob, withdrawing his arm. “Let’s just hope it’s enough.”

  Rob complied, offering his bloody wrist to Jenna with a look of deep concentration etched on his face. Little by little, Jenna’s breathing deepened and her translucent skin coloured, blooming with new, faint life. Dylan watched Rob carefully, finally grasping his shoulders and pulling him away from the woman when his eyes clouded over and he began to sway on the bed.

  “That’s enough,” Dylan said. “You can’t completely drain yourself of blood, you won’t ha
ve the strength to crawl out onto the street and replenish it.”

  Rob cradled his wrist to his chest, shaking from his exertions. “Will she live?” There was a tremor in his voice.

  “We’ve given her the best start we can,” Dylan said. “Now we just have to wait and see if she wakes up. She survived the process, that’s a good sign.”

  Dylan left Rob to his vigil at Jenna’s bedside and slipped into the bathroom, eager to shower and clean the drying blood from his arm before disappearing back into the city. He was ravenous.

  ***

  After sating his hunger with the delectable blood of a delicately freckled young woman, lured from a desolate bus shelter scrawled with vulgar graffiti, Dylan had taken a taxi to Bredia’s townhouse, unwilling to return to the apartment and witness Jenna’s uncertain fate. Bredia had welcomed him warmly, more properly attired this time in loose fitting muslin trousers and a plain halter neck top, and directed him to her parlour. They faced each other across an antique chess board carved from ivory, each seated in a hard, green armchair.

  “It’s your move,” Bredia said, indicating the board.

  “I’ll take my good, sweet time,” Dylan said. “I’m not going to let you beat me again.”

  Bredia smiled, her wide, fathomless eyes cast at an angle. “Not without the safety word.”

  Dylan concentrated on the intricately carved chess pieces, pretending he hadn’t understood Bredia’s meaning. As much as he had wanted her, as hot as his skin had burned at her touch, he wasn’t eager to pursue his new sexual relationship with her. Making love to Gwyneth had been exhilarating, each of them vying for dominance, both pushing the immortal body of the other to its limits. With Christa sex was joyous, a pleasurable game played against the utter freedom of the open road. Bredia was different. The jinn goddess had made him feel as though she wanted to consume him, to take him so deeply inside of her he would never find his way out. It had been cold and alien and completely devoid of humanity.

  “I’m starting to regret not taking you up on your offer of a bigger apartment,” he said, attempting to change the subject. “Rob seems to have taken over the bedroom. I have to sleep on the sofa if I want to escape his chronic snoring.”

  “Well, as I said before, I wasn’t expecting you to bring your friend here. I extended the invitation to you, not him.”

  Dylan began to move a chess piece, then changed his mind and replaced it. “I couldn’t leave him alone,” he said. “He’d just watched his girlfriend die. At the hands of your jinn, might I add.”

  Bredia sat back, crossing her legs and flexing a stiletto-clad foot agitatedly. “That was an unfortunate, messy business. I wish we could just put it behind us.” She sighed loudly. “Are you going to make your move before the decade is over?”

  “Yes, I’m still thinking.” His hand hovered over the chess pieces, long fingers flexing. “Hopefully, I won’t have to worry about Rob for much longer. We turned a vampire at the apartment, today. A companion for Rob. I was angry at first, I haven’t helped to turn a mortal for decades and the idea seemed ridiculous, but I took pity on him. He just wants someone to be with, like you and–” Dylan looked up at Bredia, pausing when he saw the sour lines of her face and the fiery outrage flaring in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “I thought you were an intelligent creature, Dylan. An equal. I was obviously mistaken, you’re nothing more than a vain, swaggering fool.”

  “Excuse me?” Dylan was unsure if she was serious or not, her reaction had been so swift and harsh.

  “You turned a vampire? At this time? You know I’m gathering jinn here, cultivating a following. It’s a delicate period during which nothing can go wrong, yet you seem to view it as one big party. How could you turn a mortal while there’s so much at stake? You’ll bring unwanted attention down on our heads.”

  Dylan held his hands up, his initial shock dissipating. “You need to calm down, Bredia.”

  “How dare you!” Bredia rose from her seat with a roar, her face twisted into an ugly, feral mask. Her wide eyes narrowed to slits and her jaw seemed to elongate, giving her a hideous, wolfish appearance. “I am Bredia, Goddess of the Jinn. No infantile vampire whelp will tell me to calm down.”

  Her grotesque transformation should have terrified Dylan, but it only stoked his own anger. He stood to face her, refusing to look away. “Vampire whelp, am I? The vampires were once a force to be reckoned with. We gave rise to great and terrible creatures who would have ripped the pretty blue skin from your face for calling them a whelp. I wasn’t thinking about your plans when I turned that woman. It was a vampiric matter, a private decision made between Rob and myself. It had absolutely nothing to do with you.”

  Bredia panted before him, pearlescent beads of sweat gathering at her hairline as she struggled to control her rapid breathing. After several long seconds, she was finally able to rearrange her face into some semblance of normality. She lifted trembling hands to her hair, smoothing it back from her forehead. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that,” she said. “It’s not an attractive side of me, and I regret it.” She edged closer to Dylan. “I don’t regret what I said, though. It was folly to turn a mortal with no regard for the consequences.”

  “And like I said, it was none of your business.” Bredia may have successfully regained her composure, but Dylan was still seething with indignation. He suddenly missed Christa with a bitterness too large and acute to ignore.

  “It’s that friend of yours,” Bredia said, shaking her head. “He’s the problem, the fly in our ointment. This notion would never have entered your head if it wasn’t for him. We’d still be content, still calmly playing chess.” She rushed at Dylan, gripping his shoulders and bringing his face down to hers before he had a chance to bat her away. “Tell him to leave,” she said. “Or have my jinn evict him for you. I promise you, Dylan, once you do that we’ll be happy again. My plans will unfold and you’ll be beside me when the world changes.”

  Dylan ripped himself from her grasp and backed away. “I couldn’t do that,” he said. “Rob’s my oldest friend. He might be the only other vampire in existence for all I know.”

  “Leave him,” Bredia urged. “We’ll be blissful, we’ll be free. You don’t need anybody else.”

  “You’re insane,” Dylan whispered, aghast that he’d never noticed it before. “What the hell am I doing here? Rob was right, I should have stayed with Christa.”

  “That whining waif? Why would you say these things to me? I’m your soul mate, Dylan, the only one who understands you.”

  “Goodbye, Bredia.”

  Dylan turned and walked quickly to the door, flinging it open and hurling himself down the corridor before Bredia had a chance to reply. He had reached the bottom of the stairs and was almost at the street entrance when a great wall of sound erupted behind him, a high-pitched shrieking that seemed to shatter the air itself. He shuddered but kept walking, passing the steely glare of the red-blazered door guard with his head down and his shoulders raised.

  Twenty

  Darrell had been sorry to leave the glossy comfort of their beachfront hotel, but Christa remained insistent when he pleaded with her to stay for a few more days.

  “I’m sorry, Darrell,” she said, “but I have to get this sorted out. I don’t want to spend my life fending off weirdoes and creatures from other worlds. I just want to be left in peace. That’s why we came here, after all.”

  “You make it sound like you have a rash or something. If you find the right cream, it will disappear.”

  Still, Darrell hadn’t sulked for long once they began the drive down the island’s winding highway in a rented soft-top Jeep. He smiled as he drove, the wind tousling his hair, teasing it into an unkempt mass. They passed beneath overarching palm trees, the sandy ground at their feet littered with fallen coconuts, and tiny, brightly painted wooden churches. The sweet sound of Sunday hymns spilled from their open doors to chase them on the wind, yet even this failed to lift Christa’s
spirits. She was determined to carry out her task, to rid herself of the powers that her defined her short life, but she was also fearful, scared that the process would hurt or even kill her. She kept her thoughts to herself, unwilling to jolt the relaxed smile from Darrell’s face, but he guessed her worries anyway.

  “We don’t have to do this straight away, Chris,” he said. “We could stay on the island until the baby’s born; then you can decide if you still want to do it.”

  Christa shook her head. “No, I’ve made up my mind.”

  Darrell reached for the hand she was holding stiffly in her lap, entwining his fingers in hers, eyes still on the road ahead. “How did you know where to find this guy?” he said after a few minutes spent driving in silence. “What’s his name? Makaio? Did you hear someone thinking about him?”

  “No,” Christa laughed, squeezing Darrell’s fingers. “I found his leaflet in the hotel lobby.”

  “What?”

  Christa reached for the rucksack slung across the back seat and rummaged around inside, finally producing a crumpled leaflet. She smoothed it out on her lap before presenting it to Darrell. “See?”

  Darrell slowed the car to peer at the glossy paper, squinting at the smiling, bare-chested Hawaiian on the front. Every inch of his skin seemed to be adorned with thick, black tattoos, creating intricate swirls and patterns that traversed the length of his torso. His bald head was tattooed with the images of two long-tongued lizards. The simplistic designs raked thin claws over his forehead and stared at each other across his eyebrows.

  “Visit Makaio at Molokai’s World Famous Leper Valley,” Darrell read aloud. “Christa, surely you don’t think he’s your holy man? That’s a tourist place.”

  “Maybe so, but I’ve seen Makaio before, in Erubiel’s mind. He’s the man who can commune with dark powers, the one Erubiel was so afraid of.” She turned the leaflet over and pointed to a crudely drawn map on the back. “This is where we have to go. It’s on the other side of the island, on the coast.”