Awoken

by Christine Pope

  Awoken

  A Djinn Wars Novel

  Christine Pope

  Dark Valentine Press

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  AWOKEN

  Copyright © 2017 by Christine Pope

  Published by Dark Valentine Press

  Cover design by Lou Harper

  Ebook formatting by Indie Author Services

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems — except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews — without permission in writing from its publisher, Dark Valentine Press.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Also by Christine Pope

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Jordan Wells came to the crossroads at Highway 84 and Highway 17 in Chama, New Mexico, and paused for a moment to rest her weary feet, her worried gaze — as always — scanning the area for any sign of djinn activity. She probably shouldn’t even be standing out in the open like this, but in all the empty miles between here and Pagosa Springs near the southern border of Colorado, she hadn’t seen a single soul, human or djinn.

  The fingers of Jordan’s left hand tightened around the strap of the backpack she wore, even while her right hand rested lightly on the revolver at her hip. Yes, djinn were supposedly immortal, but Jordan and her fellow survivors had discovered they could be wounded. And even though she’d never touched a gun before the Dying happened and the world she’d known had ended forever, Jordan now reckoned herself a good enough shot that she could empty the shiny Ruger into any otherworldly adversaries, thus buying herself enough time to get away and hide.

  At the moment, however, she had to decide whether to take a brief detour into Chama to look for supplies, or whether to keep heading south toward her ultimate destination, Los Alamos. It was the only sanctuary for mortals that remained — or at least, she had to pray that outpost of humankind still existed, even though more than eighteen months had passed since her group’s last contact with the survivors in the mountain town.

  Jordan shifted the backpack, feeling its weight. During her journey here, she’d been able to scrounge some food, and water was plentiful enough, thanks to the various rivers and streams in the region, but even so, supplies were getting light. According to the map she carried with her, she still had almost a hundred miles to go, and she hadn’t managed to average more than twelve or fifteen miles a day at best, simply because she had to expend so much energy zigging and zagging, hiding in stands of trees when she could, using the cover of abandoned homesteads and ranches when there wasn’t anything else available, flat out running in the open areas between houses…and praying a djinn wouldn’t see her during those horribly vulnerable moments.

  But still, to head into Chama meant she’d be going out of her way. Maybe she’d be lucky enough to find a few places on her way to Los Alamos where she could pick up more supplies. There were several settlements called out on her map — Tierra Amarilla, Cebolla, to name a few — but she had no way of knowing whether they would have anything useful to offer, or whether they were basically wide spots in the road. She’d never had the chance to travel to this part of New Mexico and was basically flying blind.

  There probably won’t be much to scavenge, she thought, except in Española, and that’s almost to your destination.

  Once again she scanned the landscape around her. Far off in the distance, a hawk circled, but the bird of prey was the only visible sign of life. For all she knew, there were no djinn at all in this part of the world. It was beautiful here, true, with the rolling hills and their crowns of ponderosa pine and aspen, just now beginning to turn gold, and the far-off peaks of mountain ranges she couldn’t even name, but was the beauty of the landscape enough to attract one of those vengeful immortal beings?

  Jordan didn’t know. There was so much about the djinn she didn’t know. She did know one thing, however.

  They were very good at killing humans.

  The thought brought back unwanted memories, of her group’s first flight from Colorado Springs nearly two years ago now, of everyone who had died at the hands of the djinn. And then the much smaller group who had survived that attack, and had taken refuge in the small resort town of Pagosa Springs in the southwestern region of Colorado, not too far from the New Mexico border. They’d kept a low profile there, so much so that they’d managed to live in Pagosa for the last year and a half without any kind of djinn interference. That had all come crashing to a halt five days ago, when the little colony was set upon by a group of djinn intent on making sure none of Pagosa Springs’ current residents survived.

  As far as Jordan knew, none of them had. Except her. She’d never allowed herself to relax the entire time she’d lived there. Not really. She had various escape routes planned out of town, and a “bug-out” bag stashed in the utility room of the house where she’d been living. As soon as the attack began, she ran to get her things. Cowardly? Maybe. But you couldn’t fight djinn. About all you could do was wound them badly enough to give yourself a chance to escape.

  She swallowed, and did her best to shove those memories back in the depths of her mind. There wasn’t anything she could do about that now, except try to survive. If even one person lived to tell the story of the survivors from Colorado Springs, then they wouldn’t be entirely lost. Someone would remain to let other survivors — if there even were any — know that the Colorado Springs group had persisted, had managed to live on when so many others had perished.

  Jordan’s stomach growled. It had been many hours since the protein bar she’d consumed when she woke up that morning; the sun was now midway down the western sky. She had maybe three hours until darkness came. Yes, she could walk pretty far in that space of time, but what if she walked and walked and didn’t encounter anyplace that would be suitable to shelter her for the night? In a pinch she could sleep in the forest, using a carpet of fallen pine needles as her mattress and her pack as a pillow — it wouldn’t be the first time, but she vastly preferred a bed or couch in an empty house or ranch.

  There would be far more places like that in Chama. And more chances to find some food, even if it was just freeze-dried camping stuff from one of the area’s outdoor supply stores, or canned goods that hopefully hadn’t yet expired. She repressed a grimace at the thought of eating yet another prefab meal like that, but it was better than starving.

  The possibility of adding to her dwindling food supply seemed to decide things. She glanced around once again and determined that the coast was still clear, then veered left and took Highway 17, moving toward the heart of Chama.

  Abandoned vehicles were scattered along the roadway, some on its edges, and some right in the middle of the road, as if their drivers had succumbed to the Heat while trying to get out of town. Jordan was used to such sights, and threaded her way among the discarded metal hulks without paying much
attention to them. Actually, she was glad of those forsaken cars and SUVs and pickup trucks, just because they provided some shelter, and allowed her to follow the road rather than being forced to veer far off the asphalt ribbon that made its way along the valley, just in order to have adequate cover.

  Two restaurants faced one another across the highway, but Jordan would rather get her supplies someplace else. Anything that had been in those restaurants’ freezers would have long since spoiled, and canned goods — especially the industrial-size versions used for food service — were far too heavy to make for good road food. No, what she really needed was a camping store, or, failing that, a house that looked as if it might still have some beef jerky or diet bars lying around. Anything that would fit in her backpack and keep her alive.

  A crunch of a twig made her start, but when she whirled around, hand going to the Ruger at her hip, she saw that the noise had been made by a pair of medium-sized goats — one white, the other brindle, like a swirl of caramel and cream — who were wandering along the edge of the road, pausing now and then to nibble at the weeds growing there. Her heart, which felt as if it had lodged somewhere midway up her throat, resumed a somewhat normal rhythm.

  “Goddamn it,” she muttered. The goats gave her an incurious glance and continued along their way, apparently unruffled by the presence of a human in a place that should have been utterly abandoned.

  She paused so she could get her canteen out of the backpack, and took a long drink. The canteen had been full that morning, but now was half empty. That was something else she’d need to take care of. Not that big a deal, since the Rio Chama wound its way through town, running more or less parallel to the highway until it crossed under the 17 and continued its way north into Colorado.

  After she stowed the canteen, Jordan kept walking along the edge of the road, making sure to stop every once in a while to get a good look around. The landscape remained empty; even the goats had disappeared.

  Toward the north end of town, near the depot for the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad — a popular tourist attraction she’d always meant to try, but had never gotten around to — she did spot a fishing gear store. Good. She could load up there, and then find a likely house to hole up in for the night. After that, she’d cut back to the 84 and keep going toward Los Alamos. This little detour would cost her an evening, but it wasn’t as if anyone in the mountain town was expecting her.

  For all she knew, Los Alamos would be just as empty and dead as every other town she’d passed through.

  Jordan pushed that thought aside and tested the door to the fishing store — “Angler’s Alley,” said the wooden sign above the entrance. Luckily, the door was unlocked, and she went inside.

  And stopped abruptly in dismay. Whatever might have once been here, it looked as if it had been looted long ago. The shelves were bare, packages of lures and fishing line knocked to the floor. The section of the store that must have once contained the camping gear was now completely empty, the only things remaining a couple of cans of Sterno.

  “Well, shit,” Jordan muttered. She’d come across scenes like this before — sometimes in the most unlikely places — but she really hadn’t been expecting it in sleepy little Chama.

  The notion of getting some more camping food had apparently been shot down the tubes, which meant she now had to go with plan B, scrounging from one or more of the houses in the area. It wasn’t as much of a sure thing, but if nothing else, she could maybe find some canned beans or tuna or something. If she ate the canned stuff here, at least she could save the freeze-dried food in her bag for the days when she found herself someplace that didn’t even have an abandoned ranch nearby.

  She poked her head outside and looked around. The coast was clear.

  Of course it was. There were no djinn around here. Jordan didn’t know where they holed up when they weren’t murdering the world’s last few survivors, but clearly, that place wasn’t anywhere near Chama, New Mexico.

  The murmur of the river drew her. She crossed the highway and went through the gravel-paved parking lot of the railway depot, using the cars and SUVs left behind by dead tourists as cover — and then the abandoned railway cars themselves — until she could get to the trees. Here the cottonwoods grew thick and tall, nurtured by the water from the Rio Chama. Once she passed into their shade, Jordan allowed herself a small sigh of relief. She always felt better when she was among the trees, surrounded by their sheltering greenery.

  That cover didn’t last forever, of course. After a few minutes, she came out to the river bank. At this time of year, it wasn’t running too high, since it was far too early for snow melt — or late, depending on how you looked at it — and the monsoon rains that came on schedule every summer were almost gone, with October now here.

  Jordan didn’t really want to think about it being October. For now, the days were still mild, perfect walking or hiking weather, actually, but the nights had grown chilly. Snow usually didn’t arrive until around Thanksgiving, but you couldn’t count on that. True, she’d grown up in Colorado Springs, not northern New Mexico, but the climates weren’t all that different. You could still get hit with snow as early as Halloween if you were unlucky.

  It was fine. She could make it to Los Alamos in less than a week. Even as crazy as the weather had gotten right before the Dying, it hadn’t snowed in early October.

  She’d been hoping for a footbridge to cross the river but didn’t see any evidence of one, even though she could just make out the roof line of a house on the other side of the Rio Chama, maybe a quarter mile away. At least there was a house; she’d start her search there, and only move on if she couldn’t find anything of value.

  After contemplating the depth of the water for a moment, and watching the flow of the river for another minute more, Jordan decided that she should be able to wade across. She found a large, smooth boulder and sat down so she could remove her hiking boots and socks, and then rolled up her jeans to her knees. The socks she shoved in her backpack, but there was no room for the boots; she knotted the laces together and hung them around her neck. Almost as an afterthought, she removed the gun and its holster from her belt and stuck them in her backpack near the top, leaving it unzipped. Just in case.

  All right. Time to get moving.

  The water was colder than she’d thought, and she had to grit her teeth at the shock of it against her bare skin. Under her feet, mossy rocks moved uneasily as she began to make her way across, but the footing was just stable enough that she managed to keep going, propelling herself from spot to spot as she forded the river. In the middle, she hit a deep patch and sank down to her waist, the icy current immediately striking a chill through her entire body.

  Although she wanted nothing more than to let out a small shriek at the shock of the cold water engulfing half her frame, she bit her lip and kept going, telling herself that it was just water, and she’d dry off soon enough once she got to the other side and found some shelter.

  Wishful thinking, since jeans weren’t exactly known for their ability to dry out quickly. But she was more than halfway across, and she certainly wasn’t about to stop now.

  A minute or two later, the water grew shallower, and she struggled her way up to the rocky shore. When she reached around to check, it seemed that her backpack had escaped unscathed, and so had her hiking boots. It was just those damn jeans that were completely soaked, making it feel as though her legs were encased in lead.

  Nothing for it. She paused long enough to put her socks and hiking boots back on. Then, mouth set, she kept moving, and wound her way through more cottonwoods and the occasional pine and aspen, until she came out into an open grassy area, clearly the backyard of the house whose roof line she’d glimpsed from the other side of the river. Seen up close like this, it was a much more impressive structure than she’d thought, two stories, with a steeply peaked dark green tin roof and a porch that appeared to wrap around most of the building. Set off to one side was an enormous solar panel, the
kind powered by a motor so it could be angled toward the sun no matter the time of day. Right now it was tilted slightly toward the west, but that didn’t mean much. It could have been frozen in that position for the last two years.

  Jordan looked around, attempting to see if there were any noticeable signs of habitation. The grass in the backyard looked fairly level, although weeds grew along the edges of the cultivated area. Still, its manicured state could simply be due to those wandering goats — they did tend to eat everything they came across, and for all she knew, the two goats she’d seen were part of a much larger herd. The dark beige paint on the house’s wooden siding appeared faded, but she didn’t detect any obvious flaking or cracks.

  Inconclusive. But she was here, and she knew the odds of anyone surviving in this little out-of-the-way spot were less than one in a million, so she figured she might as well go inside.

  The back door was closest. It opened on a utility room that looked as though it hadn’t been touched in years. Dust coated the tops of the washer and dryer, and also the plastic laundry basket that sat on the floor. Otherwise, the room was empty, although when Jordan opened the cupboard and looked inside, she saw detergent and a box of fabric softener sheets, along with a bottle of bleach. Clearly, someone had lived here once. You could never be certain when you came across big houses like this in places that didn’t seem able to support the kind of lifestyle their size suggested, since a lot of the time they were owned by people with enough money to maintain a second residence that they only used a few weeks out of the year, when they would come to remote towns like Chama to hunt or fish or just get away from it all.