Blood Ex Libris Page 21

  “Look, they’ve been feeding me. Um, food, that is. I’m doing fine. But you’ll need blood for stamina in what’s to come, won’t you?”

  He paused, and I visually examined him: he was glowing. Full of health. Full of blood. What the… I tried to put aside all thoughts as they tried to crash into my mind and just wait for an answer.

  “I just, ei bine, drained an am’r. He was recently woken, one of the same vhoon-anghyaa as the ones who captured me. I needed to kill him since he was the guard of the ingress I used, and when one is on an errand where one’s best and fastest reactions are called for, it is foolish to pass up a chance to enhance one’s abilities. To—how to say it—fuel up.

  “However, your vhoon would indeed be best for me, draga mea. It would sustain me far better, make me stronger, and last longer. It would be optimal for me to drink from you now, and I want to. Oh, how I desire it! But I am not certain how you feel.”

  His eyes had a trapped animal look to them. He needed me to get it but was being careful of my fragile modern Western kee mores.

  I took a deep breath. “We haven’t talked about you drinking from anyone else and what it all means.” I added grimly, “There is too much we have not talked about!” I sighed and continued, “But I get it. It’s more than just sex or just food for you. And of course, you need to do what you need to do to keep you safest. That is the highest priority. But please, once we get out of this...” My voice trailed off because I honestly didn’t know how I wanted to finish the sentence.

  He looked relieved. “Do not worry, micuţo. I would rather your vhoon than anyone’s. And after this is over, we will have time to speak about everything—as much as you desire and need.”

  “Don’t make rash promises, Sandu! You don’t know how much I can and will want to talk about things! ‘Endless’ will be just a start!” He chuckled softly and I added, “But seriously, let me...sustain you before you go.”

  He pulled back to look into my eyes again. “You are the only one with whom I have ever had such a connection. We are not just lovers, not just patar and frithaputhra, but true partners. You nourish me with more than your vhoon, sufleţel.”

  He had said many marvelously romantic things to me, but this took the cake. Tears started down my face, and he reached out a finger and scooped up each, then licked them from his fingers. I turned my head, angling it to give him the best space to bite. His hand slid down, cupping my butt and pulling my whole body against him through the bars. His teeth slid into my skin, and there was the tang of pain, but under it was the deep throb of pleasure, as always. I couldn’t properly tell the two apart anymore, at least not with him. I pressed my neck to him, urged him on to more. I could feel the blood rushing out of me, and I wanted to feel every swallow he took. Who knew when we would have this again? I threw myself into savoring every sensation, cherishing the pain as I would cherish the pleasure.

  I could feel his cock hard against me, pressing into me much like the iron bars on either side. There was no time for such things right now, but it was good to know he was aching for it the way I was. I know an erection is not proof of love, but it was a comfort to my ego, considering I was only as well-washed as I could be from a bowl and wearing a shapeless sack of a kaftan.

  I don’t know how long he drank from me, but it seemed all too short a time when he stopped, tearing himself away with a growl. He tore a shallow cut on his wrist and applied a few drops of blood to my neck. “Vhoon-vaa: blood healing. Rub it in well.” He took his hand away, and I almost reached out after it. “I will come for you soon, dragă Noosh. It does not matter where—I will know where to find you and come for you as soon as I can.”

  He was gone so fast I could hardly see him leave, even with my enhanced senses. I put my fingers to what had been unusually large holes in my neck to finish rubbing in his blood and felt the wounds close. I felt a pang of sadness when my skin was smooth and unbroken again, with no tacky dried blood, as if it had just soaked in.

  The walls of my cell were pretty thick, but I heard muffled shouts and a crash. I hoped Sandu got away safely. I didn’t think he wouldn’t, but I could still worry, just for something to do.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I’d just sat down, awaiting the next development, when The Nose arrived, obviously in a hurry. One minute he wasn’t there and the next minute he was, looking intently through the bars of the cell at me. I took one look at his face and decided I needed to lead this mad horse to the right choice of water and fast.

  “Vlad came to steal me from you,” I told him.

  “Biliyorum. I would recognize his scent anywhere. He and some companions, all of whom I will recognize again,” he said in such a way as to make me shudder, “have made…have made a...commotion. We ended it. They got away with their lives, unfortunately, but I realized what Kazıklı bey wanted. He was here for you, of course. Did I not tell you that you are my best weapon against him?”

  Boy howdy, this fella knows how to make a gal feel loved for her own virtues and thus totally want to throw herself into helping his bizarre plan to become the craziest terrorist on the block! Squashing such thoughts, I said, “I told him I would not go with him. A woman cannot serve two masters. I know who I wish to serve.” I bowed before him. Nauseating and possibly a tad overdramatic, but Iblis ate it up because narcissism.

  “You are as wise as you are beautiful, güzelim. Seeing you at my side will convince many confused am’r to let go of hiding in the shadows and join us. And with your skills, we will build towers of knowledge such as we had back when I was Sultan and Caliph. I shall gather artists and scientists and build al-jinn universities and mosques that recognize our place between Allah and clay. I will be a patron again, sharing knowledge with my people. I will be Avni again, and you will collect my works. Naz hanım, your library will be in my main palace, and our palaces shall never be underground again!”

  His eyes glowed with triumph. He was celebrating the victory before his war had even properly begun. Well, all the easier for the am’r to take him down before he caused real damage, then. I tried to imagine the response of international human governments when faced with a terrorist who claimed to be a genie and who drank blood—and shuddered. When the scientists got their hands on this am’r jinnī, the real war would begin. What mortal human would be able to stomach not being top of the food chain? It hit me with a pang.

  I have just found this world, just joined this fantastic underground or species or family or order or phylum or whatever the am’r are and now this insane megalomaniac is going to destroy it all, starting with the one I’m just starting to love. No, it’s unfair! I’ll fight it tooth and claw, and since my teeth and claws aren’t sharp enough yet, I’ll fight with, I dunno, with wits and spying and disinformation, and anything and everything my feeble little am’r-nafsh self can pull off. Don’t piss off this librarian!

  “What would you like me to do, my Sultan? Start the library for you? I could start cataloging documents right away and making a list of what we will need for proper conservation and digital storage, and al-jinn computer network.” I had taken off in full omniscient librarian mode, which could usually intimidate even chemically-altered teenagers, but The Nose had other ideas. He interrupted me with a hand movement, waving away my uninteresting words.

  “There will be time for such things later. Now it is time for you to share yourself with me, Naz hanım. Time for you to become one of the people of the fire.”

  Oh. Shit. This was happening a lot faster than I thought. I’m going to need all my fighting with wits skills now.

  “But my Sultan, as you know deep in your heart, I am just as much a distraction as the library. In your wisdom, you know the time for that is not now, but at the moment when you celebrate your great victory. When you become Sultan and Caliph again! Until then, not only am I a distraction, but I have not proven myself as worthy of the fire in your blood.” I was betting the farm that there was no limit on how thick I could butter him up.


  This had better work, or I don’t know what I’m gonna do.

  I could see him considering my words. He was looking for an excuse to have a vampiric booty call, but I’d made some points that were pretty powerful to an egomaniacal, delusional narcissist. I pushed on.

  “In the highest moment of your victory, you will take your worst enemy’s frithaputhra to be yours, after she has proven herself by aiding your cause in every way and showing your jinn, um, adherents and, uh, subordinates that she has truly allied herself to you. Our enemies can only fail in the face of, um, the scorching truth you bring the world.”

  I paused. Blarney was not my natural medium, but I had to make this good.

  “In that final moment, you will seize it all, and, uh, we will drink from each other to toast your new world!” I ended my flow of bullshit panting, my heart pounding, feeling myself blushing from how embarrassing it was to say those simpering, ego-massaging words out loud. But this was a moment where there was a choice of dying of embarrassment or dying of much worse things.

  He stared at me, his strange eyes filled with the flames of madness and power lust and just plain lust-lust. I decided the best thing to do was kneel before him, and in bowing my head, keep my neck out of his view. Once down on my knees, I thought, This could totally fail. Even backfire. The Nose was irrational and unpredictable. Although I thought I had a certain understanding of the direction of his fanaticism by this point in time, I had no idea what I was doing. I was playing with smokeless fire.

  He left me down there for a few minutes. After I had become certain I’d failed utterly, he reached down to me, saying, “Rise, güzel danışman. Your wisdom may exceed even your beauty.” He pressed his lips to my palm, taking an extra moment to sniff it and to slowly lick his tongue up my hand, pulling away right before the wrist—and right before I broke and tried to snatch my hand away. “But you are right, Naz hanım. Our consummation is for the future, for the...yerine getirme of all our efforts, hehehe!”

  He still had my hand, and he led me from the cell. I have never been happier to leave a place in my life. We went down corridors of a different stone than in Sandu’s warren. Some areas were still raw stone, but as we got farther away from my cell, Ottoman ornateness began to show up, carved into the walls, with exotically curved doorways. I wondered if having a taste for blood also meant that you became a master stonemason, or if that was not the case, where they were getting people to carve these places. Probably better not to find out, considering what I knew from Vlad’s history. He had worked rival boyars to death to build a fortress after their families had all been impaled. Of course. Mehmet came from the same brutal time, and Vlad had learned plenty about violence in the court in which he had done a certain amount of growing up with Mehmet. Ugh. Better not to think too closely about the construction practices on any of these underground citadels.

  We finally came out in a counterpart to the Rave Cave in Dracula’s underground lair. It was a domed chamber, although this one had lots of colorful tilework and amazing hanging metal lamps. It also had the same design idea of “just add rugs,” and here, patterned throw pillows as well. Those were spread generously over sprawling sofas along the walls.

  These might be the bad guys, but I had to admit to liking the décor.

  Some of the male jinn were still in those perfect suits they had shown off at the am’r U.N., but others, in the comfort of lair-sweet-lair, were in robes or drapey trousers and vests. Most were bareheaded, but some wore embroidered caps. The suits were all in the basic black scheme, but those wearing traditional garb didn’t seem to feel any need to dress like an am’r. I guess being a jinnī opened up fashion choices to those who had long felt stifled by more gothic fashion dictates.

  There were female jinn here, too. They wore a variety of outfits, from tunics with wide trousers to kaftans. I did note that none were wearing headscarves or other coverings, but they were all quite modestly attired.

  “Naz hanım, these are my family, the ones who first understood we are the people of fire, not the night.” He turned from me and spread his arms wide. “My cinler, my jinn! This is your sister Naz hanım. You can tell she is not yet fully one of us, but you will accord her perfect respect. Anyone who fails shall answer to me. She will be our kütüphaneci, our storyteller and record keeper, who will give us back our stolen heritage and make it accessible to all who would learn the truth.”

  I wondered how crazy the rest of them were. That is, if there were any saner people in the room for whom bringing the girlfriend and blood donor of their leader’s biggest enemy into their secret hideaway and telling her their secret plans would be an issue. As the Mad Genie talked, I looked at their faces, but no one seemed the least bothered, and they gazed at me with curiosity and interest. Quite a bit of interest, in some cases—I made a mental note to avoid alone time with any of them.

  “And as you know, she was the chosen of Kazıklı bey. She has denied him—turned him away to join with us—and even now he is breaking, losing the faith of the gulyabani he leads for the Gâvur. Both Kazıklı bey and the Gâvur are weakening, and when we hit them with the final blow, those who once followed their lies will come to us eagerly and readily. Prepare yourselves; we are in the final steps to our magnificent conquest!”

  They cheered him loudly, a few ululating. Either they all had drunk the Kool-Aid—Blood Aid?—or else it was simply that anyone who wasn’t sure about this plan was at least sure they were not going to be the one who cheered the least. After The Nose had soaked up enough of their applause and praise, he gestured to a female jinnī, who came gracefully over to us. “Obizuth, prepare Naz hanım for our travel.”

  Thus far, my experiences of female jinn had not been overwhelmingly positive. But Obizuth had kind liquid brown eyes under lovely brown hair with golden highlights. “Come with me, sister,” she said, her accented English as thick and sweet as Turkish Delight. She led me out of the main room to a smaller version of the same thing, this one including a delightfully tinkling fountain.

  The women had all exited behind us from the main hall, so it was just us ladies now. I was introduced to Umaya, Bghilt, Haraja, Tab’a, Ferij, and Nadilla, all of whom seemed friendly enough, although they were all rather invade-y of personal space. Observation of their noses proved they were enjoying my special am’r-nafsh perfume. Apparently even jinn, despite definitely not being children of the night, enjoyed a good huff of am’r-nafsh. As long as they restricted themselves to wuffling the air, it was acceptable.

  It seemed they wanted my clothes off, too. I wasn’t sure if everyone stripping down was a direction in which I desired to go, but I had little control over the situation. It was explained as they crowded with me into the hammam.

  There was no relaxing for me in the steam room as I had done with Astryiah and Daciana—oh, ages ago, it now felt like. Remembering it almost felt like remembering my childhood, and thinking about life pre-Sandu was like trying to remember being in the womb before birth. I sat in a room full of naked apex predators, all of whom gazed through the steamy air at their deliciously-scented prey with gleaming eyes. The hot steam was wonderful on my skin and muscles, but I was overly aware that my sweat in this steam room was like a drug in a vaporizer—not a comfortable thought. I tried to appreciate the varied beauty of their shapes, glistening with sweat and steam, but I was too jittery.

  The thing which finally relaxed me a little came after conversation had finally, shyly, started up. “At least the Qarînah is not here!” said Nadilla, who was tiny with huge eyes, like a little brown deer.

  The gals all snickered, and I carefully mentioned, “I must admit, she and I got off to an, um, a not-great start.” Everyone laughed, and I laughed with them.

  “Oh, there is no good start, middle, or finish with the Qarînah!” said Haraja, who looked like I always imagined the goddess Hera would look.

  “Not as much Qarînah as Qybah!” spat Nadilla, and the laughter died nervously. Everyone tried to be casu
al, like they weren’t looking around in case the Qarînah was hiding in a steamy corner. I had no idea what that meant, but at least I was around people who held roughly the same feelings about Bat-Bitch as I did, which was a comfort. A very small comfort, but I’d take what I could get. Conversation restarted with discussions of packing and what everyone was going to wear. Since their outfits had all looked roughly the same to me, I would not have thought it would take terribly long to sort out, but it seemed the topic was virtually inexhaustible. It started in English, but soon was a cacophony of languages I couldn’t begin to understand—a moveable Babel that took us from the steam room to a room with another fountain and a cold plunge and followed us to a shared dressing room with a huge walk-in closet. The clothes were organized by sections, although how one could tell one section of black robe-y outfits from another was beyond me.

  The underclothing, however, was entirely individualistic, the commonality being it was all made more for the turning-on of lovers than for the comfort of the wearer. Under the somber black robes and dresses, the gals all wore the sexiest bits of lacy-trimmed sheerness money could buy.

  It turned out I’d been borrowing kaftans from everyone in my size without knowing it. Now, I was turned over to Obizuth for wardrobe, and she loaned me her sheer hot-pink underwire bra and matching thong. Bghilt was prevailed upon to loan me a long black-on-black embroidered sack-dress, which went over matching trousers. My boots were deemed clean enough for me to wear them; I was oddly but profoundly grateful to be wearing something which was mine and fit me, which was not likely with someone else’s shoes.

  Sweet little Nadilla, who seemed, from the reactions of gals around her to have the wickedest wit and dirtiest mouth, fell on my hair with cries of delight and took great pleasure in conditioning it and arranging my curls into perfectly shaped locks. She cooed over them and told me in English how jealous she was of my hair, then snapped a comeback in Arabic to another gal without missing a beat.