No Sanctuary

by Z. J. Cannon

That would have to be enough. “Get in the truck!” I yelled. This time, I didn’t need to tell them twice. I dove in behind them just as the lackey in the driver seat stepped on the gas.

  As we sped away, a strip of upholstery peeled off the back of my seat; the lackeys’ hair flew into their faces. I closed my fingers around the handcuffs. The wind stopped. In the rearview mirror, the dust settled.

  I let out my breath.

  One of the lackeys cast an unhappy look over his shoulder as we sped along the fence. “They’re going to see the truck.”

  “If you had told me about the alarms before we came here, I could have taken them into account,” I said, not bothering to hide the tension in my voice. Let them interpret it as anger. Let them be afraid, as long as they didn’t catch on that I had done something more than human back there. “As it is, we have to make do with the opportunities we have. I did enough damage back there to have them chasing their tails for a few minutes. You’ll just have to be quicker than they are.”

  They didn’t look convinced. To be honest, neither was I. But neither of them took out a gun, which I supposed was the best I could hope for.

  At the end of the fence, almost at the water’s edge, we stopped. I left the truck and examined the fence. They followed a second later.

  I didn’t see another of those slim Nexegence boxes. A second later, I understood why. There was a small security station at the end of the fence, its desk recently vacated. I tried the door; it was locked. Not for long. When I had taken care of the lock, I motioned to the others through. Making unhappy noises about the cameras, and carefully angling their faces away, they followed. Me, I didn’t care who saw my face. This was peanuts compared to what I had been accused of.

  “The boss is going to have us crucified for this mess,” one of the lackeys muttered. I wasn’t entirely sure whether he meant it as an exaggeration.

  “Or we’ll be the heroes who saved him millions of dollars,” the other one replied. “You know how much he invested in these—” His voice cut off abruptly with a mewl that sounded suspiciously like someone had stomped on his foot.

  The other lackey said something that sounded a lot like, “Not yet.” I didn’t like the sound of that. But it was much too late to turn around now.

  The discovery of the security station solved one problem for me. I sat down at the computer and typed in the number of the shipment I was looking for. A few seconds later, the location lit up on an interactive map. The map even let me activate the cameras nearest to the container and look at it from all angles. I took the opportunity to shut off all the cameras on the way to our destination. Then I motioned the others out, and led them through the rows of shipping containers.

  It felt like a miniature village, with streetlights on the corners and long, blocky houses painted in a bright rainbow of colors. I could have felt like I was walking the streets of a small, quaint little town from hundreds of years in my past, if not for the voices of the guards in the distance, and the ache of the metal all around me.

  Just as well. All my memories of those little villages ended badly.

  Thanks to the Nexegence software, it took us less than five minutes to locate the container. Or that was my estimate, anyway. Already, I was missing my watch, and not just because I was getting tired of keeping my fingers constantly wrapped around the handcuffs. I paused in front of the container, and motioned the others to stop too. It was bright blue, and gave no clue as to what was inside. I crept up to the door to listen, but couldn’t hear anything.

  Belatedly, I wondered about the logistics of getting the contents from here to the truck. I hadn’t wanted to bring it in with us, and risk the lights and engine drawing attention. But herding whatever was in the container could prove to be more of a liability. It all depended, I supposed, on whether we would be dealing with placid sheep or the proverbial herding-cats situation. Not for the first time, I wished someone had bothered to give me more information.

  I eyed the thick metal door handles, which gleamed a sickly silver in the dim yellow light of the nearest lamp. I could already feel the blisters rising on my skin. The handcuffs were one thing, but that much solid steel was pain I didn’t need. I had been through enough today.

  I took a step back and gestured to the lackeys. “Why don’t you do the honors? Seeing as no one has seen fit to tell me what I’ll find on the other side of that door.” Avoiding the metal was my primary concern, but not my only one. If there was a live tiger in there, for instance, I would just as soon let one of the lackeys get eaten in my place.

  They stepped up to the doors with none of the hesitation I had expected. Not likely to be any tigers, then. But their hands crept closer to their weapons, which I didn’t find comforting.

  Even less reassuring was that when one of the lackeys grasped the handle, the other one placed his hand on the grip of his gun—and he wasn’t watching the door as he did. He was looking at me.

  The lackey hauled on the door handle. The lock rods disengaged with a squeal. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, afraid the sound would draw attention. But I didn’t see any movement, and the voices were still far in the distance. Even so, we were going to have to move fast.

  The doors screeched open. I peered into the dark mouth of the container, careful not to step in too close. I had no desire to enter another steel cage today—or get my leg chewed off by whatever was inside.

  The stench hit me before my eyes could adjust. It billowed out from the container like a thick toxic cloud. At first, all that registered was an urgent, violent disgust. I retched, hands on my knees. A second later, my brain caught up with my nose, and I picked out the odors of urine and worse, with a faint note of human blood underneath.

  Sound came next. The container must have been soundproofed; that was why I hadn’t been able to hear anything a moment ago. As with the smell, at first I couldn’t hear anything but a wall of noise. Then it resolved into sobs, whimpers, pleas. Words. Something hot and tight bubbled up in my chest. I might not have recognized the language, but I knew the difference between animal cries and human speech.

  My eyes caught up a second later, although by then it hardly mattered. I already knew what was inside. Human children. The oldest couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Skye’s age—a thought that did nothing to quell my rising anger. The youngest was maybe four or five, curled up in the lap of a girl who resembled her enough to be her older sister. The older girl’s fists were clenched as she stared out at the three of us. She tightened one arm protectively around the girl in her lap.

  The lackey who had opened the door was already motioning the captives forward, giving them orders in a brisk voice. “Come on, follow me. Quickly now.” In his other hand, he held his gun.

  The second lackey had his weapon out, too. But he wasn’t looking at the children. His eyes were still on me.

  “Another test, I take it,” I said. My voice came out low and dangerous. For a fraction of a second, no more, my fingers loosened on the cuffs.

  He gave a half-shrug of acknowledgment. “The boss was planning to show you once we had them safe. See how you’d react. Can’t work with someone who might come down with a sudden case of the scruples, he said. But this works just as well. Get it out of the way.” He tilted his head at me, a question.

  “I’m not sure ‘safe’ is the word I would use. It looks to me like they’ll be worse off with JD than they are in here.” My voice had gone deceptively mild.

  “And? You still need Ellison, don’t you? Besides, I thought the cops took everything you had on you. If you had any more of that powder of yours, you would have used it back there.” He sounded confident enough, but I didn’t miss the way his eyes went to my pocket.

  “Like I said, there are some things they don’t know how to spot.” The hand he was watching wasn’t the one that moved. It was my other hand that slid out of my pocket, palm out to show him it was empty.

  My handcuffs stayed tucked away.

  I had a m
oment of doubt, as I felt my magic come to life for the second time inside of fifteen minutes. Or maybe doubt wasn’t the word for it. Fear, maybe. Guilt. Shame. A shipping container full of children, mere feet away. I had seen what my power did to anyone who got too close. I had seen what it could do to the innocent.

  The wind swept up the gravel at my feet. Then the pebbles fell heavily to the ground. The magic stuttered. The heat dimmed, then abruptly turned to the cold of panic.

  I tried to clear the memories of Hawthorne from my inner vision, and focused on the container instead. It was solid steel. It would shield the children, as long as they didn’t venture outside. And why would they, with men with guns outside and an unnatural storm raging? Besides, if it was a choice between the risk of my magic and what would happen to them if JD’s lackeys won this fight, they were probably better off with me. At least there was a chance my magic would recognize them as innocents and not touch them.

  That was what I told myself, over and over, willing myself to believe it.

  I didn’t try to force the magic to act. That never worked. Instead, I closed my eyes, and listen to the children’s fearful cries, and gave my father’s sickness—the desire to help those in need, no matter what—free reign. With every heartbeat, I imagined his blood pounding through my veins, and that single imperative along with it.

  When I opened my eyes, both men had their guns pointed at me. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing,” one of them said, “don’t.”

  The wind screamed to life.

  It howled down the narrow corridor, flinging dirt and gravel in all directions. Tiny stones pelted my shins. The two men skidded backward and hit the next container over with a rattling crash. One of them got a shot off; it went wide, burying a bullet in the earth next to a bright orange container.

  The container in front of me erupted in a chorus of screams.

  I looked over at the lackeys, hoping. But they were already starting to stir. Pebbles pelted them both in the face, but all that did was show me that neither neither of them had taken injuries bad enough to stop them from shielding their eyes. I had once watched Vicantha’s air magic strip the flesh and muscle from bone. I had felt her pin me to the wall with nothing but the force of the air around her, holding me immobile while she moved in for the kill. But JD’s lackeys were rising to their feet. Raising their guns.

  This wasn’t Hawthorne. I repeated the words to myself, fingers digging into my palms, the wind sweeping my hair in all directions. I thought I saw one of the lackeys staring at my ears, his eyes wide. But hardly mattered now. It wasn’t as if I could pass this off as powdered explosive.

  It wasn’t as if either of them were going to walk away from this.

  I couldn’t let them walk away.

  Another gust slammed them back again before either of them could fire. But not hard enough. They didn’t even lose their grip on their weapons. They were moving more slowly now, more stiffly, as they rose to their feet. But I knew the difference between bruises and broken bones. And bruises weren’t going to cut it here.

  They were selling children. They were about to kill me. They were not innocent.

  This wasn’t Hawthorne. Wasn’t Hawthorne. Wasn’t—

  The crack of a gunshot split the air as one of them fired. The wind swept the bullet to the side, but not far enough. I yelled as it caught me in the arm. But the rising screams of the children drowned me out.

  In the wake of the shot, I heard yells from the distance, and the pounding of footsteps.

  After the lackeys were dead, I would still have to get myself out of here before the guards spotted me. I couldn’t bring the children. No time. I would have to trust the port guards to help them. It would be all I could do to save myself, and I wasn’t even sure I could do that. Especially since JD’s men were still standing.

  The girl I had noticed before, the older sister, was peering out from the container. She looked from me to the two men with guns, like she was trying to gauge which of us was the greater threat. Her eyes weren’t wide with fear; instead, they were narrowed in determination.

  “Get back inside,” I snapped, without taking my eyes from the two men.

  In the distance, the footsteps grew louder. The guards were close enough now that I could make out their words. “It came from over there! Come on!”

  I close my eyes again, even though it went against all my instincts to shut off one of my senses while two humans were aiming guns at me. I shut out the sound of the footsteps and the guards’ yells. And the babble of the lackeys as they argued over whether to run. The only sounds I let myself concentrate on were the screams of the children. The sobs. The terrified whimpers.

  This wasn’t Hawthorne. I wasn’t doing this out of anger. I was doing it to save them.

  But what had brought me here in the first place? Not some noble desire to save these children’s lives. I had come here to do JD a favor, knowing full well what kind of man he was. He might not have given me the specifics of what was inside that container, but he had given me enough to make it plain that whoever was in there, they were alive, and they were suffering. I had made the calculations, and judged it an acceptable compromise.

  We all have to make compromises.

  And wasn’t there a voice inside me, even now, asking the rest of me what I was doing? I was throwing away my best chance of getting to Ellison. And with it, possibly tens of thousands of fae lives. How many children were in that container? It sickened me that I would consider doing the math. Even so, there was a part of me that wanted to do a full head count, and wait until then to decide which side I would choose.

  Too late for that now, of course. I had made the same choice I always did. As an enemy had told me once, Oberon’s blood was nothing if not predictable. But the voice was there in the back of my mind. It might not have had any power over me, but it was enough to let me know I couldn’t trust myself. As if the memory of Hawthorne weren’t sufficient for that.

  I shut out the thoughts. I couldn’t afford them. The cries of the children were all that mattered. There were humans in danger. I knew what I had to do. I had been doing it for seven hundred years.

  Two male screams rose above the children’s voices. A metallic thud came next, loud enough to drown them out. Then both screams cut off entirely.

  I opened my eyes.

  The lackeys were lying against the wall of the opposing crate again. But this time they weren’t getting back up again. One of them groaned and clutched his ribs with one hand as he fumbled for his weapon with the other. The second man wasn’t moving at all. A second look told me he would never move again. The back of his head had burst against the metal, leaving behind a smear of blood and other things as he slid down. His gun lay at his feet.

  The screams of the children had taken on a different tenor now. The girl I had told to get back inside was still standing in the doorway. She stared at the dead body. Then at me.

  “Stay where you are. Help is coming.” I had to run. The second lackey wouldn’t recover fast enough to do anything to either me or the children before the guards got here. I hoped. But as I watched, he rose on shaky legs, clutching the wall. He stared at me, murder in his eyes.

  But he didn’t have his gun. Not yet.

  The girl darted out from the container. But her sister wasn’t with her, so she couldn’t be making a run for it. It took me only a second to realize what she was going for. The dead man’s gun.

  “Stay where you are!” I repeated, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. It never had with me, after all. Once someone had it in their head to rush into danger for someone else’s sake, nothing short of death could change their mind. I knew it from experience.

  And I was not about to let her die.

  I couldn’t leave now, not with the the surviving lackey already reaching for his gun, and this girl intent on getting herself shot. But as soon as the girl had come out, my magic had faded to a soft breeze. Under other circumstances, I might have been reassured by
that. It meant I wouldn’t be hurting any innocents today.

  But there wasn’t much I could do against the guilty like this, either.

  “Go back to your sister,” I urged her, hoping the reminder of the smaller girl would jolt her out of the madness that had taken hold of her. If anything, it only solidified the determination on her face. Her fingers closed around the gun.

  Next to her, the remaining lackey found his own weapon.

  The girl raised the gun. Even before she completed the motion, I could see the tragedy unfolding in front of me. She was too small for that weapon, and didn’t know what she was doing. The lackey was focused on me right now, but as soon as he saw her, he would shoot her before she had a chance to do the same to him. And with my magic intent on protecting her from me, I could do nothing to shield her from the real threat.

  But the next time I blinked, I was staring into the small circle of the gun’s barrel. The girl wasn’t aiming at the lackey. She was aiming at me.

  It took only a fraction of a second to replay the past few minutes again, this time through her eyes. Three men had shown up together, none of them looking like they meant well. Two had guns. One had something stronger. Now one was dead, one was injured, and only one was still a threat to her sister. She didn’t know I was on her side. She didn’t know—

  I didn’t have time to finish the thought, or the explanation on my lips, before the bullet buried itself in my skull.

  Chapter 18

  Air. That was the only thought in my head. I needed air, but I couldn’t remember how to get it. I told my lungs to breathe, but I couldn’t find them, let alone order them to open.

  Was I drowning? As soon as the thought came to me, I could feel it. The water closing above my head. My hands and feet bound together with stiff rope. Straining for the surface, lungs burning. The light of the blurry sun growing fainter as I sank.

  No. That was the past. A memory.

  So what was the present?

  I didn’t know where I was. But that realization wasn’t nearly as terrifying as the one that hit a second later. I didn’t know who I was.