Jinn Nation

by Caroline Barnard-Smith

  “How about a little warning next time?” Dylan said, pushing the body away. “I think the git pissed himself.”

  Christa wasn’t listening to him, she was scanning the fringes of the crowd, searching for Bredia. Finally, she caught sight of her, using her frightened horse as a platform from which to reach the top of her coach. She stood on the roof and turned to survey the confused scene, her mouth twisting into a snarl when she realised her jinn were fighting each other.

  “What are you doing?” she screamed. “This isn’t the plan, you insufferable bastards.”

  Christa almost laughed when she saw what she was wearing: skin tight leather trousers and a matching cropped vest, stretched so sparingly across her straining breasts it could have been a belt. “Hey, Bredia,” she shouted up at the coach, “did you have to be sewn into those trousers?”

  Bredia turned on her, screaming with fury when she realised who it was. “What have you done to my jinn, you little bitch? What the hell have you done?”

  “She didn’t do anything,” Dylan said, grinning. “We told them the truth about the stolen fae stones in their stomachs, that’s all. Apparently, they didn’t like being lied to.”

  Bredia’s eyes widened when she saw Dylan, rims wreathed in stark crimson. “So, you ran straight back to the witch,” she said, her hands clenching at her sides. “You could have had anything you wanted, Dylan. Your wildest desires. You could have ruled the world by my side and you rejected it all for–” She paused, glancing at Christa, “For that.”

  Dylan reached for Christa’s hand, holding their linked fingers aloft like a trophy. “Hell, yes.”

  Bredia jumped down from the coach, her face set into a hard, hateful expression. She began striding towards them, blasting her own jinn away from either side of her with a curious, ashy substance that bloomed from her hands and hit them square in the chest.

  “So, you like to play games?” she asked Christa when she reached them. “You like to play with my heart? With my life? I’ll bury you in the ground, little girl. I’ll bury you so deep you’ll never play tic-tac-toe again.”

  “You’ve completely lost it,” Christa said. “You’re out of your mind.”

  Bredia screamed again, her eyes rolling back in her head until only the blood-laced whites were visible. She extended her arm towards Christa and flicked her hand. It was almost a dismissive gesture but Christa felt herself shudder involuntarily, her feet beginning to slide from beneath her. Bredia flicked her hand again and Christa’s neck snapped forward, delivering her hair into the jinn leader’s waiting fingers. She screeched and cackled as she twisted Christa’s hair, pulling it until her scalp began to throb. When Dylan and Darrell attempted to rush forward and dislodge her, Bredia flicked her other hand, sending out a breathless force that slammed into their bodies and sent them flying through the air, back into the skirmish behind them.

  “How do you like that, little witch?” Bredia said, bending low to Christa’s ear. “How do you like my party games? I’m surrounded by my jinn, and they make me strong. They make me stronger than you.”

  Christa struggled and bucked in Bredia’s grasp, biting her lip to keep from crying out. She willed herself to be calm, to rise above the burning agony racing across her head. Eventually, she was able to push the heat in her scalp up and out of herself, forcing the pain into Bredia’s fingers. The jinn-leader snarled and released her, holding her injured hand to her chest.

  “How did you do that, tricksy rabbit?”

  “It was easy,” Christa said, her breathing harsh and difficult. She straightened to face Bredia once more. “I’m still stronger than you. You’re just a crazy fairy.”

  With a high-pitched cry, Bredia lunged at her, but this time Christa was ready. She used the brightest, sharpest part of her heightened will to force the taller woman to the ground, batting her to the floor as if she was little more than an annoying, buzzing fly. As Bredia lay sprawled and shocked at her feet, Christa planted one boot firmly on her chest, transferring the strength emanating from her mind down into her foot. She kept applying pressure until something in Bredia’s chest snapped and broke, making the trembling woman roar with pain. Christa began to smile, began to believe she had won the day, when a small band of jinn descended on her, alerted by their goddess’s screams.

  “Get off me,” Christa cried, clawing and biting at the hands pulling her away from Bredia. She threw the jinn from her, blinding them and scorching their faces with the sheer force of her anger. Shaking with fury, she turned just in time to see Bredia stumbling away towards Westminster Bridge, one hand pressed to her shattered rib cage.

  Slowly, the fiery-eyed jinn began to break away from the melee, sensing they were losing the fight. Those near the river saw Bredia rushing towards the bridge and turned to follow her, slinking from battle like hyenas from a carcass protected by lions. Several shrieking balls of fae-light flew over their heads, crashing into the bridge with a sickening wrenching sound. Those jinn who were not burned instantly, their skin ripped from blackening bones, ran for their lives and dived into the Thames. One ball bypassed the scattered jinn completely and slammed into the grandiose Ferris wheel that was the London Eye on the other side of the river. It creaked loudly and began to turn, revolving autonomously like an enormous, smoking Catherine wheel.

  Christa saw Dylan and Darrell running towards the bridge, frantically pursuing a small band of bloody jinn. She ran across the road to join them.

  “You stinking cowards,” Dylan was shouting. “Come back here and face me.”

  Beside a parked car on her right, Jenna was holding the arms of a portly jinn behind his back while Rob pummelled his face and torso, his long beard swinging from side to side and his mouth stretched wide in a maniacal grin.

  “We’re almost there,” Christa said as she passed them, “they’re trying to run away.” Rob nodded curtly before turning back to his victim, head-butting him and watching with pride as the man slipped from Jenna’s grasp to lie motionless on the floor.

  As Christa neared the bridge, a thin wail emanated from the river bank. She stopped and spun around, breaking into a sprint when she saw Kelena disappear beneath a surging glut of jinn, rising up and swallowing her like a majestic ship swirling into a whirlpool.

  “Leave her alone,” Christa cried, her will expanding to encompass the slathering jinn busying themselves over the felled fae. They each froze, unable to move beneath the furious glare of Christa’s power. They could only watch in horror, eyes suddenly wet with panic, as one-by-one they quivered and slumped forward, hot, bright blood running from their ears and mouths. By the time Christa reached Kelena, they were all dead. She picked her way over the bodies, throwing aside those who had fallen across her friend.

  “Kelena, are you okay?”

  Kelena tried to smile, but she was visibly trembling. “I’m afraid it’s too late for me.”

  “No,” Christa said, kneeling beside her and manoeuvring her head into her lap. The hair beneath her fingers was as fine and smooth as gossamer silk. “You can’t die, you’re a fae. Just cast a spell or something, heal yourself.”

  “It’s not as easy as that,” Kelena said, her voice becoming hoarse. “We are mortal in your world, fragile.”

  Christa looked down at Kelena’s body, assessing the damage. The jinn had clawed and bitten their way through her finely spun clothes to rip at the tender, translucent skin beneath. Her torso was swathed in dark, thick blood.

  Kelena shuddered, her breathing becoming shallow. “I’m not scared of dying.” She paused, tried to catch her breath. “Just promise me you’ll stop Bredia. That’s the point of all this, to prevent her from burning this world.”

  Christa shook her head, tears burning at the back of her eyes. She laid a hand on Kelena’s bloodied midriff, attempting to fill the fae with her light, to mend her torn skin and replace the blood she had lost. It was too late. Kelena’s body was already growing cold, the shimmering moonlight that had made her glow from
the inside petering away into the tarmac beneath her. Even her clothes, once wisps of intangible cloud, had become dull, pedestrian shadows of themselves. Christa climbed to her feet, one hand pressed to her mouth. She could hardly believe she had just witnessed the death of a fae, a magickally infused being with the power to move between realities. Dying here, on a dirty road in the middle of a bustling human city seemed so unbefitting. She didn’t notice Ramon at her side until he cried out in anguish, the flames bathing his body burning so hot and bright, the air around him flared with sparks. He knelt beside Kelena and lifted a shaking hand to her face, closing her eyes.

  “I am sorry, my sister,” he said. “I have failed you.”

  “No you haven’t,” Christa said. “Not yet, anyway. We’ll only fail her if we let Bredia walk free.” She turned back towards the bridge, her mouth set in a grim line and her eyes dark with hate. At the far end, she could see Bredia making slow progress towards the other side of the river, surrounded by the few jinn who still breathed. “Stay here and root out any stragglers,” she told Ramon. “I’m going after Bredia.”

  Bredia had almost reached the end of the bridge by the time Christa caught up with her. The jinn leader stopped, taking a deep breath before turning around to face her. “I didn’t really think you’d let me leave,” she said. “You’re a very determined little rabbit.”

  “It’s a good quality to have when megalomaniac bitches are threatening to take over the planet.”

  “Yes,” said Bredia, obviously deciding to ignore this comment. “You are going to let me leave though, I have an insurance policy. A delicious insurance policy.”

  Christa stepped back, shocked when the group of jinn beside Bredia presented the prisoner they had been hiding between them. Dylan stared back at her, his bruised face twisted in disgust, embarrassed by his own capture. His clothes were thick with blood, his T-shirt ripped away to reveal his torso. With a sick, wrenching feeling, Christa realised his jinn stones had been dug out of him, his stomach torn apart by nails and teeth in order to reach the gleaming baubles beyond. Behind him was Lindy, her scarred, mutilated visage making her wide grin appear to split her face in two.

  “I can see why you usually wear a balaclava,” Christa said, swallowing back a sudden wave of nausea.

  “Don’t you think I’m pretty?” Lindy said. “I was considered attractive until your good friend Dylan decided to set me on fire.” She punched him hard in the back of the head and he grunted, sweat-soaked hair falling across his face. “We decided he no longer deserved his jinn stones. He’s a traitor. An impure, spineless coward.” Her hard, ruby-red eyes glittered, made huge and hideously mesmerising by her lack of eyelids.

  “Now,” said Bredia, clapping her hands, “we’re going to leave with Dylan. If you don’t let us go, my jinn will rip his head from his neck. Is that okay, little rabbit?”

  Christa slowly shook her head, her mind racing as she took in the predicament before her. She could reach out for Dylan and pull him free, but that would give Bredia an opportunity to escape. White hot fury swelled within her, swamping the sickly feelings of helplessness. It rose from the pit of her stomach and infused her being with something raw and primal; something that vibrated beneath the surface of her skin. Instead of trying to dampen the power coursing through her as she had in New York, Christa let it pour forth. It gushed from her in a torrent, lifting her from her feet to hover before Bredia and her minions, her eyes filled with the hard light of ancient amethysts. As Christa seethed and trembled, crackling with bright fae magick, she was surprised to see that the group on the bridge barely reacted. It dawned on her that she had stepped out of time, out of the world. The jinn were moving, but very slowly. Their thoughts and emotions drifted out of them, so plain and stark she might have been reading them from an autocue. She reached for Lindy first, slipping inside her head and spreading her will wide, searching for the very centre of her.

  “I was beautiful and strong. What am I now? I’m wrecked, ruined. I want to torture Dylan before I kill him. I want to string his guts around his neck and score his skin with flame.”

  Christa saw the woman she had been, a woman who loved to dance, who treasured friendship over material goods. She also saw the intense love she had for Bredia. It lived inside her like a burrowing snake that had wound around her soul and turned it black. Christa cast Lindy aside, splitting her essence asunder as she searched for the next jinn, the next twisted soul.

  “I love the feel of damp flesh in my mouth, it makes me feel so powerful. I want to live this way forever.”

  “I wish I’d never begged to have these stones put inside me. I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to die.”

  “Vampires make me sick. They drink blood straight from a person’s artery. It’s disgusting.”

  “What’s happening, now? Why don’t we just eat the witch? I hope I get to have a taste.”

  Each jinn fell before her, each soul was dissected and ripped apart. Finally, Christa turned to Bredia, spearing her thoughts with the force of a devastating javelin throw. She tore through the convoluted passages of the jinn leader’s mind, turning over and rejecting her madness, her need to be loved and feared in equal measure. Still, there was something hidden from her, something bristling with an ancient malice that Christa couldn’t quite grasp.

  “Get your filthy claws out of my head!”

  Bredia’s scream shattered Christa’s concentration. She fell forward onto her hands and knees, her head spinning as she was dragged back from the gleaming edge of reality. She looked up to see Darrell inching towards the jinn leader, taking his chance to reach Dylan and drag him to safety.

  “What do we have here?” Bredia said, turning to stare at him. Darrell froze, his eyes wide. “Another tricksy rabbit, trying to sneak up on Bredia? I just won’t have it. I’ll–” She paused, noticing the bodies littering the ground for the first time. “Get up, lazy bones,” she said, nudging a small blonde woman with her foot. The woman’s head rolled towards her, displaying a withered, blank face. “What’s happened here? You were all alive a minute ago.”

  Christa, Darrell and Dylan watched, hardly daring to breathe, as Bredia cast about for Lindy. She finally found her collapsed over the bodies of two of her companions. Bredia bent to turn the body over, her head cast at an angle, her forehead furrowed as if she couldn’t understand what she was seeing. “You’ve killed Lindy,” she said. She stood and turned amid the heap of sighing jinn bodies, their faces streaked with blood, livid in the glare of the sun setting over the river. “You’ve killed them all.” Then louder, her anger finally returning, “You’ve killed my beautiful jinn!”

  Bredia kicked several fallen bodies aside and charged at Christa, her long hair catching the wind and flying out behind her. As she advanced, she began to howl like an injured animal, her face lengthening and contorting. Her eyes blazed with brilliant white fire and her jaw curved outwards, creating a wolfish grimace and displaying a mouth stretched wide with rows of small, sharp teeth.

  Christa stared aghast, rooted to the spot as the slathering, wild-haired woman rushed at her. In the distance, Dylan finally collapsed with an angry cry, one hand clamped to his ruined stomach. As Bredia reached her, towering over her like a mutilated banshee, Christa braced herself and took a deep breath.

  “Bad rabbit!” Bredia screamed. Her tongue had become long and thin, flickering over her teeth like a riled snake.

  The jinn leader reached for her, hands curled into twisted talons, and Christa gripped her arms in an effort to block her. As they struggled together, each trying to bring the other to the ground, Christa focused her will and pushed it into Bredia’s mind. It felt like a beam of light emanating from the depth of her being, precise and searing as a laser scalpel. She sliced through the tangled cobwebs of Bredia’s psyche, blasting through all resistance until she found the hard, blackened centre of her; the coil of evil that had manifested itself as the hideous wolf-form grappling with her on the bridge. She tremble
d as she attempted to grasp it, to pry it loose and split it apart. Bredia screamed again and dug her nails into Christa’s arms, clawing at her skin. Christa gritted her teeth, refusing to relinquish her hold on the jinn leader’s rapidly dissolving mind. She mustered every ounce of the borrowed power drenching her senses, distilling it into a single point of devastating light that punctured Bredia’s warped core, injecting her darkness with pure magick. The clouded corridors of her brain began to pulse and glow, infected with the foreign light. Christa watched Bredia’s being start to shudder and splinter, pulling her will back before she could be sucked into the abyss with her.

  Bredia had released Christa’s arms, her own hands fallen slack at her sides. She looked straight ahead, her eyes dull and unseeing as they filled with rich, dark blood.

  “Christa,” Dylan called out, “here, take this.” He waved a short knife in the air, found amid the pile of twitching jinn bodies, and threw it across the ground.

  Christa watched it clatter towards her, coming to rest before her feet. Bredia was still dumbstruck and listless, her feral jaws hanging open. Briefly, she imagined sparing the woman’s life. Bredia presented little threat now. Her wits were scattered, her thoughts rambling and incoherent, torn asunder by Christa’s powerful magicks. Christa almost turned away, almost let her go, when Kelena’s face flashed into her mind, alien and faded in death.

  “You have to die,” she said, more to herself than to Bredia. “I have to finish this.”

  She swept the knife from the ground, wrapping her fingers tightly around the heavy plastic handle, and ran at Bredia, her eyes beginning to stream with tears. The jinn leader’s eyes didn’t snap to hers until the very last second, until the moment when the blade touched her chest and ploughed on to tear skin and tissue and finally her left lung. She seemed to understand what was happening in that moment, if only for an instant. Her mouth closed, strangling the sudden gurgling sound in the back of her throat, and her visage flickered, wavering between the feral mask and the beautiful fae she had once been. Christa drove the knife home with the last of her strength, finally forcing Bredia backwards, bucking and trembling, until her back hit the railings of the bridge and she toppled over, rolling twice in the air before crashing into the oily depths of the Thames.