Blood Passage

by Heather Demetrios

  Saranya swept back into the room. Her eyes were red, but she was otherwise composed.

  “Lunch is in the kitchen,” she said.

  “Can I—?” Tariq began, but one stern look from his mother silenced the boy.

  Tariq rolled his eyes and shuffled into the kitchen. Outside, an engine revved and honked once, then twice.

  “The guide is here,” Saranya said. “Tariq can give you some clothes and then I want you gone.” She stepped closer to Malek. “Never show your face here again.”

  “Why are you helping?”

  “I’m not helping you.” Saranya pointed to the door. “I’m helping her. Now get the hell out of my house.”

  The door opens. Just a slight push against the thick rug that covers the bedroom floor, but Nalia hears it. In seconds, she’s awake, her jade dagger clutched in her hand. The Three Widows beam their moonlight into the room so that it’s bright enough to see the shadow near the door.

  “I am awake and I am not afraid to kill,” Nalia says.

  This is a lie. She has just had to kill a boy and it has unmade her. She no longer knows who she is. Who the Aisouri are. But the intruder doesn’t need to know this. The elder Aisouri have turned the palace into a fortress since one of the servants slit his Aisouri lover’s throat in the middle of the night. Most likely a tavrai carrying out orders from the child general Raif Djan’Urbi. Nalia hasn’t slept well since.

  “Nalia-jai?” Bashil. His voice catches, as though he’s trying hard not to cry.

  She drops the dagger and pulls back her covers. “Laerta, gharoof. Laerta.”

  Come here, little rabbit.

  He pushes the door shut and walks slowly to her bed, sheepish. His tear-stained cheeks glimmer in the Three Widows’ light.

  “What happened?”

  She reaches down and helps him onto the bed. He is five summers old and is supposed to sleep in the dormitory with the other keftuhm. Nalia hates the word: blood waste. As if Bashil is worth nothing because he was not born a girl. As though any jinni not born a Ghan Aisouri is a waste of good royal blood and effort.

  “It happened again,” he says. Then promptly bursts into tears.

  “Shhhh.” Nalia holds him against her while he cries.

  He was dreaming of fire, of the flames the resistance touched to their father’s home and lands. He is dreaming of almost dying.

  “Gharoof, no one can hurt you here. That’s why you and Father have come to court. It’s the safest place in all of Arjinna.”

  He looks up at her, his eyes fountains that leak tiny streams. “Will you kill them, Nalia-jai? All the bad jinn—will you?”

  Nalia swallows. “I will kill anyone who tries to hurt you.”

  This is not a lie. She is afraid to kill, but not afraid to protect her brother.

  She reaches across him to the small table beside her bed and hands him the stone Thatur had given her years ago, when she, too, was a small, scared child. The calming spell worked into the stone was a subtle, yet effective, magic that had gotten her through the many trials of growing up Aisouri.

  “I think it’s time you had this,” she says.

  Bashil’s eyes grow wide. “Your worry stone? Really?”

  It is a flat piece of polished lapis lazuli from the Qaf Mountains, the size of a large coin. A groove has been worn into its center, large enough to rub his thumb over.

  “Yes,” she says. “It helped me so much that I don’t need it anymore. It will help you, too, I promise.”

  He rubs his tiny fingers over the gold-flecked stone.

  “Whenever you’re scared or worried,” she continues, “just rub this with your thumb and, I promise, you’ll feel a little better.”

  “I’ll keep it with me always,” Bashil says. He hides it in a little, defiant fist.

  “As you should.” Nalia smiles. “Now go to sleep. I’ll wake you before the dawn bell so Mother doesn’t find out you slept in here again.”

  Mehndal Aisouri’Taifyeh thinks Bashil makes her daughter soft, that love is a weakness. She is wrong. Nalia knows that love is strength. Her mother has never loved, so she doesn’t know this.

  Bashil kisses his sister’s cheek, then nestles against her, burrowing under the thick bedclothes. His skin is warm and smells of sugarberry soap.

  Nalia whispers a prayer over him as he falls asleep, asking Grathali, the Shaitan patron goddess, to protect her little golden-eyed brother. She falls asleep to the sound of his even breaths.

  17

  “I DIDN’T AGREE TO THIS.”

  Moustafa, their Dhoma guide, glared at the shrouded body Nalia had placed in the back of the battered SUV that would take them into the Sahara. He had the thick beard of the Dhoma men, but wore Western dress—a black leather jacket and Ray-Bans.

  Malek stepped closer to the guide and fixed his eyes on the jinni’s crimson ones. Though Moustafa was of the Ifrit caste, being a Dhoma meant that his allegiance was to his tribe, not his race. He knew that the guide would honor Saranya’s order to keep Nalia protected.

  “You will take us into the Sahara with this body and you won’t say another word about it.” He motioned to the driver’s-side door. “Yalla.”

  Let’s go.

  Moustafa blinked once, his eyes cloudy, then he nodded amiably and said in passable Arabic, “We should leave soon, my friend. Lots of traffic at this hour.”

  It was only early afternoon, but it was already the longest day of Malek’s life.

  Saranya was standing near the back door of the house with Nalia. She looked from Moustafa to Malek, eyes narrowed. She shook her head slightly, then hugged Nalia, whispering into her ear. Nalia nodded at whatever his sister-in-law said, then slipped into the backseat of the SUV. Beside her were bags of food and cases of water.

  “Buckle up, hayati. People don’t drive here as they do in Los Angeles.”

  She didn’t say a word. It was as though her body were a prison, hiding the Nalia he’d known in a cell so far away, so deep, that she might never resurface. He reached across her with the seatbelt and locked it into place. Then he gently tucked a blanket around her, to ward off the chill that the afternoon sun couldn’t dispel. She wore dark gray harem pants and a loose gray sweater: her mourning garments, the color of ash, as was the custom among the jinn.

  As he closed her door, Malek told himself he needed Nalia alive so that he could get the sigil. He tried to bring back the rage her betrayal had woken in him. But his wish seemed far away, a mirage on a distant horizon, and he couldn’t summon the anger. After Calar, it seemed silly to look too far ahead. What she had done to both of them made everything before seem petty, small. There was only now, only this.

  He turned to Saranya. “Thank you.”

  She pointed to the tinted window Nalia sat behind. “If it weren’t for her, I’d call the Ifrit myself.” A cold wind whipped up the street, howling. “And don’t hypersuade my driver again. He risks his life every day to help the jinn on the dark caravan. The last thing he needs is you in his head.”

  “Give me a little credit. I’m trying to save the last Ghan Aisouri’s life.”

  “Only because her life suits your needs.” Saranya stepped closer. “She doesn’t love you. Never will. Did it ever occur to you, Malek, that you can live forever and yet you have nothing to live for?”

  Malek watched his sister-in-law walk up the steps to her home, open the door, and close it to him forever.

  He stood there for a moment, staring at his brother’s home. Then he turned on his heel and got into the front seat of the SUV.

  “Bismillah,” Moustafa said, as he started the car.

  Instead of the pain he would normally feel at the word, Malek felt nothing. He checked the rearview mirror—Nalia hadn’t reacted at all. Strange. But perhaps because the word was used as a blessing for the trip and not to ward off jinn, it didn’t have the same effect as when the man in Marrakech had used it. This was a word where intention was everything. Malek had forgotten that many
of the Dhoma had abandoned the jinn gods in favor of Morocco’s Allah. He wondered if Moustafa was religious, or had simply adopted the Moroccan culture. With Dhoma, it was hard to tell. Either way, he was able to utter a bismillah without feeling pain or causing it to his fellow jinn.

  “Drive,” Malek said.

  It wasn’t long before they left the jinn souk behind and were speeding along the highway outside the medina’s thick wall, past pale yellow taxis and men riding donkeys. Before Malek and Nalia reached their destination, they had a mountain range to pass through and hundreds of miles of desert.

  And a body to burn.

  Malek glanced in the rearview mirror. “Nalia. Now might be a good time to elaborate a bit on what happened to Raif and Zanari.”

  “They’re gone.” Though her voice was dull, he saw the glint of pain in her eyes. There was clearly a story there.

  “Yes, I—I can see that. What I mean is, are they at the cave already?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He sighed. “Is there a way to find out if—”

  “Don’t worry, Malek, my brother might be dead, but you’ll get your precious fucking sigil.”

  He stopped asking questions after that.

  They sped past kasbahs and textile shops and tiny farms. Then through the winding Atlas Mountains, where Berber villages nestled against the steep mountainside. Patches of snow clung to the terrain and made the journey treacherous. At times they slowed to a crawl on the two-lane road, stuck behind a slow truck or one of the tourist vans. Twice, Moustafa stopped the car at one of the roadside cafes, where they’d get food and glasses of café au lait. Nalia stayed in the car.

  Evening fell as they entered the lush Drâa Valley, with its forests of palm trees harvested for dates, now just mere shadows caught in the SUV’s headlights. The occasional mosque or mud-brick home broke up the density of trees, but the roads were empty of people, save for the few bicyclists who hugged the sides.

  “We stop for the night,” Moustafa said, once they’d reached M’Hamid a few hours later, a small desert town nestled against the Sahara’s shore.

  It’d be no use pushing him. Malek knew the sand dunes would be impossible to navigate by night. He nodded.

  “You have a safe place for us to stay?” he asked.

  “Yes, but . . .” Moustafa’s eyes traveled to the back of the SUV, where Bashil’s body still lay. Nalia looked up.

  “He will be buried at sunset tomorrow,” she said. “It is our way. Do the Dhoma not keep the sacred rites?” Nalia’s voice had risen, each word drenched in grief. “Do you throw your dead to the dogs, then? Force their spirits to find the godlands on their own?”

  “Do as she says,” Malek said, his voice quiet.

  Moustafa sighed. “Shalinta,” he said. Forgive me. “Only it is not safe to draw attention to ourselves. The slave traders send their spies through these villages, looking for runaways from the dark caravan. They notice anything suspicious.”

  “I’ll worry about logistics,” Malek said. He could feel the gun in his waistband, once again full of bullets. “You drive. That’s what you’re paid for.”

  Moustafa sighed again, muttering to himself in Kada. His Arabic was good enough, but it was clear it was the driver’s second language. Like all jinn, Moustafa could speak each of Earth’s languages, but some—like Nalia—were better at it than others.

  A half hour later, they were ushered into a riad devoid of the elegance of their Marrakech lodgings. It catered to human travelers backpacking through the Sahara, adventurers ready to spend days under the harsh sun, then sleep beneath the stars. The rustic inn had an open-air plan, not much more than a collection of rooms that faced out onto a patio with a fire pit. Several people sat around the blaze, laughing and drinking mint tea. Malek noticed two jinn sitting among the humans, recognizable by their striking eyes. One male, one female. They had green eyes, like Raif and Zanari. Djan, then. They hugged their knees, their shoulders hunched forward, as if by curling their bodies they could protect themselves from the slave traders and their runners who scoured Earth, looking for escaped jinn. Their wrists were still bare, but the fear in their faces told their secret. Not his problem. One of them looked up, locking eyes with Malek. He looked away before the jinni could memorize his face.

  Still, Malek couldn’t shake the unease that had begun to settle into him. What would have happened between him and Nalia if he had freed her, been gentle?

  She would have run away.

  “Separate rooms,” Nalia said.

  Malek spoke in rapid Arabic to a turbaned man standing near the fire. As soon as their rooms were made available, Nalia brought Bashil inside, Malek shielding her with his body. She shut the door behind her without a word or glance in his direction.

  Malek didn’t know much about jinn death ceremonies, but he’d once been around when one of Saranya’s relatives had died. In addition to the ritual washing, one person had been chosen to sit by the deceased’s bedside, to, as they believed, keep the spirit company while they waited for the ceremony that would usher them into the godlands. Superstitious nonsense was what Malek thought it all was, but it’d been hard for him, knowing that Saranya had sat beside his brother as he made that journey. Enough, he thought. He had to rein in these thoughts of Amir before they drove him crazy. Usually he’d get drunk, but alcohol was difficult to find in Morocco, as were women he could spend the night with and easily discard the next morning.

  His stomach growled as he eyed the tagines in the small dining room nearby: mounds of couscous, vegetables, and meat in clay dishes. Malek signaled for the inn’s owner to bring him one, then pushed open the door of his own room. He only had a few hours until they needed to be back on the road, though he doubted sleep would come. Not this night.

  Malek thought he would feel relief—a sick relief, but relief nonetheless—if Saranya ever discovered the truth surrounding Amir’s death. But all he felt was a deep sadness and regret. Amir had been the only person who had given a damn about him.

  And I killed him.

  It had been a desperate arithmetic: as Malek’s power on Earth increased, so did his enemies. At the time, it had seemed like he’d had no choice. Pay the price for the amulet or face death, and soon. He’d bought Nalia from her slave trader just days after Amir had told Malek he never wanted to see him again. The rage Malek had felt at being abandoned after everything he’d done for his brother consumed his thoughts. Malek gave his Ifrit nature free reign, no longer bothering to control his darkest impulses. Still, almost as soon as Nalia granted him the amulet, Malek regretted it. But he couldn’t take it back. Not ten minutes after making the wish, Saranya called. He’d been too much of a coward to answer his phone. Deleted the message without listening to it, ignored every call, then finally changed his phone number.

  Now, all Malek had left was the sigil and the hope of what it could bring him. If he failed to get the ring before Raif, Malek didn’t know what he would do. He’d been banking on Nalia being forced to fight Raif, but she was certainly in no state to do that now. So what was his plan? Raif was probably in the cave this very minute, the ring as good as his. Saranya had been right: without the sigil, Malek had nothing to live for. With it, he could have everything he wanted. Even Nalia. He’d never force her to be with him, but she’d come around eventually. All he needed was time, and Malek had plenty of that.

  But there was no longer a thrill to the hunt. Just a bone-deep weariness and an ache that wouldn’t go away.

  Nalia sat in a hard-backed chair beside the bed where Bashil lay. She could imagine his face under the shroud, clean of the blood that had spilled from his eyes when Calar attacked him. Clean and pale and lifeless. The room smelled of frankincense, the scent of those hours in Saranya’s home, bathing Bashil’s body to prepare it for its final journey.

  She thought about nothing. Just stared at the tiny bundle of cloth that lay before her. Her thumb slid against the worry stone that she’d discovered in Bashil’s po
cket, just before she bathed him.

  I’ll keep it with me always, Bashil had said.

  “I’m so sorry, gharoof,” she whispered. She imagined him waiting in that shadowy place, alone and frightened. “Don’t be scared, little one. I’m here.” Tears streamed down her face. “You’ll be in the godlands soon.”

  I failed you, she thought.

  She rubbed the stone until her skin bled. Blood, blood, blood on her hands. The gods would never forgive her. She would never forgive herself.

  When the room turned from black to gray and the wail of the first prayer poured over her from a nearby mosque, Nalia rose from her chair and stepped outside. She knocked twice on Malek’s door. He opened it immediately.

  “Get Moustafa. It’s time,” she said.

  The drive into the desert was miserable. There was no road, no markers. Just endless sand. The SUV pushed over the dunes in jolting stops and starts that threw her body up every time they sped over a ridge. Nalia kept one hand on the door, one on Bashil. It was sick-making and the car was beginning to fill with a rotting, musty scent that reminded her of Haran.

  Moustafa jerked the wheel to the right, driving around a dune too steep for the SUV to roll over. He shifted into a lower gear and the wheels spun for a moment before finding purchase in the powdery sand.

  She turned around, her hands hovering above the shroud. Flowers. That was what Bashil needed. Nalia closed her eyes, but there was no answer in her body as she tried to summon her chiaan. She clenched her fists, unclenched them. Waited. It was as if she had been hollowed out, gutted so that every bit of chiaan had leaked away. Panic bloomed in her chest and Nalia tried to recall the last time she’d used her magic. All she could remember was pouring every ounce of her energy into Bashil and seeing her chiaan spill from his body onto the cold stone floor of the cell he’d been imprisoned in. Tears pricked her eyes.

  Nalia turned around. “Stop the car.”

  Moustafa looked to Malek, who gave a slight nod. “Do as she says.”