A Shade of Vampire 24: A Bridge of Stars (3 page)

A
fter the fae
, River and I had retreated, we waited about a mile away for the rest to emerge. In this flat landscape, we caught sight of them as soon as they climbed out from the trapdoor. We hurried over to them and bombarded them with questions.

As expected, all had not gone well in the meeting with Cyrus. Clearly, the Drizans had some kind of long-standing feud with the fae that Aisha didn’t know about. They seemed to despise them as much as they despised witches.

That meant we were back to square one. Our original plan. Although it could hardly be called a plan when none of us had a clue how to pull it off.

We traveled with the dragons back to the portal, remembering our promise to keep Aisha informed. Her mournful face lit up a little on spotting us approaching the abyss, and then a little more after we told her what had happened.

“So we need to rescue my family after all,” she murmured.

Since I had already suspected that the Drizans would not come through, I’d already been thinking ahead to our next step while the others met with Cyrus. I figured that, before anything else, I should assume my subtle form and try to get a better scope of the palace and locate the Nasiris. But first, I wanted to know as much as possible about the Drizans’ lair. The first question that sprang to my mind to ask Aisha was whether they had some kind of protective barrier over the palace, like The Oasis had, and like we had in The Shade. Aisha assured me that they didn’t, as it was a way of showing their dominance over all jinn tribes.

“Where do you think your family could be?” I asked next.

Aisha swallowed hard. “I hate to think… They could be kept in the prison on the lower floors, or they could be kept as servants on the higher floors.”

“Okay,” I said, clenching my jaw. “I’ll just have to look around. If I was invisible, would they have some other way of detecting me?”

Aisha looked uncertain, but replied, “I don’t think so. Not if you don’t make any noise, or do anything else to draw attention to yourself.”

River’s hold around my hand tightened. “Are you sure you’re going by yourself?” she asked me quietly. “Why don’t you take one of the other fae with you?”

“While we have no clear plan, it’s best only one person goes down there to scope the place out.” I kissed her cool cheek before turning to the rest of them, nodding grimly. “I’ll be careful.”

“Don’t you dare get caught, Ben,” Rose said sternly.

“Yeah…”

I drifted away from the group, flying over the sand, back in the direction of the Drizans’ palace. As much as I hated to, I willed my body to thin until I was invisible, feeling like a ghost again. I’d no idea how I’d even made the transformation, just as, now that I thought about it, I had no idea how I’d actually moved my old body. As a human or vampire, when I’d wanted to stretch out an arm, I would just stretch out an arm. Making myself invisible as a fae was no more difficult.

I soon approached the medallion entrance. Steeling myself, I sank down into the door and emerged on the other side in an eye-wateringly lavish entrance chamber studded with gems and diamonds whose total value—for all I knew—could have been hundreds of millions of dollars. As I continued my way into the Drizans’ palace, the senseless luxury only increased. I found myself wondering just how many other tribes they’d ransacked along the way to amass such riches.

I traveled slowly at first, careful to stop every time I saw a passing jinni and keep close to the wall until they passed. Then, after several minutes of navigating the corridors, which thankfully weren’t all that busy, I gained a little more confidence.

The Nasiris. Where are they?

I searched the entirety of the top floor, consisting mostly of communal areas, grand dining halls and sitting rooms, before descending to a more residential area on the level beneath. As I passed through gorgeous apartments, it was clear why the corridors hadn’t been crowded. It was night-time, and jinn apparently turned in just as humans did.

Finally, as I neared the second to last apartment on my level, I caught sight of a familiar face floating in my direction. Safi, if I remembered correctly. Aisha’s sister, and the cook whose bony meal River had upchucked.

She was trailing down the hallway toward me. Her youthful face looked tired and worn. She wore nothing but a red silken one-piece to cover her chest, while silver manacles hugged her wrists. Clasped in her hands was a golden tray holding a goblet filled with a deep purple liquid. And tattooed into her bare right arm was the emblem of a black scorpion.
How the tables have turned.

My first instinct was to speak to her, but I wasn’t confident enough that we wouldn’t be heard. I didn’t know who might be lurking around the corner. So I simply followed as she made her way down the corridor, then took a sharp left before turning into a doorway. She closed the door behind her and I slid through, even as I shuddered at the sensation. It reminded me horribly of being a ghost.

Emerging on the other side ahead of me, Safi traveled deeper into the apartment. She stopped outside a door and knocked.

“Enter,” a rumbling male voice called, and I could’ve sworn that her hands trembled.

She pushed the door open regardless and I followed close behind her before she could shut it on me.

She definitely shuddered now as she approached a king-sized bed, upon which lay a jinni who possessed all the overbearing features of a Drizan. He was bare-chested, his head leaning casually against the headboard. He looked over Safi with mild amusement before he reached out a hand to accept the goblet she’d bent down to offer him. He drank deep, and then, discarding the glass, pulled Safi into his bed and slid her next to him beneath the sheets.

I felt sick to my stomach. The worst part was feeling that I couldn’t do anything to help her. Blowing my cover now would be the most foolish thing I could do. It could be suicide for the two of us. I still didn’t know what these jinn were capable of, and other than the ability to switch between subtle and physical states, I didn’t even know what—if any other—powers I had.

I turned to leave. I had to keep searching for another Nasiri—one I would hopefully find on their own so I could talk to them.

If Safi was up in these higher levels, perhaps some of the others were too, and they hadn’t all been thrown in prison.

I roamed from chamber to chamber, coming across many more Drizans, before noticing my surroundings becoming even more lavish, barely an inch of the wall not covered with some kind of elaborate display of rubies and diamonds. Perhaps I was nearing the quarters of the royal family themselves.

My suspicion was confirmed on entering the largest, most breathtaking apartment I’d entered so far. I heard female voices drifting from one of the rooms.

“How could you, Cyrus?” They were giggling.

Following the voices, I entered a stately bedroom, where sprawled in the center of the bed was a man who lived up to every description I’d heard of Cyrus. He was a dark beast of a man. King of the Drizans… he certainly lived like one. He’d turned his quarters into a harem, with dozens of beautiful female jinn fawning over him.

Seeing all these women around him while he drew one in for a deep kiss every now and then, I still wasn’t sure how certain… bodily functions even worked with jinn, given that they had no lower half. I wasn’t left pondering the conundrum long, however, as I realized that one of the women surrounding Cyrus was none other than Nuriya. She’d been obscured from view by another jinni—who’d been leaning over to drop pomegranate seeds into Cyrus' mouth—but now I saw her, perched near the edge of the bed. Her wrists were manacled like Safi’s, only instead of silver, Nuriya’s cuffs were gold. The poor woman was dressed just as scantily as Safi was and, as striking as her face was, her eyes appeared dull, drained of life. She bore the same black scorpion tattoo on her arm.

Cyrus reached out a hand and planted it beside her on the mattress. Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed her indifference.

“What’s wrong now, Nuri?” Cyrus drawled, and I realized now that his eyes rolled slightly. He was intoxicated.

Ugh,
as my sister would say.

“Massage me,” he insisted, spreading out his palm. She eyed his hand with resignation before taking it between her fingers and kneading it.

I felt oddly protective of Nuriya—who, in spite of everything, had helped me during one of the darkest times of my life. My hands were itching to wallop the man with one of the burning torches that hung from his walls.

But, even as I clenched my fists, all I could do was leave. Again.

I still haven’t found a Nasiri on their own
… Maybe I really did need to go deeper for that.

After what felt like another quarter hour of roaming, I spied another female jinni who looked familiar to me, and who bore the scorpion tattoo. I’d seen her face somewhere around The Oasis, but had never spoken to her. Like Safi, her manacles were silver, and also like Safi, she appeared to be bringing something to her new master. She held a small pot of heavily scented ointment. Massage oil, no doubt. Since the corridor was empty and I was painfully aware of every minute I wasted in this place, this time I dared take a chance. I willed myself to solidify a little so that she could see me and planted myself in front of her. Her mouth hung open as she stared at me and I feared for a moment that she would drop the ointment.

She glanced up and down the corridor before hissing, “What are you doing here?”

At least she recognizes me.

“Trying to free you,” I whispered back. “You and your family.”

“It’s impossible,” she gasped, tears welling in her eyes. “We cannot leave this place.”

“What’s binding you?” I asked, staring at the chains. They held only her wrists, while the rest of her had free movement. But I’d already had first-hand experience of the power of jinn to imprison their slaves. It was no surprise as she glanced at her tattoo.

“We are bound by a curse… at least, those of us left.” A sob escaped her throat.

“What do you mean?”

She brushed her leaking eyes with the back of one hand. “Cyrus, he… he k-killed Bahir. In front of us. In front of Nuriya.”

Learning of Bahir’s demise came as a blow. I owed my life to that jinni.
Poor man.
I’d never even gotten a chance to thank him.

“I-I have to go,” the jinni breathed, glancing around anxiously and beginning to move away.

“Wait,” I whispered. “Are you really telling me there’s no way for you to escape? There must be some way.”

She cast one last fleeting glance at me, her eyes wide with fear. “There’s only one way to free us and that is… to slay Cyrus.”

After dropping that pile of bricks, she hurried away, leaving me staring after her.

Slay Cyrus.

Great.

R
eturning
to the others waiting by the portal, I explained to them what I’d learned from one of the female jinn, albeit leaving out the details about how the Nasiris’ family were being treated, for Aisha’s sake.

“So,” I concluded, “we need to kill Cyrus.”

My words were met with silence. Jeriad, disappointingly, didn’t have any advice to offer. Even Aisha had pursed her lips.

“Well?” I asked the shifter and the jinni. “Don’t you have any ideas?”

“He would kill you first,” Aisha said.

“But jinn
can
be killed?” I pressed.

“Of course they can be killed,” Aisha said, rolling her eyes as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. “They can be killed, just like any supernatural can be ended, but only while they are manifested in their physical forms. Flesh and bone. You could stab one in the chest, chop off the head; there are boundless options, but… Cyrus? Not only does he possess powers above all other jinn, his physical prowess is second to none.”

I paused, mulling over her words. “What if I just snuck up on him while he was asleep and slit his throat? That would kill him?”

“Yes,” Aisha said. “But I assure you, it would not be that simple.”

“It’s the same with ghouls,” Marcilla murmured behind me. “They can only be killed when they’re in their solid state.”

“So we need to pick a moment when Cyrus is in his solid state,” I said, thinking back to when I had seen him just now. At least his top half had been manifest—and seemed solid. The thought gave way to another question that had been at the back of my mind ever since I’d first laid eyes on jinn.

“Why are your bottom halves perpetually covered by mist?” I asked Aisha. “Or do you not have bottom halves?”

She sighed, glancing down at her own wispy lower body. “We do. But we keep them covered because, well, it’s just the way of the jinn. Tradition, if you like. We keep our lower half hidden from everyone but our sworn life partner. In most cases that means a husband or wife.”

I never would’ve guessed that was the reason. If chastity was their concern, I wondered why they could not just cover up with clothes, like humans did. But who was I to judge? “I see,” I said, my eyes roaming her smoky trail. “So you do have legs and feet, just like humans?”

“Uh-huh,” Aisha said.

“Okay.” My curiosity satisfied, I shook away the thought and turned my mind back to more important matters. “So I will need to follow Cyrus around and wait for him to turn his back, or something… I guess…” I was grasping at straws.

“Remember that you will also have to assume a solid form in order to kill his,” Aisha said. “And I suspect that, like jinn and ghoul, fae can also be killed in their physical bodies.”

That was something I had not even considered yet. Of course, I would need to be solid in order to assault him in the first place.

“Remember his superlative powers,” Aisha went on. “While you… well, to be honest, I don’t even know if fae have any powers. I don’t know much about them.”

That makes two of us.
I turned to Marcilla and raised a brow, hoping she might have something to add.

The werewolf-turned-fae shrugged. “I don’t know everything,” she replied.

I wished now that I had stopped to ask Sherus for more details about this body, but at the time, I’d simply been too elated to think straight. We all had.

I sat down at the edge of the crater, in front of River. She wrapped her arms around me, pulling her chest against my back, and I felt her lips press against me gently. Everyone else remained quiet. What could they say? All of us were in the dark. I covered my face with my hands and tried to think. The way my mind whirled with conflicting thoughts and ideas, it felt as though River was the only thing grounding me.

But a few minutes later, I had found my answer. As much as I loathed even considering it, there was only one clear next step on this path. Before attempting anything, we needed to learn more about Cyrus and his weaknesses. It would be foolish to try to murder him without doing so. There was a reason why he was so feared in the land of jinn. Neither I nor any of us could dive in blind.

This meant I had to pay yet another visit to the oracle. The same person who had caused me to almost lose my soul to The Underworld… yet to whom I also owed my escape, and this body I found myself in now.

But can I really stand facing that woman again?

I didn’t have the luxury of choice.