Exquisite Captive (26 page)

Oh my gods.

It was hypersuasion, a dark power the Ifrit had inherited from the shadow gods they cavorted with. Malek’s father must have possessed it, passing it down to his son through his blood and
chiaan
. And Malek clearly knew what he was doing—somehow along the way, he’d figured out how to hone his gift.
Of course,
Nalia thought.
That’s how Malek has become so rich and powerful.
He didn’t negotiate. He
told
the CEO’s and politicians what they were going to do, and they did it willingly. The wishes were just Malek’s way of keeping them silent about it once they’d woken up to what had happened.

“Good,” Malek said. Hypersuasion only worked through eye contact, but as Malek began to speak, it was clear all that mattered was that his victim saw
his
eyes; invisibility didn’t seem to be a problem. Once the initial eye contact was made, Malek needn’t maintain it—so long as he kept infusing his voice with his
chiaan
, the client would be malleable as wet clay. Of course, hypersuasion was exhausting. Malek would only be able to keep it up for a few minutes at most.

“Now walk over to the pool of water and kneel in front of it.”

“Why?” The client’s voice had a dazed, faraway quality, the echo of an internal struggle that he’d already given up. Nalia couldn’t see the client’s face, of course, but she imagined his eyes would have a glazed-over look, every inch of his being suddenly hanging on Malek’s every word. Tying his own noose.

“You don’t care why,” Malek murmured. “You want to go over there. You
need
to go over there.”

There was some shuffling as the client walked toward the water and Malek followed the sound. But before her master joined the client at the waterside, he crossed to Nalia and pulled her into his arms.

“Are you all right?” he whispered.

Nalia shook her head. “I just want to go,” she said softly, dread pooling in her stomach. “Malek, let’s just go. Please.”

He smiled down at her and kissed her forehead. “In a minute.”

Malek let her go, then went to stand beside the floating labyrinth. His hand seemed to pet the air and then grab something—Nalia guessed it was the client’s hair—and he leaned close to the space where the grass ended and the pool of water started. Malek’s eyes brightened as he held the client in his sway, red as the lava that flowed in Ithkar, but the rest of his face remained calm and resolute. Even as he strained to keep the client in control, his face betrayed not one hint of emotion.

“Touching her was your mistake,” Malek said.

Then he thrust his hand that gripped the client’s invisible hair toward the water. The man’s gagging and choking filled the air as he struggled against Malek’s iron grip.

“Malek! Stop.
Malek.
”

He glanced at her. “Look away,
hayati
.”

She opened her mouth to say something—she should stop him, this was brutal,
wrong
. But she couldn’t have this man stalking her, not with Haran on the loose and her brother’s life at stake.

Nalia looked away. She wondered if she would have, even if her master hadn’t commanded it.

I’m no better than him,
she thought. She’d killed. It didn’t matter that the Ghan Aisouri had made her do it. She’d felt a jinni’s
chiaan
wither and die under her hands, heard his last strangled gasp. He’d been her age. A revolutionary.
He could have been Raif,
she thought. Nalia’s body began to shake.

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 it was totally silent, she turned around. The client’s body was suddenly visible again, face down 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.

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.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

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 watch the crowds as they eat their tapas and gazpacho, their fingers ripe with the scent of Manchego cheese. 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. The streets are teeming with life, and 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. She’d see them and 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 Sagrada Familia, Gaudí’s famous cathedral.

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.

“Make yourself at home.”

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.

The Djan gets a faraway look in her eyes, and a soft smile plays on her 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.