Blood Ex Libris Read online

  That was not a smokeless fire.

  “Now, benim gözde yeniçeri, you know how to kill the people of the unclean clay. Now you are blooded in this battle, and you shall fight along with your Sultan, alongside your brothers and sisters, as we remove the infidels and prepare the world for the rule of Jinnestan!” As he spoke, he was less conversing with me and more addressing those around him, his voice rising so everyone could hear and revel as his inspiration washed over them.

  We were back to our regularly scheduled programming, and various jinn started coming up to Iblis and getting instructions in various languages. Utility vehicles and trucks headed out of the cave, loaded with sacks and crates and drums—distinctly military shapes, shapes of destruction and death.

  Iblis, now sporting his shades in the ever-brightening day, as were all the other jinn, went around directing the distribution and loading, giving off a buzz of supreme purposefulness and contentment. If ever anyone was in his element, it was the Insane Fucking Genie. Indeed, he seemed the least insane I’d ever seen him: focused, attentive, and decisive. Not like some caricature of psychosis, but like a real person, doing real things. Sadly, those things were going to be really bad things.

  I stood to the side as the piles of stuff in the cave grew less and less. Bat-Bitch had pointedly deputized a babysitter to stand beside me; it was Obizuth, and she did not speak to me, look at me, or even try to sniff me. I realized I had forgotten all about Bghilt. So probably had Iblis, and possibly the Qarînah, but Obizuth had not. She’d lost a friend—possibly a friend of many years, decades, centuries—and it was all my fault. Indeed, I’d been caught conspiring with her killer, the smell of his blood running through my veins, and while her Sultan might have decided I’d just started the battle early due to overeagerness for slaughter and mayhem, she either didn’t buy it or didn’t care. She’d lost her friend.

  Right this moment, I am wearing the clothes she loaned me.

  I looked around uncomfortably. I did not like how easygoing about death New Noosh™ had become. Bghilt had been a person, even if she also was a vampire who had been tricked by a cult of personality into thinking she was a jinnī. And Neplach was...well, my uncle in a strange sort of way, and someone I’d kind of already loved. And here I was, not having a screaming meltdown, which I think would have been proof of my mental health.

  I could say I hadn’t had time to process the information, but I’d had more than enough time sitting around twiddling my thumbs during travel or while locked in a cell. I could try to blame Neplach’s wise, tranquil blood flowing through me, changing me, but it didn’t work well as an excuse for everything that had come before. Maybe Vlad’s blood had changed me in deeper ways than I’d realized.

  Maybe, maybe. Maybe I just needed to stop looking for excuses.

  If I was becoming a monster, well, I was going to be keeping company with monsters from now on. Until it was my cause of death, and then my cause of death again.

  I realized I’d been staring at something without actually seeing it while thinking. Stacked against a cave wall was a pile of bodies. Since they hadn’t been decapitated or burned to cinders, they were human bodies. I realized they were the remains of the pre-battle feast: the drumstick bones, the grape stems and pips, the apple cores, the rejected crusts, the empty cups with the dregs dried at the bottom.

  I stared at the feet and legs, arms with strangely vulnerable flopped hands, sides of bodies with breasts and genitals carelessly exposed. Just left there, immodesty no longer an issue, the way remaining grape stems do not offend.

  I felt nothing, just an absence of feeling what-I-ought-to-have-been-feeling.

  Maybe someday I’ll get time to mourn my humanity.

  Obizuth and I continued to stand there and still did not speak.

  After a while, the activity started to die down. The Mad Genie worked his way back to me, pep-talking, pressing the flesh, and up-psyching the whole way. Once he got to me, he smiled, a terrifying combination of clear focus and glittering madness, and said, “Naz hanım, benim kadın savaşçı, gözde yeniçeri, you will bring a thrill to my Shad-u-kam. I wonder, are we ready for you? As we construct Jinnestan in this world, you will blend the old knowledge with the new. I have remade you from the fuel of my foe into the jewel of my Juherabad! You will provide inspiration to me as I provide the suspiration of the smokeless fire to all my people!” He pulled me over to the bed of a truck, gave me a hand up to join him, and, raising his voice only a little, cried, “Cinlerim!”

  I always seemed to be his focal point for speechifying, and now was no exception. He was obviously doing it in English to include me. I wished this was a movie and someone would use his monologuing to foil Iblis’ evil plans and bring closer my happily-ever-after ending, but the oration droned on. I looked around.

  And saw a spike attached where the side mirror met the door on the driver’s side of the truck. It had a...head stuck on the end of it, and even from the back, I knew perfectly well whose head it was—my dear strýc, my Neplach. Now that I was looking, I realized the scent of his drying blood had drawn my eyes that way.

  Rage rushed through me, but what could I do? If I jumped Iblis with intent to shut him up for all time, he would incapacitate me as easily as Neplach had done to Bghilt. More easily even, for she was full am’r, and I only am’r-nafsh. He would drain me of blood, probably while raping me, and maybe, to add insult to injury, do another damn speech before he chopped off my head and set me alight. If that killed full am’r, it would certainly do the job on me. Anyway, it wasn’t the Disney ending I was hoping for, so I set it aside and listened because I had nothing else to do.

  “...this is what we have been waiting for! Now, we the people of the fire, will cleanse with fire those unbelievers who would deny us our heritage and our future!

  “I say ‘our future,’ for once we have removed those who would place a block across our path, the world will be ours for the remaking! Allah created the jinn before Adam. In the words of my past self did I tell Him, ‘I am better than Adam: Thou didst create me from fire, and him from clay.’ Those who would defy us, who would resist our manifest destiny, they are worse than clay, for they are made of the mud of the mausoleum. They are the dust of the tomb! They think their greater numbers will overwhelm us and end our future before it begins, but as infidels, they do not see the greatness of the cause. The greatness that derives from following the truth will overwhelm his greatness of numbers! Our every jinnī will be as one hundred of their am’r!” He spat to demonstrate how bad the word tasted in his mouth.

  “And once they are gone, once we have brought to our side those who would be our brothers and have cut down those who would be our enemies, our next step shall be to take our place over the sons of clay who believe they rule the world. Allah created us first of a purer material. How could we not be set above creatures of dirt, of flesh that decays, of years so short and meaningless? No, I know I speak to your hearts when I say that Jinnestan is our future, and our future is the future of the whole world!

  “We are not only smokeless fire, but we have also hidden from mortal sight! Now, however, there will be much smoke—for clay does smoke when you burn it!—and we will be in hiding no longer! We will step forward and take what is ours by right, and our enemies will perish in the fire as we reshape the world!

  “And now we go to fight our first battle, savaşçılarım. Together, we strike our first blow. I know that each of you has ached for this moment, and it is here! Follow me, my jinn, and with me start the fire. Our fire!”

  He made a dramatic leap from the back of the truck and raised a chivalrous hand to help me, his trophy, down. That was the moment where it crystallized for me that while I loved the idea of being Super-Librarian to the am’r, I hated every minute of being the Mad Genie’s propaganda pin-up.

  Not much I can do about it, I thought as I was escorted showily around to the cab of the truck, had the door opened for me, and was lifted into my seat.


  Yeah, I really, really hate this.

  Iblis climbed up on his side, stood looking out over the hood—Neplach’s head beside him—and shouted, “Cinlerim! Gidelim!” The jinn cheered, ululated, and chanted things in their various languages, and he slid down bonelessly into his seat, his body almost vibrating with pleasure. “We go!” he announced with the enthusiasm of a young boy playing his first wargame. Off we went. I saw a pair of sunglasses clipped to the sun visor and scrambled with awkward haste to get them over my eyes. It was only after they were on that I realized what a pounding headache I had.

  Well, if anyone ever had an excuse for a headache, I think I did. Unfortunately, it was probably not due so much to grief and unrelenting, impotent rage as it was to the nice sunny day.

  Happily, vampires’ cars—and jinns’ cars, as well, fancy that!—always had extra shades in them. As I gratefully closed my eyes behind the protective darkening, Iblis pulled out, leading the convoy of jinn heading out to their holy war.

  Being the Mad Genie, he was already talking to me again. In annoying contrast to Sandu, he was, as always, ready and willing to share with me. I tried to push aside the headache and the hatred pounding behind my eyes and listen. “The Gâvur, he hides from truth and fire under this desert. We go to burn him and all the unbelievers out like the vermin they are. He is there now. Kazıklı bey also is in the stronghold of his patar, and—”

  “They are here? How do you know? And why are they here?”

  “Yes, they are both here, with many blind followers. We bring illumination to them!” He paused to laugh uproariously at his own joke. “I know this because not all blindly follow the Gâvur, and not all are happy to submit to his beloved henchman. As for why they are here, they are here for you, sevgili! Kazıklı bey wants you back, and he has brought his patar and many am’r with him to have you back at his side, believing his lies and using you to sell them to the other am’r. This is the Gâvur’s oldest stronghold, and they are planning your abduction.”

  Well, Iblis might be your madder sort of hatter, but I had to assume he knew a thing or two about getting intel on his enemies.

  It’s certainly more than I know, but then again, when is that anything new?

  The Nose was running off at the mouth again, and I strained to shut off my brain and listen.

  “Sabır acıdır, meyvesi tatlıdır! That means, ‘Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet!’ He was not the greatest of my enemies, but I have waited a long, long time to end him, that he may never rise again! But first, I hope to destroy the Gâvur and see the anguish on Kazıklı bey’s face!

  “It may take a little while to wipe out all the gizli yılan, but tonight is the stroke of their defeat, and if they afterward are like a headless chicken that does not know it is dead, peki, hunting them down and killing them all will entertain us. Ah! There goes Aşmedai...” A few vehicles had broken off from the convoy and headed off at a right angle. As more did the same in other directions, he continued, “Now, Asoom bin Jan-Tarnushi...and there, Malik al-Sahabi Maimun with his jinn. They go now to the farthest points.”

  But I wanted to know details, in case at the eleventh hour, I could do something to help someone somewhere somehow.

  “So, how will you accomplish our great victory?”

  “Peki, Naz hanım, it reminds me of my conquest of Konstantiniye! But this time, I do not have my Orban with me.” He sighed in deep nostalgia. “Indeed, I do not have the full might of the empire behind me this time. I must build Jinnestan from the ground up as they say, and right now, I must start from under the ground, hehehe! But times have changed. This time I do not bring great and imposing war machines to batter walls of stone and walls of faith. No, my weapons this time are subtlety, up to a point, hehehe! They will not be at all subtle once my battle begins!

  “My jinn will go to all the doorways leading to the Gâvur’s sanctuary, which he thought hidden. They will find the guards killed already by those inside who are loyal to me. Those entrances, as far inside as is possible, keeping the element of surprise, will be loaded with all the components to create vast destruction: little mountains of high explosives in each location. While our enemy sleeps for the day, we bring our fire to him! Before sunset, all will be ready.

  “Then we shall let them know the war has begun: we shall fire Shmels into each entrance. The initial blasts will be terrible in those confined spaces and will set off more explosives in waves, as far as each team has been able to penetrate. I expect many deaths from this stage of my attack—”

  “Wait, just from the explosions, or from the fire?”

  “Sen kana susamış konum! Your thirst for blood and death delights me, sevgili.” He chuckled in a paternalistic way that made my teeth grate.

  Oh, yeah: I do want to know how to kill am’r, but mostly am’r who called themselves genies—and two in particular.

  “Explosions alone might not kill them unless you obliterate both the head and the heart within the chest. From that injury, they will not be able to heal. Of course, if you burn him until he is nothing but ash—if you make clay into dust—he will not rise again, as you have seen. But if the injury is not severe enough, they may reform. Regenerate, in time.

  “If the blast of my wrath allows any to escape from the exits, there will be jinn waiting with flamethrowers, and of course, their blades!

  “My jinn shall go into the caves after all it is all over and burn anything not destroyed already—and will look for survivors with some fight in them as well! I do not know how many foes will be left to give my jinn exercise. I hope there will be some, for they are eager for battle, and I would not deny it to them!

  “And in the glow of the embers, our enemies burnt to ash and blowing away in the scorching wind of our victory, I shall take you, Naz hanım, and make you mine—one of my people of the fire!”

  Ah. So that was the battle plan. Big bada-booms, bonus pyromania, some fun genie-on-vampire violence if enough ambulatory enemies could be found for satisfaction, and then a fiery consummation and embracing of the Dark Side in the smoldering rubble. Good times!

  I could tell from the quality of the silence that he was waiting for my response. “It’s...almost too much for me to contemplate, my Sultan. This day, um, will change everything.”

  “That is true, tatlım. Today I change the world, and you have the honor to be at my side for it. You will record it all for the archives you shall keep. You are my Kritobulos for these times!”

  Whatever that means. Lucky, lucky me.

  Perhaps there was luck of some sort because we finally arrived at our destination. It was a carefully hidden crack in an outcrop of rock, camouflaged by strategic plantings of those funny bush-trees. I’d never have found it on my own.

  A couple jinn came over to Iblis, and after a while, I understood they were doing final testing of communications via satellite phone and handheld transceivers, which included a lot of reputations of “Tamam, anlaşıldı!”

  Some vehicles had pulled up around us. Others had broken away and headed out to other entrances to Bagamil’s underground citadel. Here, minion-jinn scurried like ants—deadly, silent ants. First they checked the entrance, and once it was deemed clear, they lifted and carried their heavy loads without any more sound than the wind was making across the sand and through the bushy trees, taking the white sacks, the drums of kerosene, and other accessories of mass destruction down into the crack. The only sound I’d heard the whole time was the creak of the tires on sand as we drove up. I hoped they were making more noise putting things down inside the cave. Maybe it might, I dunno, echo a bit? But what good was it hoping? Maybe now I can make my dramatic escape?

  I looked around. No one seemed to be paying any attention to me. Maybe if I picked up one of those smaller blue plastic containers or a box of the white sausages and helpfully carried it in, I could manage to get far enough in to make a run for it.

  I walked over to the next truck since the one we’d arrived in had only the bi
g black drums. Here were a couple perfectly convenient blue cans, and I could totally carry one in each hand—

  “What are you doing, Naz hanım?” Only one person could make my genie pet name sound so scornful; only one person could make her hatred of me crystal-clear through otherwise innocent words. I turned to face Bat-Bitch.

  “I am helping, Shaqîqah. I hope I am allowed to assist in these final, vital moments?”

  “You may help, little traitor. You may help indeed! I will set you alight and use you to ignite the first fire!”

  I started to see red. No, I didn’t start to see red: everything was boiling red. The anger I’d discovered in myself when Neplach was taken had never left me. It had been simmering inside me, waiting for the right moment. Or for Bat-Bitch.

  “I do not have to take this treatment from you, O Qarînah.” I put as much disrespectful mockery into her title as possible. “Your Sultan and master has told you that more than once. Will you disobey him? What does he do to people who disobey him, I wonder? So get out of my way and let me do my part for our cause. Don’t try to hog all the glory! I’m going to prove myself to Iblis. I don’t care about what you think!” I grabbed both cans and tried to swing them as effortlessly as an am’r would.

  I did not see her move, but she was in my face before I could blink. Bad planning on my part; I was committed to holding up heavy oil cans in both hands. I wondered if I could get enough momentum up to smash her head in with them before she killed me painfully. Probably not.

  “Ya sharmouta!” Bat-Bitch was so livid she forgot English. She followed up the first obvious insult with a flow of what sounded like particularly nasty things in Arabic. Despite the language barrier, I felt I understood her. She didn’t care anymore what Iblis wanted. She was going to deal with me here and now, consequences be damned. I understood because I felt the same way. It was the only thing she and I had ever had in common.