Lindsay flinched, and Miles reached up to push his glasses farther back on his nose. Without blinking, he said, “I told you from the beginning that this work was a calculated risk. We took all the necessary precautions, but there was always a chance that once we began to modify the field projected by the device, it could fail.”
“It was my fault,” Lindsay blurted. Even from where I stood, I could see the way her slender form was shaking in terror, although I couldn’t be sure whether her trembling was caused by the prospect of an incipient djinn attack or having to face down a furious Zahrias. “I thought Miles asked me to make a correction of .05, but it was actually .005. And…the machine just blinked and turned off.”
“Lindsay,” Miles broke in, his tone remarkably even, considering the circumstances, “I am the lead on our team. It was my responsibility to check your work.”
Zahrias didn’t appear all that impressed by Miles’s improbable grace under pressure. “How very noble of you, Dr. Odekirk. But now that the device is broken…how soon can you fix it?”
The scientist faltered a bit then. It probably didn’t help that Zahrias was such a formidable specimen compared to him, especially now that the djinn leader’s powers had returned and he wasn’t slumping over a cane. “Difficult to say. An entire assembly has been shorted out, and I don’t have an adequate replacement.”
“Do what you must,” Zahrias rasped. “But fix it. Your life depends on it just as much as the lives of everyone around you.”
A hurried nod, and then Miles murmured a few words in an undertone to Lindsay. It must have been something along the lines of “let’s get back to the lab,” because she nodded, and immediately afterward, they hurried out of the room.
I could hear the angry murmurs following them, but no one attempted any pursuit. Instead, everyone’s attention was fixed on Zahrias, waiting for him to give the directions that would save them all from destruction at the hands of the rogue djinn.
For a few seconds, he said nothing, only watched the waiting crowd. At my side, Jace was tense, but silent. Dutchie seemed to pick up something of the mood, since she pressed herself again my leg and looked up at me with her mismatched eyes, as if asking me what the problem was.
You’ll be all right, I thought then. The djinn have always left the animals alone. As for the rest of us….
I shivered, and Jace reached out to take my hand. On my other side, Julia appeared still, but I felt rather than saw the tremor that went through her. I could tell she was just as scared shitless as I was.
Zahrias spoke. “While it is true that our primary means of defense is currently disabled, that does not mean we are completely defenseless. We have our powers, and we have the guns of our Chosen. If those djinn who have decided to defy the covenant all our people agreed upon come to attack us now, we will be ready.”
Murmurs of assent, and I saw people nodding, djinn eyes glittering. And hands tightening on the guns they held. These people were ready to fight.
And was I? My heart pounded in my chest and my stomach tightened with fear, but somehow, with Jace beside me, I couldn’t help thinking we would make it out of this somehow, even when the odds were so stacked against us.
Then an enormous pressure crushed against my ears, as if I’d suddenly climbed a thousand feet in altitude in a single second, and a roaring sound reverberated against my aching eardrums. All the glass in the bar, which was located directly behind the restaurant itself, shattered like a spray of ice, including the mirror behind the bar itself. I threw up my hands to protect my face, although I should have been far enough away from the wreckage that none of the debris could hit me.
Despite that precaution, I felt little slivers of broken glass peppering my hands and showering down around me. Dutchie whined, and I immediately bent to brush away with my free hand any glass that had landed on her.
When I straightened up, I saw what had caused the destruction. A group of at least forty djinn stood in what used to be the bar. Smoke curled away from them, although I couldn’t see anything actually on fire. And in front of them was the black-haired, cruel-faced djinn who had led the group that attacked our caravan, and killed Evony and Ethan.
Khalim.
Through all of this, Jace had retained an iron grip on my right hand. That grip only tightened now, and I immediately saw the reason why. To Khalim’s left, and only a foot or so behind him, was Aldair. His blue eyes blazed through the smoke, an angry, burning glare that settled on me.
Although my every instinct was to look away, I forced myself to stay where I was, to return that stare as if it mattered nothing to me.
Jace caught it, too, and I felt him shift next to me, as if he intended to move toward his old adversary. Now it was my turn to tighten my grip on his fingers.
No, beloved, I told him. Wait to see what Zahrias does.
A very faint nod. Behind me and off to one side, I heard the unmistakable sound of someone taking the safety off their pistol. I didn’t dare turn to see who it was. All I could do was hope they wouldn’t shoot first. We didn’t need a reenactment of Fort Sumter here.
Zahrias had turned as well. I stood close enough to him that I could see a muscle twitch in his cheek, although otherwise his face was deadly still.
“You have no business here, oath-breakers.”
An ironic lift of Khalim’s brows. “Indeed? I would say our business is everywhere, since we djinn now have dominion over this world.”
“Not among us,” Zahrias replied. I wondered how he managed to keep his voice so calm, so steady. I knew I would have been shaking like an aspen leaf in a gale. “It was agreed that this community — and others like it around the world — would be kept safe. What, have you so tired of hunting Immune that you must come here to molest us?”
These last words were delivered with an almost condescending flip at the end, as if the djinn leader didn’t consider Khalim and his group of thugs to be much of a threat. I noticed there wasn’t a female djinn among them. Were their women less warlike than the men, or had they simply declined to join this particular raiding party?
“Not at all,” Khalim said. The flames around him wavered for a few seconds, then burned higher, licking almost to his waist. If he’d been a mortal man, he would have been screaming in agony by now. Or were the flames even real? Were they simply a form of supernatural theater? I’d never gotten quite close enough to Zahrias to find out. “It is more that you have taken up residence in a region we have decided to claim for our own. All we are doing is…cleansing…the area.”
I darted a quick glance up at Jace, puzzled by Khalim’s words. This was the first real confirmation I’d heard of the other djinn coming here to colonize the now mostly empty planet, although Jace had spoken as if it would happen eventually. After all, wasn’t that the whole point of the Heat, to depopulate the world so it would finally be theirs? But Jace was frowning, attention fixed, not on Khalim, but on Aldair, whose sharp blue gaze seemed to pierce through the crowd.
“The world is wide,” Zahrias said. “You have no need of this tiny corner of it.”
“Ah, but we have taken a fancy to this place.” Khalim waved a hand, as if to indicate the resort around us. “Not quite the palace I am used to, but it should suit my people very well.”
For a few seconds, Zahrias was silent, appearing to consider Khalim’s statement. If Taos was really all they wanted, then I had to think it would be far easier for us to simply pick up and go someplace else, like back to Santa Fe. Surely there were enough empty hotels and condos and casitas there to accommodate everyone. And with the threat of the rogue djinn removed from the equation, we wouldn’t even have to worry about whether Miles fixed his device or not.
“That is all you want?” Zahrias asked then. It seemed as if his thoughts had run along more or less the same lines as mine, because I could see just the tiniest lessening of the tension in his jaw, although otherwise he hadn’t moved.
“Not precisely.”
We
ll, that couldn’t be good. Jace’s fingers were clamping down on mine so tightly that in other circumstances I would have made some sound of protest. Now, though, I just gritted my teeth and endured the discomfort.
Aldair stepped forward then. “I would take the woman Jessica Monroe as well.”
The crushing pressure on my fingers suddenly released as Jace’s hands knotted into fists and he took several steps forward. “Never.”
Lips pulling into a sneer, Aldair replied, “How like you, Jasreel, to put your own needs before those of everyone else around you. Would it not be far more noble to sacrifice one mortal woman rather than risk the lives of the others in this community, human and djinn alike?”
“We are not slavers, to traffic in human flesh,” Zahrias rasped, and Jace subsided somewhat, although he remained in his current position, one clearly intended as a barrier if Aldair should decide to move toward us. Through all of this, Zahrias hadn’t spared one glance at me, but instead held his gaze fixed on Khalim. There were some murmurs in the watching crowd, although I couldn’t say whether they were in protest at Aldair’s outrageous suggestions…or possibly agreeing with him.
“Indeed?” Khalim replied. “What is this woman’s importance, that you would put her ahead of all others? For let me tell you, Zahrias al-Harith, our offer is a generous one. Your people would be safe. Only leave, and go south, and leave the woman to Aldair.”
Zahrias’ next question surprised me. “Why this place? For I would think there is far more in some of the other settlements left behind — Santa Fe, Albuquerque — that might be of use to you.”
“No.” The flat delivery of that one syllable left no room for doubt. “We want this place. There is power here — power in the river gorge to the north and west, power in the mountain lakes. We have already had a taste of it, and we want more.”
That didn’t sound good. I had no idea what sort of power Khalim was talking about, but giving someone like that access to anything that might increase his ability to dominate the area had to be an extraordinarily bad idea.
Once again, it seemed as if Zahrias and I were of the same mind. His brows drew together, and the flames flickering near him turned a dark, dark orange, angry, brooding. From the way he was looking at Khalim and the djinn clustered around him, I got the impression that he was measuring their strength, calculating whether we had a chance at all. In numbers, we were roughly even, but half our contingent was human, and not all of them carried guns. And I’d seen how many blasts it had taken to drive back even a few djinn. Now we faced forty.
At last he said, his tone heavy, “We will give you this place, if that is your will. But Aldair must withdraw his claim on Jessica Monroe.”
“You are in no position to bargain, Zahrias,” Aldair said, stepping forward.
With one lifted hand, Khalim held him back. “Peace, Aldair.” His dark gaze flickered back toward Zahrias. “It is such a small thing to be fighting over. One mortal woman. What does her life matter, against the lives of all those in your charge?”
A heavy silence fell. I could almost feel everyone staring at me, although I knew that wasn’t the case. Not really. At least as many of them — mostly Chosen — were glaring at the two djinn who were making such insane demands. And beside me, Julia stood stock still, her expression aghast.
I should have been reassured that Zahrias seemed prepared to make a stand on my behalf. But I wasn’t, because I could feel the tension ratcheting up in the space, see the way people’s hands were tightening on their guns. It would take so very little to set them off, and what might happen then?
People would die.
I’d seen enough death.
My heart was hammering so hard in my chest that I wondered how everyone around me couldn’t hear it. The scene looked like a still from a movie…or maybe that was only how I perceived it. Time slowing down to this one moment, this one instant where I knew I had the power to fix this, if I could only summon the courage.
Jace was in profile to me. How beautiful he was, every sculpted line of his jaw and nose and mouth, the spill of night-black hair over his shoulders. I wanted to go to him and hold him, tell him how much I loved him. But of course if I did that, he’d know what I intended to do next, and he would try to stop me.
Of course he would, because he loved me.
Maybe one day he would forgive me. I had to do this, though. Zahrias had said he didn’t barter in human flesh, and I admired him for that, admired him for the way he stood up for me, when he could have easily brushed me aside, a mortal woman of no real importance. In that moment, I loved him, too. Not the way I loved Jace — I could never love anyone the way I loved Jace — but as the older brother I’d never had and secretly wished for, someone who could be counted on to do the right thing and be the person I could look up to.
Throat tight, I bent down and patted Dutchie on the head. Then I whispered to Julia, “Look after Dutchie for me.”
“Look….” she began, and then let the words trail off as she seemed to realize what I was up to. “Jessica, no!”
But I’d already begun to stride forward, pushing past Jace as quickly as I could so he couldn’t reach out to stop me. Despite that, he was moving, too, only a pace or so behind and gaining fast. It would be so easy to slow down, to let him catch me by the arm, keep me from pursuing my insane plan.
No. I wouldn’t do that. This was horrible, the hardest thing I’d ever done, but I wouldn’t allow anyone else to die. Not when I could do something to prevent it.
I burst through the crowd and stopped a few feet away from where Khalim and Aldair stood in the destruction that once been the El Monte Sagrado’s bar. “I will go with you, Aldair,” I said loudly. “If you swear that you will leave all of Zahrias’ people alone.”
Aldair’s blue eyes flashed in triumph. At the same time, Jace came up beside me and spun me around to face him. “Jessica, you cannot do this! You don’t know what you’re promising!”
There would be no pleading with him, I knew. In that moment, he truly thought I was more important than all of the Taos community. If our situations had been reversed, maybe I would have felt the same way. But this was my choice, my decision.
No more blood on my hands.
Zahrias was surging through the crowd as well, which parted to let him pass. A veritable halo of flames surrounded him as he stopped on my other side.
So they aren’t real flames, I thought then, incongruously. They only look like it…or maybe they are real, but he does something so they can’t hurt you.
Distracting myself again.
He said, his voice barely above a murmur, “Jessica, are you sure?”
I nodded. The choking sensation in my throat was so overwhelming that I knew I wouldn’t be able to force any words past it.
A brief hesitation, while Khalim looked at us with a strange combination of amusement and triumph. And Aldair — I saw triumph in his expression as well, but also impatience, as if he intended to interrupt us if we took too long with our business.
Zahrias released a breath slowly. “Very well. I will have him swear an oath that no harm will come to any of us if you accept their bargain and go with Aldair.”
“An oath?” Jace demanded, not bothering to lower his voice. “I think Khalim and Aldair and their followers have shown all too well that they care nothing for oaths, and will break any promises made whenever it suits them.”
I thought for sure that remark would anger Khalim, but he only flashed us a lazy smile and said, “I will gladly swear any oath you require, Zahrias. This one should be easy enough to keep. If only we had been allowed to select our own place in this world before you and your Chosen took it for yourselves, all this unpleasantness might have been avoided.”
Unpleasantness? I raged at the way this man — this creature — had disfigured Aidan, killed Clay. And what had happened to Martine?
Most likely, that oldie but goodie, a “fate worse than death,” which was probably going to be m
y fate as well. My stomach churned, and I swallowed the bile that began to burn at the back of my throat. If I was going to sacrifice myself, then I’d do it with some dignity, damn it.
Jace said, desperation clear in every plane and angle of his face, every note in his voice, “Jessica, I beg you. There must be some other solution. You can’t do this.”
“Can you think of one?” I asked, gaze flicking toward the djinn who stood behind Khalim, all of them big and beefy and probably possessed of some very nasty talents, and then toward the watching crowd of our own djinn and their Chosen. “We’d never win in a fight. You know that. They’d do their best, and I’m not saying they wouldn’t succeed in hurting a few of the other djinn, but in the end, they couldn’t win. And how many of them would die, Jace? I’m not willing to take that on myself. I won’t. Not when I can stop it.”
He shook his head. At the same time, Zahrias turned toward Khalim. “She is determined.” A baleful glance in Aldair’s direction. “And you most certainly do not deserve her. But we’ll leave that aside for now.”
As he drew himself up, I realized that Zahrias was an inch or so taller than Khalim…a discrepancy I didn’t think was lost on the leader of the rogue djinn, who scowled.
Grim-faced, Zahrias told him, “For now, you will swear on this earth that God created, and on the ranks of angels who watch over it, and on the stars that shine down upon it, that you will leave the people in my care alone, now and forever, knowing that we have agreed to the terms of your bargain and will leave this town and the countryside around it to you and your followers. And that Jessica Monroe, Chosen of Jasreel al-Ankara, will go with Aldair al-Ankara to be his, fulfilling the final term of our compact. Do you so swear?”
“I swear,” Khalim said, and then, as an echo, all the watching djinn behind him murmured “I swear” as well.
I glanced up at Aldair. He was smiling, but oddly, his gaze didn’t appear to be directed at me, but rather toward Jace. Still with that hateful smile pulling at his mouth, he said, “I swear.”
“It is done.” Zahrias turned toward me. “No one will forget your sacrifice.”
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