I have lots of people to thank on this one. Thanks to Tori for letting me submit this anyway, even though I actually was supposed to do GMT+5, not -5, which I didn’t realize until I was on the second to last chapter. Thanks and blessings to Mydeira for her endless patience in betaing this for me, and to Artemis and Diachrony (and anyone else I’ve forgotten I sent chapters to!) for just reading this and telling me it wasn’t crap. And a double thanks again to Tori for coming up with this concept in the first place, and for inviting me to come play in her sandbox. It was a lot of fun!

Chapter 1

On the twentieth of May, Greenwich Mean Time, in the year two thousand and three, five US soldiers died in a helicopter crash in Iraq. A bomb blast in Ankara, Turkey killed one woman. The Israeli army pulled back from the Gaza Strip despite a series of Palestinian suicide bombings. The treaty zone in Kashmir between India and Pakistan remained relatively quiet for the first time in months. And, to the northwest of that line, at exactly 2:12 in the morning Echo Time, Priya Dayoub became a Slayer.

Priya was unaware of all of this.

She had no way of knowing that vampires and demons and unholy gods walked the earth, creating chaos and destruction.

She had no idea that Slayers even existed. Had never heard the legend, that into each generation was born one girl in all the world with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires. Had no way of knowing that on the opposite side of the planet a small group of Americans (mostly) were preparing to make that legend obsolete.

She was, in point of fact, asleep.

And she was dreaming, an intense dream, like nothing she had ever experienced, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t wake herself from it.

She felt dark and small. Confined. But she knew they were out there. Creatures so horrible she couldn’t make her mind envision them clearly. She wanted to run, needed to run. She was too small, too fragile. But her feet wouldn’t move. She was trapped and they were coming, thousands and thousands of them. She was going to die, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it.

She opened her mouth to scream. But her voice was swallowed as a light blossomed deep in her center, flared white and blinding hot. It coursed through her body, burning away something embedded in each cell, releasing something . . . overwhelming. She staggered as the light faded, pulsing fainter with each heartbeat. She felt the monsters closing in on her and lashed out, fear turned to force. Each blow of her hands sliced out in blades of light, turning the unseen attackers to ash before her. Stroke by stroke she wiped away the darkness until all that remained was glowing and bright. She had expanded in the light, filling with it to change into . . .

She gasped and sat upright in the bed with a cry. The room was dark and quiet, save for the soft sounds of her sisters’ breathing. She raised a shaking hand to her forehead, then felt her flushed cheeks. Her heart was still pounding and she felt . . . odd. And nauseous.

She rose and crossed to the window, looking out across the darkened yard and to the starlit sky beyond. Everything looked as it always did, but she still felt the remnants of the dream, felt as though the world had shifted somehow while she slept, in a way that wasn’t discernable to her eye. Even the cool breeze drifting in the window couldn’t soothe her unease.

Finally she crawled back into bed and pulled her baby sister close in her arms, the child’s heartbeat soothing her back to sleep.

The sensation had mostly faded by the next morning, only a hazy remembrance lingering to leave her distracted as she went about her duties at the mullah’s house. Even the simple act of washing dishes was hard for her to concentrate on.

She looked down at the dirty water in which her arms were sunk to the elbow. Between the low ripples, her wavering face looked back at her. Her small, heart-shaped face looked younger than her fifteen years, narrow chin and wide set eyes adding to the illusion. Her black hair was knotted into a long braid that fell to the hem of her shalwar qamiz. Her eyes were her most unusual feature, the pale blue contrasting dramatically with her tanned olive skin. The eye color came from her grandmother’s line when she had been married over the mountains from Afghanistan. It wasn’t an unheard of feature, but it was uncommon enough to earn her stares in the street and quiet whispers in school and at mosque.

She chuffed and churned the water. No time for vanity. She quickly scoured out the last pan and hung it to dry, then swapped her drab shalwar for a brighter, cleaner one and, throwing a head scarf around her shoulders, went in to read to the girls.

The girls were the daughters of Mullah Hamed’s children, nine in all so far. While their grandfather didn’t see the need for formal education for these girls, he wouldn’t neglect their religious education, for it was written that all must be offered the words of Allah. Although Priya had been pulled out of school three years before and put into service to help support her family, she was able to read and write enough to be made responsible for reading to the children from the Qur’an every morning for an hour before the midday meal. Priya looked forward to her time with the girls. Of all her duties, this was the one she enjoyed most, which made her special. Any drudge could do the cleaning and washing she did every day, but she alone among all the women in the household had the education to read.

The girls were all gathered under the shade tree in the courtyard, laughing, running, kicking stones around. As Priya came out into the yard, she was spotted almost immediately and the cry went out. “Priya! She’s here! She’s here!” The girls swarmed around her, angelic young faces from five to twelve years of age, eager and happy to see her.

She smiled softly, stroking hair and hands. “Now, now, is this any way for proper young women in a prosperous house to behave?”

The girls quieted, their faces still wreathed in smiles.

“That’s better.” She rewarded them with a smile of her own. “Now go find seats and we’ll begin.”

They all cheered and raced across the yard, making her laugh. They collapsed artlessly, as only young children can do, on blankets and rugs spread around the base of the large tree and waited for her.

She settled onto the rug waiting for her and opened the small leather-bound book that was waiting for her to the page marked with a thin brass page holder. She was about to begin reading when one of the girls spoke up.

“When are the Americans going to bomb us in our sleep?” Nuria asked.

“Don’t be stupid,” one of the older girls, Heera, elbowed her. “The Americans are too busy blowing up the people in Iraq to have time for us.”

“That’s right,” Sarai, the oldest girl, at twelve, contributed. “They’re just going to get the Indians to kill us all for them.”

“The Americans aren’t going to have us killed,” Priya explained patiently. “They are our friends. They won’t hurt us.”

“Aren’t they friends with India, too?” Menaka asked.

“How can they be our friend and India’s friend?” Nuria asked. “That’s just stupid.”

“Well,” Priya asked, “what do you do when two of your friends are fighting?”

They all thought about it for a minute. Finally, Sarai said, “Usually I stay out of it. Unless I know one of them is right.”

“Yes,” said Priya. “And that’s what America is doing. They are our friends, and India’s friends. They know we are quarrelling, so they leave us alone.”

She looked up to see Rheem, the mullah’s oldest daughter and mother to Sarai, Nurya and Bela, glaring at her from across the courtyard. She had done it again. Crossed the line of proper knowledge for young girls. With all that was going on in the world, she found herself doing that more and more often.

“But you don’t need to worry,” she hastily (and overly loudly) added. “Your fathers and brothers and uncles will protect you, and the mullah will protect them, and Allah will take care of all of us. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

The girls all muttered, but looked a bit reassured.

“Are you ready now?”

At the voices of assent, she turned back to the Qur’an. “If anyone slew an innocent person it would be as if he slew the whole mankind and if anyone saved a life it would be as if he saved the life of the whole mankind. . .” [Qur’an 5:32]

The midday meal was finished. The dishes were all washed and dried, again. The evening meal didn’t need to be started for a little while yet. So Priya stood by the cistern, stealing a few quiet minutes in the early afternoon sun.

It wasn’t a bad life. Enough of her classmates from school had left for marriage and children, or worse, for service living in someone else’s house. She was fortunate to be able to return to her parents’ home every night, to be with her sisters and brothers. To be loved.

Still, she wished she could be more. If only she had more schooling, she would be a teacher. Or a healer. Someone who could help people. Her parents knew this, and so her father was looking for an educated husband for her, maybe one of her brother’s friends from university. Her father saw it as a generous indulgence of his oldest daughter, letting her be wife to a man who was what she wanted to be herself. She knew he thought she could be satisfied with her husband’s accomplishments as though they were her own. She sighed. At least he cared that she be happy. He could have married her to Fareed last year. Fareed had his own business. And was as ugly as sin.

She sighed. She would never be more than she was at that moment. It was her place, as it had been her mother’s and her grandmother’s before that. She should be grateful that she came from a good family and could look forward to an advantageous marriage. To expect more would only lead to disappointment. She dipped up a bucket of water and sluiced her face and arms with it, then grabbed up the water jar to hurry back in to her duties.

And if the jar seemed lighter than usual, she didn’t notice.

Chapter 2

The dreams started soon after.

At first, they were incoherent, all young bodies and slender arms and violence.

She would wake up terrified, heart pounding, sweat running off her, the scream in her throat barely restrained. She would sit in the dark until dawn, not waking her sisters but too afraid to go back to sleep.

After a few weeks, they started to resolve themselves into more comprehensible stories. But the visions were no less frightening.

They were dreams, but so vivid, so detailed they were almost more real to her than reality. Every detail, each sensation stayed with her for hours afterwards, never fading, only stored away behind the mundanities of the day.

Pale European skin and hair, dressed in men’s trousers and shirt, dealing death through subterfuge and concealment. Until the shadows struck back.

Slender Rajasthani limbs encircled in hammered gold, dressed in silks, striking out viciously against a group of twisted faced attackers with a wooden stake and a ring-like club which she flung at one of the creatures, severing its head and turning it to dust.

An African girl, dressed in tight, revealing Western clothes, a look of calm mayhem etched in her face. And with her a sense of purpose, of sacrifice, waiting. Of success gained but made less somehow. Of sisterhood. And then of false peace masking screaming terror. And silent death.

Dark hair and burnt honey skin. Bare feet sure as they pounded along the wet sand in the dark. Chasing? Or fleeing? Fighting. Razor sharp shells and wooden spears and her deadly, flashing feet her only weapons. But the corrupted faced ones fell before her, their dust scattering across the sand to be washed away with the next tide.

She didn’t understand. Who were these girls? Why was she dreaming their lives? Had she become possessed? There was no one she could talk to about it. Not without being thought insane, or worse. So she kept quiet.

The accidents were harder to hide.

She was washing dishes listlessly when she picked up a platter, only to have it snap between her hands. She jumped in surprise, dropping the pieces to shatter against the edge of the washtub. Rheem scolded her clumsiness harshly.

The second time it happened, she wasn’t allowed to wash the stoneware any more. She was relegated to pot scrubbing like a common drudge.

A week later, she was minding her younger brothers in front of the house, watching them playing football with a half inflated ball. The ball got away from them and rolled to a stop near her feet. She lifted the hem of her shirt and punted it back to them. But when Khalif tried to stop it, they were all surprised when the impact of the ball in his chest knocked him across the yard. She and Jara raced to his side, and aside from having the breath knocked out of him, he seemed fine. But she was horrified that she had hurt her own brother. What was happening to her?

That night she dreamed of red silk and fire, looked into blue eyes turned animal yellow, and saw failure and death.

When she woke up, she was still weeping.

Chapter 3

Tamvir came home in June. And he had a car.

Actually calling it a car implied things, like movement, which the hunk of metal on blocks in the back of the house was optimistic to hope to achieve. But he was thrilled about it as only a nineteen-year-old man could be. When he wasn’t working with one of the relief groups or helping their father at the shop, he could be found under that scrap pile of British steel, tinkering and bodging it to try to get it to run. Or he’d be at the market, trying to beg, barter or steal the parts he couldn’t improvise.

Invariably, if Tamvir was under the car, Priya was perched on the courtyard wall, watching, talking to him. He was the one member of the family she felt truly comfortable with. Maybe because he didn’t treat her like just a girl.

“So, just how much trouble are you getting into at school, brother?” she asked, laughing from the stories he was telling as he worked on the car. It felt good to laugh.

He turned to face her in mock indignation, leaving a greasy handprint on his bare chest. “Why sister, I’m hurt! I am a faithful student of the mullah’s and an obedient child of Allah!”

She crossed her arms appraisingly. “Which means there’s been alcohol. And girls?”

He shrugged, bending back under the hood to continue. “A few.”

“You shouldn’t risk it. If you lost your scholarship . . .”

“You don’t understand, Priya. It’s a whole different world in the city. The rules are different. Everyone’s not watching you all the time. You’re just . . . more free.”

She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them close. “Sounds frightening.”

“If I didn’t need the work experience I’m getting working with the United Nations engineers so much, I probably wouldn’t have come home.”

“Don’t say that!” she protested. “I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t come home.”

He gave up on the bolt with a hammering of his wrench. “Yeah,” he turned back to her. “Mother said you’d been having some problems.”

She rocked precariously on the wall, her knees still drawn up tight. “Grandmother thinks its because I’m still not married,” she explained as he slid under the front bumper of the car to work the stubborn bolt from a different angle. “She thinks my body or my spirit is rebelling against such an unnatural state.”

His snort echoed inside the fenders of the car. She heard a screech of metal and the car shook slightly as he manhandled it. “So what’s going on?”

“I don’t really know. It’s all so confusing. I’ve been having these dreams. About terrible things . . .”

The supports under the car collapsed.

“Tamvir!” she screamed, throwing herself at the bumper, which was currently pinning his legs to the rock-hard earth beneath him. She grabbed the frame of the vehicle and pulled with all her might.

It lifted easily.

Tamvir scrambled crab-like out from under the car, staring at her as he realized that she was showing no strain holding up the car that had taken six of his friends to manhandle up onto blocks.

She put the car down gently, stunned and overwhelmed by what she had done.

He was the first one to finally speak. “I think you need to tell me about these dreams.”

“So, did the accidents start when the dreams did?” he asked when she finished telling her story.

“About then,” she confirmed. “It took a while for me to even realize that they were more than just accidents.”

“And you think they are connected?”

She shuddered. “You didn’t see these girls, Tamvir. They were all about death and destruction. Violence. I’m certain they are connected. How else could they do what I saw?”

“They were just dreams, Priya.”

“I don’t think so. I think they are omens. Of what I’m turning into.”

Tamvir picked up a stone and lobbed it at her. “You think you’re turning into something?”

She knocked it aside. “Don’t you? Normal girls can’t do the things I can.”

He pitched another stone at her, a little harder. “So, what can you do?”

She blocked it again. “I don’t know. What are you doing?”

He picked up three more stones. “Testing.” And he threw all three at her. Hard.

She blocked two with her hand and forearm, leaning hard to the left to dodge the third.

“Wow!” He looked impressed. “Your reflexes are amazing. And you’re obviously a lot stronger. Anything else?”

“I think I’m faster,” she admitted.

“Faster than you were? Or faster than me?”

“Fast.”

“Race you.”

She grinned. They had used to race often as children, and Tamvir always won. “But that wouldn’t be fair. Your legs are hurt from the car falling on them.”

He rubbed them lightly to show her he was fine. “Still good enough to beat you!”

“To the well and back?”

“On your mark get set go!” And he took off like a shot.

She chased after, her sandaled feet flying over the ground. She caught and passed him easily, turned at the well, and passed him again on the way back.

She was back in the yard before he even reached the well.

He trotted up to her, breathing hard, bending over to support himself on his knees. “Definitely . . . faster,” he panted.

She smiled happily and swung her legs against the wall she was once again perched on.

He grabbed up his shirt, throwing it on over his head as he turned to head back into the house. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

As the oldest son still living in the house, their oldest brother Fayd having married and moved to his own house the previous summer, Tamvir now had a room to himself. He lit the bare electric bulb hanging from the ceiling and dropped the drape to give them some privacy. “Sit down,” he pointed to the bed as he turned and opened his school trunk, pulling out a small lock box. He set it in the middle of the bed, sitting opposite her. “I want to show you something.”

Her heart clenched. What did he have in that box? Something so horrible that he had to keep it locked up. Had he been involved in worse blasphemy at school than just drinking and women?

He pulled out a ring of keys from his pocket, flipping them around to the smallest of them which he fitted in the lock and lifted the top.

She closed her eyes.

“In America,” he said, and she heard the box lid close, “They tell stories of great heroes with magical powers. These heroes fight horrible villains and protect the people in the cities they have dedicated themselves to.”

She opened her eyes slowly, and saw he held a stack of old magazines, yellow paper showing between glossy covers.

“They write these legends down in these books and share them with each other so everyone will know of these heroes. And one of them is a girl.”

He pulled one magazine from the stack and slid it across the bed to her.

The cover was brightly colored with bold Western writing across the top in yellow. The rest of the space was taken up by a work of art, a woman standing amongst polished white temples, her black hair flowing around her, her wrists crossed over her head.

“Tamvir!” she screeched, slamming both her hands down to cover the image. “That’s obscene!”

“No, it’s American. Look . . .” he tried to get her to move her hands.

“She doesn’t have any clothes on!” Priya refused to budge.

He pulled harder. “All the worst parts are covered. Just look.” And he pushed her back so her hands came away from the paper.

The woman’s arms and shoulders were bare, except for the wide silver bracelets she wore on each wrist. Her full breasts were covered by a golden bird, its wings outstretched. Her narrow waist was cinched in by a wide gold belt. The rest of her torso was covered in fields of red and blue accented with white stripes and stars. Her strongly muscled legs were bare as well, save for the red and white boots that came up to her knees.

But what caught Priya’s attention most was the woman’s expression. She knew what she was, and she was proud of it. Unashamed. Even joyful. Priya reached out to touch her face with something akin to reverence. “Where did you get these?”

“From the aid workers in Multan.” His eyes never left her face. “The American children put them in with the donations, but the aid workers can’t hand them out because they are blasphemous. So they let me have some of them.”

“Who is she?” Priya couldn’t stop staring.

“Her name is Diana, but they call her the Woman of Wonders.” He opened the book and began flipping quickly through the pages. Each page was covered with boxes of all sizes, each box filled with the colorful pictures. “She’s very strong,” he said, showing her a picture of the raven-haired beauty lifting an enormous stone column over her head. “And very fast.” He pointed to another panel. “And she can stop bullets with her arms.”

Priya’s head shot up, fear in her eyes. “You aren’t going to shoot at me, are you?”

“Of course not.” His eyes twinkled. “You don’t have the magic bracelets.”

She missed his humor, distracted by panel after panel of this warrior woman fighting. “Do you think this is what I’m becoming?”

Tamvir shrugged. “Would it be so bad to be a hero?”

“Would I have to dress like this?”

“Only if you went to America to protect a city there. One of my professors got his degree in the city of Austin. He says Texas is very much like Pakistan, only without the mountains.”

“But what if I want to stay here?”

He put a soothing hand on her arm. “Pakistan needs heroes, too.”

Chapter 4

The box, contrary to Priya’s worst fears, did not contain all things blasphemous. Instead, it held all manner of things from America. Their mother, if she ever found out, would have preferred he had alcohol and pictures of naked women. That she could accept as male high spirits. This unpatriotic collection would drive her to apoplexy.

Besides the comic books, he had several sports and news magazines, a handful of cassette tapes and three VHS movies. There were wrappers from food products she couldn’t begin to imagine. And there was an open pack of cigarettes.

“You’re smoking now?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I tried it. Didn’t like it much. I think they start younger in America.”

The box provided the beginnings of her new education. Tamvir put aside a portion of his car time every day to sit with her and read from the comics, translating the dialogue as he went. Some parts made more sense than others. Words like “adamantium” and “kryptonite” didn’t appear in Tamvir’s English to Urdu dictionary. But they had fun making up their own meanings.

He also used them to start teaching her how to read and speak English. The panels broke the text up into manageable pieces. He would translate each word for her, helping her pronounce it, then finding where else it appeared on the page. She would sit for hours on the wall in the yard after returning from the mullah’s house, reciting from the book as Tamvir cursed at the car and corrected her pronunciation.

She would practice while she was working, mumbling and muttering quietly as she practiced phrases and more difficult words. Rheem watched her suspiciously, but Priya kept her voice soft enough that the older woman couldn’t tell what she was saying.

The car was not making much progress. For the time being, Tamvir had given up on getting the engine to run, and instead focused on getting the body and interior in shape. He had been lucky enough to find a back seat in good condition that he installed. They immediately moved the lockbox to a new hiding place under that seat, somewhere their parents would never look. The driver’s seat was in good shape, but the passenger seat was nothing but springs and a frame. The radio worked, but only picked up three stations. One was Radio Free America broadcasting into Afghanistan, so some nights they would sit and listen, testing her language skills. Whatever her new abilities, quick learning was not one of them. She barely understood one word out of five.

There was another change in the middle of July. Strangers moved into the mullah’s house.

There were eight of them: three men, four women and a young girl. Priya had never seen burkas before. These women wore them exclusively, even in the privacy of the women’s spaces. Even the little girl was heavily veiled.

Word quickly spread through the house. The men were Taliban clerics who had escaped through the Khyber Pass when the Americans began bombing Afghanistan over a year before. The men had slowly been making their way to the interior of Pakistan, moving from safe house to safe house until they could find a place to settle where they wouldn’t be noticed by the government or the Americans. Mullah Hamed was known for his conservative beliefs, and welcomed the men and their families generously into his home for as long as they needed to stay.

They made Priya nervous.

The youngest of the women was put to work helping with the household chores. She often ended up working with Priya in the kitchen, cleaning and preparing meals. Priya tried to engage her in conversation, but either she didn’t understand or was too shy to speak. So Priya filled the time, telling her all about the people of the village, the things that went on, stories of her brothers and sisters. The woman never spoke, but Priya thought she could see a smile in her eyes through the veil.

When she read to the children, the little Afghan girl joined the circle, unmindful of her scarf and veil. Priya noticed the young woman standing often at the edge of the courtyard, finding some task so she could listen in. Priya read a little louder than usual, to make sure she was heard.

She also observed the youngest of the men, standing in the doorway watching with a scowl.

“He looks at me like I’ve done something wrong,” she explained to Tamvir later that night. “But I can’t imagine what. The mullah himself asked me to read to the girls.”

“The clerics have different views of what is allowable to women,” Tamvir said, back under the car replacing axle bearings, “and they have very strict punishments for violation of those rules.”

She hugged her knees to her chest. “They frighten me.”

He stood up, wiping his hands on a rag as he looked her in the eye. “You be very careful around them. If they get any influence here, they could give you a lot of trouble if they get suspicions about you.”

She trembled, her eyes enormous.

He stroked her hair gently. “Don’t worry, little bird. I’ll protect you.”

She was carrying pots from the kitchen to the scullery when she heard a crack, like something breaking, and a horrible piercing scream. She dropped the cookware and raced toward the cries.

The cracking noise sounded again, the accompanying scream hoarse with agony.

She burst into the courtyard to behold a horrifying tableau.

The mullah’s daughters and granddaughters were lined up along the wall to the main house. The women’s faces were stoic, but the girls were all in tears, several of them bordering on hysteria. The Afghan women stood off to one side, their bodies rigid but their expressions hidden behind their heavy veils. The little girl hid her face in her mother’s skirts.

In the center of the yard, near the spot where she sat every day to read from the Holy Book, stood the young cleric, a look of stern satisfaction on his face, a long narrow whip unfurled in his right hand.

And kneeling in the dirt in front of him was the youngest Afghan woman.

Her forehead was resting on the ground, her arms extended above her and tied at the wrists with a leather thong. Her outer veil had been pushed up off her back to gather around her shoulders, exposing the fabric of her tob beneath. The two whip strokes had already frayed the heavy fabric and blood was seeping up through the fibers. She gasped brokenly, unable to draw breath from the pain.

He drew back his arm to strike her again.

“No!” Priya was in motion before the words left her mouth, and before the blow could fall, she had thrown herself over the woman’s body.

The lash tore through the soft fabric of her shalwar qamiz to bite deeply into her back. A second stroke cut across her shoulders.

She blocked the third with her arm, letting the leather wrap around the column of her forearm, grabbing it and yanking with all her new strength. It flew from his grasp.

She rose to her feet, turning to face him, her fury evident in every feature. The whip stayed wrapped around her arm, as though she planned to use it on him herself.

The cleric was indignant. “How dare you interfere with my punishment!”

“Punishment? Is that what you call this?” Her rage pushed aside her usual reserve, making her voice deeper, more commanding. “Torturing a young woman for some minor infraction? What could she possibly have done to deserve this? And why in the name of Allah are you making children watch?”

“Since when are teachers expected to justify themselves to little girls?”

“I’ll show you just how little I am . . .”

“Enough.”

The stern, brittle voice came from the door to the main house. Mullah Hamed stood there, his tall frame hunched over his cane, his dark eyes glittering beneath the white of his turban. “Ajmal, Wajjmar has been punished enough. Release her.”

“Yes, teacher.” Ajmal bent at once and cut the girl’s restraints. Priya helped her to her feet, adjusting her veil back into place.

“Priya,” Mullah Hamed continued, “go home.”

“But . . .”

“Tell your mother to send your sister in your place tomorrow.”

Her eyes widened at the implication, but she said simply, “Yes, teacher,” and left the compound, her heart heavy and her stomach in knots.

Chapter 5

Mother was silent the entire time she spent cleaning the livid, oozing lash marks on Priya’s back.

She didn’t say a word to her for the rest of the day.

The next morning she sent Mara off to the mullah’s house with a kiss and a blessing. She then turned her back contemptuously on her oldest daughter and stalked back into the house.

Priya was devastated. She had always been the pride of the family. To have failed them so badly, to have earned such scorn, especially from her mother, tore her apart inside.

“I don’t understand what happened,” she began to confide in Tamvir.

He interrupted her cruelly. “Not now, Priya. Not here. By Allah, you couldn’t pay attention to me, could you? Don’t talk about it here. It’s too dangerous!”

She stared at him in shock, then burst into tears. He made a small, comforting sound, but left her to cry herself into exhaustion.

The silence expanded to include the rest of the family. No one dared speak for fear of stepping out of line. Dinner was a dull, lifeless affair until Tamvir spoke up.

“Mother, I need to take Priya with me into Multan tomorrow.”

Both women looked at him in surprise.

“Priya does not need to go into the city,” their mother contradicted.

“No, she does not. But I need her to come with me. I intend to visit the family of a young woman tomorrow, and I cannot go unaccompanied. Since Priya no longer has other responsibilities, it should be her place to go.”

Mother’s eyes widened. “A young woman?” She’d given up hope of her second son ever marrying. “Good family?”

“Excellent.”

“Hmpf.” But she didn’t repeat her refusal for Priya to accompany him.

They rose at sunrise to catch the bus into the city. Priya was surprised to see her best shalwar qamiz laid out on the stool by her bed, clean and pressed, along with a new headscarf. She knew it wasn’t intended to please her. It was to make a good impression on the family they were going to visit. But it lifted her spirits anyway.

They left without fanfare, Mother and Grandmother busy in the kitchen with some project. When they reached the edge of town, Tamvir puller her behind a shed, away from prying eyes. “Has anyone looked at your back since the other night?”

She shook her head.

“Okay, turn around and lift your shirt.”

“Here?”

“Would you rather do it on the bus?”

She gave him a dirty look.

“Turn around.” He turned her, lifting the hem of her tunic up over her shoulders without exposing her breasts. He was quiet for a moment, and then said quietly, “Allah!”

“What is it?” She tried to look over her shoulder. “Is it bad?”

“Does this hurt?” He traced the line across her back where the first lash had struck.

It felt tender, but didn’t really hurt. She told him so.

“And this?” He traced the stripe over her shoulder.

“No.”

He pulled her tunic back down. “That’s because they’ve healed.” He started walking again to the bus stop.

She stared at him, then raced to catch up. “But that’s not possible!”

“Priya, not much of what’s happening to you is possible. And why did you risk exposing yourself like that? I warned you those people were dangerous!”

They stopped at the bus stall, and she sank down onto the bench. “I didn’t mean to. I saw what was happening, and something inside me just became so . . . angry.”

“Angry? You? You’ve never lost your temper in your whole entire life!”

“Oh, Tamvir, it was terrible! I . . . everything became blurry, but clear at the same time, and the only thought in my head was to hurt the people who had hurt that girl. I wanted to hit that man with everything I could until he was bleeding and broken at my feet. If the mullah hadn’t stepped in . . .”

“Shh, little one, it’s over now.” He held her comfortingly.

“But what if it isn’t?” She pulled away from him. “What if the rage just becomes stronger and stronger until that’s all I am? Those other girls, the ones in my dreams, they all died fighting, killing. What if that’s what’s happening to me?”

He stroked her hair, looking calmingly into her eyes. “That’s why we’re going to get some help.”

Multan, in the lower Punjab, is claimed to be the oldest surviving city on the Indian subcontinent, dating back some 4000 years. Once an important center of Islam, the city has since attracted more mystics, holy men and saints. It has been conquered by the Greeks, the Arabs, the Turks and the Mughals, then ruled by the British until independence in 1947. Today it is an industrial and academic town, an important road and rail junction, an agricultural center, and a market for textiles, leather goods, and other products. But lingering beneath it all remains the essence that drew those early mystics to the city. A sense of mystery, of wonder. Of magic.

Priya marveled out the window as the bus drove through the city. She had been here only once before, when she was a very young girl. But her memories of that trip were vague, as memories of childhood often are. She had always listened avidly to Fayd and Tamvir and their father tell stories in the evening of their trips into the city, though, and had imagined what it would look like. The reality of it overwhelmed everything she had ever envisioned.

The buildings were all packed tightly together, no space left even to pass between. There were rows and rows of shops selling all manner of wares, from foodstuff and stoneware to electronics. And above these shops were the homes of the shopkeepers and their families and tenants. The concept of living in a building with people who weren’t her family, who paid money for the privilege of living there, and who called that a home was incomprehensible to her. But Tamvir assured her that it was very comfortable, not awkward at all. He himself lived with a family when he was here at school, and despite being paid to house and feed him, they treated him like a member of the family.

The street was packed with traffic. Trucks and cars, motorcycles, wagons pulled by all manner of beast and machine, pack animals heavily loaded down and plodding through the dusty heat, all squeezing from the wide thoroughfares onto the narrower side streets and back again.

Along either side of the street flowed a river of bodies. They all seemed to have a direction, a purpose, a goal that each pursued with a single mindedness that made the mass look to Priya like one well-organized entity.

They got off the bus at the terminal near the university. Tamvir handed her down with a stern, “Stay close to me. We’ve got a ways to walk and I don’t want to lose you.” Then he started through the crowd.

She hurried a few steps to catch up, then stayed as close to him as the mass of humanity would allow. She had never been among so many people before. She felt them, felt all their cold, impersonal eyes on her, looking at her, evaluating her. She pulled the drape of her scarf over her face protectively, leaving only her eyes showing. It was one thing to show her face at home, where everyone in the village had seen her, known her since she was a baby. To have these strangers looking at her so openly made her feel vulnerable.

They walked for what seemed to her like a very long time, but was actually closer to twenty minutes. Tamvir was silent, focused on maneuvering through the crowd, until they got to the university campus. Then he began pointing out to her the various buildings where he spent his time at school. But she was so overwhelmed that none of it registered.

Finally, beyond the university, they moved into a more residential district. Instead of apartment units, these were actual houses, small, neat, with the occasional splash of green in the yard. Here the crowds were gone, and they were able to slow down.

“Where are we going?” she finally asked, dropping the scarf below her chin.

“To the home of one of my professors,” he answered, walking more beside her than ahead of her.

She was surprised. “One of your professors can help me? Tamvir, this isn’t an engineering problem.”

He laughed shortly, an amused sound. “I know, dove. But Ustaad Aram has experience with some unusual things. He got his degree in Russia, and some of the older students say he learned about magic there as well. He talks in lecture often about the machinery of the Universe, and I think he means more than the physical, but something not quite divine. I hope he knows enough to be able to help.”

She thought quietly as they walked. After a moment, she said, “He doesn’t have a daughter, does he?”

Tamvir laughed again. “He does. She’s thirty-two, is married and has five children.”

She sighed. “Mother will be very disappointed.”

His face grew hard, but he didn’t say a word.

Chapter 6

The house they stopped in front of was large enough to have a low walled courtyard in the front and a wrought iron gate, velvety smooth from years of use. Priya looked up at the house in agitation. “This is a bad idea.”

He took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “Do you trust me?”

She nodded, still staring at the house.

“Then trust me to take care of you now. This man is our best chance for some answers.”

She still watched the house, but gripped his hand in acceptance. They approached the house and Tamvir knocked on the heavy door barring the entrance.

After a moment the door creaked open to reveal an older man, older than her father but younger than the mullah, Priya estimated. He stood just over her height, but straight and strong. His eyes were clear and calm and curious. The white in his close beard was snow white, not grey, although much of it was still dark. His eyes went right to Tamvir, recognizing him immediately. “Why, young Dayoub!” He greeted him warmly, grasping his arms. “I had not expected to see you before the start of term! What are you doing here? Come in, come in!” He ushered them both into the sitting area, still talking. “You aren’t having trouble on the irrigation site, are you? Those United Nations volunteers are well meaning, but too often they have no mechanical experience whatsoever.”

“No sir, it is going well. The pressure ratios were giving us trouble for a while, but . . .” And the two men started off into a conversation so full of technical terms that Priya found English easier to understand. She drifted, tired from the journey and the walking and all the things she had seen.

She didn’t know how long it was before they noticed her again. “But I am neglecting my role as host. Bes!” he called, and a moment later a young girl, no more than eleven at the most, popped into the room. “Bes, could you bring us a tea tray, please? For three.”

“Of course, daadaa,” and she disappeared again.

“My granddaughter,” he explained after she’d left. “The light of my life. I don’t know how I would cope without her.”

“Yes, sir,” Tamvir acknowledged.

“But this is not a social visit, and you do not seem to need my technical advice, so what brings you down my path today?”

“Sir, let me introduce to you my sister, Priya. It is on her behalf we are here.”

Professor Aram bowed slightly. “Be welcome in my home, Priya Dayoub.”

She returned the gesture nervously.

“Although I cannot imagine what kind of service I could render to such a beautiful young woman. Unless you are in search of a husband. Several of my students . . .”

“We come to ask your help in your other area of experience.”

“My other . . .” He sounded confused.

“Tamvir,” the fear clutched at her again and she gripped his knee, trying to stop him.

He ignored her. “The men at school say that you are a sorcerer.”

The room was silent.

“The practice of sorcery is forbidden by the laws of Mohammed,” the professor said finally. “The penalty for violation is death.”

“Yes, sir,” Tamvir replied just as seriously. “As is consorting with demons, which is what I am concerned my sister will be accused of if we cannot find the answers we need.”

Priya buried her face in her scarf, unable to face the tension, the fear, the shame any longer. The two men sat silently.

It was the clink of glass that finally brought her back out. “Thank you, Bes,” the professor acknowledged his granddaughter’s return. “Just set it down on the table. Then why don’t you run home and see if your mother has finished preparing our midday meal, yes?”

“Haan ,daadaa.” She set the tray down as directed and then turned back to him. “And then, after, will you read to me?”

He smiled warmly and kissed the top of her head. “Of course, dove. Or you may read to me.”

She smiled happily and dashed out of the room, all youthful joy and exuberance.

He turned back to them. “As you can see, I have a great deal to risk by helping you.”

“Yes, sir,” Tamvir confirmed. “As do we by coming to you.”

“I have only heard you put your sister’s life at stake. It is easy to offer the sacrifice of another.”

“Her life is my life, sir.”

He studied Tamvir silently. When he spoke, he said quietly, “Young Priya, will you serve the tea?”

She was surprised to be addressed, but grateful to have something to do to keep her hands and mind busy. “Yes, sir,” she replied with the same deference that Tamvir showed and moved to the tray.

It was a western tea set, fragile soft blue china and cups with delicate handles. But enough was familiar that she was able to manage it.

“I apologize for the service,” the professor said softly. “I developed a taste for the western style while I was at school. Forty years of repetition has made it as much comfort as habit. With lemon and honey, please. Thank you,” he took the cup from her gracefully when she brought it to him. “Now, child, will you tell me your troubles?”

She looked into his kind face, his gentle eyes, and wanted to throw herself into his arms weeping. But she couldn’t. He was still a stranger to her. She could barely bring herself to speak to him. She looked pleadingly to her brother.

“Priya is a well-bred girl of the country, Professor, and not comfortable in the more open ways of women in the city. May I speak for her?”

“If you know all the particulars, then yes, please.”

So Tamvir related her story for her, the dreams, the accidents, the collapse of his car and the subsequent testing, the incident at the mullah’s house. Through him, Professor Aram questioned her closely, and she found she could respond if she spoke to Tamvir instead. She related details from the dreams that she didn’t even know she had retained, details of dress and appearance for the girls and of the monsters they faced, of the type and quality and features of the weapons they used. She realized the girls were all young, her age or a little older. The only other thing she noticed was consistent was the sharpened stake each girl used. Whatever other weapons in their arsenal, they each delivered the killing blow with this primitive weapon.

Finally, when she felt like her brain was empty, he stopped. He rose to his feet gingerly and crossed to the bookshelves on the far side of the room, opened the filigreed doors and selected two volumes before closing them again and returning to his seat. He flipped through the thinner of the two books, then held it out to her, open to an elaborate drawing. “Is this the creature you see?”

She looked to Tamvir, and then at the book, taking it gingerly from his hands. Looking back at her was one of the corrupted ones from her dreams, forehead ridged and knobbed and furrowed, teeth coarse and ragged with two sharp fangs descending. His mouth dripped red, blood from the neck of the female victim he held clutched to his chest. Priya looked up in fear, met the professor’s compassionate gaze. “What is it?”

“In the West they call them vampires. They are undead, soulless creatures that feed off the blood of the living. They are strong and fast and brutal, seeking only to satisfy their own needs and desires. They are vulnerable to only a few things. Fire, beheading, sunlight, but most of all the stake. The energy of living wood destroys the magic that binds the demon in their body.”

She trembled. “And this is what I am turning into?”

“No, child. Unless you neglected to tell me you were bitten before the dreams came. Vampires make others by drinking from humans and making the human drink from them in return. You are more like these girls in your dreams. Human, but different.”

“But I don’t want to be different.”

He patted her hand comfortingly. “We are all different, each in our own way. That is Allah’s way. The world would be a very dull place if we were all the same.”

“Is that all you can tell her?” Tamvir asked.

He shrugged. “I can ask for more, if she will let me.”

Priya looked again to Tamvir, then back to the professor. “What must I do?”

“Just hold my hands, look into my eyes. All that I can tell you I will read there.”

She looked back to Tamvir, but this time he remained neutral. She pulled a deep breath to fortify herself and then said, “I want to know.”

He patted her hand. “Brave girl. Tamvir, fetch me down that oil lamp and light it, please.” He turned back to her. “I am not really a sorcerer. It makes my students feel better to think so. Otherwise they have to acknowledge what poor cheats they are, and they all think themselves much too clever for that. I do have quite a bit of knowledge from outside the normal realms, and I have a bit of Sight, which is what we are going to make use of here. Thank you, Tamvir, just put it here on the table. Now, this isn’t going to suddenly reveal the answers to all your questions. I’m not some rug market fortuneteller. But, Allah willing, we should be able to see some of the forces working on you and bring you some peace of mind.”

She nodded, her nerves making it difficult to speak.

“Alright then.” He adjusted the lamp so it rested between them and settled his hands, palms up, on either side of it. “Lay your hands on mine. Good. Now, look into my eyes, but see the lamp flame as well. Unfocus your vision so that you are able to see both at once.”

She followed his direction, and soon the world was fuzzy, the flame of the oil lamp seeming to burn directly between his eyes. If she focused on it, it went away, so she didn’t, allowing the double image to swim before her eyes.

He began to murmur softly to himself what sounded like a prayer. “From Allah flows all knowledge. To Allah all things are known. Bless us, Allah, with your knowledge. Guide us that we, too, may know.” His eyes unfocused as well as he stared at her quietly. His voice when he spoke startled her.

“You are not alone.”

She waited, keeping her gaze unfocused.

“They are searching for you. They will find you. One will come with the answers you seek. Know that the power was granted to you to do good, but only you can decide to follow that path or another. You have trials yet to face, some uncomfortable, some frightening. Stay strong; keep faith. You are not alone.”

He fell silent again, and she felt a wave of exhaustion wash over her. Tamvir caught her, helped her move back from the table.

The professor came to himself in a moment, his face a bit pale but otherwise whole. He rose to his feet, gestured to Tamvir to bring Priya. “Let her rest in my granddaughter’s bed. You can dine with me before you leave. I am sure when my daughter hears I have guests, she will send enough food for all of us.”

Priya laid a hand on his arm, no longer shy of him. “Thank you, sir.”

He smiled and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “You are welcome, little dove.”

Chapter 7

They let her sleep for several hours, the stress of the previous days having taken their toll on her. When she woke, a warm meal was waiting for her of roghan josh and baarta, which eased the gnaw of her empty stomach and somehow soothed the ache in her heart as well.

She was sorry to leave when the time came. She felt safe here. Home was now a place of secrets. She wasn’t looking forward to going back.

The professor seemed to understand. “Come whenever young Tamvir can get you away. And write to me if anything new or unusual happens. I will keep looking for answers for you. And take these,” he pressed a small stack of books into her hands, one of them the larger volume he had taken off the shelf earlier. He drew her attention to this one. “This is the Suleiman Compendium. It documents the monsters and demons of this region of the world. If you are to face vampires, it is likely they are not the only creatures you will confront. This will help. It is mostly in Urdu, but parts of it are in Sanskrit and Arabic as well as some of the regional dialects, so I have included some translation dictionaries as well.”

She was overwhelmed by the gift, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Now, now, child.” He gathered her into his arms, then kissed her forehead in blessing. “Walk with Allah, my dear. Know that he sets us no challenges which we cannot endure. Tamvir,” he grasped arms with her brother. “Take good care of this one. And thank you for bringing her to me.”

“Thank you, sir. I do not know what we would have done without you.”

“Come to me if you have need of it. You and Priya are always welcome.”

They caught the last bus out to the northwestern part of the district, the bus that would take them home. They were fortunate to get seats at the back of the bus, and so were able to speak a little more freely. They looked through the book the professor had given her, mostly for the pictures. Page after page of nightmare visions, but to them they seemed more like denizens of Tamvir’s comic books, easily defeated by a pure heart and the right magical powers. And wasn’t Priya a superhero now?

Finally the swaying of the old bus lulled Tamvir to sleep. Priya stared quietly out the window, watching the rocky, rolling landscape drift by. But her mind was lost on the professor’s words. Someone was looking for her. What would they do when they found her? Did she even want to be found? Wasn’t she happier now? But she knew she wasn’t. She knew she needed answers. And the only place to find them was with these mysterious people searching for her. All else would have to wait until she had been found.

The sun had set a little more than halfway through their journey home, and it was full dark by the time they got off the bus. The waxing moon sat low on the horizon, leaving the stars ahead of them clear and bright as they trudged along the path towards home. Despite the extra sleep she had gotten, she was drop-in-her-tracks tired, and hungry. She just wanted to get home and go to bed. Let Tamvir think of the plausible lie to tell their parents.

Lights shone sparsely through house windows here and there around the village. So they were surprised when they reached their own home to find it ablaze with lights, both electric and fire. An unusual combination of smells drifted from the house.

Mother and Grandmother met them at the front, both wearing stern expressions. “Tamvir,” Mother said tonelessly, “your father is waiting for you at the shop. Please go to him now.” She didn’t take her eyes off of Priya.

He moved to protest, but she wore the implacable look that not even a favorite son would challenge. He deftly slid the books out of Priya’s hands, making it look as though they were his, and headed back to the center of town, with a comforting but confused look to her.

When he was gone, the older women stepped forward and each took Priya by the arms.

“What is happening? Mother? Grandmother?”

“You are not my granddaughter!” the old woman spat, snatching the new head scarf from Priya’s head. “My granddaughter is obedient and gentle and dutiful. Traits you are not able to copy. I know what you are!”

Priya struggled, trying to get away from them but not wanting to hurt them. “Daadi. . . “

“Silence, demon spirit! Your time is ended! You will give us back our girl tonight, for I know how to deal with you!”

They dragged her into the house as she struggled weakly. “Maan, please . . .”

The house was filled with women. Despite her rising panic, she thought she saw every woman and older girl from the village in her house as she was carried through the small rooms to the bedroom she shared with her sisters.

Priya’s head began throbbing as soon as they crossed the threshold into her bedroom. The room was dense with the smoke of incense burned too heavily and too long. As she was pushed to the center of the room, she saw that all the furnishings had been removed and the window covered with a heavy blanket, whether to keep in the fragrant smoke or to block the view in she couldn’t tell. This room, like the others, was filled with people, almost a dozen of the oldest women in town. They all reached out to help bring her into the center of the room where a large prayer rug lay. Gnarled, wrinkled, sun-worn hands all pushed her down onto it, bending her over into the posture of prayer, kneeling with her forehead resting on the rug. They all held her there, keeping her from moving as their worn, cracked, old voices began to sing.

Streams flow from day to day And folks at ferries meet, After childhood is youth And Trianjan must repeat. But waters gone ahead Their backward flow restrain, Boat crews and Trianjan girls, Shall never meet again.

The song was familiar to her. She had learned it as a child, as they all had, and still sang it often. But tonight, in this room, it was being used as a weapon, its normally soothing cadence turned into a hammer against her brain. When that song ended, another began. And another. And another. And another, until they all blended together into one long assault on her ears.

It went on for hours. When one voice tired, the singer was replaced by one of the dozens of women in the house, an endless cycle. Priya’s head pounded, her body aching past endurance from the uncomfortable position she was held in, her eyes and nose streaming from the thick cloud of incense, her skin sticky and damp with sweat from the heat of the bodies pressed around her. For a long time, she begged, pleaded with them to release her, until her throat was raw, her voice a dull croak lost beneath the wall of sound. In the suffering, doubt washed over her. What if they were right? What if the professor was wrong? What if she really was evil? Wasn’t it for the best to be purged of whatever this was that was changing her? Surely her mother who loved her wouldn’t force her to endure this without good reason.

So she gave herself up to it. Stopped struggling, stopped pleading, simply lay there, sobbing, broken, all hope gone. The women seemed to sense her capitulation and backed off, no longer holding her down. But they continued singing at her, purifying her with the heavy incense, until the sun rose.

And somewhere in that time, Priya’s world went dark.

She dreamt again.

This girl felt . . . different.

She was Priya’s age, or a little older. Hair like spun sunlight, eyes jade green and glittering.

Priya watched her fight, watched her win.

Watched her die.

But as she watched, this one rose from the pool of water that was to be her grave and went back to fighting. Protecting. Winning.

There was an endless parade of faces, some more horrifying than others. All laid low before her. And then there was a choice.

Priya watched her die again.

But again the girl rose to her feet to fight on.

She saw the girl, older now, fighting unspeakable horrors side by side with girls who somehow felt like her. Like what this avenging angel was, like what Priya was becoming. Priya saw the sword go through the girl, come out the other side. Saw her fall.

And rise again.

And finally saw her standing on a desolate road, in a place that could have been Pakistan but which Priya knew was not. Saw her cross her arms and look out across distance and time.

And then she turned to face Priya.

Her eyes were joyful, a soft, welcoming smile crossing her features. A soft breeze caught her hair, fanning it around her face.

For a brief moment, the hair turned fiery red, the eyes darker, the features rounder. But then the delicate girl returned, and she spoke three simple words of English, but which Priya understood with her heart.

“We’ve found you.”

The girl smiled, and Priya wept as she felt comfort and understanding and welcome flow through her.

She was found.

When she awoke, she was surprised to find herself in Tamvir’s bed under well-aired blankets. She was already washed and dressed in freshly laundered undergarments, the rest of her clothes also clean and laying on his stool.

She sat up gingerly, but the only after-effect from the night before seemed to be a pulsing in her head from the over stimulation and a tender throat. She was about to rise and dress when the blanket over the door lifted and her mother came in.

She sat down next to Priya and offered her a plate of bread and figs drizzled with honey and a glass of tepid tea, also rich with honeyed sweetness. The tea felt good on her tender throat.

“You’ve been so different lately, daughter,” her mother finally said while Priya ate quietly. “Always before you have been all I could ask for in a daughter. But for the past few months you have been so changed. Speaking out, spending so much time with your brother, fighting.” She stroked Priya’s hair soothingly. “We didn’t know what else to do. Your grandmother had seen the zar performed once when she was a girl in Afghanistan. The beauty of the incense and the music drives the unclean spirit out, and the sweet foods keep it from returning. We just want you to be whole again.”

“I am, Mother. I am sorry to have caused you and the family so much trouble.”

She folded her into her arms for a moment. “I am just grateful to have you back.” She released her and stood up. “Finish eating now, and rest more if you are still tired. I will send someone for you when dinner is ready.”

“Thank you, maan.”

When her parent was gone, Priya rose from the bed and went to Tamvir’s school trunk. She found a pencil and a bit of paper. Very neatly she wrote “Safe. Stay silent.” She folded the paper in half and slid it under his pillow.

She would fight this. She would rein in the changes, the anger and strength and play the quiet, obedient girl child. She would be who she was.

Her guardian angel was coming for her. And then she would know who she was to be next.

Chapter 8

Priya’s life became much quieter after that.

She stayed mostly to the house, helping her younger sisters with the chores she had long ago outgrown. She also helped with the cooking and was grateful when her mother took the time to teach her a new dish. She never left the house except in the company of her mother or her grandmother. Which was perhaps just as well. She was watched wherever she went with curiosity and suspicion. A part of her wanted to lash back at them, but she didn’t, instead pulling her scarf across her face more tightly and keeping her eyes downcast.

She looked to Tamvir to comfort her, but he apparently had abandoned her. The first few days after the zar she didn’t dare try to talk to him, although he gave her small looks and gestures of support when he could. But by the time she felt safe trying to talk to him, he had a new distraction and seemed to lose interest in her.

There was a new man on the UN construction team, an American just arrived in Pakistan to help with some of the construction and engineering problems they were having with the new irrigation system. Tamvir spent most of his free time at the construction site now, or else in the next village where the volunteers were living, rarely home even for meals. This new man fascinated him.

Priya was ready to hate Zahndar Hahris.

So when Tamvir announced that he had invited the man home for dinner on shamba, she was annoyed.

Her mother wasn’t much happier. “An American in my house? How can you allow such a thing?” she raged at her husband.

“It will do the boy good,” he had replied placidly. “The man has experience in construction and has an interest in Tamvir. The connection can’t hurt him, even though this Hahris is an American.”

“I don’t like it,” she had insisted.

“But you will do it.”

She had no choice but to concede.

The next three days were a whirlwind for all of them. While Mother still wasn’t happy with the idea of having a godless American in her house, she refused to be seen as less than a perfect hostess. “I will not have him leaving here thinking we are ignorant and crude,” she railed. So the house was cleaned carefully, furniture removed from each room to make certain the floors were spotless, and then the furniture itself was cleaned and polished as it was replaced. Priya and her sisters washed dishes, draperies and linens. They polished the brassware until it glowed. Mother actually took one whole day to travel into Multan with Tamvir to shop for the best produce she could get. This job might have been assigned to Priya, but despite the anticipation of the coming visit, no one had forgotten her recent “crisis.” Priya stayed home.

Finally everything that could be cleaned was. Even the family had all bathed, with soap and warm water. That night Father brought home from work a haunch of goat and three of his fattest chickens. Mother put the goat on to stew in water and honey, almonds and spices as everyone went to bed.

The next day was just as busy as the previous for Priya. After morning prayers, Mother put her to work, chopping vegetables and mixing flat bread, stirring, washing, hauling. It was just Mother and Grandmother and Priya working diligently on the meal, and to Priya it almost felt like the way things were before they weren’t anymore.

She was returning from the well when she ran into Tamvir and the American coming out to the yard.

Tamvir grinned eagerly. “Priya, look!” he said in Urdu. “He’s here! Zahndar,” he switched to English, but Priya could understand him, “this is my sister, Priya.”

The man looked at her intently, making her wish her hands weren’t full so she could cover her face modestly. He was a handsome man, fair skinned but dark haired. He looked strong. But there was something odd about his eyes . . .

He stuck his hand out to her. “I’m pleased to meet you, Priya. Tamvir’s told me a lot about you. I’m Xander Harris.” The way he said his name was all harsh consonants and sharp vowels.

She looked from his face to his hand and back. What was he expecting her to do?

He looked at the hand himself sheepishly. “Sorry. I keep forgetting I can’t do that.” He put the hand back into his pocket and bowed a little instead. His right eye dropped, but his left eye kept watching her.

“So come see the car!” Tamvir continued on.

Xander smiled again, then went to follow. Priya wasn’t sure why, but she put the water can down and followed as well.

“Oh, wow!” Xander exclaimed as he came around the wall. “An old Citroen! I haven’t seen one of these in three or four years!”

“You’ve worked on them?”

He shrugged. “Nothing major. You’ve done a great job on the restoration, though.”

“But I can’t get the engine to turn over.”

Priya sat on the wall and pulled her knees up to her chin.

“Can I look?” Xander asked.

In answer, Tamvir popped the hood.

Priya watched as the American leaned over the engine, twisting and fiddling with unseen parts. After a moment, he stood back up. “Try it now.”

Tamvir shrugged and wrenched the key in the ignition.

The engine roared to life, then sputtered and died.

Xander shrugged in disappointment, but Tamvir began whooping in celebration and clapping him on the back. “You did it! You got it to start! How did you do that?”

“It’s easy enough. There’s a weird connection between the starter and the carburetor . . .”

“Priya!” Mother barked from the back door.

She eeped and slipped to the ground, racing over to the water can. But before she could pick it up, Xander was there. “Allow me.” He lifted the can to his shoulder with a grunt and motioned for her to lead the way to the house.

He set the can down in the kitchen with a nod to Mother and Grandmother. “Ladies,” he said, touching his forehead, and went back out into the yard.

Grandmother shook her head. “What a strange man.”

Dinner was a loud affair. Tamvir translated for Xander as the men discussed construction and business, very politely avoiding any conversations of world politics. The younger children peppered him with questions about life in America.

“Do you drive a fast sports car?” Khalif asked.

“Sadly, no. The Xandermobile is built for comfort and roominess, not for speed.”

“Do you have a television?” Jara asked.

“Yup. I have, well, I had three. The boob tube and I are old friends.”

They giggled over the Americanism, sounding it out. “Boob tube, boob tube . . .”

Even little Soriya got up the nerve to ask “Have you ever met Mickey Mouse?”

Xander leaned down close to her. “I did, once, but he was very big and scared me a lot. So I threw up on his shoes.”

She giggled.

He kept watching Priya. Tamvir was sitting next to her, so he had to keep looking in their direction for his translations. But even when he was looking at Tamvir, his left eye seemed to always be watching her.

“This food is excellent, Mrs. Dayoub,” Xander complimented Mother. “Best I’ve had since I got here.”

“Oh!” She was thrown as much by being addressed directly as by his compliment. “I am glad you like it. Not all . . . visitors appreciate our food.”

“Well, it’s wonderful. I think I’m going to miss Pakistani food when I go home.”

Mother actually blushed.

Priya wanted to ask him questions, about costumed heroes and comic books and girls who could stop bullets with their jewelry. But she didn’t. She was too old for the leniency showed to Soriya for talking to strange men. And she didn’t trust him. There was something secretive about him.

She promised herself she’d keep an eye on him. She didn’t want this odd American causing any trouble for her family. She had done enough of that already.

Chapter 9

After that, Xander was around almost every day.

He helped with repairs on the house, patching the roof, fixing some bare wiring. He even ran electricity out to the sheds and the front gate, so they now had a light at the front at night.

He visited Father’s butcher shop one day, wanting to see what it was like. The men had all laughed at his squeamishness over slaughtering, but over dinner Father had admitted that he was impressed with his knife skills. “He has a strong arm and a good aim.” When the killing was done, he had sat out front, joking and talking with the men who had laughed at him, Tamvir acting as his translator. By the end of the day, they all agreed he was a good sport and a decent fellow. For an American.

Tamvir and Xander spent hours and hours working on the car, performing arcane and mysterious rituals on it that only men know or would want to know. Some parts they boiled, some they greased, twisted, yanked, cursed at or simply threw out altogether. They always had an audience, laughing, commenting, giving them advice but basically just enjoying the show. By the end of August they had it running.

Tamvir whooped and shouted, clapping all his friends and Xander on the back before pushing as many young men as possible into the little car to go for a test drive.

Priya walked over quietly to stand next to the American as they watched the car peel away, its undercarriage nearly scraping the ground from the weight of its load. “You have make him very happy,” she said in careful, deliberate English.

He smiled a little, scuffing his feet in the dirt as he squinted to see the car in the bright sunlight. “It’s just a car.”

“No,” she said as the car disappeared toward the paved highway. “Is freedom.”

He turned to look at her, but said nothing more.

He could often be found with the children of the village, gathered around the well or at the back wall of the house when work on the car was slow, telling them amazing stories about life in America, or even more fantastic tales of fighting horrific monsters of every size and description. Sometimes Tamvir translated, but often Xander simply spoke in English, unintelligible to the children but for his dramatic overacting. He would scrunch down close and speak softly, drawing them closer and closer until he would attack, shouting and laying about with his arms, snatching at the children as they screamed and ran away laughing, only to return moments later for more.

She still had doubts about him. Often she would catch him looking at her, one soft, thoughtful eye and one intensely staring, as though waiting for something to happen, waiting for her to do something. She was exceptionally careful to hide her changes from him. But he seemed like a kind man, if a bit sad, and maybe a bit too wise. She wondered what had touched him to leave him so marked.

It was late one night in early September when things changed again.

Priya was working after dark, scrubbing the last of the day’s pots in the scullery shed. Tamvir and Xander were out back working on the car again. The night was quiet and still when she felt a prickling along the back of her neck.

Curious, she dried her hands and went to look out into the yard. She couldn’t see anything, but the sensation grew stronger as she looked west toward town. She wrapped her headscarf more tightly around her throat and crept away from the house, following the sensation.

The path got dark as she moved away from the door sill, but the waxing moon and her familiarity kept her steps sure. She skirted the center of town and found to her surprise that she was headed towards her father’s livestock barn on the northwestern edge of town.

She peered into a darkened window, hoping to see what drew her here. The few animals within shuffled nervously, nickering and bleating in confusion. There was something in there, and they weren’t sure what to make of it.

She opened the door quietly and picked up the hay fork by the door. It was a comforting weight in her hands as she gripped the handle, leading with the points as she moved into the space.

The building was long, with stalls and cages at one end for the animals and storage for feed and bedding straw at the other. Father only actually raised the goats and chickens he sold, buying the other animals he needed from local farmers, so the stalls were mostly empty save for one cow and the handful of Father’s goats. She peered carefully into each stall, poking lightly with the fork to see who might be hiding there.

“Who” reared up from the second to last stall as she approached, roaring fiercely as it strode out into the aisle. The thing was huge and hideous. It towered over her, eight feet tall and broad as a tree. The horns in its head curled up and back as its fangs curled down, slashing across its lower jaw. It reached for her with huge clawed hands, a cry of hunger and success in its throat.

Panic overwhelmed all her restraint and she felt the strength she had been repressing for so long flow through her, felt the power, the bloodlust, the drive to battle flare to brilliance, guiding her arms and feet through the steps of a dance she had never before performed, but which every cell of her body had known intimately for all time

She thrust forward and up hard, driving the fork into his chest and shoulder with all her might. But instead of sinking into its flesh, the tines buckled and bent in all directions, barely scratching the surface of the silk and leather coat he wore. She pivoted on her right foot, changing grips on the handle as she spun around and swung the tool viciously at the creature’s head. It staggered with a howl, lashing out with one of its big meat hook hands to knock her across the aisle to crash into one of the stall supports. Her breath left her in a wuff and she staggered back away from the monster, down the aisle toward the more open space of the storage area. It stalked after her, shoulders hunched, arms out-flung to keep her from slipping past, to reach her more easily with a devastating blow. She snatched up a muck shovel, held it across her chest as she backed slowly away, guiding it, leading it.

It lunged at her and she leapt instinctively, one foot planting on its shoulder to launch herself into a flip. As she landed, she spun again, striking it left and right with the flat of the shovel, knocking it into the haystack.

It struggled back to its feet and charged her with a howl. She tried to dodge out of the way, but it snagged her ankle and slammed her into the floor.

Her blood pounded in her ears and her vision wavered, but her body continued moving instinctively, rolling across the floor away from the monster as it slammed its fists into the ground where her head had been. She rose to her feet, panting, her vision clearing to see it reaching for her again. She ducked, but it caught hold of the trailing end of her headscarf and jerked, her own momentum tightening the fabric around her throat as she slammed into the corrugated steel wall. She kept her feet with a stagger, twisting out of the scarf as she struggled to stay standing.

The double doors on the far side of the barn banged open, and Xander and Tamvir stood there. Tamvir held the heavy wrench he’d been using working on the car, while Xander held a black duffel bag in one hand and a wicked looking crescent axe in the other.

Tamvir saw Priya’s dilemma and charged in, swinging the wrench at the creature’s head with a scream. It spun, hand lashing out to grab Tamvir’s upraised arm and pitching him sideways with a negligent flick. He crashed into the first stall wall and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.

“Tamvir!” she screamed.

“Priya!” Xander shouted, getting her attention. He snapped his wrist, and the axe went flying through the air towards her. She reached out and caught it, studying it as it arced around in her hand.

The haft was heavy wood, two and a half feet long and banded in steel. The silver steel of the blade curved out from the head, the points as sharp as the curved edge. She looked to Xander in surprise.

He simply drew his finger across his throat sharply.

She responded instantly. Her fingers flexed around the handle of the weapon, swinging it over and around her head with an earsplitting shriek. The creature turned back to her just as the blade cut deeply into his neck. She pulled back and struck again from the other side, cutting clean through. As the head bounced away, the body reached out for her as it toppled over.

She dropped the axe and ran to her brother, who was woozily starting to sit up. Xander crouched down next to them as she helped Tamvir sit up.

“Nice job,” he said to her, helping get Tamvir to his feet.

“Do you know what I am?” she asked, the fear and adrenaline finally catching up to her, making her voice quiver.

“Yeah, I know.” He stroked her now bare hair soothingly. “Let’s get him home and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Chapter 10

By the time they got back to the relative safety of the house, Tamvir’s head had begun to clear and his breathing was becoming steadier. Xander settled him into the back seat of the Citroen while Priya ran to the well for cool water. He swallowed gratefully as she made a compress for his head. Finally, he looked at Xander. “What was that thing?”

Xander shrugged. “Demon of some sort. I was never the book guy. More the get-tossed-across-the-room guy.” He smiled. “So thanks for taking my place!”

“Book!” Priya dove under the seat for the lock box. “Maybe in udaam’s book.” She pulled out the red leather-bound volume and handed it to her brother.

“Here, let me.” Xander took the book instead. “I have a system for researching in books I can’t read.” And he began flipping through the pages at high speed.

About halfway through, he stopped, looked hard, squinted at the unintelligible text, then handed it back to them, open to the page. “Here he is.”

Tamvir read from the text. “Prio Motu. Ancient Ofga-beast bred to maim and massacre. Servant class of demon.” He repeated it in English for Xander’s benefit. “Does this mean someone sent it here?”

“Maybe. Could be it was just hunting. We won’t know now. I’ll see what I can find out when I get rid of the body.”

“Do you do this a lot?” Tamvir asked.

“More than I like. Vampires are easy. All you need for cleanup is a dustbuster.”

They both looked at him in confusion until he realized they didn’t get the reference. “It’s an electric broom. Vampires turn to dust when you stake them.”

Priya thought back to the creatures in her dreams. Vampires. She remembered what it looked like as the warrior girls destroyed them. She nodded in acknowledgement.

“Most of the girls get vamps their first time out. Demons, not so usual.” He became lost in thought.

Priya finally could hold out no longer. “Please!” She went so far as to lay a hand on his arm. “You have to tell me what I am! I have to know!”

He squeezed her hand comfortingly. “Priya, you are a Slayer.”

“Slayer.” The word, even spoken in a language foreign to her, fired through her blood, recognition, acknowledgement, identity. She suddenly knew, felt the connection to the line, felt the strands of the web that existed now.

Tamvir asked, “What is a Slayer?”

He grinned. “Well, the official drill is that into every generation, a slayer is born. One girl in all the world with the strength and skills to hunt the vampire. But there’s been a bit of a change. There’s not just one anymore. There are hundreds. Every girl who had the chance to be a slayer now is one. Just like Priya here.” He waited as Tamvir finished translating for her.

She thought for a moment. “One of many?”

He nodded. “But each special. You all have a calling, a destiny. We don’t know what it is, but we want to help you be ready for it.”

“Who is we?” Tamvir asked.

“It’s a group called the Council. Well, the Slayers’ Council, but we usually just go by the Council. Old habit. We’re the people who worked with the Slayer back when there was just one. Now we’re helping all the girls, finding them, making sure they’re safe, helping them get the training and guidance they need. That’s why I’m here. To make sure Priya is safe and cared for. To get her what she needs to be ready.”

Tamvir translated Xander’s words for Priya and then asked, “Ready? For what?”

“For whatever finds her next. The forces of darkness are drawn to the Slayer. They can’t help themselves; it’s like a moth to the flame. We’ve lost a couple of girls because the evil found them before we did, and they weren’t prepared or didn’t know what they were.”

Priya spoke up. “Must I wear costume? Like superhero?”

“What? No! Why would you think that?”

She reached back into the box and pulled out the sheaf of comic books. “I thought I was her.”

He took the magazines from her, picked up the Wonder Woman issue from the top and smiled as he began flipping through the pages. “No, no costumes. Although Buffy did have a thing for the Lycra early on. Nice collection,” he added, sorting through the stack. “Older issues, all in good condition. Must be the dryness here . . .” He stopped himself, looking up at them sheepishly. “Sorry, my inner geek runs away with my mouth sometimes.”

“Are you hero, too?” she asked in English.

“Me? Nah, I’m just the help.”

“But you have the magic eye.”

“Magic . . ?”

She pointed to his left eye. “It watches me. Sees me. Even what I hide.”

“This?” He reached up and tapped the eyeball. “It’s not magic. It’s just glass. I lost the eye about five months ago. Before the change.”

“In war?”

“Sort of. A slayer war. Good versus evil. Apocalypse stuff. You’ll learn all about it.” Tamvir translated again when she looked puzzled.

“Is not magic?”

“No, just glass.”

She thought about that. She’d been afraid of illusion. Of something her mind made up. What was it the professor had said? That she would face many challenges? Was this one? And if so, had she failed, for not recognizing him for what he truly was?

He went on. “Buffy liked the pirate look, but Willow thought the replacement was more practical. And I can always take it out and wear the eye patch when I want to make an impression on the ladies.”

There was that name again. “Baafi. Who is Baafi?”

“Buffy? She’s my best friend. And one of the last solo Slayers. Here,” he reached into his pocket. “Let me show you.” He pulled out his wallet and leafed through it. “Here, that’s me and Buffy and Willow.”

It was an older picture, when Xander was much younger, not so much sadness in his eyes. She knew the faces with him, though. The red-haired one she had seen only for a moment, but she knew the pale-haired one. Her guardian angel. She reached out and reverently touched the image. “I seen her.”

“In the dreams?”

She nodded.

“A lot of girls have reported seeing her. The dreams are of past Slayers, your psyche’s way of trying to tell you what you are. Buffy’s presence in the line is pretty strong, so she shows up fairly vividly.” He paused as Tamvir translated. “Willow’s been using that for the spell to find you all. It kind of peeks in on anyone dreaming about Buffy and tags them for us. Sends the details of where and who back to Will. It’s not precise, so it took me a while when I got here to know it was you. But it was good enough to get me into the general vicinity.”

There was another picture, another blonde woman. Xander had his arms around her and they were both smiling happily. “Who is?” Priya asked.

“That’s Anya.” His face looked pained. “She’s gone now.”

She closed the wallet and handed it back to him. “I am sorry.”

He took the wallet, stroked it thoughtfully for a moment. “Yeah.”

Tamvir spoke up. “So what happens now?”

“That will depend on Priya,” Xander said. “She needs training. But if she’s safe here and we can arrange things, then she’ll stay put and do her thing here until we can get her a Watcher.”

“A Watcher?”

“It’s a mentor, a teacher for her. To help with the training, the researchy stuff. A grownup to support her. Not so much fun at parties.”

When Tamvir finished translating, Priya looked at Xander oddly. “Strange man,” she said in English.

He grinned. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

Chapter 11

She was dreaming again.

But this time it felt different.

Not the disconnected sense of her common dreams. Nor the sense of witness she got from her slayer dreams.

This felt tangible, real. And it frightened her.

She stood in a circle of amber light barely wider than her shoulders. Beyond the edge was blackness, but she could sense movement, as though something slithered along the unseen floor. She was dressed only in her sleeping clothes, a sleeveless undershirt and loose trousers, and her black hair fell unbound around her shoulders, her feet bare. She felt vulnerable and exposed.

“You are so very young,” a deep voice rumbled out of the darkness.

She whirled, trying to find the source of the voice beyond the reach of the light.

“All of you, so young. Why is that?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” she answered, still searching the shadows.

“Brutal little girls with death on their hands.” The voice sighed. “It seems such a sin.”

“Who are you?”

“I? I am a worthy pupil of Allah. Just as you are a faithful daughter of the Prophet. You are faithful, aren’t you, Priya?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sir.” The voice rumbled in laughter. “How novel.”

“Where are you?”

“I am everywhere, young Priya. In the heart of every man and woman, every living creature. Even the one you killed.”

She gasped, her heart suddenly pounding. “I didn’t . . .”

“Oh, yes, you did, Priya. You slaughtered that creature, and you reveled in it. Admit it, the feeling of that life snuffing out at your hands was heady, wasn’t it? Such power.”

“No,” she denied vehemently.

“Power like you’ve never known. Such an exquisite feeling, one you can’t wait to repeat.”

“That thing was trying to kill us!”

“Well, of course it was! That’s why I sent it to you in the first place.”

Cold fear stabbed down her spine. “You sent . . .”

“You would hardly have revealed yourself for anything less, would you? But people, especially your own loved ones, in danger, that brings it out of you. The violence, the corruption. Give it up, Priya. Step out of the light and forswear your evil ways.”

“It’s not like that. I was Chosen . . .”

“Yes? By whom? To do what? Kill? Destroy life? A young woman should be bringing lives into the world, not taking them out. That is what Allah intended, isn’t it?”

“But Zahndar said . . .”

“You pay heed to the words of a godless American? Who do war on the true faith? Surely you are further gone than even I had thought. Step out of the circle. Be cleansed of this wickedness.”

“Stop it!” She covered her ears with her hands. “Stop saying these things!”

“Why, child? Does the truth bring you pain?”

“It’s not truth. I am not evil! Who are you to say such things to me?”

The voice laughed again, cruel and malicious. “Don’t you know me yet, little one? ‘I am better than him. Thou createdst me of fire while him Thou didst create of mud. Now, because Thou hast sent me astray, verily I shall lurk in ambush for them on Thy Right Path.’ [Qur’an 7:11-16]”

She recognized the words from the Holy Book, and when he stepped into the fringe of light, she knew him for who he was.

“Iblis.”

He towered over her at over two and a half meters tall. He was deeply muscled and dressed in the old Arabic style, loose trousers and an elegant vest the only things covering him. His dark hair fell in curls down his neck to his shoulders, accenting the squareness of his clean-shaven jaw. His fingers ended in nails sharpened to claws and painted a bottomless blue. But his eyes were what captured her attention most. From them seemed to exude a radiance of darkness, and his whole body was framed in a nimbus of dark energy. Her eyes watered just trying to look on him.

“Yes, Iblis. The tempter, the outcast, king of the shaytans, the gatherer of human souls. And such a prize stands before me. The soul of a champion, newly made. What greater treasure could I collect for the legions of hell?”

“You won’t have my soul!” Her voice quavered, but her body remained strong.

“No? You think you are the only Chosen One I have approached? I have the souls of three of your sisters already. And my, they were sweet.” He licked his lips, prowling around the edge of the circle. “There are others who resisted me, but they all bear my mark now, and I will come for them again when they are weak. They will be mine as well. As shall you. The responsibility will wear you down, make you vulnerable, make you beg for it to end.”

“I won’t,” she shook her head in denial, tears running down her face. “You can’t force me.”

“No, that’s true. I am only allowed to tempt. The choice must be yours. But I have many ways of making you choose. Your world is its own kind of hell.”

“Let me go. Please.”

“As you wish, child. But first . . .”

His hand lashed out, and before she could cry out in pain, he had gouged into the slope of her breast through the fabric of her shirt, carving a bloody crescent into the tender flesh. “So you don’t forget my offer. You may find the peace of damnation preferable to what you will face in the real world.” He turned and disappeared back into the darkness. “I’ll be watching you,” his disembodied voice floated back to her.

And the light she was standing in went out.

She screamed and sat up in bed, terror clawing its way out of her throat. She couldn’t stop screaming, even as the family, groggy and frightened, gathered around her door. Finally Grandmother grabbed a bucket of water and dumped it over her head. She gasped and spluttered, barely seeing the people around her. The screaming stopped, but her heartbeat raced on, her breathing erratic as she huddled against the wall, clutching her knees to her chest. Finally the family gave up on her and went back to bed. The girls went to sleep in Tamvir’s bed. He stayed with Priya, crouching among the sodden linens and stroking her hair gently until dawn broke the eastern horizon.

The mark in her flesh continued to seep blood long after it should have closed over.

Chapter 12

Tamvir tried to get Priya to talk about the dream, but she just couldn’t. How could she tell him that she had been visited by the devil?

The rest of the family avoided her, disconcerted by the bizarre circumstances of the night before.

Priya dressed alone. She took off the ruined undershirt and craned her head down to look at the mark. It still oozed, the area around it inflamed and red. She prodded at it lightly and winced in pain. She washed it gingerly, the cool water soothing it a bit, but she had nothing to bandage it with, so she simply dressed over it and prayed it wouldn’t stain her clothes.

When no one was looking, she threw the ruined shirt on the cook fire.

She threw herself into the day’s work, eager to forget the events of the past night. Fortunately it was wash day, so she spent most of the morning sunk to her elbows in wet cotton and grey water. The backbreaking labor kept her from thinking about death and damnation and destiny and the wound on her chest. No matter how powerful she had become, there was only so much that extra strength could reduce sheer, mind numbing drudgery. And for that she was grateful.

By the end of the morning all of the family’s clothes were hung out on the line in rainbow rows, the sun high overhead baking the moisture out of them. Priya stood back and admired her handiwork, her mind at peace for the first time.

She needed to talk to Tamvir. And probably Xander. If Iblis was after her because she was a slayer, then he might know something about it. And if other girls were in danger, she needed to help them. She could only do that by finding her courage and talking about what had happened the night before. Hopefully they would come over to work on the car tonight and she could talk to them about it then.

Priya grabbed some flat bread and a few figs for lunch, then changed quickly to go into town for the things they would need for dinner. She looked at the wound again. The oozing seemed to have let up, but it was still swollen and tender. She pulled the clean shalwar over her head, hiding the injury again.

The street through the middle of the village was uncommonly quiet. The normal bustle of the afternoon was gone. Where there should have been people sitting in door gates working on their chores or visiting or running about on their errands, there now were only a few women and children, singly or in small knots. And they watched her walk by, the children in curiosity, the women with suspicion. Self-consciously Priya’s hand moved to the collar of her tunic.

The market was not much better. There were few people shopping, and a few of the merchants had even closed, leaving her with less to select from. The merchants who remained all eyed her warily and some with open hostility. Priya grew more and more uneasy as she finished her errands, finally giving up when Tarek wouldn’t take money from her hand for his cheeses. She cast the coins onto the blanket in front of him as he stared at her coldly, and then she turned to stalk off proudly.

Her brave front lasted until she rounded the first building. Then she clutched her packages to her chest and began hurrying down the path. She had to get home. Something bad was happening, and she needed to get home where it was safe until she could figure out what was going on. Her sandaled feet began flying over the hard packed ground.

But it was already too late.

“There she is!”

Between her and the safety of her house stood a crowd, mostly men but a handful of women as well, perhaps two or three dozen people in all. She turned to run, but another half dozen men appeared behind her. She dropped her packages to run, but they surrounded her, leaving her no way out.

The larger group caught up with them and gathered around angrily as well. And as the crowd parted, she saw, standing in the middle of them, the young Taliban cleric.

“Take her,” he commanded. “Bring her to the square.”

Several sets of hands lay hold of her, holding her arms and legs as she was lifted bodily into the air. She tried to struggle free, but couldn’t find purchase to break their hold on her. They carried her like a procession through the market and to the courtyard in front of the mosque. Priya was dropped on her face and her arms wrenched behind her back where she felt cording knotted around her wrists.

“Please, stop!” she begged. “Why are you doing this?”

The cleric stepped toward her, eyeing her like an unclean thing. Then he turned toward the mob. “You have heard the charges against this . . . woman.” He spat the last word out like a curse. “That she has been impious. Speaking freely to men not of her family. Interfering with a husband’s right to punish his wife. Of physically attacking a cleric. You know she has consorted with demons. Your own wives told you of the heathen rite she coerced them into performing on her, imbuing her with the Prophet alone knows what power. And you heard her last night, screaming to waken the damned as her master punished her for failing to capture any of your souls for him.”

“No! That’s not . . .”

“Silence!” He backhanded her across the face. She felt the trickle of blood run from the corner of her mouth, felt the fear begin to tie itself into knots of rage. “We don’t need your lies here.” He turned back to the crowd. “The Prophet spoke to me last night and told me of this creature’s wickedness, of the corruption she was trying to spread among you. And he told me of the mark she bears as a sign of Azazil’s favor and symbol of her covenant with him. Look on that mark and know the true depth of her depravity.” And with that, he reached out and ripped open the front of her tunic, exposing her pale breasts and the livid crescent to the crowd.

As they looked, blood began to once again flow freely from it.

The mob gasped. Then the first cry went up. “Blasphemy!”

And the first rock flew, catching her in the chest.

Within moments, the air was filled with a hail of stones and curses, knocking her down. She squirmed to present her back to the crowd, to protect her head. The pain, the humiliation, the rage all tangled up inside her, driving her, and she began fighting against her bonds. With a fierce struggle she was able to drag the circle of her arms under her leg to begin working the knot with her teeth between cries of pain as stones pummeled her back and legs. One connected soundly with the base of her skull and made her see stars, and she could feel blood running freely down her scalp.

Finally the knots came free and she staggered to her feet, turning to face the mass. Another rock flew towards her face.

She caught it.

Priya deflected three more, then flung the one she held into the crowd, knocking one of the men to the ground. The stones began coming faster, more forcefully until she could no longer protect herself from all of them. She searched desperately for a way out, but found nothing. Anywhere she could run, they would find her. Except into the desert, where she would die of exposure. No one here would take her in, protect her. Despair washed over her.

A car horn started honking maniacally.

The crowd paused, looking back, and Priya saw the beat up blue Citroen slam to a dusty stop in the square fifty feet away.

“Tamvir!” she screamed in relief.

But it wasn’t her brother that burst out of the car, but the auburn-haired American.

“Priya!” he shouted, waving her on. “Come on!”

She screwed up her courage as the mob turned back to resume their attack. She ran straight at them and with a mighty push of her legs, she leapt up, one foot landing on the back of one man bent over to pick up a rock, her next step planting in the shoulder of another man further back. She pushed off and spun through the air to land on the far side of the mob. Without hesitating, Priya ran straight at the car and jumped in through the open driver’s side door, sliding across to the passenger side as Xander threw himself back behind the wheel. He jammed it in gear and spun out, tearing away from the square at high speed.

She braced herself against the dashboard as he veered through the narrow streets between houses that had never been designed with cars in mind. Finally, they shot out of the village onto open ground. “Highway?” he asked her, searching the width of the windshield.

She pointed toward the road leading to the highway and Multan.

Xander wheeled the car around in the direction she indicated.

“Tamvir?”

“Home,” he answered. “Keeping your family safe.”

“We go where?”

“Multan. Professor Aram.”

She nodded her understanding. Gathering the neckline of her top closed in modesty, Priya curled up against the car door and stared out across the barren landscape, empty of anything but pain and loss and sorrow. Her life was lost to her forever now. And she didn’t know what would take its place.

Chapter 13

Xander drove the beat-up little car hard and fast, pushing its worn out suspension to the limit over the poorly graded roads. They only stopped once, just before they turned onto the main highway, so that he could tend to Priya’s injuries. Most of the bruises had already started to heal, but she still had an oozing lump the size of her fist on the back of her head, and the crescent mark on her chest had coagulated into an enormous scab.

He pulled a first aid kit out of the black duffel and handed her a white plastic bag out of it as he fished around for more items. The bag was squishy and warm, and she couldn’t see what use it was. He traded her a handful of damp paper rags for the bag and indicated that she should use them to clean the clotted blood off her breast. She blushed, but did what he asked, turning her back to him modestly. He began probing at the lump on her head, cleaning it as well. Then he took the plastic bag, twisted it fiercely and gave it a hard shake. This he laid on the swelling. She was surprised to find it was now cold. She took it down, looked at it, held it to her face. “Magic?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Science.” He moved the cold pack back up to her head and started the car again.

The trip to Multan took considerably less time by car than it did by bus, especially with the way Xander was driving, so that in a little over an hour, they were pulling into the city limits. They had to stop several times before they found someone who could give them directions to the University in English. Once they got there, Priya was able to call up details from her walk here with Tamvir to help direct him to the residential neighborhood where Professor Aram lived.

They left the car on the street in front of the house and slipped through the gate. Xander hammered on the heavy door, looking around nervously.

Priya was so grateful when Professor Aram opened the door himself that she threw herself into his arms. “Udaam! I am so glad you are here!”

His arms closed around her instantly, his hands stroking her back soothingly. “Goodness, child! What has happened? You did not come all this way alone, surely?”

She stepped back and wiped her tear-filled eyes on her sleeve. “No, Udaam. May I present to you Zahndar Hahris, a friend of Tamvir’s. And mine. He is the one you told me would come with answers. Zahndar,” she switched to English, “is Udaam Aram.”

Xander put out his hand and before he could realize his faux pas, the professor reached out to take it. “Be welcome in my home, Zahndar Hahris,” he said in clear, uninflected English.

“Thank you, sir,” Xander replied. “Tamvir’s told me a lot about you. I’m sorry, sir, but can we come in? We may not be entirely safe out here.”

“Of course!” He stepped back from the door to allow them in. “Come in, come in. You both look worse for wear. Young Priya especially.”

“Getting stoned will do that to a person,” Xander said.

“Priya?” The professor turned to her, speaking Urdu again. “Is this so? They tried to stone you?”

“Haan, Professor,” she acknowledged, holding her collar close. “It was the Afghan cleric. He accused me of blasphemy and raised the town against me.”

“You poor child! You must hurt everywhere. Come, let’s get you in a warm bath to soak your injuries and young Hahris can tell me what happened.”

And so it was. Bes, the professor’s granddaughter, heated the water for her and helped her undress, as the stiffness of the bruises and the fight had settled into Priya’s muscles. They washed her long hair out gingerly, cautious of the swelling on her scalp, and rinsed it with cool water. Then the girl left her in peace, clean clothes lying on the bench near the fire. She stayed there until the water went cold, not wanting to leave the sanctuary she found there. Finally she rose up out of the water and dried herself with a rough towel. Bes appeared again to help her dress, then made Priya sit while she carefully combed out Priya’s hair and neatly braided it for her. Neither of them spoke a word, but the child smiled in a friendly manner whenever their eyes met.

The men stopped talking when she came back into the sitting area, and the professor welcomed her back with a smile and a cup of tea. “Do you feel better now?” he asked, gesturing for her to sit near him.

She nodded and sipped the honey sweet tea.

“Your friend has been telling me your amazing tale. A line of heroes back to the dawn of man.” He sipped his tea, watching her. “But you have a story for us as well, I think.”

“Sir?”

“How did you get the mark on your breast, Priya?”

He caught her teacup before it could smash on the tiles. Taking the cup and saucer from her, he set them on the low table and looked into her eyes. “Priya, you are safe here. I know what the mark is. Tell me how you got it.”

Xander looked curious but compassionate as he sat across from them. He didn’t ask for a translation of what was happening. Priya was sure he could tell by Professor Aram’s tone and by her defensive covering of the mark under her clothes what was happening. She was grateful he didn’t speak. She never would be able to get the words out if she had to wait for it to be translated.

“He . . . came to me last night. To tempt me. He said such terrible things . . . But they seemed so true . . .”

“Who was it, Priya?” the professor insisted.

“It . . .” she looked into his eyes in desperation. “It was Iblis.”

He gathered up her hands, nodding acknowledgement to her admission. “May I tell him?” he indicated Xander with his head.

She nodded.

“She says it was Iblis,” he said to Xander as he refilled Priya’s cup and handed it back to her.

“Iblis?”

“A creature from our mythology, similar to your Lucifer. You have to understand, our demonology is different from yours in the West. For you, all demons are creatures of hell, but for us there are as many beings of evil that exist on the earth plane. Iblis is one of those.” He paused to repeat himself in Urdu for Priya’s benefit, and then continued in an odd bilingual mimicry of himself, speaking in one language and then repeating himself in the other. “He is one of the djinn, powerful spirits who exist to tempt and possess human beings, to lead them away from Allah. They are subject to His will, but millennia ago they rebelled and did war against God and his angels. During this battle, He recognized Iblis as unusual among his fellow djinn, and had him brought up to heaven to be a pupil in the laws of Islam. Iblis excelled, and eventually he became the teacher. But then Allah created Adam, and bade all to bow down before him. Iblis refused, believing himself to be better than this mud-born creature. So Allah cast him out of heaven and declared his life forfeit at the coming of the final judgment. In the meantime, Iblis, also known as Azazil, is free to lure believers away from Allah and into damnation. Which is what I believe happened to our Priya.”

When he finished translating, she nodded. “He called my new powers evil and bade me give them up and go to him.”

“But you resisted, child. You were strong.” He patted her leg comfortingly. “And I think you were not the only one he visited that night. You say this cleric claimed to have heard the voice of the Prophet?” She nodded again. “More likely the voice of the Deceiver. He hoped to get to you by making you suffer in the real world.”

“And he gave her that mark?” Xander asked.

She nodded at the translation. “When I refused him and demanded he leave, he marked me. To remind me, he said.”

“Okay, see,” Xander went on, “the problem is we’ve got three dead Slayers, all with the same mark. And two more back at base who have the mark but don’t remember getting it. One from Egypt and one from Indonesia.”

“Both Muslim?” the professor asked.

Xander thought a minute. “Yeah. And so were the dead girls. But why would he only want Muslim girls? Wouldn’t any Slayer soul be worth as many po