“Hey,” Lindsay said, closing her laptop. Jordan couldn’t recall making any sound, but something must have alerted the other woman that she was there. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Jordan replied. She knew she needed to get it together. Falling into unpleasant reveries about the past was not a good way to stay on her toes. “I suppose I was just thinking.”
“Not about anything good, judging by your expression.”
“Not really.” She shrugged and came farther into the room. “Stuff from…right after. You know.”
“Yes, I know.” Lindsay seemed to check herself, then added, “Well, that is, I know because of what the survivors here told me. I missed out on a lot of the nightmare right after the Dying because I was Chosen — you know, one of the survivors who got selected by a djinn for eternal life and love. Or something like that.”
Wait…what? Jordan stared at her, wondering if she somehow hadn’t heard that right. If Lindsay had been Chosen, then what the hell was she doing here in Los Alamos with Miles Odekirk?
“Yes, it’s true,” Lindsay said with a chuckle — followed by a wince as she put her hand on her belly. “Damn. Too bad there’s no pro football anymore, because I think this kid would’ve had a great future as a field goal kicker. Go ahead and sit down, Jordan. Miles is off scrounging parts in the warehouse, so he’ll be gone for at least a half hour.”
“What if your field goal kicker shows up in the meantime?” Jordan asked, only half joking, as she pulled out a rolling office chair and sat down.
Lindsay pointed at a walkie-talkie that lay on the table a few inches away from her laptop. “Miles can be here in five minutes if I send out an SOS. I don’t think we’re quite there yet, though.”
“Okay.” Although Lindsay seemed relaxed enough about the same thing, Jordan couldn’t help sending a wary glance at the other woman’s oversized belly, a look that probably could have been interpreted as worry that the baby was going to pop right out at any second, like the alien in those sci-fi horror movies. “So…you were Chosen? But aren’t you with Miles?”
A gust of a breath. For a second, Lindsay looked very tired, although she usually seemed like the perfect stereotype of a woman blooming with pregnancy hormones. “He…died. There was a group of rogue djinn. Real baddies.”
“Worse than the regular ones?” Jordan wasn’t sure she wanted to contemplate that prospect. Clearly, she’d missed a whole hell of a lot during the time she’d spent hiding in Pagosa Springs.
“Much worse.” Her lips tightened, and Lindsay went on, “The regular djinn — the ones who wanted to wipe out mankind — considered these guys outside the pale, because they didn’t want to abide by the elders’ decree that the djinn of the One Thousand, the ones who wanted to save humanity, and their Chosen should be left alone. People were hurt. Some were killed. One of them was my partner, Rafi.”
She spoke very calmly, as though the tragedy hadn’t touched her all that much. Or was she only trying to push her feelings aside? Maybe she’d hooked up with Miles Odekirk as a way of forgetting, although Jordan couldn’t quite prevent herself from harboring the uncharitable thought that it was a hell of a slide to go from a godlike djinn to a gawky scientist like Miles.
“I’m sorry,” Jordan said quietly.
“It’s all right. He….” Lindsay tapped her fingers on the table, then glanced over toward the window. Jordan wasn’t quite sure what she might be looking for, because all you could see outside was the other buildings on the lab campus, and the outline of some far-off mountains. “How much do you know about djinn?”
“Probably not as much as you do,” Jordan replied. It wasn’t even that much of a lie. Yes, she’d spent some time with Hasan, but she was still left with the feeling that there were huge gaps he’d never filled in. “Mostly we tried to stay as far away from them as possible.”
“Right.” A slight swivel of the chair in which she sat, and Lindsay faced Jordan, one hand moving over her stomach in a gesture that probably wasn’t even conscious. “Well, after the Dying, those of us who were Chosen had our djinn come to us and reveal who they were, why they were different. In New Mexico, we all first gathered in Taos, although the community ended up relocating to Santa Fe. Anyway, it was a shock to us survivors, as you can imagine. We were all grateful to be protected…and flattered, I suppose. I mean, here we were, regular mortals, and these godlike beings were coming to us and saying that they wanted us to spend eternity with them.”
Jordan could see why that might be gratifying, in an odd way. To know that someone immortal and perfect had selected you, out of all the millions of survivors…. At the same time, the thought only awoke the pain she’d tried to bury, that no one had chosen her, that even Hasan had rejected her in the end. She cleared her throat. “I guess that would have been sort of world-changing.”
“In a world that had already changed. Yes.” Lindsay hesitated, then reached for the glass of water she had sitting by her on the table. “And for most people, it was a happy ending they hadn’t expected.”
“But you weren’t most people?”
“Not really. I….” Another of those small winces that seemed to indicate the baby was moving again. “It was harder for me and Rafi. That is, he’d picked me, and I knew I was supposed to be swept off my feet, but it didn’t feel that way to me, at least not after the first few weeks. We quarreled more than the other Chosen and their djinn ever did. He had this idea of who he thought I should be, and I wasn’t that. I mean, I was an engineering grad student. A geek. Not some wannabe goddess.”
If memory served, there really hadn’t been too many geeks who’d looked like Lindsay, but Jordan didn’t bother to argue. If that was how the other woman saw herself, then that was her truth.
“And I realized after he was gone that he’d probably used his djinn glamour to soften me up in the beginning, to make me think I was in love with him, even though — ”
“‘Djinn glamour’?” Jordan cut in. She didn’t think she liked the sound of that. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a subtle power they have. They can make you think that you want them, that you have the deepest connection in the world to them. I think more djinn used it on their Chosen than they wanted to admit, just to get things started when people were scared and worried and, frankly, kind of shell-shocked. You can’t even tell what’s happening. You think it’s completely normal to fall head over heels like that.”
Oh, God. Before she could stop it, one of Jordan’s hands had gone to her throat. Was that what had happened between her and Hasan? Had he used his glamour on her? She couldn’t think of a rational explanation for why she’d fallen so hard for him, and so quickly, but Lindsay’s story provided the perfect explanation.
Hold on, she thought then. If that’s really what happened, then why did he let you go? If all he wanted was to throw his djinn “shine” on you and get you into bed, why stop before you’d done the deed?
She didn’t know. Maybe his conscience had gotten the better of him. Conscience. There was a joke. If he didn’t have any compunction about killing hundreds — if not thousands — of innocent human beings, then she doubted he would lose any sleep about making a woman think she wanted to have sex with him.
Lindsay had been watching her intently, one perfectly arched eyebrow lifted slightly. “Jordan, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she replied, forcing out the words even though she was anything but fine. “I just — I hadn’t heard that before. It is kind of creepy.”
“That’s one word for it. Anyway, once Rafi was gone, I realized I’d never really loved him. He’d made me think I loved him. And then I was angry with him, and angry with myself for being angry at someone who’d died too soon.” She gave a grim chuckle and added, “Well, too soon for a djinn. Who knows how many hundreds or thousands of years old he actually was? He would never tell me.”
“But then you met Miles….”
“Well, I was working with Miles at
first. He needed someone to help him, and I had more of a scientific background than anyone else in Taos.”
That comment didn’t make any sense. If Miles’s home base was the labs here in Los Alamos, then what was he doing in Taos?
Lindsay must have sensed her puzzlement, because she said, “Let’s just say the Taos djinn ‘borrowed’ Miles for some help with the rogue djinn. So we were working in the lab there together. Believe me, it wasn’t love at first sight. We argued all the time.”
“I thought that was a prerequisite, at least according to all the romantic comedies I’ve ever seen.”
Lindsay grinned. “Well, all right. Maybe. He had his own demons to fight — he’d lost his wife and child in the Heat. It took him a while to figure out that it was okay to move on. But he did, and here we are.” The grin faded, replaced by a soft smile as she touched her belly again. “This baby…it’s our trust in the future. That everything will be okay. You know.”
Jordan could only nod, although she wasn’t sure whether she shared Lindsay’s optimism for the future. After all, they’d thought they were safe in Pagosa Springs, that they’d managed to finally evade the djinn once and for all, and she’d seen how that turned out. True, the situations weren’t exactly equivalent, because the group in Pagosa hadn’t had Miles’s devices to protect them. Because of those devices and the cooperation that existed between the djinn of Santa Fe and the people in Los Alamos, the people here probably did think the future was now something to be looked forward to rather than feared.
Maybe someday she would feel the same.
Chapter Fourteen
He would simply have to find someone else. No, not a mortal — he’d learned his lesson with Jordan. But a djinn woman, another individual who also found the prospect of heading into a long winter in an empty house unappealing. Danya was out of the question, of course. However, there were others who had been given lands in this part of the world, women who might be looking for companionship now that they had established themselves in their new homes.
Assuming that they hadn’t already found someone to fill that particular void. While djinn relationships didn’t last forever, they could span decades, which meant his chances of locating a woman he was attracted to and who was still available were considerably lower than they would have been if he’d made this determination as soon as he was given these lands. Now he worried that his plan might not be as easy to implement as he thought.
Bright sunlight streamed in through the windows. Hasan stood in the middle of his living room, arms crossed, and scowled as he took in his surroundings. Because he had still been consumed with tracking down the few survivors who remained in this part of the world, he hadn’t spared much thought for the house he’d been given. The land was good, and he’d assumed that he would improve the house one day when he had time. Now, though, he looked at the place through the eyes of a djinn woman, and knew it would be found sadly lacking, small and cramped by his people’s standards, no marble columns, no gold leaf, no reflecting pools or mosaics or tapestries. Just a mortal house, one that might have served its original owner well enough but certainly did not possess any amenities that a djinn would find appealing.
He had made some improvements to his own bedroom and left it at that. Those small changes would not be adequate, however. He would have to tear the entire place down and start over. For one of his people, it was not such a daunting task. Earth elementals had the easiest time of it when faced with these sorts of challenges, but Hasan knew he could manage well enough.
But….
Even if he erased all traces of the current house and exchanged them for a palace of marble and stone, he could not erase his memories of Jordan here — Jordan sitting on the kitchen floor, her long hair slipping over one shoulder as she cradled the wounded goat…Jordan on the front porch, the light of the setting sun limning her delicate features in pure gold…Jordan at the dinner table, one corner of her mouth lifting as she teased him, oh, so delicately.
And that mouth on his, the sweetness of her lips, the lithe grace of her body pressed against him as he kissed her. He could reduce this house to rubble, and all those things would remain.
Yes, he wanted a woman, but not any woman. Only Jordan.
Once upon a time, Qadim al-Syan had quipped that Hasan’s single-mindedness would get him into trouble one day. Now Hasan realized that his former friend’s little joke was no joke at all, but a keen observation of a failing that could no longer be overlooked. He could try stopgaps and distractions, he could fill his days with empty activities, and in the end, none of it would matter. None of it did matter, if he couldn’t have Jordan with him.
He let out a low growl of frustration, and went to the front door and wandered out onto the porch. A brisk, friendly morning greeted him, the sort of day that should have been filled with possibilities, but now seemed only one more in a series of days and weeks that must be endured.
It was his fault, he knew. Pride had told him that he could not care for a mortal, and he had believed its lies. But now that he knew he had made a mistake, what could he possibly do next? Jordan was gone, hidden behind a barrier as impassable as it was invisible. He had no way of getting word to her that he had changed his mind. And even if she knew somehow, would she even care, considering how he had sent her away?
Perhaps he should go to the djinn of Santa Fe and ask for their help. Yes, there was bad blood between him and Qadim because of how Hasan had treated Qadim’s woman, but there had never been any quarrel between him and Zahrias, the leader of the djinn in the former capital of this region. And Hasan, although zealous in his quest to hunt down humanity’s survivors, had not infringed on the rules that protected the Chosen, unlike those rogues who had been exiled to the outer circles. Qadim might disagree on that point, but in truth, his woman had not been Chosen when Hasan kidnapped her. In the eyes of the elders, he had committed no crime.
Ah, but Qadim and Madison now dwelt with the rest of the djinn and their Chosen in Santa Fe, and no doubt Zahrias would take their side against him.
No, Hasan would not ask for their assistance. He would do this on his own. It was better that way. Then he could hold up his head when he met again with Jordan. She would know he loved her enough to come after her without help from anyone else.
Love. Such a small word, one he had scorned in the past. Now he knew he could not afford to ignore the ache in his heart. He would seek her out, tell her the truth of his soul.
Even if it killed him.
Miles had returned to the lab not very long after Lindsay’s revelations about her former djinn partner, and Jordan took advantage of his arrival to say that she didn’t want to interrupt their work any longer, and she had some things to take care of at her new home. Another lie, but an innocent one. Anyway, she did have a bit more settling in to do, and besides, it was the sort of excuse that wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. She thanked Lindsay for the chat, offered a muted hello to Miles — who looked more relieved than anything else, probably because he realized he wouldn’t have to come up with a reason for kicking her out so he and his wife could get some work done — and headed out to retrieve her scooter.
It really was a beautiful day. Rather than return home right away, Jordan rode around town, coaxing the scooter up a few of the steeper hills, wandering through neighborhoods that looked like something out of a ’50s sitcom. She supposed the architecture in the older parts of town made sense; after all, this place had been a working lab since the 1940s, and she had the idea that a lot of the scientists had stayed on and settled here after WWII was over. Why not? They still had work to do, and why not do it in a safe, isolated place with clean air and water?
And views. She paused at a park near the edge of one of the plateaus, and gazed out over the sweeping vistas to every side — dark pine forests, and golden sprays of autumn-toned aspens, and rocks in every shade from rusty orange-red to almost pale green. Her eyes traveled further, to the ribbon of green — now shaded faintly
with gold from the cottonwoods beginning to turn — that was the Rio Grande as it cut through the valley where Española was located, all the way to the hills where the river emerged from its gorge, near where she and Hasan had parted.
A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed. She didn’t want to think about that moment, didn’t want to think about the hard set of his mouth as he let her walk away from him. Problem was, the more she made herself not think about it, the more she couldn’t seem to think of anything else. If there had been something she could have said to change his mind, she still couldn’t think of it now.
“You’re out and about,” a half-familiar voice said, and she turned away from the view to see Brent Sanderson standing a few feet away. He held a black plastic trash bag in one hand and wore a vaguely apologetic expression on his face.
“I — I was just exploring. I wanted to get a look around.”
“It’s a good place to get a look, that’s for sure.” He remained where he was, and didn’t try to come any closer to her. Maybe he’d gotten a good glimpse of her face and had realized she wasn’t out here merely to take in the view. “Trash duty,” he went on, hefting the garbage bag. “We tell the kids not to leave any litter behind in the parks, but they don’t always pay attention. So I like to make the rounds every few days if I don’t have too many cars to work on.”
That’s right, he’d mentioned something about working in the motor pool the day before, as he was dropping her off at city hall so she could meet with Shawn Gutierrez. Well, she supposed the motor pool was one benefit of the apocalypse — you could just bring your malfunctioning car to have one of your fellow survivors repair it, rather than taking it to a mechanic and wondering if there would be enough in your checking account to cover the cost of fixing the damn thing.
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