Jinn Nation

by Caroline Barnard-Smith

  Thad shrunk away from him, scrabbling inside his thick wool coat and producing a crude wooden cross. “I’m not afraid of you,” he said, holding the cross before Dylan’s face. “I know what you are.”

  Dylan laughed and beckoned to Rob, standing out of sight beside the door. “Come and have a look at this, Rob. It’s an honest to God vampire slayer.”

  Rob peered around the door frame, a grin spreading across his face when he saw Thad. “Cool. Do you have holy water, too? Or a stake?”

  “I’m not a vampire slayer,” Thad said, squaring his shoulders but refusing to lower the cross. “I just want to talk to the one called Dylan.”

  “How does he know your name?” Rob said.

  “I don’t know. Let’s ask him, shall we?”

  Dylan gripped Thad’s collar with both hands and hauled him inside the flat, pushing him down into a chair so harshly the man squealed, pressing one hand to his fluttering heart. Rob closed the door and they both stood before him, arms crossed over their chests.

  “Start talking, then,” Dylan said. “Start talking or we start drinking.”

  “How do I know you won’t kill me anyway?” Thad said, shaking hands curled around the cross in his lap.

  “That’s the sort of risk you take when you come to the home of a blood drinking fiend,” Dylan replied. Rob sniggered beside him.

  Thad briefly closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Bredia is not the true ruler of the jinn. She is an imposter, a fake who should be kneeling before the great and terrible Natrik.”

  “He’d make a good kids’ entertainer, wouldn’t he?” Rob said to Dylan. “Could make a fortune.”

  Dylan ignored his friend and continued to study Thad’s face with a steady, unflinching glare. “That’s all well and good,” he said to Thad, “but it doesn’t explain how you know what we are.”

  “I worship Natrik and in return he blesses me with certain knowledge, entrusts me with certain tasks.” Thad spoke hurriedly, barely pausing for breath. “He told me all about you. I know you’re an immortal who carries the power of the jinn. I also know you travelled for a while with a woman called Christa.”

  “What do you know about Christa?”

  “She is the Deiwo, humanity’s great hope. I met her in New York. I tried to tell her she was straying from her path, that she couldn’t turn her back on her birthright, but she didn’t listen to me. She didn’t listen and now–”

  Thad gurgled as Dylan rushed at him and gripped the soft flesh of his throat in one hand, hoisting him up from the chair and bringing him close to his face. “Has something happened?” he demanded. “Is Christa in trouble?”

  “Not yet,” Thad rasped, straining against Dylan’s inflexible hold. His eyes began to stream and his wooden cross clattered to the floor beside him. “Not if you help her.”

  Dylan released Thad, watching him crumple back into the chair. “What exactly do you mean?” he said once the man had stopped wheezing.

  Thad rubbed his bruised throat, trying and failing to suppress a shudder. “Natrik told me she’s about to commit a grave act,” he said. “An irreversible act that will place her in danger. He didn’t tell me what it was or when it will happen, the jinn god is often vague. He simply insisted that I travel here and find you, to tell you that Christa will soon be in the city and that you should seek her out.”

  “How does this god of yours know these things?” Dylan said. His expression remained blank but his heart strained within him, suddenly engorged with fear.

  “Natrik knows all things.”

  Thad’s simple explanation seemed to deflate any attempt Dylan could make at a rebuttal. The three men looked at each other in silence for several moments, each trying to digest this new, disturbing information.

  “Can we eat him now?” Rob said suddenly, shattering Dylan’s grim rumination. “I’m fucking starving.”

  Thad scrabbled from the chair and backed away from them, hands reaching inside his coat for a make-shift weapon and finding nothing. “You can’t do that,” he shouted. “You’ll anger Natrik. The jinn god’s wrath knows no constraint!”

  Dylan laughed despite himself, deeply amused by the earnest, sweaty little man cowering before him. “We won’t eat you,” he said.

  “We won’t?” Rob said, his voice full of longing.

  “No. We might need him in the future. He’s obviously got the ear of this Natrik guy, he could prove useful.” He turned to Thad, gesturing towards the door. “Go on, get out. Quickly, before my friend loses all control.”

  Thad nodded, moving around the perimeter of the room, eyes fixed on Rob. He only broke his surveillance to transfer his attention to the door and once it was open, he ran into the hallway and out onto the street without looking back.

  Twenty Two

  The following night was crisp and clear, falling across Molokai like velvet gossamer. Christa stood on the balcony of her modest hotel, delighting in the purifying quality of the fresh breeze and the bright swathe of stars sweeping the sky above her. It took her a few moments to realise she wasn’t alone, that an alien form had appeared beside her, silent and watchful. She turned with a start, hands raised protectively before her stomach.

  “Ramon?”

  “I apologise, Christa. I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

  Christa looked around, attempting to discover how Ramon had traversed the five floors of the hotel to reach her. “Did Darrell let you in?”

  Ramon seemed uneasy, his tall frame outlined in soft starlight, his long, jet black hair lifting as a sudden gust of wind assaulted the balcony. "No," he admitted. "I think the time has come for us to talk frankly, Christa."

  Christa shook her head at him, edging towards the brightly lit hotel room behind her. "What on earth is going on? How did you even find me? I left you in that coffee shop in New York."

  "Yes, you did. But our business is far from finished. I know what you plan to do tonight."

  Christa felt an irrational stab of icy fear strike the soft place behind her ribs, making her hands tremble and the skin on her neck flare scarlet. Shaking the ridiculous sensation away, Christa braced herself before Ramon, forcing herself to stand firmly and look at him without flinching.

  "So, you can follow the tracks my power leaves behind as well, can you?" she surmised. "But what gives you the right to turn up here like this? I don't even know you. You're just another self-important jinn bastard as far as I can tell."

  "No, you misunderstand," Ramon said. "That's my fault though, I thought I was protecting you by withholding certain truths.”

  Christa's initial shock was hardening to a weary anger. "You have exactly five minutes to tell me what you're doing here," she said, "or I'll hang you from the balcony by your pretty hair."

  Ramon held his hands up and lowered his head, silently asking for her patience. "Very well. I've come to ask, no, to beg you to cease your current course of action. I know you have been to see the holy man and that he plans to purge your gifts this night. You cannot do this, Christa. Things have been set in motion which you are not yet aware of, things that can only be stopped by the Deiwo." Ramon's usually calm, measured voice jarred with a hint of panic.

  "That's not good enough," Christa said. "You're still speaking in vague riddles. You can't tell me what the Deiwo is supposed to stop, or how she's supposed to do it. I think you're full of shit. I also think that this is my life and you have absolutely no say in it. I don't want to be the bloody Deiwo." She said this slowly, methodically. "I just want a normal life for myself and my child."

  Ramon gazed down at her protruding belly for the first time, his face drawn. "Yes, this pregnancy was an unforeseen complication. But that doesn't mean you can just give up–”

  "An unforeseen complication?" Christa said, interrupting him. "You think you can break into my hotel room, appear from nowhere, in a puff of smoke like a third-rate magician and talk about my baby that way?" Her voice rose as she spoke and she began moving towards him, her eyes hu
ge, full of wild rage.

  "I didn't mean to insult you," Ramon said, watching her with considerable trepidation. "I have to make you understand what a grave error you're about to make. I can't let you go through with it."

  "You can't let me? How are you going to stop me?"

  As Christa reached Ramon she pushed at his mind with the long fingers of her will, drawing back in confusion when she was unable to penetrate his thoughts. Most minds were as easy to slip into as a warm bath, the myriad pathways leading to memories and knowledge thrown wide open to her. Ramon's mind, though, was thorny and hard, virtually impenetrable. It felt as though barb wire encased it, pricking her whenever she tried to force her way through.

  "You can block your thoughts from me," she said, secretly impressed. "I've only met one other person who could do that, and he was a vampire." She smiled as Ramon looked on in silence, unable to guess her intentions. "I don't have to control your mind in order to make you piss off, though."

  She pushed herself outwards again, but instead of the delicate instruments designed to pick apart a man's soul, her reaching will became large and brutal, slamming into Ramon's chest and sending him toppling over the balcony railings, down to the gravel below. Christa rushed forward to see him lying at a crooked angle on the ground, one twisted leg jerking sporadically. She expelled the long breath she didn't realise she had been holding and walked back into the hotel room, searching for Darrell.

  "It's time to go," she said when she found him. "The sooner we get this thing over and done with, the better."

  ***

  The beach before Makaio's cave was eerily quiet. Even the waves breaking against the sand seemed muted, the night air thick with expectation. Makaio looked up from a simple brick barbeque built against the cliff and waved as Christa and Darrell approached, his wide grin smeared with chicken grease.

  "I am sorry, I started without you," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of one large hand. "I was very hungry."

  "That's okay," Christa said, surprised at how nervous she was. "I'm not hungry, anyway."

  Christa seated herself on a rock and watched while Darrell and Makaio helped themselves to bronzed chicken pieces and crispy strips of fish, eating with their hands from paper plates. When they were finished Makaio walked towards her, chest still bare, his thick, black tattoos edged with silver beneath the sharp luminescence of the full moon hanging over the bay.

  "You are ready?" he said.

  "I suppose so." Christa smiled, attempting to appear brave and fearless. "What do you want me to do?"

  Makaio sat cross-legged on the sand, looking up at her like a child at the feet of a teacher. "I have a plan to liberate this place, to put an end to the coming of tourists. But to survive without them, we need money. Lots of money." Makaio paused while Darrell seated himself beside him. "There is a great ship out in the water," he continued, "not far from the shore. Neptune's Curse it was called, which was an ill name to choose because it was attacked and sunk by the British navy, taking two hundred souls down with her. The hull was fabled to be full of treasure, full of Spanish gold. If you can raise this ship for us, I will do your bidding in turn."

  Christa was momentarily speechless, struggling to comprehend what Makaio was asking her to do. "You want me to pull a pirate ship out of the sea?" she finally said. "I don't even know if that's something I can do. I read minds, I control peoples' actions. I don't lift ridiculously heavy objects with the power of thought alone."

  "But you are the Deiwo," Makaio said. "This should be easy for you." When Christa's expression remained sceptical, Makaio rose to his feet, his grin softening. "Will you not even try?"

  "You did say you made those buildings fall down in New York, Chris," Darrell said. "Maybe you can do this."

  Christa thought about the raw energy that had torn through her that night, about the tremors that had rocked her on her feet and the deafening crash of steel and glass as the high-rises around her crumbled. "Okay," she relented. "I'll give it a go." She took a deep breath as she stood and faced the sea, the inky depths parted by the shimmering moonlight cast upon its surface. "I don't know how to start, though."

  "You need to search the ocean floor," Makaio said. "Look for the outline of a ship. You can't miss it, she was enormous."

  Christa closed her eyes and sent her will out, skittering across the sand and into the cold shock of the sea water. At first, all she could feel was the shifting darkness beneath the water, a dank mass that left an unpleasant, salty tang at the back of her throat. Then, little by little, her blindness cleared and she could see the ghost-shapes of small fish, could feel the rubbery arms of seaweed and make out the line of the sea bed, stretching out away from the coast and dropping into unknowable depths at the edge of a shelf. "I can see under the water," she said, her voice high with delight. "It feels really strange, as if I should be wet, soaked."

  "That is good," Makaio said, his voice sounding distant and hollow even though he was standing directly behind her. "Now look for the ship."

  Christa balled her hands into fists as she concentrated, pushing herself further out into the ocean, over the underwater shelf and down into a terrifying deep that seemed to race up to meet her. She gasped, fighting the urge to withdraw back into herself and return to the safety of the solid beach.

  "You cannot be harmed," Makaio said. "You are safe here with us."

  He lifted a hand and placed it on her back, providing a tangible link with the real world that filled Christa with fresh resolve. She continued her descent, stretching her senses over every rock and crevice, finally stopping before an immense wooden structure half-buried beneath the sand.

  "I think I've found it," she breathed.

  Makaio laughed with joy. It vibrated through his body and into the hand pressed against Christa's back. "I knew it was there! Now you have to surround it, secure it, pull it from the water like a cork from a bottle."

  Christa imagined looping her will around the vessel like a golden lasso, pulling tight against it until she could feel the soft timber, fragile and rotting. With a great burst of exertion that bubbled up from the pit of her stomach, she hoisted the broken ship up and towards her, feeling it shudder and give, breaking free from the sandy housing that had imprisoned it for centuries. It rose from the water with a mighty roar, creating large, angry waves that peeled away to slap loudly against the rocks jutting from the shoreline. Christa could hear Darrell's intake of breath and Makaio's excited yells and whoops. She smiled through gritted teeth, trying not to lose her hold on the ship. Slowly, she dragged it into shore. Her breathing had become shallow and laboured and when the ship finally came to rest against a rocky outcrop, the hull breaking upon it with a crash that echoed along the length of the cove, she sank gratefully to the sand, hands pressed to her stomach and legs tucked beneath her in a foetal ball.

  "Are you okay?" Darrell said. He knelt beside her and reached for one of her hands, holding it so tightly his knuckles blanched white. "Christa?"

  "You're hurting my hand," she croaked, laughing. Darrell smiled and loosened his grip. "Help me up."

  Christa hung her arms around Darrell's neck and let him swing her into a sitting position. She turned around to see the ship for the first time with her own eyes, mouth opening in amazement as the realisation of what she had just accomplished sunk in. "I can't believe I did it."

  "It was amazing, Chris," Darrell said, seating himself on the sand beside her.

  Makaio was running up and down before the dripping wreck, obviously unable to contain himself. "It is beautiful!" he shouted. "Look how she shines in the moonlight."

  A dozen people suddenly emerged from behind rocks and flowering bushes, revealing themselves in order to marvel at the ship creaking against the shore. Christa recognised the old woman with long grey hair who had taken their mule from them during their first visit to Leper Valley. She seemed braver than her friends, running on bare feet to join Makaio at the tide line.

  "We need to look
inside," the woman said, "to see if the stories about gold are true."

  Before Makaio could stop her, the woman had waded out into the ocean, dancing over the incoming waves in her rush to reach the ship. She paused before its rocky mount and began to climb, gnarled hands and feet finding footholds as easily as a crab. Finally, she hauled herself onto the summit and was able to see into the open bottom of the ship, torn asunder during its rude exit from the water. There was a hushed silence when she threw her hands into the air and howled like a triumphant wolf, the sound catching the wind and rebounding from the cliffs behind her.

  "I see gold!" she shouted. "I see it, it's here. Gold and jewels."

  The residents gathered on the beach broke into loud cheers and joyous applause. They began to move towards the sea, eager to see the treasure for themselves, but Makaio made them pause.

  "We have a promise to fulfil before the gold can be harvested," he said. "Christa has done as we asked, now we must do as she asked. I need you all to return to your homes and clear the beach. You may return when I am done."

  A distinct grumbling could be heard amongst the residents as they made their way back to their neat, white huts, but nobody argued with Makaio. Even the woman on the rock climbed down and paddled back to the beach, droplets of sea water glinting in her silver hair. Once they were alone once more, Makaio turned to Christa.

  "Do you still want to do this, little one?"

  "Yes," Christa said, leaning on Darrell as she struggled to her feet. "But let's do it quickly, before I lose my nerve."

  Makaio nodded. "Please come with me."

  Christa and Darrell followed him to the entrance of his cave, up onto the ledge where his tourist shows were played out. A large circle had been drawn on the stone floor in chalk, a jar of suspicious, viscous-looking liquid standing at each compass point. The lights from the cave cast a dewy glow over the scene, throwing a haze of gold through Makaio's unkempt hair.