Unknown os-2

by Rachel Caine

  “Enough to throw them away on the mere chance of killing us,” I said. “You noticed the change?”

  He frowned down at the sleeping face of the girl in his arms. “Cleaner,” he said. “Healthier. Not dressed in rags and castoffs like the ones in Colorado.”

  “Uniformed,” I said. “And trained. Pearl’s army is becoming a reality. I doubt we are the only ones being targeted, if that’s the case.”

  Agent Turner, out of breath, arrived at that moment and heard the last part of my statement. He immediately pulled out his phone and dialed a number, turning away to talk, then back as he finished.

  “You’re right,” he said, folding the phone. “Warden HQ has reports of isolated attacks all over. Kids attacking adult Wardens. The Wardens are off balance, they’re not sure what’s going on.”

  “Tell them,” I said. “Tell them we have a significant problem, and they should be ready.”

  “To fight kids?”

  “To protect themselves,” I said. “These children won’t hesitate to kill. They’ve been trained not to flinch. If the Wardens do, they’re dead.” More of Pearl’s games. Sometimes you’re the bull. She’d use her Warden children as picadors, pricking us, bleeding us, driving us into a fury that she could manipulate.

  But perhaps Pearl’s control wasn’t as perfect as she imagined. Isabel hadn’t struck at me with lethal force. She’d knocked me out and retreated instead.

  Incomplete training? Or free will?

  I could count on neither being true for long.

  The next time I faced Ibby . . . I might have to destroy her.

  Her, the other children . . . the Wardens . . . the human race.

  Destruction radiating out the way the poison from the list had taken my hand.

  But if I took that step, that last step, it would not be Pearl making that choice. It would be me, and me alone.

  I stared at the blond- haired girl in Luis’s arms. She seemed so innocent. So small. Eight or nine years old, no more than that; the age of Gloria Jensen, whom we were here to see. I wondered who had lost this child, and when. And if they even knew of it yet.

  Luis said, “I can keep her out. Let’s get her in the hospital and make sure she’s okay otherwise.”

  I followed him and Agent Turner to the door as security and medical personnel spilled out, pelting toward the ambulance at the far end of the parking lot. It hadn’t crashed, although it had certainly been a rougher ride than necessary; there was that mercy. I hoped that not too much damage had been done to the occupants, but I’d done all I could to safeguard them.

  I left it to the more creative among them to explain the missing roof, the metal barricade, and the piled wall of wet earth around the scorches and burns.

  I had better things to do.

  Chapter 7

  GLORIA JENSEN HAD LITTLE TO TELL US, after all. She was drowsy from painkillers, neatly bandaged, with her broken arm set in a plastic brace. Her parents, unaware of the incident down in the parking lot, had already made their ecstatic welcomes, and they sat on either side of her bed, touching her as if they couldn’t bear to let her go even for a moment.

  Gloria’s eyes widened when she saw me. I had come alone; Turner and Luis had stayed behind with our child attacker. Luis was maintaining the artificial sleep that kept the unconscious girl from further destruction, of herself if nothing else; Turner, I think, just wanted to stay out of my way. He was regarding me with more and more caution.

  Gloria told me nothing of significance. She’d been taken from school. She’d tried to fight the man who was taking her. He’d broken her arm in the process of subduing her; he’d tied and gagged her, and put her in the trunk of his car.

  “Then the other man came, after a really long time,” she said. “I don’t know how he got in there. He was just there. Then the trunk opened, just enough for me to get out, and he took me to a policeman before he left again. Then they brought me here.”

  Rashid. The hushed tone of her voice confirmed that she’d sensed him as being somehow different.

  “The first man,” I said. “Did you know him? Recognize him? Had you seen him before?”

  Gloria nodded, small braids bobbing around her face. “He was at camp, the camp last summer,” she said. “His name was Mr. Holden. I didn’t like it there, so my dad brought me home. But Brianna stayed.”

  “Brianna,” I said. “She’s your friend?”

  “Yeah. Her parents travel a lot. She spends a lot of time with me. She liked it there.” Gloria made a sleepy face of distaste. “They seemed nice, but I could tell they weren’t. I told Dad I wanted to leave, and he got me. Bri-Bri wouldn’t go.”

  I took a guess. “Brianna is about your age? With blond hair that she wears in braids on the sides of her head?”

  Gloria could not have looked more impressed if I had suddenly waved a magic wand and produced an elephant from thin air. “Yes. That’s Bri! How did you know?”

  “Magic,” I said, straight- faced, and she smiled in delight. “Gloria. I need you to understand something. You, and your parents as well. You are not safe. These people could come for you again. I think they will try. You must stay on your guard, all right? And—” Now, I looked at Gloria’s mother steadily. “And you must be trained, so you understand what is ahead of you.”

  Gloria’s mother flinched, then nodded. She patted her daughter’s shoulder gently. “It’s because you’re special, sweetie,” she said. “Like me. Like I used to be. And you need to understand what that means.”

  Gloria looked over at her and said, very calmly, “I know already, Mom. I saw the news and stuff. It’s magic, right? Like those people who can make rain.”

  Gloria’s mother heaved a sigh. “Yes. Like that. And yes, your powers are probably going to be weather. Like mine were.” Another sharp look in my direction. “Will the Wardens protect her?”

  “I doubt the Wardens can protect themselves just now,” I said. “Look out for your own. That is all I can say.”

  I started to go, but the pleading look in Gloria Jensen’s eyes stopped me, and instead, I took her small hand and said, “You are a fighter, Gloria Jensen. And you won’t let this stop you. I know how afraid you were in the car; I could feel that. I know how much pain you were in. But you’re strong. I believe you will make a great Warden someday.”

  “But not right now?”

  “No,” I said. “Not right now. And you shouldn’t let anyone make you try.”

  I squeezed her fingers and poured some of Luis’s healing force through her, which brightened her eyes and damped down some of her lingering pain and fear. Then I nodded to her parents, and took my leave.

  Before I did, though, I thought of one more question to ask her father.

  The answer, ultimately, did not surprise me.

  Brianna was, according to the roll I carefully examined, a girl named Brianna Kirksey. Her location was shown as La Jolla, which was consistent with the hospital in which we stood. When Turner consulted the Warden HQ officials, he found that Brianna’s parents were not merely traveling . . . they were dead. Gone in a recent Warden skirmish with something in Florida, whether supernatural in nature or not was unclear. But undoubtedly, both were gone. Their bodies had only recently been recovered.

  “Do you think they’re killing off the parents?” Luis asked tensely. “To keep the ones they want?” He was doubtless referring to the deaths of Manny and Angela, but I couldn’t see how Pearl could have been behind that attack. It had seemed genuinely driven by human motives, not supernatural ones.

  “Maybe it’s just an accident,” Turner said. “Poor kid. She’s an orphan and doesn’t even know it yet. You think she’s been at the Ranch all this time?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “Schools would have reported her as missing, unless they had some kind of word that she’d moved. Perhaps someone covered that by telling authorities she was being—what is the term? Homeschooled.”

  “If they did that, they could have had her
the whole time.” Turner let out a wordless growl. “Jensen had the chance to take that kid home.”

  “Not his fault.” When the two men looked at me, I shrugged. “She wanted to stay. Mr. Jensen had no legitimate reason not to allow it. It was supposed to be a camp, after all, and she had her parents’ permission at the time, I suppose.”

  “How many?” Luis asked. “How many kids at this camp?”

  That was the question I had asked Gloria’s father on my way out of her room. “Hundreds,” I said. “And the camp was here, in California. Not Colorado.” Colorado was where the Ranch had been located when first we’d discovered it, but it had vanished without a trace before the Wardens and the Ma’at could come to finish the job. Pearl had covered her tracks.

  I was no longer convinced that there was only one location, either. Perhaps there were dozens, scattered throughout the world. Pearl wasn’t any longer a physical presence upon the Earth; she was like an Oracle. She could be anywhere. Everywhere. The spider at the center of a dark, delicate web of power.

  Brianna had likely been a sort of private joke between us. Look, I can take a child from your own hometown, corrupt her, send her after you anywhere I wish. Pearl could have used a resource local to California, after all. She’d made a special point of bringing Brianna here and using her, knowing we would find out who she was.

  I had the scroll. I had the means to track the children, but she had set traps for me, too. Each name I touched in hopes of tracing them was a potential opening through which she could attack. Not all, certainly; I thought she could only attack through the connection to the children she controlled. But I had no way of knowing which doors were safe to open, until I had already opened them and been bitten by what lay on the other side. A nice dilemma, one that must have appealed to her sense of irony. I’d outmaneuvered her in gaining the list. She had outmaneuvered me in poisoning its usefulness.

  “Hundreds of kids,” Turner echoed, appalled. “All Warden kids, you think?”

  “Maybe not. It seems likely she would attract other children, for protective coloring. Possibly to use as distractions for us. Even the children gifted with powers won’t be of equal strengths. She’ll only keep the ones she thinks are most valuable. The others—the others are expendable.” I looked at Brianna, and thought of Ibby, in her miniature uniform with the poisonous darkness in her eyes. Ibby was expendable?

  No.

  “What are you thinking?” Luis asked me. He was touching Brianna’s forehead lightly, monitoring her sleep, but he was also reading my expression.

  “I am thinking about history,” I said. “Your history, not mine. Child soldiers have been used in many eras. They’re still being used today, in some parts of your world. They’re easily trained, easily replaced. There is little doubt that Pearl would see their value in fighting against humans, but the Djinn . . . the Djinn do not, in general, share the same scruples. Some do, of course, particularly among the New Djinn. But others see all humans, of whatever age, as expendable. A child is no different than an adult, in terms of threat. You see?”

  “No,” he said.

  “The children are weapons against the Wardens,” I said. “Not the Djinn. But her fight is with the Djinn.”

  Luis let out a slow breath. “You mean that she’s got something else. Something worse.”

  “I think,” I said, my eyes fixed on Brianna’s sleeping, innocent face, “that we must stop this before she can finish with the Wardens and launch her true war, or my choices will become more and more limited.”

  “To what Ashan wanted you to do in the first place.”

  “Yes,” I said softly. “I feel like an animal in a trap, Luis. How many parts of myself will I have to cut away to survive?”

  His gaze moved involuntarily to my hand, then wrenched away. I closed the metal fingers, and my phantom sensation told me that the metal was cold to the touch. I lifted the fist and opened it. Engraved in delicate etching on the bronze were the lines and whorls of my fingerprints, and the patterns in my palms—ghosts of what had been in flesh. I rubbed the fingertips together, and felt a phantom friction.

  “Have the doctors checked her?” I asked. Luis nodded. “Then we need to wake her. Carefully. Can you block her access to power?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “It depends. I can try.”

  It was risky, having a Fire Warden in a hospital, with so many delicate and fragile lives that could be put at risk. I knew how he felt. We could counter her, but not completely. Not easily. There were protocols to block and even remove powers, but they were difficult and time-consuming, and extremely delicate. Even with the best of care, a percentage of those so treated were left crippled, mad, or dead.

  Doing it to a child was beyond insane. I knew Luis would use the least amount of interference necessary to render her quiet, but it was a risk.

  Not as much of a risk as letting her strike at will.

  I nodded, and Luis removed the blocks that kept Brianna in her artificial sleep. She surfaced quickly, driven by more than a natural desire to wake, and when her eyes flew open they were hard, focused, and not at all confused.

  Luis pressed his fingers to her temples on either side and went very still, head down. Concentrating. Brianna’s pupils expanded, and she panted for breath in angry frustration. Her hands convulsively opened and closed, making fists, but she didn’t otherwise move.

  Couldn’t, I sensed.

  “Brianna,” I said, and sat down on the edge of her small, high bed to look deeply into her eyes. In them, I saw echoes of . . . something else. “Brianna Kirksey. My name is Cassiel. Do you know who I am?”

  Without question, she knew me. The hatred in her was astonishing. It twisted her face, arched her body, almost launched her from the bed at me.

  “I hate you!” Her scream came shockingly loud, echoing from the stark walls and tile as if a dozen of her were shouting the words. “I hate you!”

  The bedclothes began to smoke, and Agent Turner stepped up to quell the fire. He likely wasn’t anywhere near as strong as young Brianna had been artificially forced to be, but he was capable of counteracting the side effects of her rage. For now.

  “I know you hate me,” I said. “You hate me because you were told of the terrible things I’ve done.”

  “You killed them!” she screamed, and writhed under Luis’s calming influence, thrashing almost uncontrollably. “You killed my parents! I saw you do it!”

  Ah. This was how Pearl ensured the loyalty of her soldiers, at least the ones aimed at me; she showed them horror, and cast me as the leering villain. In reality, Pearl—or, more likely, one of her trusted subordinates—had killed Brianna’s parents, and disguised the killer as me. It was also possible that Brianna had been shown photographs, or video, doctored to place the blame on me. Children believed things in a very literal manner. She’d have no reason to think anyone would lie.

  There was absolutely no point in convincing the child—or attempting to convince her—that I had not done these things. I abandoned the conversation, looked at Luis and Turner, and said, “I will go.” They nodded. Turner looked relieved; Luis looked determined, but then, he was focusing almost all his powers inward, on the girl.

  I heard her screaming all the way down the hall, and then I heard her stop. I leaned against the wall, eyes shut, listening to her voice, her tears, her anguish. I am not your enemy, I thought to her, although she neither would know nor care. She had been bitterly hurt, if not physically, then emotionally. Her pain was the price of Pearl’s determination to remove me from the equation.

  I bared my teeth in a silent, fierce grin. We’ll see, sister, I thought. We’ll see who is left standing in the end. I took the scroll from my jacket and held it in my right hand. There was a catch on the hard protective cover, which was surprisingly difficult to work with my prosthetic left fingers; I fumbled it open, took hold of the scroll, and began to scan the list of names. So many names. So many children, and all of them hopelessly at risk.
r />   There must be something I could do.

  I traced the first name with my metallic fingertip, and felt a distant echo. Not the same intense contact that I had before; this was more of a whisper, something just at the edge of awareness.

  The metal was creating a mostly-inert barrier between me and the power of the list. I felt a surge of interest, almost of hope, and controlled it with an effort. Not proven, I thought. Not until Pearl attacks, and fails to reach me.

  I sat down on a nearby bench and tried again, touching first one name, then another. I got a confusing, indistinct jumble of impressions. Normal life, I thought. Nothing I could understand easily. I glided my finger down the list, until I felt something not normal.

  Intense, fierce emotion. It overwhelmed me for a moment, and then it clarified. Rage. Fear. Terror.

  I looked down at the name beneath my finger.

  Alex Carter. La Jolla, California.

  It was happening here. Right here.

  I took a breath and placed my real-flesh right index finger on Alex’s name, and shuddered as the emotion rolled through me, flaying my nerves raw. With the fear and pain came knowledge, sure and instinctive.

  I knew where he was. And he was not at all far.

  I let the scroll snap shut, closed the case, and put it back in my jacket pocket. I could still hear Brianna’s sleepy, still-angry voice, punctuated by Luis’s, or Turner’s.

  No, I thought. This is mine to do. Mine.

  As if on cue, as I headed for the exit, my cell phone rang. I flipped it open without looking at the display and said, “Rashid.” No answer. “Rashid, where are you? Are you still following the man who abducted Gloria?”

  A burst of static greeted me, and then the Djinn’s voice said, “—help—” He was no longer proud. No longer confident. He was afraid. Or at least, he sounded that way.

  “Tell me where.”

  He didn’t, not in words. Instead, a burst of data came across the screen, resolving into a map, with a glowing, pulsing dot.

  “I’m coming,” I said, and ran out into the darkness. There were a few motorcycles parked in a special area in front of the hospital, locked in place. I snapped one of the chains with a simple jerk of my fingers that ripped the link in half. Then I took the link in my hand, melted it into flowing liquid, and poured it into the ignition, where it hardened into a perfect key.