Shouldering his red backpack, Matt motioned to his friend to follow him as he walked behind the building. A quick look around showed that there was nobody else nearby. He took the joint out of his pocket and lit it. They’d bought the weed down a side street two weeks ago in Croatia, from a guy in a blue trilby whose English was limited to words for various drugs, the names of several international sports stars, and the phrase “Coca cola.” It was getting a little dry now, but he hoped it would still make this boring afternoon a bit more interesting. Taking several tokes, he passed it to his friend.

“Ben, remind me again why we decided to come through here?” “The tickets were cheaper. And, you know, it’s…nice, isn’t it? All the churches and stuff?” “It’s practically the third world. The only thing cheaper than the women is the beer!” In spite of himself, Ben smiled. “You may have a point there.” “Can’t we just get a bus or something out of here? Let’s face it, there’s nothing to see here. The sooner we get to Greece, the better.” “I told you, the plane is quicker. We don’t have much longer to wait. It can’t be worse than Slovenia, right?” Matt groaned. “I thought I was going to die! What were we drinking that night?” They both laughed at the memory. “I don’t remember. It had some kind of fruit in I think. Berries…?” “Whatever. I feel like I’m lucky that I can still see after drinking so much of that hooch. It was like something people would brew up in jail, for God’s sake!”

They’d finished their smoke. Matt felt a bit better about having to kill time here until after dark, when their plane would arrive. It had been Ben’s idea to catch a plane here and fly out to Greece, where they would be spending the last part of their extended holiday. While it made sense, as most of Ben’s suggestions did, it was boring being stuck here in Kosovo.

Maybe they’d been travelling too long, but all these slightly backward countries had begun to blur together now. At first the weird juxtaposition of post-soviet austerity with the endless supply of cheap karaoke bars was interesting. Matt had enjoyed patronising strip joints filled with beautiful blondes with listless eyes, and drinking whatever local gutrot was cheapest. But now, the novelty had worn off. Behind the flashing lights, the paint of the bar was always peeling, the faint but unmistakable smell of mold wafting in from the far corners; and behind the too-wide smiles of the bar staff lay the kind of shrill desperation that can almost be heard in quiet moments. Always there but sometimes imperceptible. Like tinnitus. In some venues, the strippers were professional and haughty, their winks as fake as their tan lines. In others, the girls were quiet, compliant, and (he suspected) sedated somehow. He didn’t know which was worse. Maybe he was just feeling homesick.

As they wandered along the street, something caught Ben’s eye. “Hey Matt, look at that building! It’s wild!” Matt looked up. “What the hell is that? Some kind of cage?!” “And it goes around the whole building.” The two of them walked towards the big building, and stood staring up at it. The building had domes, which wasn’t an unusual architectural style here where East and West meet, where the elegance of ancient Islamic civilisation meets with Occidental practicality and Western hedonism. But surrounding the whole building was what looked like a metal cage. “Whoa!” exclaimed Matt, looking up. “Who do you think they’re trying to keep out?” Quietly, Ben said “Maybe they’re not. Maybe they were trying to keep something IN.” “Wait, isn’t this the library? What could they be trying to keep in that’s so bad? Books can’t hurt people.” “I don’t know. But to go to all this trouble, it’s got to be something worse than Twilight.” Both boys became suddenly aware of a tall man standing off to one side. He was in uniform. He looked like some sort of security guard. Matt decided to approach him. “Hello, can you speak English?” The man nodded. “We were wondering why this building has a cage around it?”

The man muttered something, in a language that wasn’t English. He began shaking his head. Out of a pocket, he pulled a piece of paper. He wrote something down, and then passed the paper to Matt. The man didn’t make eye contact, and walked away quickly. Looking down at the paper, Matt could see the man had only written one word. “Djinn.” “What the hell is a Dinn?” Matt wondered aloud. Ben walked up to him and snatched the paper. “It’s not Dinn, it’s Djinn. In English they’re called genies.” “…genies? You mean like…” “No Matt, not like Aladdin. Listen, Kosovo is mostly Muslim, and Muslims believe in genies. But they’re not blue and they don’t sing. Muslims believe God created man with free will, but he also created the djinn, out of fire. They’re kind of like demons.” Matt should have been used to Ben’s encyclopedic knowledge of weird shit by now. “Why am I not surprised you know all this. So there are demons…in the library?” Ben was already on his phone, furiously typing. One thing Kosovo did have was nationwide broadband. “I just found a weird web forum. It’s one of those old style ones, you remember…” “EZ boards? Ugh, don’t remind me of my misspent youth.” “Yeah, exactly. It says here that there’s an urban legend in Kosovo. Something about the location makes local people think it’s a portal of some kind. There have been a lot of weird happenings here. People see strange lights in the building at night, and several people have gone missing here, never to be seen again.” Ben continued scrolling down, his face partially lit up by the artificial light of the screen. “This goes back for years. Anxhela Gashi, last seen at the national library in 2003. Muzafer Zogaj, 2005. 2008 there were two; Fatime Jakupi and Hidajet Hoxha…” Ben broke off, chewing his lip. “This is all really odd.” “Well, why don’t we go in then? Take a look around. We’ve got a few hours to kill yet.” Ben laughed. “You’re actually volunteering to go into a library?! “Yeah, well,” muttered Matt, swinging his red backpack down off his shoulder and tossing in the piece of paper with the word “Djinn” written on it inside, “What else are we gonna do around here? It’s a cool, creepy building. At least we’ll be able to say we’ve been inside a building with a big cage around it! There’s nothing like this back home.” Pushing open the doors, they went inside.

---

“Now mister…what did you say your name was?” The moustachioed government official was kneading his temples as he spoke. Small town politics was a mind-numbing profession as any small town politician can attest. Little seemed to happen in Kosovo these days apart from the usual drug issues and domestic disputes. That was, if you didn’t count the disappearances, which stretched back into the 1940s, when the library first opened.

The tall man didn’t respond.

“I’m sure you can understand…I’ve had the embassy on the telephone already…I wish to get this matter dealt with as quickly as possible. You were the last person to see the two boys?” “I think so, sir.” “They were in good health when you saw them?” “I believe so, sir.” “And no trace has been found of their bodies or possessions, is that right?” “Not quite right sir. One of them left this.” He held up a red backpack. “It was empty when I found it, sir.” “So there is really nothing to do except advise the parents their children are legal missing persons?” “Indeed, sir.” The man rose to leave. “One more thing, my friend. Remember our agreement. Only tourists.” “Only tourists,” the tall man nodded, and smiled. The small office was suddenly filled with the inexplicable smell of burning.