But now we were more or less back in civilization, although here on the outskirts of town, I didn’t see many signs of life. Maybe the djinn and their consorts were all holed up in the city center, in the hotels and B&Bs that clustered near the central plaza and the shops and the museums. That seemed to make more sense; I didn’t know if even the Los Alamos people had the guts to come to a place where so many djinn were congregated, but if they did, the elementals would do better if surrounded by more of their kind.
Sure enough, just as Evony and I passed Quesnel Road, we came to a sort of roadblock. Well, it was really only a couple of guys sitting in the middle of the road in a Toyota FJ Cruiser, but as soon as we slowed to a stop just before the intersection they occupied, they got out of their SUV and made their way over to my driver-side window. They weren’t djinn, but they were both extremely good-looking — in their twenties, like Evony and me, one dark, Hispanic or maybe Italian or Greek, the other with blond hair pulled back into a ponytail and with the burnished tan of someone who spent a lot of time on the ski slopes.
The dark-haired man pointed at my window, and I unrolled it, letting in a freezing blast of air as I did so. “Welcome to Taos, Jessica,” he said, and I started, even as Evony shifted in the passenger seat and gave him an unbelieving stare. She didn’t say anything, though, but instead watched the stranger with wary eyes.
“Hi,” I replied cautiously. I mean, what else was I supposed to say? But if you stopped to think about it, the djinn here weren’t interdicted by the device the Los Alamos people were using, and so they could’ve been using their powers to watch over Evony and me as we made our way to Taos. If nothing else, that would explain the “helping hand” we’d gotten back in Truchas.
“We’ve been expecting you,” the blond stranger said. “There’s a room waiting for you, but first, you need to talk to Zahrias.”
That was an audience I would have preferred to avoid, at least until I’d had a chance to rest and get myself more or less together. Even though I knew the djinn man in charge of this sector had come to the house merely to warn Jace and not for any nefarious reasons that I could discern, I couldn’t help the shiver of unease that passed through me whenever I recalled the harsh gleam of his dark eyes, the cruel set to his mouth. I pitied whoever he’d chosen; I would’ve been scared shitless if he’d been the one to come to me instead of Jace.
Despite the friendly tone of these two men, I could tell I wasn’t expected to argue with Zahrias’ orders. And I wouldn’t. At least they’d said there was a room waiting for me — had they put one aside for Evony, too, or did they expect us to stick together, since we were currently travel companions? That could be a little awkward, for a number of reasons.
But because the Cherokee’s heater couldn’t really keep up with the icy air pouring through the window, and because I knew there wasn’t any point in protesting, I merely asked, “Where is he?”
The blond young man turned and pointed up the street. “He’s at a resort up off Kit Carson Road. El Monte Sagrado. You can’t miss it.”
“Thanks,” I replied, although I had a feeling it would be easy to miss a lot of things in the falling dark and the ever-increasing snow. If I drove slowly enough, however, I figured I should be okay.
The strange young man smiled and slapped the driver-side door of the Jeep with a gloved hand, reminding me unpleasantly of the way the leader of the Los Alamos gang had done the same thing to his Hummer before driving off. But I refused to let my mind go there. This was an entirely different place, and an entirely different circumstance. And, from the looks of it, an entirely different set of people.
I pushed the button to roll up the window, then began driving slowly past the two men, cutting over to the opposite side of the road to get around them. They gave me the thumbs-up before retreating to the warmth and safety of their own vehicle.
Evony had remained silent throughout the entire encounter, but she spoke then. “What do you think Zahrias wants with us?”
My mind had been playing with possibilities, each one more unpleasant than the last, but I forced myself to give what I hoped looked like a casual shrug. “He probably just wants to hear what happened to Jace and Natila. If the djinn can’t see past the field — or whatever it is — that one of those boxes generates, then they’re going to have to rely on accounts from people like us.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” she said, but she didn’t look entirely convinced.
Well, that made two of us.
I drove up Kit Carson, scanning the street — which appeared to have been plowed, miracle of miracles — for any signage. As it turned out, I didn’t need a sign, because over on our left there was a wide entrance to the resort, topped by a portico of rough-hewn logs. The driveway was plowed as well, so it was easy enough to pull in and then park the Jeep in what clearly had been intended as the guest registration area.
Lights shone in the windows, and farther off I could see a few vehicles parked here and there. Did they belong to the Chosen, or had they been left there by victims of the Dying? You wouldn’t think the consorts of the djinn would need cars to get around, not if they were hooked up with elemental beings who could simply whisk them from place to place. Or maybe not. I didn’t know exactly how it all worked, since of course Jace had been doing his utmost to convince me he was just another regular mortal, and therefore I hadn’t seen too many displays of his power.
Dutchie whined, and I knew I had to take care of her before I went in to see Zahrias. The poor thing had been cooped up in the car all day and hadn’t complained once, but even she had her limits. The djinn leader would have to wait.
“I’m going to walk Dutchie for a bit,” I told Evony, and she tilted her eyebrow at me.
“Seriously? When Zahrias is waiting for you?”
“Yeah, well, I kind of doubt Zahrias is going to come down here and clean the pee off the back seat if I make my poor dog wait any more.”
Evony made a disgusted sound. “I’ll walk the dog. You go see Zahrias.”
“I think he wants to talk to both of us.”
“That wasn’t the impression I got.” During the drive, she’d unzipped her parka, but now she undid her seatbelt so she could close her coat back up again. “Those guys back there were talking to you. They didn’t even give me a second glance.”
“Well — ” I hadn’t actually thought about it at the time, but it was true. They’d approached me, not Evony, which just seemed weird. After all, we were both Chosen who’d had our djinn companions kidnapped.
She flapped a hand. “Just go. I’ll take care of Dutchie and then come inside. Hopefully, there’ll be someone around to show me where to crash.”
I glanced back toward the building, to the place that looked like the registration area. It was hard to tell in the darkness and with the snow falling, but I thought I saw shapes moving inside, so it seemed as if there were people besides Zahrias around.
“Okay,” I said at last. “I’ll come find you as soon as I’m done.”
She nodded and opened her door so she could go around and coax Dutchie out of the back seat. Not that it was much of a problem; the dog bounded outside as soon as Evony stepped out of the way. Under normal circumstances, I would have smiled at Dutchie’s enthusiasm, but I found I wasn’t really in the mood to smile right then. Not with Zahrias waiting for me somewhere inside the adobe edifice only a few yards away.
After tucking my scarf more tightly around my throat, I crossed the parking lot and entered the building. Almost at once, a pretty young woman with striking red hair came up to me. “Zahrias is this way,” she said, pointing down the hallway to her left.
I nodded and began to follow her. Inside it was very warm, almost uncomfortably so. I pulled off my gloves and stuffed them in my pockets, then unzipped my coat and unwound the scarf I’d just tightened. As I walked, I pulled off the knitted cap I wore and ran my fingers through my hair as best I could, then wanted to shake my head at myself. Did it really
matter what I looked like? I wasn’t here to impress anyone, least of all Zahrias.
Despite that, I couldn’t help feeling a bit cowed by my surroundings. The place was very posh, in a high-end Southwest kind of way. Gleaming dark wood floors, with thickly plastered walls and dark-beamed ceilings overhead. Original oil paintings on the walls, and furniture that looked as if it had been crafted by local artisans.
As we walked, I asked the young woman, who appeared to be around my age, “Are you Zahrias’ Chosen?”
A blink, followed by a vigorous shake of her head and a laugh. “Oh, no. Zahrias doesn’t have a partner. My djinn is named Dani.” She smiled as she said his name, blue eyes lighting up a little. Clearly, she was very happy with whoever had selected her.
I digested her reply for a moment. So Zahrias was overseeing all these djinn and their Chosen, and yet he’d decided to remain alone, for whatever reason. Well, in a way I supposed that was a good thing. At least my worries that he’d been frightening and intimidating some poor mortal girl appeared to have been unfounded.
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask the young woman more questions — where had she come from? how had her djinn partner approached her? — but then she stopped in front of a set of double doors and said, “Zahrias is inside. He’s been waiting to speak with you.”
“So I heard,” I said dryly. If I could have thought of any way to stall, I would have, but she was already opening the door on the right and stepping back out of the way, so I had no choice but to go in. At least she offered me an encouraging smile as I passed. Unfortunately, a smile from a stranger wasn’t quite enough to put me in a more settled frame of mind.
But then I didn’t have time to think about anything else, because she had shut the door behind me, and I found myself in a largish chamber that probably had originally been intended as a conference room, the sort of place where executives on retreat might gather to have a breakfast and pretend they were doing something constructive rather than simply getting away for a few days in Taos on the company dime. Now the space was mostly empty, except for a large chair and matching side table set up at one end near the fireplace, which had a blazing fire going.
Standing in front of that fireplace was Zahrias. At least, I assumed it was him; his back was to me as I entered the room, but as I took a few hesitant steps in his direction, he turned toward me, his face blank, unsmiling. Since the chandelier of heavy wrought iron overhead was switched on, I could see him far more clearly than I had on that one frightening night at my house in Santa Fe. Back then, the flickering fire- and candlelight hadn’t given me a very clear impression of his features, save for the hard lines of his jaw and the cruel set of his mouth.
Now I could see that he actually was handsome enough, just like all the djinn, with the sort of heavy eyelashes that could make a man look as if he was wearing eyeliner even when he wasn’t, and a firm chin and fine brow with thick dark hair flowing away from it. Unlike the time he’d visited the house Jace and I shared, Zahrias now wore a heavy quilted sort of robe over the billowing pants, although reddish-gold jewelry still gleamed at his wrists and his throat.
His feet were planted firmly on the floor, and that made me wonder if he had to make an effort to do that, so as not to scare the human.
“Jessica Monroe,” he said. His voice possessed a harsh edge that Jace’s lacked, although they both had rich-sounding baritones.
I forced myself to look squarely at him, even though I felt like a grubby mess in my muddy boots and jeans, my hair probably a disaster after having that knitted cap on all day. “I heard you wanted to talk to me.”
“I want to know what happened to Jasreel.” Zahrias went to the table a few feet from him, where I noticed for the first time a decanter of dark wine and a few glasses sat. He lifted the decanter and poured some of the wine into one of the glasses, then held it out to me. “You look as if you could do with this.”
That was an understatement. My shoulders and neck were still stiff and tense from that nerve-wracking drive along the High Road, and a little muscle relaxant could be just what the doctor ordered. Even so, I shot Zahrias a wary glance, wondering what his game was. Certainly nothing I’d seen of him during his conversation with Jasreel back at the house would have led me to believe he’d be at all solicitous toward a mere mortal.
“Maybe,” I allowed, taking a step forward. Then I paused. “What about Evony?”
A negligent lift of his shoulders, the red and gold brocade of his robe glinting in the firelight. “What about her?”
“Don’t you want to hear her story, too?”
“I want to hear yours. I have a feeling that they are materially similar. Besides,” he went on, “hers is not a mind given to much analysis. Natila could have chosen better.”
That comment seemed a little harsh. Evony might not have been a Fulbright scholar, but she appeared quick and clever enough to me. However, arguing with Zahrias on his home turf didn’t feel like a very good idea. I shrugged, then closed the rest of the gap between us so I could take the glass of wine from him. We didn’t touch, but despite that, I could practically feel the heat radiating from his skin. Jace had always been warm, but this was different, something like a fire that seemed to burn along Zahrias’ veins. Maybe it had something to do with the kind of elemental he was.
I took a sip of the wine, and, to my surprise, it tasted familiar. Possibly the djinn or their Chosen had been doing a little raiding of the La Chiripada tasting rooms as well. Either way, it was lush and velvety on my tongue, and felt awfully good sliding down. Only problem was, that wine was hitting an almost empty stomach. A protein bar and a couple handfuls of chips weren’t really enough to do much good when it came to soaking up alcohol. I knew I’d have to pace myself.
“So,” the djinn leader said, once he seemed to realize I wasn’t going to drink more than those first few cautious sips, at least not for a little while. “Tell me what happened.”
The last thing I wanted to do was relive those horrifying moments when Jace had been taken from me, but if Zahrias could offer me any insight, anything that might help me in getting Jace back, then I knew I had to relate everything I remembered.
“We were going to leave,” I said. “I was just finishing up a few chores, and then we were going to pack up and head up here. But we ran out of time. It seemed — that is, all of a sudden Jace…Jasreel,” I amended, once I saw the way Zahrias’ brows pulled together at the use of the nickname, “couldn’t seem to breathe, and then these men burst into the house.”
“How many?”
“Seven.” I didn’t even have to stop to think about it. The scene was burned into my brain cells. “One of them was holding a black box about so big” — I gestured with my hands to indicate a cube roughly ten inches square — “and seemed to be controlling it by touch pad or something.”
“What was this box?”
“I don’t know. That is, I assumed it had to be some sort of device designed to affect a djinn. It certainly seemed to be hurting Jace.” I had to stop then and take a sip of wine to ease the sudden dryness in my throat.
Zahrias’ expression darkened further, if that was even possible. “You say ‘assumed,’ ‘seemed.’ So you don’t know for certain.”
“No,” I replied. I had a feeling that lying to this hard-faced djinn was not a good idea, so I wouldn’t offer him anything other than the truth, or at least the truth as I’d experienced it. “Whatever it was didn’t affect me, probably because I’m just a regular mortal.”
“As to that,” Zahrias said, “you are not a regular mortal any longer. Not now that you’ve been Chosen.”
Evony’s revelations from the road came back to me, and my mouth went dry all over again. True, no regular mortal could heal as quickly as I seemed to now, and according to her, I would also be twenty-four in looks and vitality until the day I died…whenever that might be. So I supposed Zahrias was right. There wasn’t anything normal about me. Not anymore.
But I didn’t want him to see how much pondering that strange new future upset and worried me, so I said evenly, “True enough. But I guess it didn’t affect me because, although I’ve been changed somehow, I’m still not a djinn.”
He seemed to accept this, taking a drink of his wine and studying my face. It was hard not to flinch, or blink and look away. Doing any of those things would have been a sign of weakness, however, so I kept my chin up as best I could and hoped that would be enough.
It seemed to work; Zahrias gave the faintest of nods, then asked, “What happened next?”
I described the scene as best I could — the way Jace had been hauled off, the unexpected joy of hearing his voice in my mind, even though that unspoken conversation ended with him being taken away in one of the Los Alamos crew’s Hummers. Zahrias listened, jaw hardening, but he didn’t interrupt me. When I was done, though, he said,
“Tell me of this Los Alamos.”
Despite myself, I couldn’t help blinking at him in surprise. After all, he’d known for some time that the threat to the djinn appeared to originate in that mountain community. I’d assumed he must have been picking the brains of the Chosen gathered here in Taos to gather what intel he could about the place.
“I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say,” I told him. “I mean, I’ve never even been there.”
“But you are a native of this place — this New Mexico, as you call it?”
“Well, yes. But there are still corners of it I’ve never visited. Los Alamos has — had — a lot of scientists working at the labs there. I’m assuming at least one of them was Immune.” The image of the man with the black box was as clear to me as if he were standing there next to Zahrias, so I went on, “That must be who the guy holding the box was. Some kind of scientist. It seemed to be his baby.”
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