djinn wars 02 - taken

by Christine Pope

  “They were both floating a foot off the ground.”

  That seemed to please the scientist, because he typed something else into his notes. “So…floating above the ground. Anything else?”

  I really didn’t want to give any more details than that, but I also knew I was walking a fine line here, one that teetered between providing enough information so that Odekirk would think I was being a good little citizen and definitely wasn’t on the side of the djinn, and giving something away that could potentially hurt Jasreel and Natila in the long run.

  Well, I figured Zahrias could probably take care of himself, so I offered, “The visiting djinn had what looked like flames dancing around his feet, and more around his head. But he didn’t burn. It was the weirdest thing.”

  That got me an actual smile, or as close to one as Miles Odekirk could probably produce. “That is because this djinn you saw was an elemental who can control fire. Just as Jasreel can control the air — or at least he could if his powers weren’t being held in check.”

  Jasreel can. Odekirk had spoken of Jace in the present tense, which meant he really must still be alive. I hadn’t allowed myself to entertain the thought that he might be dead, but even so, the worry had been far, far back in my mind, buried so deep I could pretend it didn’t exist. Well, most of the time, anyway.

  But I also didn’t know how best to respond to the scientist’s latest pronouncement, so I only managed a flat, “Oh,” and then waited to see what he would do.

  Which was nothing. He didn’t type on his iPad, or fiddle with his tie — yeah, the guy was wearing a tie under his lab coat — or anything. Just sat there, looking at me with those pale eyes of his. All right, they weren’t that pale, not a Chris Bowman level of freaky or anything, but something about the way the light reflected off his glasses made Odekirk’s gaze feel not quite human.

  At last he said, “Did you ever see Jasreel suffer any kind of an injury?”

  Uh-oh. “No,” I replied, the word sounding way too strangled. I coughed.

  “Nothing? Not a single scrape or bruise, even though he was performing some rough work around your homestead?”

  How the hell Odekirk knew about that, I had no idea, but I figured that wasn’t really the thing I should be focusing on right now. In saying that I’d never seen Jace hurt by anything —except that infernal box the scientist had invented — I was telling the simple truth. Then I reflected maybe it would be a good idea to embellish that truth. Just a little, nothing too extreme, but enough to let Odekirk know that hurting or killing a djinn wouldn’t be all that easy.

  “Nothing,” I said firmly. “At the time, I didn’t think that much about it, but I saw one of the goats kick him in the leg once, and he didn’t even have a bruise.”

  The scientist didn’t look too thrilled by that particular piece of intelligence. Brows pulling together, he made some more notes on his iPad. “Any other incidents like that?”

  “Um…he splashed some boiling water on his hand in the kitchen when he was straining pasta. His skin didn’t even turn red.” There…I hope that keeps you from trying to torture him with burning cigarettes or red-hot pokers or whatever.

  “And you still didn’t think that was strange?”

  I shrugged. “He put some cold cloths on it right away, so I suppose I figured he’d treated the burn quickly enough that it didn’t have any lasting effects.”

  Silence for a moment as Miles Odekirk kept typing away on his iPad’s screen. At last he set it down. However, he’d closed the notepad app before doing that, so I couldn’t see anything of what he’d written. Then he just sat there, staring at me, while I forced myself to remain still, to keep my gaze fixed on his, my expression neutral. Wasn’t that a sure sign someone was lying — to glance away, to look off to the side? At any rate, I had no intention of making things that easy for him.

  Then he said, “What precisely are you doing here, Ms. Monroe?”

  Don’t look away. Don’t swallow. Don’t blink. Voice steady, I replied, “The same thing as all of you, Dr. Odekirk. Trying to survive.”

  Another long pause. I could hear the clock on the wall behind him ticking away, but I wouldn’t let myself glance up at it. That would be a clear sign of unease, wouldn’t it?

  He was actually the first to blink. “Yes, Ms. Monroe. That’s what we’re all trying to do.” His shoulders seemed to slump, and then he added, “That’s all for now.”

  “I can go?” I asked, confused by his sudden offer of a reprieve.

  “Yes.” The glint returned to his eyes. “Just don’t go too far.”

  “Not planning on it,” I said. Then, seized by a sudden devilish impulse, I went on, “I was going for lunch at Pajarito’s. Would you like to come with me?”

  The look of shock that passed over his thin features was so severe, you would’ve thought I’d just suggested skinny-dipping in the semi-frozen Rio Grande. After a second or so, he seemed to recover himself and said evenly, “Thank you, but no. I have work to do here.”

  “Then I’ll leave you to it,” I told him in blithe tones, and reached over to retrieve my purse. As I stood up, I said, “Have a nice day, Dr. Odekirk.”

  Now his gaze was steady enough, although I couldn’t begin to read his expression. “You as well, Ms. Monroe.”

  I let myself out, but I couldn’t relax even then, because the guard was waiting outside. “This way,” he said, leading me back to the exit. It seemed clear enough that they weren’t about to allow me the opportunity to wander around the facility unescorted.

  Just as well. By that point, I didn’t think I was up to it. I got into my Cherokee, backed out of the parking space, and headed toward the guard shack and the main road, the yellow Hummer leading me the whole way.

  And then I finally remembered to breathe.

  Chapter Eleven

  The days passed quickly after that. Miles Odekirk didn’t ask to see me again, and I had to make myself focus on tutoring the children, while at the same time attempting to see or hear anything that might give me a hint as to where Jace and Natila were being held. But I wasn’t able to get any definite confirmation, and I knew I didn’t dare ask any questions. Evony and I were slowly being assimilated into the makeshift society in Los Alamos, and the last thing I wanted to do was attract any unnecessary attention. That meant I also couldn’t make any inquiries about the Chosen who’d been sent to spy on the community here. Again, I heard nothing about them. Certainly there was no evidence I could find that any of the people I met had once been Chosen. Possibly those four were being held in the same place as Jace and Natila. It seemed to be the only explanation that made any sense.

  To my surprise, Evony seemed to have really hit it off with the two men she worked with in the motor pool. One, Shawn Gutierrez, had been a firefighter, and was still on call in case any emergencies arose around town, and the other man, Brent Sutherland, used to be an HVAC technician. They really took Evony under their wing, to the point where they’d actually faced down Butch and Mitch when they’d tried to get snarky one evening at Pajarito’s.

  “Shawn is one hot tamale,” Evony told me wistfully. “Almost makes me wish I were straight.”

  At that comment, I’d raised an eyebrow at her. We were in the kitchen, having coffee and toast before getting ready to start the day. “What, are you thinking of switching sides? What about Natila?”

  Evony sighed and stirred some more milk into her coffee. “No, I’m not ‘switching sides.’ It doesn’t work that way. And of course I want to find Natila. The problem is, we don’t know where they’re holding her.”

  No, we didn’t. I had my suspicions; by then we’d been in Los Alamos for almost two weeks, and I’d gotten a lot more familiar with the town. However, there were two places where I wasn’t allowed to wander freely: the labs and the justice center. Either Jace and Natila were secreted somewhere in the labs so they could be experimented on more conveniently, or there were holding cells someplace in the justice center. It
made sense that they’d have some sort of facility for keeping prisoners there. Just because it made sense, though, didn’t mean I’d been able to confirm the existence of those cells for myself.

  I nodded somberly, and after that Evony excused herself so she could go finish getting ready for work. She didn’t really have set hours the way I did with tutoring the kids, but lately she’d been spending up to eight hours a day at the motor pool. Just the day before, she’d earned brownie points with Captain Margolis because she was able to accurately troubleshoot and fix an issue with one of the traction-control sensors on his Hummer.

  And I — well, I was doing okay with the tutoring. My fears about the kids giving me trouble had all been in my mind; even Matt more or less behaved himself, and things hummed along smoothly enough. Really, I thought they were glad of the structure those hours of schooling provided, which gave them something to focus on other than the way their world had changed forever.

  The whole time, however, I could feel myself getting more and more tense as each day passed and I was no closer to finding Jace. I almost wished Miles Odekirk would summon me for another bout of questioning, simply because there was always the chance that he might let something slip, but he didn’t appear to require any more information from me.

  But then I finally had something go right. I stopped by the justice center to see Julia and make a requisition for more supplies for the children…and was escorted directly to her desk so I couldn’t go roaming about…and found her almost buried in paperwork and more than a little exasperated. Apparently the commander liked to flex his muscle by issuing memo after memo and demanding daily reports from the people he had working immediately under him…namely, Julia.

  “Do you want some help?” I asked her. “I mean, I’m only putting in about three hours a day with the kids, plus a little more here and there to keep up with the grading. But most of the time my afternoons are free.”

  She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and sat back in her chair. Even though I knew she had to be dying to have someone pick up some of the load, she still asked, “Do you have any office experience?”

  “Well, not per se, but I spent a summer doing filing and stuff for the law office where my friend Elena’s dad was a partner. And I’m pretty good with Word and Excel.”

  A nod, but she was quiet for a moment longer, obviously considering whether it was safe for her to take me up on my offer. At last she said, sounding hesitant, “We handle some sensitive material here. That means you have to be discreet. Can you manage that?”

  Her tone was neutral, but I understood what she was really asking.

  Can I trust you?

  The correct answer was that no, she couldn’t, because I was only offering to help so I could spend more time in the justice center and as a result, I hoped, finally track down whether or not Jasreel and Natila were being held there. And I had to ignore the pang of guilt that went through me at that thought, because I did like Julia a lot, despite the way she still seemed so closed off about the life she’d left behind in Albuquerque.

  Problem was, I liked her, but I loved Jace. There really wasn’t much of a contest.

  I faced her and nodded, my expression as open as I could make it. “Yes, I can manage that. Really, I want to help. You shouldn’t be so buried all the time. It’s not fair.”

  Something in the set of her shoulders seemed to relax slightly. “Thanks, Jessica. Truth is, I could use an assistant. So…let’s give it a try. Can you start each day at one? That’ll give you time to get lunch before you come over here.”

  “That’ll be perfect,” I replied, trying not to sound too excited. If I got to spend part of every day at the justice center, surely I’d dig up something eventually.

  “All right. You can start tomorrow.” That seemed to be the end of the discussion, as she gave me a quick smile and turned back to her computer.

  And that was how I began my tenure in the commander’s office. He really did seem determined to chew his way through every ream of paper left behind in the justice center, whether by generating reports or by coming up with flyer after flyer to be distributed throughout the community — telling people what to do if they smelled a gas leak, mandating which parts of the forest surrounding the town could be used for firewood, assigning waste details and clean-up crews and so much more.

  The tasks Julia gave me to do were busywork, but I didn’t mind too much. For one thing, after I’d been there for three days, I did make the all-important discovery that there really were holding cells in the justice center’s basement. They were listed on the directory, and since I was now allowed to move around the building, distributing flyers and collecting reports, it wasn’t that hard for me to sidle past the listing by the elevator one day and take a quick peek. All right, so that was one suspicion confirmed. It didn’t get me any closer to actually getting inside, though; none of the errands Julia sent me on went to that part of the building — by design, I was sure.

  Still, it was better than nothing, and I began devising plots that would allow me entry to the holding cells. Problem was, I knew none of those plans would work. I’d be stopped before I got within fifty feet of the tiny jail. And although Evony was glad I’d made that much progress, she told me to be careful.

  “You’re not going to help anyone if you do something stupid and get yourself caught, chica,” she said, and I could only agree with that morose sentiment. Well, I supposed my being caught trying to get close to the djinn would help Miles Odekirk, since it would confirm his suspicions about me. But that wasn’t really the end result I was aiming for.

  My patience finally paid off, however. After I’d been assisting Julia for a little more than a week, an afternoon came when she asked if I could take over for her at the desk for a few hours.

  “Sure,” I said automatically, and asked, “Um…why?”

  She seemed tense, but then she smiled a little. “I need to cover for Nancy for a few hours. She’s not feeling well, and her relief is up in the forest, cutting wood.”

  “Oh.” Nancy was the hard-faced woman who’d first escorted Evony and me here to the justice center, and it didn’t exactly take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that her job probably included pulling guard duty at the holding cells. And so Julia would be acting as her backup? Interesting.

  I had to wonder whether she’d done this before, whether she’d spoken with Jace and Natila at all. The thought sent a flare of anger through me, just because Julia knew I’d been with Jace and most likely would have wanted to hear something about how he was faring. Or maybe not — maybe I’d done such a good job of convincing her I’d firmly thrown in my lot with the humans that she’d assumed I didn’t care about his current condition.

  Either way, the important thing was that sometimes Julia had to play guard, or at least was trusted enough to do so. It might be an angle I could exploit in the future, if I could only figure out how.

  “Just for a couple of hours,” she reassured me. “Then Tony will be back. And maybe we could grab something to eat afterward?”

  It was her way of softening the request, which would keep me in the office way past the time I usually left at around four-thirty or five. I didn’t mind; we’d eaten together a few times, but always in a group that included Evony and maybe Shawn or Dan or even Nora Almeida, if she could find someone to watch Laurel, and after all that, Julia still hadn’t contributed much that was personal to the conversation. If it was just the two of us at dinner, maybe I could get a little more out of her.

  “That sounds great,” I said, smiling, and she thanked me and disappeared soon afterward, going downstairs so she could take over for Nancy.

  The commander wasn’t in that afternoon; he’d gone off for yet another of his visits to the lab. What exactly he did while he was there, I had no idea. Were he and Miles Odekirk concocting new ways to utilize the djinn-suppressing technology the scientist had invented, or merely discussing strategies for using what they already had? Who knew? I still had
no idea how many of those boxes existed, although I had a feeling there had to be at least two, or they would never have felt safe taking one away from Los Alamos to trap Natila and then Jace. That would have left the entire colony of survivors unprotected.

  I settled myself at the desk, figuring it would be fairly quiet since Captain Margolis was out and we were getting past the end of most people’s workdays. That was one holdover from the time before — Los Alamos seemed to run squarely from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, except for the three restaurants, which stayed open until nine. Well, Pajarito’s sometimes was open later than that, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. Again, people wanted to cling to that schedule, for that shred of normality that dictated you worked during the week and then went out on Friday and Saturday nights.

  And then there was his voice in my mind, that voice I’d secretly feared I would never hear again.

  Beloved.

  The pen I was holding fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. I sat stock still at the desk, then ventured, Jace?

  Yes, Jessica. I am here.

  Tears sprang to my eyes, but I knew I couldn’t let them fall. That was far too risky, as someone could still come up to the office, even as late in the day as it was. Oh, God, Jace — I was so worried —

  I know, beloved. But I am all right.

  You’re sure?

  Yes. Confined, but alive. As is Natila.

  A relieved breath pushed out of me with a whoosh, and then I bent over to pick up the pen I had dropped. So how is it you’re talking with me only just now? I’ve been working in this building for a week —

  The device they have controlling the two of us is usually set at a level much higher than it is at the moment. When it’s operating at full strength, it is difficult to breathe, let alone reach out to you the way I am now.

  God. I clutched the edge of the task chair where I sat, the burlap-style material rough under my fingertips. The memory of how he’d been gasping for breath when they took him away was never too far from my mind, and it rose again now. To think that they’d perpetually kept him in that state for weeks was enough to set my stomach roiling.