Exquisite Captive by Heather Demetrios
Beyond the grassy knoll that surrounded the garden, the Getty loomed. Nalia focused on its curved walls and warm stones while the client thrashed in the water. It took a long time for him to die. When there was finally silence, she turned around. The client’s body was suddenly visible again, facedown in the water. She recognized the blond hair. He was wearing a crumpled suit, and his hands floated in the water beside his head, as if he were about to swim. Nalia hugged her arms as she stared at the man who’d tried to kill her. One of her lotuses floated near his arm. She wondered if the murder had tainted the labyrinth’s magic. A soiled gift: that, she thought, was more in keeping with her time on Earth.
Malek stood up and shook the water off his hands, then he crossed to her without another look at the client. She stood still, watching her master’s face. There wasn’t a hint of remorse in it, but his eyes had grown soft as he took in her ripped dress and the dirty scratches that covered her cheek, the bruises that were already beginning to show. He slipped off his jacket and gently placed it around her shoulders, then drew her against him so that her head rested against his chest.
“It’s over now. We shouldn’t linger here,” he said, his voice soft, but firm.
Nalia couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop seeing that gun. The sense of powerlessness, of fear, lay heavy on her and she pressed herself against Malek. He’d just killed a man, and yet the only thing that made his heart speed up was her arms inching around his waist. She felt his lips against her hair. It felt good. And wrong. Hot and cold and what are you thinking?
She pulled away abruptly. He looked down at her, the mask he usually wore gone. All she could see was fear, worry, relief.
“I thought . . .” He shook his head. “When I saw the gun and you were on the ground . . .”
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
He cupped her face with his hands. “If he’d killed you . . . I think I would have burned the whole world down.”
Coming from his lips, it didn’t sound like an expression. Nalia could only imagine the kind of favors Malek could call in, should he want to.
She rested one of her hands on top of his. “We have to bury him,” she said.
“Can you make him invisible again so I can get the body to the car?”
“Let’s do it here.”
Nalia handed Malek his jacket and crossed to the gardens surrounding the labyrinth. She knelt down and touched her palms to the earth, then stood back and directed her chiaan toward the patch she’d chosen. Dirt flew to the sides as a deep hole formed. She left the dirt suspended and turned to the body. She reached out with her consciousness and directed it into the grave on a golden wave of chiaan. She couldn’t look at his face—she saw enough dead people in her dreams. When she heard the client fall to the ground, a flick of her wrist filled the grave with soft, dark earth. When it was finished, she eyed her work. There was no hint that the garden was anything more than it seemed.
“He had a driver,” she said. “He’s probably here, waiting.”
“I’ll take care of it. Go home—I can’t have people seeing you like this. Too many questions I don’t have time for.”
What did he mean, I’ll take care of it?
She hesitated, then nodded. “All right.”
Malek turned and strolled back to the museum, his jacket slung over his shoulder. As Nalia watched the darkness swallow him, she could just make out the faint sound of a whistled tune.
BARCELONA, SPAIN
LAS RAMBLAS TEEMS WITH LIFE. THOUSANDS OF partiers jam the pedestrian street, dancing to the infectious beats of the bands that march by. It’s three in the morning, but festivities are in full swing. Dancers hold aloft plastic cups filled with sangria; street artists grin at their jars and guitar cases and caps that overflow with euros. The few patrons left at outdoor cafés eat their tapas and gazpacho, their fingers ripe with the scent of Manchego cheese as they watch the crowds. The Spanish night is alive, electric in the sensual Mediterranean air. These are the hours for stolen kisses and limbs tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, sighs and whispers and broken promises.
The Shaitan jinni takes down the PALM READER sign, then stands up from her small card table and stretches. She rubs the goose bumps on her arms—there were signs in the water, in the lines on her customers’ hands, in her dreams. Something is coming. She hasn’t been able to see beyond the darkness this something brings with it, but whenever she’s felt its presence in the folds of time, she’s filled with an unshakeable sense of dread. She looks at the large mood ring on her finger. Its amber color hints at what the Shaitan already knows: she is unsettled, anxious about the whatever-it-is that pinches the night. Her rich golden eyes scan the crowd, but she knows it’s pointless. The evil coming to the city—coming for her—will not be in plain sight. She folds up her table and puts the sign in the battered leather purse she carries with her, then starts toward her cramped apartment. She longs to dance with the humans, pretend to be one of them for a while. But the jeweled shackles on her wrists aren’t pretty bracelets, and she’d see them if she raised her arms to the sky to pump her fists along with the music. Then her merriment would be exposed for what it is: a pretense. She is a slave, with no way home.
The Shaitan isn’t paying attention, and walks straight into someone. “Oh! Lo siento,” she says, apologizing.
“It is no problem,” says the girl in front of her. The green eyes give her away: a Djan.
They stand there for a moment, eyeing one another. Then the Shaitan smiles.
“Would you believe it? I’m a fortune teller, but I can’t see someone right in front of me,” says the Shaitan.
“Does the jinni need help with that?” The Djan points to the card table in the Shaitan’s arms.
“Oh, I’ve got it, thanks.” The hairs at the back of her neck prickle. The Shaitan takes another look at the Djan, but there’s a shout to her left as two drunken men begin fighting one another.
The Shaitan shakes her head, dismissing her nonsensical fear. Just because something dark is coming doesn’t mean it’s right around the corner.
“Does the Shaitan mind if the Djan walks with her?”
“No, of course not. It’s nice to have company on the Ramblas,” says the Shaitan.
They pass a man sitting on a fake toilet, reading a newspaper. His hair, skin, and clothes are covered in white paint. He is a silent statue, his only movement the occasional turn of a page or a raised eyebrow. The Shaitan throws a euro into his cap.
“Hasta mañana, Jorge,” she says. He grunts in reply and turns the page of his newspaper.
“The jinni has many friends in Barcelona?” asks the Djan. Her eyes stray to the light patch of skin that covers the Shaitan’s left eye.
The Shaitan stops for a moment, hoists the table a little higher in her arms, then continues walking. “A few. What about you?”
“Oh no. The jinni just arrived. She is from Cambodia.”
“Oh, nice. I went there years ago. My master likes to travel, so we went to Angkor Wat. Ever been to see the temples?”
The Djan smiles, touching the blue-and-white-checkered scarf around her neck. “Oh yes. It’s . . . delicious.”
“Delicious?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“I’m Jaffa, by the way,” says the Shaitan.
“The jinni’s name is . . . Harani,” says the Djan.
“How long have you been on Earth, Harani?”
“Just a few days.”
“Really?” The Shaitan’s eyes light up. “I’d love to hear the news. What’s going on with the Ifrit, the resistance . . .”
She points down a cobblestone side street. “I’m that building on the left. Do you want to come up? There’s a pretty decent view of Las Ramblas from my balcony. The partying will go on for hours, and I have a bottle of wine.”
“Yes. The jinni would like that very much.”
They walk down the street, past closed shops that sell Picasso prints and models of La S
The Shaitan leads the way up five flights of dimly lit stairs, then opens the door to a tiny apartment. The walls are bare, but colorful.
“It’s not much, but I’m planning on leaving as soon as my master makes his third wish. Gods, it smells terrible in here. I must have forgotten to take out the trash—sorry.”
The Shaitan crosses the living room and opens the French doors that lead out to her balcony. The joyful whoops and hollers below sweep into the room, along with the sweet sea breeze.
“Batai vita sonouq.” My home is yours.
The Shaitan leaves the room for a moment and the Djan stares after her and licks her lips. When the Shaitan returns, she’s holding a bottle of wine and two glasses.
“So, what’s happening with the war in Arjinna?” she asks.
A soft smile plays on the Djan’s face. “It’s going very well.”
The Shaitan passes the Djan a glass of wine, then holds hers up in a toast. “¡Viva la revolución!”
They drink, and the Shaitan points to the Djan’s shackles. “Being on Earth is hard at first, but you’ll get used to it. Just stay on your master’s good side. If it gets too difficult, there are always other jinn around that you can talk to.”
She puts her hand on the Djan’s shoulder and immediately, she’s filled with a vision of a moonlit temple and blood. She gasps.
The Djan narrows her eyes. “The jinni is a seer?”
The Shaitan backs away. She knows. How could she have invited the darkness into her home?
“Kind of. Just intuitive, really,” she says, her voice shaking. No one had ever guessed before. “Dreams, mostly—”
The Djan whips an arm out, reaching for her. The Shaitan throws her glass at the Djan, but it misses and hits the wall. The red wine splatters against it, like blood. Fresh blood.
The Djan lunges and grabs her by the shoulders, slamming her onto the ground. “Tell the jinni how your dreams work.”
The Shaitan tries to twist out of the Djan’s grip, but her hands are strong as iron. The Djan shakes her.
“Talk. Now.”
“When I dream, I can some—sometimes see the future or travel in other jinn’s dreams. Contact them or learn something about them through what I see.”
The Djan smiles, then grabs the Shaitan’s throat, squeezing. The Shaitan’s mood ring turns black as the terror within her seeps out of her skin and into the stone before the girl’s eyes roll to the back of her head and her skin turns blue.
The ghoul picks up his victim and sets her on the kitchen table. All pretense over, he shudders once, twice, then resumes his natural form, discarding his last victim as a snake sheds its skin.
After one bite, he knows she is not the jinni he seeks, but that doesn’t matter. He can’t believe his luck. The ghoul grabs a knife off the kitchen counter. By consuming this seer jinni, he will temporarily have access to her powers. Now it will be easy to draw out this little mouse that is so good at hiding from his teeth. His empress will be so pleased.
Soon, he will have the jinni backed up against a wall. Just as she was three years ago.
The bodies.
The blood.
The hunger.
17
NALIA SAT IN THE WINDOW SEAT OF HER BEDROOM, staring out at the garden below. Cowering like that in front of a human had been humiliating. How could she have the power to command the winds and grant wishes, but be unable to properly defend herself against one wishmaker? It didn’t matter that seeing the gun had paralyzed her with memories she had tried to lock away; Nalia had failed to fight with honor. She’d never be able to free her brother if the sight of a tiny gun completely unnerved her. The gods must have been playing a joke on the realm when she was the only Ghan Aisouri who survived.
“Stop it,” she hissed under her breath. “Stop shaking.”
Her body wouldn’t listen. She’d been huddled in a ball for the past hour, eyes wide. Instead of the roses outside her window, all she could see was the client’s body floating on the water. All she could feel was the barrel of his gun digging into her skull.
Stop it. Stop it.
The Ghan Aisouri would have called it justice. But it wasn’t. Murder? Self-defense. He’d wanted to kill her, she had to let him die. Her ribs and stomach were covered in bruises from the client’s beating—proof of his malice. She concentrated on the pain, punishing herself. She deserved it, these reminders of another death on her conscience. None of this would have happened if she hadn’t been so vindictive in her granting. She’d consigned the client to a life of invisibility, and for what? Because he was sexist and wore a big gold watch she didn’t like? Because he’d caught her on the wrong day? This was exactly why Raif hated the Ghan Aisouri; just because you had the power to do something didn’t mean you should. It felt as though every day she became more and more like her master.
The problem: Nalia didn’t know where the boundary between right and wrong was anymore. Nothing, nothing in her life made sense. Seeing Malek use a dark power had sent her over the edge. All this time, she’d been living with a pardjinn who could hypnotize people, make them do anything he wanted, and she’d had no idea. Nalia’s skin prickled. She rubbed at it, sickened. She’d seen how Malek’s power had affected the client, the complete willingness to do exactly as he said. Not just a slave, a mindless slave.
And Malek could try to do the same to her, if he wanted to.
The gryphons had trained Nalia to resist mental control, but that hadn’t helped her when the Ifrit prisoner read her mind. Nalia’s mental defenses were weak; she’d proven that already. Even so, she knew Malek hadn’t hypersuaded her. There were no gaps in her memory, no mysteries in her life. Malek didn’t need to hypersuade Nalia: their bind already forced her to obey his commands, whether she liked them or not. Nalia had fought her master every step of the way since the moment he’d bought her. So what was keeping him from simply pushing through the barriers in her mind until he found the soft, yielding part of her that would succumb to his hypersuasion? He must find the daily clash of their wills tiring. Nalia did few things for Malek without a fight. Yet he wasn’t using his power on her, she was sure of it.
Faqua celique, she thought, forcing herself to stand. Only the stars know. In human terms: get over it. Now that she was giving him every reason to think he had more than just a claim on her servitude, she hoped he wouldn’t feel the need to force her into anything. In some ways, she was more willing than ever to give him what he wanted.
Headlights swept across the room—Malek was home. Nalia pulled off the shreds of gauzy fabric that were all that remained of her dress and threw on a bathrobe, wincing at her sore muscles and the bruises. She had no doubt her master would want to see her before he went to bed. The night had grown cold and she closed the window, then sank back onto the window seat, waiting.
The client’s appearance at the Getty had ruined any hope Nalia had of retrieving her bottle tonight. After helping Malek murder an invisible stockbroker, strutting around in a bikini seemed in poor taste. More than that, Malek wouldn’t believe her for a second. Nalia had been too shaken up by what had happened at the Getty to act like they were still on a date. He’d know something was off. Once again, she needed a new plan.
“Come in,” she said, when she heard his knock on the door.
Malek, for once, looked exhausted. He wasn’t wearing his jacket, and for the first time she noticed the hole just under his ribs where the client’s bullet had torn through the fabric. There was just a little bit of dried blood, as though all he’d done was cut himself, and when Malek walked toward her, he limped slightly. Draega’s Amulet protected him from death, but being hurt was an entirely different matter. Nalia guessed a bullet to the stomach wasn’t something he’d recover from overnight, but her master behaved as though it were little more than a troublesome stitch in his side.
Malek’s eyes roved over her disheveled hair and dirty face. “I saw the light under
“I have a lot on my mind.”
How could he stand there, acting like nothing had happened? We killed someone, she thought. For Malek, it was just another day. There had been no question in his mind about how to deal with the client. No moral dilemma. And she’d just stood there and let it happen.
Malek looked at her for a long moment. “You did nothing wrong,” he said quietly. “I didn’t protect you as I should have. What happened tonight—it was my fault. He never should have been able to get that close to you.”
Nalia could feel her chiaan building with her anger, an inferno she wasn’t sure she could control. Faint wisps of golden smoke trailed from her fingertips. “I’ve already got one murder on my conscience, Malek. Any more and I swear to gods I’ll—”
“What? You didn’t kill him, Nalia, I did.”
“I wasn’t talking about him.”
It felt good to come right out and say it, to finally own what she’d done in a way she never had before.
Malek blinked. “You killed someone?” He sounded equal parts shocked and impressed.
Nalia nodded. She looked down at her hands, remembering how they’d glowed as her victim’s chiaan seeped out of his chest and across her palms, as if she were holding his soul. “He was . . . just a boy. A revolutionary in Arjinna. I’d been ordered to—” She stopped, took a breath. “It was my choice to do it.” She could have refused, told her mother it was wrong. Why hadn’t she? “What happened tonight—I don’t want any part of that, Malek.”
“Fair enough,” he said. He leaned against her bedpost, watching her. “I’ll never make you kill anyone, Nalia, I promise you that. Nor will I kill anyone in your presence—provided they aren’t actively trying to murder you. If that’s the case, then I apologize in advance, but I will rip his goddamn heart out if I have to.”