Demons

Demons 16 MINUTE READ

When it finally came down to it, the hardest part was pretending to be scared.

Najma knew something was happening when she heard a faint whistle and glanced up from her textbook at the café in Malek-Ashtar to find Anush sitting down across from her. Ahmad, Shahab, Mohsen, and several other trainees she half-recognized were positioned at different tables. Delta-5 never had so many of them together accidentally. She mulled over the information with a sip of hot coffee as Anush settled in with a campus newspaper and the same, childish knocking of feet they’d been doing since they first kissed at twelve.

He turned down a corner of his paper to wink at her with his milky-white eye and she slid her coffee towards him to share. He smiled as he flipped the corner of the paper back up. Najma felt familiar warmth.

Then the wailing demon blew out the windows.

Three civilians and one trainee died immediately, throats and arteries unluckily slit by flying glass. Najma hit the ground with everyone else, scanning for usable weapons and chemical materials. Anush flipped their table for cover and shouted for others to do the same. It took her a deplorable two minutes to remember to join the civilians in screaming.

Najma was still making herself scream when she came up from behind her overturned table with a mirror compact and a chef’s knife and joined her brothers and Anush in pushing the SCP back.

ORIA took thirteen minutes to deploy. By that time, the Bright Star trainees had balanced action and acting to contain the SCP while pretending to be horrified and untrained. The operatives who finally shut the screaming apparition into an opaque glass jewelry box were too grateful for the help to ask many questions. Their commander, a much cannier man, herded the entire surviving afternoon crowd of the Malek-Ashtar café into several troop transports for interrogation.

“…so afraid, but fear helps no one,” Najma confessed in her interview, conscientiously adjusting her hijab. “I would not be on track to assist our nation’s military, Inshallah, if I could not rise to defend others, and…”

“…all situations must be approached with thought,” Ahmad explained. He pushed cracked glasses up his nose and inclined his head towards one of the men interviewing him. “Those affected had to be seen to. I am just a student, but…”

“…the Qur’an teaches that faith can be a shield,” Shahab said, confidently. “I did not think that could be literal, but what choice did I have? The evil had to be pushed back…”

“…and half-blind does not mean half-dead,” Anush spat. His skeptical interrogator sat back in shock. “No matter what anyone thinks of me, I am capable of adapting and taking action! You should know that…”

“…was cool as shit, right?” Mohsen enthused, grinning from ear to ear. “Seeing that thing was awesome, but then getting to fight it, and then—!”

Later, when they were corralled into a small underground room to wait on higher ORIA operatives to mull over what they had heard and extend the offers of employment the Bright Star trainees anticipated, they mouthed the number of buzz words they’d been able to use to each other.

Najma won with sixteen. Mohsen kicked her in the leg and she smothered a laugh.

ORIA took another thirty-six minutes to throw open the door, flooding the room with light, and present an ultimatum:

“You may join our organization, the Office for Reclamation of Islamic Artifacts, and serve a cause greater than yourselves and any calling you found before,” the commanding agent bellowed, “or you may join the other, less suitable witnesses in death. Either way, the secret of what you witnessed today does not leave ORIA!”

The Bright Star trainees were ready with schooled expressions of fear and gratitude at the chance to survive and be useful. Over twenty years of training and study for three hours of trial. Najma shared a secret smile with Anush, and a short squeeze of hands, before they were blindfolded for transport to ORIA’s central training complex.

The hardest part was pretending to be scared.

“New recruits!” Operative Karzai shouted in poor Arabic as he slammed open the door, laughing when Najma jumped. Ahmad closed his book and looked up. They were the only “new recruits” not assigned to one mission or another, and until Karzai’s arrival they whiled away the time ignoring each other, or asking polite but stilted questions, in the empty ORIA trainee barracks under the facility in Shemiran.

“Yes, Operative Karzai?” Najma asked, setting aside the henna pen she’d been using to color her fingernails now that she had a terrible line across her knuckles from the fright. Ahmad leaned over and laced his boots in preparation for another of the pointless physical drills Karzai was so fond of.

“You are in for a treat today,” Karzai said, with a grin that seemed legitimately excited rather than vindictive. “The ambassador from House Afseneh arrives today.”

Ahmad glanced at Najma, but she didn’t have anything to offer him, even in the way of a confident look. She had no idea what Karzai was on about now.

“Does the ambassador require guards?” Ahmad asked as he stood. Najma took her cue from him and stood too, tugging the thin sleeves of her shirt down with her fingertips. Karzai laughed again.

“No,” he said. “Just witnesses. Follow me, children.”

Mystified, the two Bright Star moles fell in behind their superior officer. Karzai led them from the barracks through a dusty field where other troops were doing target practice. Najma swallowed a smile as she heard Mohsen’s excited voice chattering about something in Dari. She couldn’t even look to acknowledge him for risk of compromising their cover. She did risk a glance at Ahmad, who schooled his own face to hide relief.

Separation and deep cover meant no news. Anush had been out on a mission for three days. Shahab had turned up in the infirmary two months ago with a nasty acid burn on his thigh. Every time one of them knew another was still alive was a blessing.

Karzai ushered them into the central organizing building, down drab corridors to a hallway that looked almost like it had been lifted from a mosque. Glittering glass tiles lined the walls, ceilings, and floors in a multitude of colors, and when it finally ended it was in a room so ornate and beautiful it was almost painful to look at. The floor was ceramic tile, cool even through the knees of her uniform pants as Najma knelt next to Karzai and a line of other operatives. Ahmad knelt next to her, quick eyes darting over everything, trying to find meaning. Najma focused on the center of the room.

Bound in front of the growing lines of ORIA operatives was a young man she had done desert survival drills with some months ago. He seemed more confused than frightened. There were two more senior operatives standing over him, Operative Mos and Operative Zarnaiyev, and they looked their usual stern selves, if a little less beaten-down by the drudgery of whipping recruits into shape.

“Perimeter sentries report the ambassador’s approach!” a young woman called from the hallway. “Everyone, into position.”

Najma glanced back at the woman in confusion but Karzai yanked on her. He clasped her hand in a tight grip, mirroring this grip on the hand of the operative to his right. Najma took the hint and the opportunity to take Ahmad’s hand. He gave her a squeeze.

“Operative Karzai,” she whispered, “what is—?”

“Quiet!” he hissed. “Do not disrespect the ambassador!”

Najma didn’t mean any disrespect. Mostly she was confused as to how the ambassador was supposed to enter the room with the lines of ORIA agents blocking the only hallway leading into it. Then Operatives Mos and Zarnaiyev stepped to sandalwood shuttered windows behind the bound man on the floor and unlatched them. The shutters swung inwards and the senior operatives stepped back. The young man on the floor’s eyes swiveled to look at the kneeling people in confusion and dawning fear.

“All here, bear witness,” Operative Zarnaiyev intoned, “we serve the highest of powers. The first of creation. Never forget. Let your faith in our mission be renewed!”

Then the shutters slammed into the walls at the sides of the windows and he turned away. Sand whipped into the beautiful room on a gust of wind and lashed the faces of the watchers. The bound man began to scream through his gag. Sweat stains appeared at his neck, armpits, and bent knees on the tan material of his uniform.

Heat hit Najma’s face, scorching it and making the skin seem to contract, as if she was sitting too close to a fire. Her lips parted and the moisture in her mouth seemed to evaporate in an instant. She tried to close her eyes as they began to burn, but found she could not. She was locked, kneeling, hand-in-hand with Operative Karzai, who watched the banging shutters and the sand streaming in with gleeful laughter.

The screaming man writhed, and his skin began to steam as if he was being boiled. The heat became more intense, unbearable, and Najma wanted to scream herself.

Something hung in the air in front of the open window and began to move towards the screaming man. It looked like waves of heat coming off pavement, a silvery mirage, but it approached like a moving being. The feeling it exuded was sick, vicious confidence. Najma felt her grip on reality seem to give. She got impressions of strange places, different times, of glittering palaces spun out of desert glass. Through it all, the confidence, the arrogance. The evil.

Najma’s lips cracked. Every breath in was soupy and oppressive. The man on the floor jerked and screamed one last time.

Then the heat disappeared from the room, the man hit the ground on his face, and everyone kneeling seemed to sag. Najma looked around as subtly as she could, and caught Ahmad’s eyes as he did the same. No one else looked away from the man on the floor, and tension built, as if they were waiting for something. Was this a sacrifice? One of ORIA’s pagan rites? There was no one she could ask. New recruits did not think, they performed, or were buried in the mass graves on the farthest outskirts of Shemiran.

The man on the floor got his arms under him and pushed himself up. His head hung down, and the way his body moved was strange. It was as if each part of his body knew what it was supposed to do, but not how to work with the other parts. He got to his knees and then, shakily, seemingly in time with the breathing of everyone else in the room, he stood. He reeled on his feet and raised his arms from his sides, making his body into an arrow pointing upward.

The Ambassador raised his head and smiled. Where there had been scared brown eyes just moments before were now irises burning red, swirling, constantly changing. And in his mouth, in place of teeth, were wicked points of glass.

“Ambassador,” Operative Mos said, bowing in front of the man. “ORIA hopes you find this vessel pleasing. We express our sincere honor at your visit and the favor of House Afseneh, pre-eminent among all the Houses of Djinn.”

Ahmad squeezed her left hand so hard she felt her bones shift. Najma’s shock and horror was all that kept her from doing the same to him, or betraying her feelings to Karzai, whose sweaty hand still held her right one. All she could think of were the terrified eyes of the young recruit she had known, and of Agent Ebrahimi’s voice, so long ago, reading to her from the Qur’an in hushed Arabic. They worshipped the djinn; most of them were believers in them. And the djinn He created before, of intensely hot fire.

“House Afseneh brings news,” said the Ambassador, voice hissing like steam. “Dismiss the witnesses.”

The room cleared quickly considering the narrow exit. Najma allowed herself to be swept out with the solemn crowd. Karzai was gone, just visible ahead chatting with another division head. Ahmad kept his head down and headed for the infirmary. She let herself be pushed out of the main building and stood in the sandy dirt of the training yard outside as exiting operatives and others freshly returned from a mission wove around her. One of the pins of her hijab was yanked loose by the wind and the bustle, and the end of her headscarf flapped in the hot wind. Someone grabbed her arm. She reared back to strike in raw panic.

“Operative Behzadi,” Anush said, quietly. “Are you alright?”

He was fresh from the field, still dressed like a normal young man in jeans and a light shirt. He wore a medical patch to cover his blind eye and had slung his tactical gear over a shoulder for the ride back, so his rifle and canteen swung at his hip. All Najma could focus on was his eye, a warm brown, so similar to the Ambassador’s vessel. She opened her mouth to say something and surprised herself with a choked sob. Anush’s face hardened.

“Come with me,” he demanded, and dragged her by the arm away from the spot she’d been frozen in, making a show of manhandling her. A couple of operatives idling by the quartermaster’s whooped as he pulled her into the shade and seclusion of the alley behind the armory. Once they were alone he dropped her arm and the act.

“Eshgham, what is wrong?” he whispered. “You were standing in the yard with a look like you’d been stabbed.”

“We should never have come,” Najma managed. She couldn’t stop looking at his face and drawing similarities. She thought of the others, her brothers—Ahmad, Shahab, Mohsen. It was like someone had clawed into her chest and was squeezing her heart. “They should never have done this to us.”

Anush was hugely confused. He studied her face with the same intensity, and dragged a thumb over her cracked lips. “You’re dehydrated. Take my canteen.”

“I don’t care about that! Will you pray with me?” she asked. Her eyes were wild. “Please, can we pray?”

“Najma, if someone has hurt you—”

“I need to pray!” she sobbed. Neither of them could put their hands on a prayer rug at such short notice, so Anush pulled his shirt off and spread it on the ground for her to kneel on. He kept watch at the corner of the alley while she knelt on it. She prayed for almost ten minutes before she ended a final bow towards Mecca by collapsing in the dirt. Anush rushed to her side and yanked his canteen off his flak vest.

“That’s enough, take water now,” he said, screwing the top off clumsily. Najma shook her head and pushed at his bare chest.

“You have to tell the others,” she insisted. “Ask Ahmad if you think I’m going crazy, but tell the others—if they want you to see ‘the Ambassador,’ find somewhere else to be. Don’t let them bind you. Anush, eshgham, promise me!”

“Ya Rab, I promise,” he said. He forced the canteen into her hands. “You’ve prayed, now drink. There is nothing so terrible that won’t help.”

Najma didn’t have the words to tell him how wrong he was. She forced herself to drink. The moment water touched her lips she couldn’t stop herself from draining the canteen in fast, painful gulps, against all of her survival training. She gasped for air when she finally set it aside.

“Anush,” she managed, swiping at the water dribbling down her chin, “there is an evil that can live inside you. Please… be so careful.”

“If you will do the same,” he said, holding her close as she shook. The hardest part was having to separate. The hardest part was for Najma to nod and assure him she would be okay when they had to return to their assignments.

The hardest part was pretending not to be afraid as she watched him walk away.

Najma hunched over the toilet. One of Ahmad’s medical books lay open next to her, along with two unopened gallons of water advertised to be from the Ozarks. Najma held a third to her lips and drank deeply. There was maybe a cup left inside. She drained it, set the gallon aside, and looked down into her toilet as if it could give her better answers than the book. When it did not, she stuck her finger down her throat until she threw up.

At that point, what she threw up was mostly water.

“I’m sorry, eshgham,” she mumbled, deliriously, as she leaned against the bowl. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

She reached out with a shaking hand for the next gallon of water and worked to snap the cap free. Someone was knocking on the door to her room. She ignored it. It took all of her focus to tip the gallon of water up so she could drink. There was a thirst in her that made her throat ache but her body wouldn’t take any more. It spilled from her mouth and down the front of her sweat-drenched tanktop. She coughed and choked as she dropped the gallon and fell back against the wall.

“Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar. I’m sorry,” she moaned, sputtering as more water came up. “I wasn’t careful enough, Anush, I’m—”

This time the knock was hard enough to rattle her doorframe. Tali’s voice came through the door.

“Najma?” she called. “Are you alright?”

Najma looked at herself at an angle in the mirror of her small bathroom. Her hair was loose and limp with fear sweat, her face bloodless and damp with water and tears. It took everything she had to force herself upright and go about fixing it. She was wrapping a towel loosely around her hair when Tali knocked for the third time and she finally opened the door.

“Agent Jade,” she greeted, using the end of the towel to dab at her face. “M-my apologies. I was just in the shower. Is there… is there something you need?”

Tali was the picture of skepticism, but she also wasn’t in much better shape than Najma. She still had bandages peeking out from under her clothes in several places and her left arm in a sling to take weight off of her healing chest.

“I just saw Lu—Agent Knight,” she said, correcting herself. “He wasn’t doing too good. I thought I would drop by and see if you were faring any better. If there was anything I could do.”

“Thank you for your diligence, Agent Jade,” Najma said. She summoned a thin smile. “I was just going to bed, though. No major complaints.”

Tali frowned. “I thought I heard—”

“Evening prayer,” Najma said. She comforted herself with the knowledge that she wasn’t entirely lying. “Was there anything else?”

“No,” Tali said. She started to turn away but stopped just before Najma could get the door closed again. “Just— We’ve had our differences, and you’re our team leader. But don’t think that means you have to hide when something’s wrong. You know we’ll help, right?”

“Of course,” Najma said. She shut the door with a smile still pasted in place.

The hardest part was pretending to believe it.

“Allahu akbar,” she chanted as she crawled into her bed to shake. “Anush, I’m sorry… It’s inside.”

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JAN 2015 | REHOSTED 2/27/2024