Awoken

by Christine Pope

  “You should really have rounded them up and kept them in the barn. I know they’ve come around and kept your lawn short, but they could have done more weed clearance if they hadn’t been wandering far and wide and had been kept on your property. Besides, goats make awesome cheese.”

  “I know that,” he said, somewhat waspishly. Did this girl expect him to spend his days as a cheesemonger, when all he had to do was wish for something, and it would appear? “How do you know so much about goats?”

  “I don’t, really,” Jordan replied. “But I studied using them for weed abatement in one of my classes. Much more environmentally friendly than using chemicals or heavy equipment.”

  This answer startled him somewhat, because Hasan’s experience had taught him that humans in general didn’t seem to have much concern for the world they lived in…which of course was the reason why the djinn had seen fit to take it away from them.

  “Well, we shall worry about his ‘friends’ tomorrow,” Hasan said. “For now, I think it is best if we all go to sleep.”

  Blue eyes glinted up at him through a fringe of thick lashes. “Do djinn sleep?”

  He didn’t know if she was teasing or not. After all, she must have heard him come up the stairs and retire to his room the night before. “Yes…but much more lightly than humans.” He hoped she got the warning. Yes, he needed to get his rest, but he would also be able to tell immediately if she tried to get away.

  “Ah.” She stroked softly between the goat’s ears; its eyes closed, and it let out a hoarse breath that sounded very close to a snore. “Well, good night, then.”

  At first Hasan wasn’t sure what she meant. Then, as she carefully settled herself against the cupboards, he realized that she planned to stay down in the kitchen with her new pet. “You can’t possibly intend to sleep in here.”

  “Oh, yes, I can. I don’t want to leave this little guy alone.”

  “But you need your rest as well — ”

  “Then get me a pillow.”

  Scowling, Hasan snapped his fingers, and one of the pillows from her bed appeared in his hand. “Will this do?”

  “That’s perfect.” She extended a hand, and he gave the pillow to her. Moving with care so she wouldn’t disturb the sleeping goat in her lap, she tucked the cushion behind her head.

  Hasan wanted to argue with her, but realized such efforts would be futile. And really, if she wanted to stay down here with that damnable animal and give herself a sore back, then that was her prerogative. At least if she was being so protective of the goat, then she probably wouldn’t try to run away. He knew he didn’t dare bar the doors against her, in case she needed to let the animal outside to empty his bowels and bladder.

  “Then good night, Jordan,” he said, his tone stiff with disapproval.

  “Good night, Hasan.”

  He turned and left the kitchen, wishing to shake his head but managing to refrain from doing so. Right then, he wondered if he was completely mad for letting this woman into his house.

  The first thing Jordan noticed was the massive crick in her neck. She’d fallen asleep with her head tipped to one side, and so her neck was stiffer than hell, worse even than the nights when she’d had to use tree roots as a pillow. Well, another hot shower should take care of that problem.

  Morning sunlight peeked past the curtains at the window. As soon as she stirred, the goat was up and out of her lap. He wobbled to his feet and gave a little shake, as though trying to get rid of a few kinks of his own. Then he let out a bleat and headed toward the back door, his hooves clip-clopping on the kitchen’s tiled floor.

  Could goats be house-trained? Jordan didn’t think so, but it was pretty clear what the goat wanted. Or maybe he was just hungry. She climbed to her feet, trying to ignore the various aches and sore spots she’d given herself from sleeping on a hard surface like that. Yes, she’d had to resort to more than one makeshift bed during her flight from Pagosa Springs — and before that, when the group had run away from Colorado Springs — but this was the first time she’d had to sleep on a bare floor.

  Chosen to sleep on the floor, that is. She could’ve followed Hasan’s advice and put the goat out in the barn. However, she would never have forgiven herself if something had happened to the little critter while she slept safely in the bed the djinn had provided for her.

  Ignoring the way her back was groaning, she went to the door in the laundry room and let out the goat. At once he gamboled off into the grass before picking a likely spot and getting down to some serious grass munching. Watching him, she realized she could use a pick-me-up of her own. Only one day back to drinking coffee, and she was already hooked all over again. Before that, it had probably been at least four months since she’d had a real cup of coffee. They’d done their best to ration the stuff, but even so, the Pagosa Springs group had run through their supply much more quickly than they’d planned.

  As they had with a lot of things, actually. Plans and lists had been drawn up with the intent to make their meager supplies last for as long as possible, but the sad fact was that none of them had any experience actually calculating how much a person might consume in a given day, and so their numbers had always been off. Jordan remembered how she’d worried whether they’d be able to make it through the coming winter, whether some of the weaker members of the group might end up dying from malnutrition or one of the diseases that preyed on the body when it was weak.

  She also realized, as she stood there and watched the goat move to another spot on the lawn, that the back door hadn’t been locked. If she’d wanted to, she could have gotten up sometime during the night and attempted to escape.

  Maybe. Hasan had said the djinn slept lightly. He might have noticed her trying to get away.

  Had he left the door unlocked as a sort of test? Or had he simply thought that the goat might need to go outside to do his business? Hasan had seemed concerned about the cleanliness of the kitchen. But the door to her own room hadn’t been locked, either, which she’d discovered as soon as she tried to run outside and see what was going on.

  “I see your friend has survived the night,” came the djinn’s voice from behind her, and Jordan startled, then turned around. Hasan looked impeccable, slightly damp hair brushed away from his forehead, his robes a smoky blue-gray color banded in silver.

  Whereas she — Jordan had to resist the urge to wipe at the blood that stained the front of her shirt, even though she knew it was long dried and was only coming out after a long presoak in a washing machine. If the washer even worked; everything in the laundry room looked as though it hadn’t been touched in months.

  “Yes,” she said, glad she sounded so normal. It was hard to look at him, with the expanse of hard, flat stomach and well-muscled chest that those robes exposed. She’d thought she’d put her discomfort over his appearance behind her, but apparently not. Why did djinn have to be so physically beautiful, anyway? “None of his injuries looked like they wanted to start bleeding again, and his energy seems good.”

  “That’s for certain,” Hasan responded, his tone dry. Out in the field, the goat was frisking about, jumping from place to place as if in search of the most succulent patch of grass he could find. If it weren’t for the reddish splotches on his throat, you’d never be able to tell that he’d been attacked the night before. “I thought you could use this,” the djinn added, and handed her a heavy mug of coffee.

  Where that solicitude had come from, she didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to argue. “Thank you,” she said, and wrapped her hands around the heavy mug and took a sip. Ah, that was perfect — dark Italian roast, fresh as if Hasan had just ground the beans himself. Another sip, and Jordan began to feel almost human, despite her night on the floor.

  “I see the kitchen is more or less intact,” he said.

  “Yes, I think he slept all night.”

  “Did you?”

  His eyes were intent on her, and Jordan could feel color rise to her cheeks. Stupid, she knew, becaus
e he wasn’t giving her that kind of look. More like he was just trying to see how much worse for wear she was after her night on the kitchen floor.

  “I’ve had a better night’s sleep,” she said lightly. “But I don’t think I took any permanent damage, if that’s what you mean. And I did sleep. I have plenty of energy to go looking for our little friend’s herd.”

  “You’re still intent on doing that.”

  “Well, yes.” Jordan sipped some more of her coffee, partly because she needed more caffeine, and partly because by doing so she didn’t have to keep looking up into Hasan’s face. Spending the night here hadn’t erased any of the strangeness of the situation, that was for sure. Sometimes he seemed impatient with her, sometimes almost amused. He certainly hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to hurt her. Did his behavior mean that she needed to change her ideas about djinn, or was it only that something about him was different from the others of his kind? And why had he kept her locked up all day, only to leave the door open that night? “I probably need to get cleaned up first.”

  “That would be wise.” Before she could say anything, he went on, “I’ll gather up some breakfast while you take care of that.”

  He seemed very mellow this morning, so she felt emboldened to comment, “Also, the clothes you’ve conjured for me are nice, but they’re not very practical, especially for rounding up goats. Could I have my T-shirts back?”

  His mouth twisted in a half-smile. “I’ll think of something.”

  It wasn’t a yes, but since Jordan thought her situation precarious enough as it was, she only nodded and said, “Thank you.” A few more sips of the coffee in her mug, and then she murmured an “excuse me,” set the mug down on the kitchen counter, and headed upstairs.

  The room where she should have slept looked much the same — with the exception of the missing pillow, which still sat on the floor downstairs. On the bed were a pair of faded jeans and a long-sleeved peasant blouse embroidered in blue and green. Not a T-shirt, but she could compromise. Something about wearing jeans that looked brand new made her want to keep them looking brand new for as long as possible. These broken-in ones would be much better for traipsing around outside.

  Her shower this morning was much faster than the one from the day before. She scrubbed her face and hands, washed her hair quickly, and was out before even ten minutes had elapsed.

  When she was done getting dressed, she ran a comb through her damp hair once again and faced herself in the mirror. Maybe a few shadows under her eyes from the rough night she’d just spent, but that was all. She could have fared much worse.

  As to what the day would bring…she honestly didn’t know. So far Hasan had seemed friendly enough, which in itself was a twist she hadn’t expected. She couldn’t trust him, though. About all she could do was try to take her cues from him, and avoid upsetting him or making him angry.

  And if she was very lucky, she might be able to survive this.

  Chapter Six

  Hasan conjured a breakfast for them — not of pancakes, as Jordan had jokingly suggested the evening before, but of fruit and bread and cold ham. When she descended the stairs, her gaze moved to the spread on the dining room table, and she smiled slightly.

  “How is our friend?” she asked.

  “See for yourself,” he replied, and pointed toward the living room window, where he’d pulled the curtains aside to give an unobstructed view of the front lawn. There, almost in the middle of the space, was her damnable goat, chomping away at the slightly dry grass as if it didn’t have a care in the world. Perhaps it didn’t, now that it knew it had someone around who wished to watch over it.

  Her smile widened. “He doesn’t seem any the worse for wear, that’s for sure.”

  “And yourself?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “A hot shower cures all ills.”

  Hasan was forced to admit that showers were one human invention he could wholeheartedly praise. And Jordan did look much better than she had when she’d gone upstairs. Now her hair was sleek and brushed, albeit still slightly damp, and the cheerful embroidery on the top he’d provided for her brought out the blue in her eyes. Also, while he in general thought modern American clothing drab and unattractive, one couldn’t deny the way well-fitting jeans showed off the female figure.

  He shouldn’t be looking at her figure, however. With a deliberate effort, he moved his gaze away from her and toward the table. “Shall we?”

  Jordan nodded and went to take a seat at the dining room table. As she settled her napkin in her lap, she said, “I was kind of hoping the goat’s friends would have come looking for him, but it doesn’t seem that way.”

  “Perhaps they are fine where they are,” he said mildly as he put some bread and fruit on his plate, and speared a piece of ham with his fork. “After all, they have been ranging wild for quite some time.”

  “I thought about that.” Jordan helped herself to some food. “But the wolves are getting bolder. I don’t think the goats are safe.”

  Hasan had observed that change in the wolves himself, although he was somewhat surprised to hear Jordan commenting on it. “You had problems with wolves in Pagosa Springs?”

  She’d just popped a grape in her mouth, and had to finish chewing it before she answered him. “Not the first winter. Things were very quiet…almost like the world was in shock or something. The next winter, though — the wolves came through several times, and we wasted a lot of ammo driving them off. We were also worried that all the noise would bring the djinn down on us.”

  She stopped there, not quite looking at him. Was she concerned that her comment about the djinn might upset him? Possibly. He found nothing in it to bother him, mostly because she was only being matter-of-fact. Pagosa Springs was not in his territory, and so he had never gone on any “cleansing” missions there, but he thought it entirely possible that the djinn in the area had done a sweep early on, deemed the settlement cleared, and never returned to see if a group of refugees from elsewhere in Colorado might have made their way there.

  As for the wolves, well, their only true predator had been removed from the world. No wonder they were ranging farther and farther afield these days. Yes, they knew better than to go up against a djinn, but with only a little more than twenty thousand of his people spread across the entire globe, Hasan guessed the probability of wolves squaring off against djinn was fairly low.

  “Their population is increasing,” he said as he poured himself some water from the pitcher he’d set out. “As are the populations of deer and elk. Balance is being maintained.”

  Jordan appeared troubled by that statement, but she didn’t try to contradict him. Had she noticed those shifts in population, or had her group’s hunting efforts more or less wiped out any such gains in the immediate area around Pagosa Springs?

  “Well, I suppose the deer and elk can take care of themselves,” she said. “But the goats are domesticated animals. They’re used to being watched over.”

  “Perhaps,” Hasan allowed. “On the other hand, they’ve had two years to adapt to the alteration of their circumstances. From what I’ve seen, they appear to be doing quite well. However,” he went on quickly, noting the way Jordan’s lips had parted, as though she intended to protest that particular observation, “last night’s attack does show that they need to be watched over. Wolves have never come to Chama before now.”

  His words appeared to mollify her, for she settled back against her chair and reached for another piece of bread. “Have you used the barn here at all?”

  “No. I had no need to. But if it requires any sort of repairs, I can manage that.” Which he could. All djinn had the ability to construct their own homes — although the earth elementals were best at it — and he assumed that ability would extend toward any outbuildings on his property. As he’d told Jordan, before now he’d ignored the barn because he had no use for it. He’d fished in the river and hunted deer and elk, and also gathered fruit from the trees in the area, but at
the same time, he’d conjured other items to expand his pantry, or simply because he didn’t feel like physically obtaining the food he required.

  “We should go look at it.”

  “Now?”

  “Well, after breakfast. Then we can go try to find the rest of the goats.”

  It seemed as good a plan as any. “Of course,” he said, and watched her smile again, light touching those big blue eyes of hers.

  Hasan reflected that a man might do a good deal to earn one of those smiles…and in this particular instance, a djinn was no different from a mortal man.

  The morning breeze was brisk and cool, but the sun bright and warm, making the conditions just about perfect for a walk out to the barn. Hasan moved a few paces ahead of her, leading the way. The sunlight glimmered on the silk of his robes while the wind blew his hair away from his face. Right then he did look very godlike, and Jordan had to make sure she kept her gaze locked elsewhere.

  The whole situation was positively surreal. Now they were acting like…well, maybe not exactly friends, but people who were friendly enough with each other. He was the enemy, though. She knew he must have far too many deaths on his conscience. She shouldn’t let her breath catch when his eyes met hers, or when he turned to look at her. This wasn’t junior high, and he wasn’t the most popular boy in school.

  No, this was the real world. She could never let herself forget that, or forget the people she’d lost. Her own family — such as it was — had died when the Heat swept over the world, but the group at Pagosa Springs had become her new family, sturdy Frank and pretty Suzanne and Suzanne’s boyfriend Cole, who’d once been a pharmacist. And Lisa and Tom and Drew and everyone else. Now that she wasn’t running to save her life, she found her thoughts returning to them, recalling little details about their lives and their personalities, as if trying to give them the memorial service she knew they’d never have.

  By that point they’d reached the doors to the barn, which were shut, although one of them had cracked open an inch or two. Hasan paused there and turned back toward her. His eyes narrowed slightly as he appeared to survey her features.