Inwardly, she knew she was right. But still….
“Well, I know Shawn will be glad to hear that. Most people feel the same way, but you know how it is. In every group you always have a few slackers.”
“What do you do when people don’t want to pitch in?” Jordan asked, genuinely curious. Not that she claimed to be an expert on all things Los Alamos, but she hadn’t seen any evidence of community policing during the brief time she’d been here.
“Public shaming works pretty well,” Lindsay said. “A few times, people’s food allotments were threatened. That generally gets most people to shape up. For the real hard cases, well….” She paused, then sent an odd little questioning look at Miles, as though she wasn’t sure whether she should say anything else.
“Exile,” Miles said calmly. “Which is basically a death sentence. No one can survive out on the road, not with the djinn still hunting humans.” He cocked his head to one side, his gaze suddenly sharp. “Which begs the question how you managed it for so long, for so many miles.”
A chill went through Jordan. The truth would have to come out at some point, but she really didn’t want to talk about it right now. She shrugged, then realized that was an awfully nonchalant response to a situation that could be so deadly. “It wasn’t easy.”
“And it’s nothing she needs to tell us,” Lindsay put in. “At least, not after she just got here. There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”
Thank God. She didn’t want to hide the truth forever, and she probably would feel comfortable talking about it at some point with Lindsay. Not in front of Miles, though. It was clear enough that he loved his wife, but Jordan didn’t think her story of allowing herself to fall for a murderous djinn would find much sympathy with him.
She shot Lindsay a grateful look, then reached for her beer and allowed herself another swallow. Not too fast, though, or the drink would be gone, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to order another. They had to ration the alcohol here, along with so many other things.
“And I’m getting tired,” Lindsay announced. Her gaze slipped toward Jordan for just a second, as if she knew her dinner companion was just as weary but didn’t want to admit it. “I think we should call it a night. Jordan, why don’t you come by the lab tomorrow morning? I think there are a few things you could help me with.”
“I don’t see what — ” Miles began, but his wife interrupted him with a gentle nudge to the ribs.
“Just little things. Does that sound okay?”
Jordan could tell that Lindsay wanted a chance to talk where it would be just the two of them. No doubt she’d arrange it so Miles was off working someplace else while they had their convo. “Sure. Shawn said the townhouse has a scooter in the garage that I can use, so it should be easy enough to get over there.”
“Perfect. Let’s try for around ten.”
Lindsay sounded very confident. Whoever had tomorrow’s date for the “baby pool” might very well be disappointed.
As for Jordan…well, she didn’t know exactly what the other woman wanted to talk about, but she assumed she’d find out soon enough. She’d knew she’d better manufacture a few ready-made lies, though.
Just in case.
Chapter Thirteen
It was foolish for him to dwell on how empty the bed felt, because of course Jordan had never shared it with him. He’d actually never had a woman here at all; his time with Danya had been spent exclusively at her far more lavish home in western Colorado. All the same, he reached out with one arm to the open space to his left, as if thinking about Jordan might conjure her presence.
Of course she didn’t appear. She was hundreds of miles away in Los Alamos, starting a new life.
Whereas he…Hasan didn’t quite know what he was doing. This was not a new life for him, but merely a continuation of an old one.
Far away, eerie cries rose into the night. Not wolves; in this case, the source of the sound was probably a pack of coyotes. He wondered how those predators would fare against the wolves that had begun to encroach on their territory. Would they fight, or simply slink away and try for better hunting elsewhere?
Should he have fought?
Annoyed, he sat up in bed. Across the room, a candle on top of the dresser flared to life, casting a faint, warm light, just enough to dispel the darkness. Sleep continued to elude him, and he knew better than to lie here and wrestle with his racing thoughts. Djinn could survive for long periods with little to no sleep, although eventually weariness would catch up them. Now, he didn’t know what would be worse — to get up and have to face his own turmoil all through the darkest watches of the night, or try once again to lie down and shut his eyes, and force slumber to come through sheer force of will.
The coyotes yipped again, sounding more frenzied this time. Hasan wondered what they’d found. Merely a rabbit, or perhaps something a little more satisfying, like a yearling deer? He knew he needn’t worry about the goats, as they had been locked up in the barn hours ago at the end of their afternoon feeding. There were probably a few more of their compatriots wandering around Chama’s environs; he knew over the past few months he’d spotted more than the six he currently had under his protection. Perhaps tomorrow he should go out and try to round up the rest of them.
What else did he have to do with his empty days?
With one fierce movement, he threw the covers back and got out of bed, went to the window. The moon was high overhead, a little thicker than it had been the night before, but still not enough to cast much light. Even so, it illuminated the empty yard around the house just enough that he was able to see dark shapes moving across the open spaces.
Too big for coyotes. These had to be the wolves, coming to investigate the sounds they had heard, quite possibly thinking to take the coyotes’ prize for themselves.
Before he’d even stopped to think what he was doing, he’d summoned his robes and his pants and boots, and had blinked himself outside. Cold air immediately hit the exposed skin of his chest and stomach, but he paid it no mind. Ahead of him were the wolves, moving swiftly and with purpose toward a stand of pine located a furlong from the house.
He followed them, moving silently as the wind. None of them appeared to note his presence, which was as he had planned. His powers allowed him to push all trace of his scent far away, so the wolves would never know he was there.
In the center of the pines was a small clearing, and in that clearing a pack of some ten or twelve coyotes fought and snarled over the carcass of a young doe. Unfortunate, because now she would not have the chance to live and bear young, and keep these lands well-stocked with deer. But that was the way of things. Nature always found its balance — as long as no one interfered with it.
Because the coyotes were so preoccupied, at first they seemed to take no notice of the group of wolves approaching from the south. It was only when the larger predators burst into the clearing that the coyotes broke off from their feast and turned to face the newcomers. They circled the carcass of the doe, teeth bared, mouths dripping saliva.
For one long, agonizing second, the wolves paused. Not out of fear, Hasan knew, but to assess the situation. Perhaps it was right for them to interfere, as they were larger and stronger, and the more dominant species. But as he gazed at them, a fury kindled in him, anger that they would interfere with a kill the coyotes should be rightfully enjoying. The wolves were certainly capable of finding their own prey, but taking it from their smaller cousins was much easier.
As soon as that thought had crossed his mind, he knew he had to stop this. He raised his hands and summoned gusts of wind to assail the wolves, to drive them away from the coyotes. They howled in fear, bowled backward by the gale, one of them even striking the trunk of a tree. It fell to the ground, limp, but shook itself and got back to its feet. This did not bother Hasan too much; he did not wish to kill any of the wolves, only convince them that it was not safe for them to remain here.
Unfortunately, while disoriented by that
first assault, they did not appear dissuaded, for in the next moment they surged forward again. And once more Hasan raised his hands, this time not as concerned with trying to keep them from harm. Several of the wolves struck the surrounding trees with such force that when they hit the ground, they stayed there, not moving.
The ones who were not harmed looked around, golden eyes wide and furious, wondering whence had come these furious attacks. Since the djinn had made himself all but invisible to them, they could see no reason why they were being assaulted like this. They began to back away from the coyotes, teeth bared, but their bodies hunched and low to the ground, a sure sign of their unease. In the next moment they were gone, leaving their fallen fellows behind.
Hasan went to one of the injured wolves and laid his hand on its head. The creature breathed, in harsh deep pants. It did not snap at him as he moved that hand down its body, felt its legs and ribs. The wolf whimpered but submitted to the inspection.
Only shaken and bruised. This animal would survive.
Similar inspections of the other fallen wolves proved more or less the same thing. Hasan made a scooping motion with his arms, lifting the three stunned beasts from where they lay and moving them through the trees and into the open meadow beyond. There, he set them down gently, and watched over them as, one by one, they rose to their feet and trotted off into the night, going in search of the rest of their pack.
Hasan remained where he was, focused on the wolves until the gray of their coats had faded into the darkness of the night. Once they were gone, he raised a hand and pushed his hair away from his face. From behind him came the sound of the coyotes feasting, low growls and snapping noises, probably from the deer’s bones breaking as they tore her apart.
Why this reaction? Hasan couldn’t say. If questioned on the subject, he would have responded that nature should run its course without interference from anyone, whether human or djinn. Something in him, however, had been stirred to action by the injustice of the wolves taking from the coyotes a prize they had rightfully earned.
Would he have acted this way even a week ago? Or had his encounter with Jordan changed him subtly, made him more likely to see the things in the world that needed changing? She had been so stubborn in her insistence that the goats must be protected, so unafraid of what he might say or how he might react to her demands. In that purity was a beauty which had nothing to do with the symmetry of her features, and everything to do with the fierce innocence of her soul.
He didn’t deserve her. How could he be worthy of anything that pure, when he had the deaths of so many on his conscience? Never mind that at the time, he had not believed those he killed deserving of mercy. They were the ones who had nearly destroyed this world. Now, though…now he began to realize they were all individuals, people with their own hopes and dreams and fears. He had wiped them away, because they meant nothing to him.
But Jordan…Jordan meant something. Bitter irony that he should understand such a truth only after he had let her go.
He wanted her now more than ever, as he stood there in the cold night, listening to the coyotes feast. He wanted her in his arms, so she might dispel the chill at the very center of his soul.
But she wasn’t here. She was gone, and all because of him.
As a djinn, he shouldn’t have been able to suffer from the cold, and yet in that moment, his limbs might have been made of ice. He knew he should transport himself back inside the house, get out of this night air.
That would be too easy, though.
Instead, he began to walk back home, letting the cold and the discomfort be his penance.
Would it be enough?
No. He doubted anything he could ever do would be enough.
Jordan wasn’t used to looking at a clock, or keeping to schedules, but she did her best. Her new townhouse had come completely furnished, albeit stripped of any personal items that might have told her something about the person or people who’d lived here before the Heat stole their lives away. She could see why the people running Los Alamos might have agreed on such a policy, but at the same time, she wondered if it wasn’t disrespectful somehow, that if those mementos had been left in plain sight, the survivors living here now might have been able to pay them silent homage every day, to recognize the lives they’d once led.
At any rate, the bedroom she now occupied had a wind-up alarm clock on the nightstand, and, as far as she could tell, it had been set to the correct time. The clock had roused her from a deep slumber precisely at 7 a.m., and afterward she had coffee and oatmeal — there was a box with little packets in various flavors. The oatmeal and the coffee had been left for her in the pantry, along with canned items such as soup and pork and beans and creamed corn. She also had work credits to use at Pajarito’s if she wanted to go out, although after this settling-in period of a few days, she’d be expected to put in some actual hours to add to her balance.
That was fine. As she’d told the group at dinner the night before, she wanted to pull her own weight. She wanted to work until she dropped from exhaustion, so she wouldn’t have any time left over to think about Hasan. Maybe in a month…or a year…she’d have evicted him from her mind, would allow herself to truly start over.
Today, though, she had to see Lindsay Odekirk at ten o’clock. During Jordan’s quick five-minute shower — all she was allowed, to ration water as well as the power required to heat that water — she tried to rehearse the stories she might tell, explanations for her survival that would seem plausible without being too over the top.
Anything to avoid explaining that she probably would never have made it here without a djinn’s help.
Her bathroom had come supplied with toothpaste and a new toothbrush, soap, a comb, a hairbrush, and some drugstore-brand moisturizer. Did they give the same care package to everyone who came here, or had Shawn and Katelyn made sure Jordan had everything she might need? She didn’t know, but she was grateful. It was so much easier to feel normal when following her regular rituals. Those rituals had been somewhat disrupted in Pagosa Springs, and more so at Hasan’s home in Chama, but as she brushed out her hair and then put on some tinted lip balm, Jordan thought she could easily fall into these civilized routines again. What end of the world? Nothing to see here.
As promised, the garage held a scooter, one of those little electric rip-off models from China that had been built to look like a Vespa. This one was aqua blue and white, very retro. As Jordan unplugged it from the wall socket, she wondered if the scooter had belonged to the people who once lived in this townhouse, or whether it had been put here when the larger vehicle that might have once inhabited this garage was taken away to be used by one of Los Alamos’ current inhabitants. Shawn had told her that they’d get her set up with a car or truck before winter really rolled in, that most of the vehicles in Los Alamos now ran on ethanol produced from the crops grown down in Española.
For now, though, the scooter was more than adequate. Actually, with a corduroy jacket pulled on over the long-sleeved T-shirt she wore, it felt good to ride through the streets and feel the cool morning air on her face. People were already out and about, walking or biking or driving to their various assignments. A truck with an extended cab full of men passed her, heading down the hill. Going to harvest the last of the crops before the first hard freeze descended? Maybe, or maybe they were on a salvage mission to Española. It sounded as though there were still plenty of useful items to be scavenged from the abandoned town.
At any rate, everything around her spoke of a calm kind of energy, the energy of people who knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing. Jordan hoped to share in that energy soon. It would be good to have a purpose again. About all they’d been able to do in Pagosa Springs was try their best to stay alive. There wasn’t any talk about rebuilding society, not when they knew it could all be taken away from them in an instant.
She rode up the town’s main street — sooner or later she’d get all the street names figured out — and then fol
lowed it as it curved toward the Los Alamos National Laboratory facilities. Past the empty guard shack, and then on to the same building where she’d spoken with Lindsay and Miles the day before. The same somewhat shabby white Subaru was parked by the entrance, indicating that the couple was already here. Well, Jordan didn’t find their early arrival too surprising. She’d already formed the impression that Miles would probably prefer to sleep here so he didn’t lose out on any valuable research time, although she didn’t know what in the world he might be working on. After all, his devices functioned as intended…obviously, or they wouldn’t all be here.
With a mental shrug, she turned off the scooter and put down the kickstand, then climbed off. Since she didn’t think she had to worry about theft, she undid the chin strap of her helmet and set it down on the scooter’s seat rather than bothering to take it with her into the building.
Up the same four flights of stairs — couldn’t they have chosen a lab on a lower level? It wasn’t like they had to compete for office space — and then down the same hallway. When Jordan peeked in the doorway of the lab, she saw that Lindsay was in there alone, sitting down at one of the tables as she typed furiously away on the keyboard of a laptop.
It was such an ordinary scene, and yet something about watching the other woman working made Jordan’s breath catch in her throat. She hadn’t touched a computer since the terrible day she’d fled her house, the day when warnings had popped up on Facebook — one of the last sites to hang on until the internet crashed altogether — that the Heat hadn’t been enough, that people were reporting sightings of terrible, beautiful beings intent on murdering every human unfortunate enough to cross their paths. The djinn wouldn’t reach Colorado Springs for another month…probably because they were making a concerted effort to clear out Denver and its suburbs…but she hadn’t known that at the time. She’d run from the house where her mother had died, wasted away to dust in her own bed, had run to the Mile High Inn, the bar and grill where she’d once worked. Why Jordan had gone there, she couldn’t even say, except it had always been a natural gathering place. And that was where the first group of survivors coalesced, until their number was almost a hundred people.
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