Exquisite Captive (11 page)

The Djan continues on her way, following the dark waters of the Neva. It laps at the concrete wall that contains it, hungry. Soon, it will be frozen over and humans will dance on the ice, wearing shoes with sharp daggers attached to the bottoms. The Djan has always wanted to try it and maybe this year she will.

She’s halfway down Nevsky Prospekt when she hears a woman’s scream come from a darkened alley to her left.

Fire and blood,
she thinks.

She’s only a Djan, but she has enough magic to take on a few human attackers, even if they are probably Russian thugs twice her size. She hopes her master won’t put her in the bottle as a punishment for being late. The Djan slips into the alley, her body turning to shadow as she wills herself to become invisible. The only light in the alley comes from a window high above it. As she draws closer to the hunched figure on the ground, a shower of goose bumps covers the Djan’s skin. There’s another jinni close by. Very close.

A match flares and the shadow on the ground stands up and turns around—a pretty face and bright blue eyes surrounded by feathery darkness. The Marid jinni smiles at the Djan, aware of her even though she’s invisible, and the Djan sheds her invisibility like an old coat, stepping out of the shadows. Blue eyes look across the flame at her and a relieved smile breaks out on the Djan’s face.

“Privet,”
the blue-eyed Marid says in Russian.
Hello.

“Jahal’alund,”
the Djan says, using the traditional jinn greeting: gods be with you. It’s not often she gets to speak Kada on Earth. “Are you all right? I heard a scream—”

The Marid lights a cigarette and waves a hand in the air. “Yes, thank you. They stole the jinni’s bag, but at least the jinni has her cigarettes.”

The Djan looks around the deserted alley.
“They?”

The Marid draws closer and as she does, a slight breeze sends a sour, rank stench toward the Djan.

“Gods, what’s that smell?” says the Djan.

The Marid takes a long drag of her cigarette. She wears a pair of jade shackles, like a Chinese human. “The jinni doesn’t smell anything unusual.”

The Djan pulls her coat tighter around her thin body. “Well, I guess this is an alley,” she says, eyeing a nearby dumpster. “Probably just some old cabbage or sausages.”

“
Da
, the jinni is sure that’s what it is.”

The hairs on the back of the Djan’s neck rise up. Something isn’t right. It isn’t just this jinni’s strange way of speaking—Earth had made eccentrics of them all. But the night has suddenly become dangerous, as though it wears a cloak of raven’s wings, and the Djan knows in the very core of her being that she is no longer safe. She has to get away.

Now.

“Well, my master’s waiting.
Dasvidanya
. . .”

The Marid’s eyes glow. “What’s that on your face—that dark spot on your cheek?”

The Djan blushes and rubs her birthmark self-consciously. “Nothing.”

The Marid draws closer, studying the Djan’s face for a long moment. The Djan, for her part, doesn’t move. She stares, transfixed, as the Marid’s eyes turn a bright shade of red.

The moon comes out, its cold light filtering past the tall apartment buildings that border the alley. It falls on the Marid and, instantly, the Djan sees the ghoul hiding underneath the Marid’s skin: massive, hulking, and corpselike. The Djan screams and the ghoul’s mouth widens while its borrowed features slip off. The long black hair becomes coarse strings, like oily weeds. The skin turns gray. The teeth. The
teeth
.

As the first notes of the Djan’s startled cry ring out, the monster slaps his hand over the Djan’s mouth, the force of his bony fingers pushing the Djan’s teeth into her lips. She tastes blood on her tongue, salty and warm.

“The Ghan Aisouri has been running from the Ifrit for a long time,” whispers her attacker.

“Ghan Aisouri?” she gasps, pushing the words through the hand that covers her mouth. “No, I’m—”

He bites her ear, just a nip, and she tries to fight him off, but her arms and hands suddenly feel heavy, as though they are encased in cement.

Understanding dawns as her frozen limbs refuse to move. She knows the stories told around peasant campfires. One bite and it’s over. The Djan realizes the ghoul can do whatever he wants to her and she will feel every inch of the countless miles of pain, but she won’t be able to move. Or scream.

Or cry.

The ghoul roughly pulls off the Djan’s clothes. Her leather gloves sit on top of the pile of clothing, as though he’s trying to keep them clean. She wants them back. Cold. She’s so cold. He looks down at her body and she hears his stomach growl.

As his poisonous teeth bite into her arm, the Djan’s
chiaan
becomes acid, burning through her veins. Her skin turns blue in the cold, but the small chunk out of her shoulder bleeds bright red. The ghoul chews. Swallows.

“The jinni is the wrong jinni,” he says. His voice is colder than the long Russian winters, when the snow tumbles from the sky and covers the whole world.

The ghoul’s eyes blaze and he utters guttural curses as he gnashes his teeth against her skin. Even after she loses consciousness, even after she dies, the ghoul fills his mouth with her. When he’s finished, all that is left are her bones.

They glisten in the moonlight, tiny drifts of snow in the darkness.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

CARAMEL CLOUDS LACED WITH ROSE AND LAVENDER
traveled across the Pacific as the dark blue of the sea turned a soft gray. A glimmering amber path from the east shot through the churning expanse, bathing Nalia’s bare feet in its warmth. She stood on the damp sand, her arms spread wide, a priestess come to pay homage to the newborn day. Gusts of wind swirled around her, and Nalia opened her mouth to taste its salt and melancholy, swallowing the listless dreams of humans from across the sea and drinking in the vast emptiness that throbbed against the shore. She shivered in the chill morning air as the wind held her in its salt-tinged embrace. A cleansing breeze from the south whipped by her and peeled away the long sleepless night, and the next wave that crashed on the shore sent its spray to wash Malek’s scent off her skin.

“Shundai,”
she whispered to Grathali, goddess of the wind, and Lathor, goddess of water.
Thank you.

El Matador Beach was Nalia’s for the next few hours, the perfect location for her dawn training. Its remote location—accessible only from a steep staircase cut into the side of a cliff—dissuaded Malibu’s usual morning traffic, and its scattering of large rocks made it dangerous for surfers. To further discourage curious dog walkers and shell collectors, Nalia had created a simple illusion: though the tide had already gone out, it appeared to anyone gazing down from the cliff’s top that the sea still covered the pristine beach. Illusions such as these fed on her energy, but only a little. The daily effort to keep her tattoos and the true violet color of her eyes and smoke hidden required a constant trickle of
chiaan
, not enough to affect her powers but sufficiently taxing over time. These mornings spent greeting the dawn replenished that energy.

Nalia stood in the very center of the beach. To her right, the hill above her jutted out into the sea, blocking her view of the coast as it zigzagged north toward San Francisco. Mist still blanketed the area, setting a protective shroud over the beach and clear waters that hugged its shore. To her left, a huge rock with a natural arch towered over her, its top invisible in the fog; through the arch Nalia could see the other side of the beach and the ocean beyond it. The tiny strip of sand had come to feel like a second home to her, a private sanctuary far from Malek. The exercises she performed there were an offering to the gods and a requiem for the slain Ghan Aisouri.
Sha’a Rho
was an ancient martial art; only the royal knights of Arjinna and their gryphon trainers knew its secrets. The graceful movements harnessed energy, connecting body, mind, and
chiaan
in each slice, kick, and flip through the air. The series of poses anchored her magical and defensive abilities, the only way to access her
chiaan
with control and intention. Without it, she would be as wild as the elements she served.

Nalia smiled. The magic burned inside her, stirred up by the wind’s energy and the power of the waves that crashed around her. She stepped away from the icy Pacific, then moved her arms into Dawn Greeter, the first of the thousand poses in
Sha’a Rho
. Her arms reached for the rising sun, her palms pushed outward as she slowly lifted her right leg behind her until the toe of her foot was pointed at the sky. Her entire awareness was focused on her breath and the feel of her
chiaan.
The magic tingled, as though warm spiced wine rippled though her veins. She held the position for one breath, then immediately shifted into Dancing Crow, the second pose. Legs spread, she pinwheeled her arms as she raised herself above the sand, channeling the wind to bring her body off of the ground so that she floated on its currents, her body parallel with the sand. Then she brought her knees to her chest, her fingers pointing away from her, like wings. She stayed suspended in the air for five breaths, then flipped once before landing back on the sand.

The sun rose as Nalia performed her ancient dance, each pose flowing without pause into the next. A thin sheen of sweat glistened on her skin, but her face remained relaxed, her eyes alert. It never failed to surprise her that she missed the dawn exercises in Arjinna, standing on the polished floor in the training room, one of many in the rows of Ghan Aisouri. Each morning had been an exhausting trial, a daily exercise in failing to reach perfection. The gryphons had towered over them, their eagle eyes aware of every mistake, every slip of focus. In the ocean’s tide on Earth, she could almost hear the soft swish of forty pairs of arms and legs moving in unison and the gentle padding of the gryphon’s lion paws as they made their way down the lines of knights. The waves bashing the boulders that broke through the ocean’s surface could easily be the harsh
smack
of the wooden pole the gryphons held in their claws, which they used to force a Ghan Aisouri’s leg or arm into perfect alignment. If she closed her eyes, she could almost smell the sweat and incense.

But here on the beach, without her Ghan Aisouri sisters or the watchful eyes of the gryphon trainers, it was as if Nalia were understanding the poses for the first time. Leaping Phoenix was not simply a forward jump followed by a three-hundred-sixty-degree spin—suddenly it was a way to surprise her brother’s guards as she stormed the work camp the Ifrit had imprisoned him in. Each thrust or chop or punch, every backbend, seemed to bring her closer to Bashil. Nalia lost herself in the movement, becoming each pose so that her
chiaan
could find its most direct path through her blood.

By the 715th position, Malek didn’t exist, Raif was a myth, and the bottle couldn’t hold her. She was Ghan Aisouri, protector of the realm, heir to the throne of Arjinna. She would save her brother and avenge the deaths of her mother, the empress, and the Ghan Aisouri who still hung from the palace’s front gates. She would kill Calar, the Ifrit usurper who now wore the Amethyst Crown, and destroy the monsters who had dared to enter the palace and defile her homeland with their dark magic. The
chiaan
grew within her, transporting Nalia into First Awareness, the state of mind in
Sha’a Rho
when the self has merged with the magic of the universe until they are one.

Thrust. Kick. Flip. Bend. Slice.

The thousandth pose: Faithful Warrior. Lying on the sand, palms up, Nalia closed her eyes to the brightening sky, took a deep breath, and held it, honoring the dead. Every inch of her skin tingled with the
chiaan
she had awakened, but she willed the magic to retreat deep inside her. Only when she began to slip out of consciousness did she take a breath, returning to herself and the world.

She sat on her knees and bowed low to the ground, pressing her forehead to the sand. She whispered her thanks to Tirgan, god of earth. Then she walked down to the water, setting her palms on the ocean’s frothy surface. Where her hands rested, the water lay still and silent. Again, she murmured words of gratitude, this time to Lathor, goddess of water. Then she lifted her palms to the sky, closing her eyes as the wind swirled around her. She once again honored Grathali, goddess of the wind. Finally, she walked to the far end of the beach and set a dry piece of driftwood in the sand, like a totem pole. She held her hands over the wood and
chiaan
burst from her fingers, a lightning bolt. The dry tinder turned blood red as the flames licked its surface. She gazed into the flames, chanting a last
sadr—
one of the hundreds of prayers in the
Halamsa
, the jinn holy book. This time the words were for Ravnir, god of fire.

Hopeful that the gods were satisfied with her humble offerings, Nalia focused on an image of Malek’s mansion, willing herself to evanesce. Moments later, all that was left of her on the beach was the burning piece of driftwood and a few small footprints in the sand. Then a wave crashed on the shore, hungrily claiming even those remnants of the jinni’s presence.

Hours later, as the sun’s parting rays glowed orange across her bedroom floor, igniting the blue velvet wallpaper and turning its fleurs-de-lis into glittering sapphires, Nalia lay curled on her bed, waiting for Malek to return home from his business meeting. She had no plan, other than to be with him as much as possible, waiting for the right opportunity to present itself.

Present itself for what, exactly?

She blushed, remembering his kiss from the night before. Shame and horror mingled with expectation, a promise inside her like a flower clenched in a fist. She couldn’t want that again, that fire that threatened to burn her up. She couldn’t. Not after everything he’d done to her, the agonizing years of servitude and his twisted ways of making her yield.