Awoken

by Christine Pope

  Not that it mattered. It had saved her some time, which was the important thing, especially because she had to stop, put the vehicle in park, then open the hatchback and retrieve her scooter, shove it inside. Thank God the scooter wasn’t so heavy that she couldn’t lift it on her own, and that the Volvo had enough room to accommodate it.

  As she got back in and finished backing out of the driveway, Jordan wondered what she’d do if someone saw her driving Lindsay’s car, tried to stop her, ask questions? She’d say she was going to the store to get Lindsay some ice cream. Wait, they probably didn’t have ice cream here. Well, she’d think of something. What really mattered was that she had a car, and somehow Lindsay had understood, hadn’t thought she was crazy for being in love with Hasan.

  And soon, the two of them would be away from here, would be home.

  Was Chama home? She didn’t know for sure. But she would be there with Hasan, and that was the important thing.

  Chapter Seventeen

  One would think that an immortal being wouldn’t have an issue with waiting, not when he had all of time to play with, and yet Hasan couldn’t quite curb his impatience. He didn’t possess the strength to pace about the little townhouse, but he did wait in the living room near the front door, one hand tapping on the knee of his jeans. It seemed as though Jordan had been gone a very long time. The really damnable thing was there wasn’t much he could do about it.

  Except wait.

  A clock ticked away from somewhere within the kitchen, only serving to increase his agitation. Surely it couldn’t take that long to go into town, get a work assignment and a car, and then come back here?

  Feeling as though hundred-pound weights were attached to each ankle, he got up from the couch and went to the window, then lifted the unattractive plastic blinds slightly so he could peer through them. The street was empty, the only movement the leaves of the trees rustling in the breeze. At least he didn’t have to worry about anyone coming up the walk and asking questions about his presence here.

  Not yet, anyway. The men who had found him at the Walmart the evening before appeared to have accepted his explanations as to who he was and why he was here in Los Alamos, but perhaps as time passed, more questions would enter their minds, questions they’d want answered.

  And here he was, utterly unable to defend himself.

  No, he was borrowing trouble. These people had no reason to be suspicious of him, especially with Jordan out and about with them, ready to put in a good word. Yes, it would be difficult if he had to keep up this charade for any amount of time, but as things stood —

  A dark blue vehicle pulled into the driveway. Hasan didn’t recognize the car, but he was able to see Jordan behind the wheel. Relief rushed through him, making him feel weaker than he already was. He staggered back to the couch and sat down. He needed to conserve his strength, make sure he was ready to face whatever might happen next.

  Apparently Jordan wasn’t going to bother with pulling into the garage. She parked the car, and came up the front walk and into the living room. A small frown had been pulling at her brows, but it eased as soon as she saw him, and she smiled.

  “I have a car,” she said.

  “I saw that.”

  “I’ll just run upstairs and get my pack, and then we can go.”

  “What if someone sees you carrying it?”

  “There’s no one around. I don’t know how many people actually live on this street, but whoever they are, they’re gone now. Off at work, I suppose, or at least, doing the jobs they’ve been assigned.” She came up to him, took his hand, gave it a small squeeze. “I’ll be right back.”

  Then she was hurrying away from him, running up the stairs. In that moment, he envied her energy, the way she could bound up to the second floor of the townhouse as though it was nothing. Well, soon enough they’d be away from here, and he’d be himself again.

  Once more he made his limping way over to the window and peered out. As Jordan had told him, the street was deserted, and he felt some of the tension go out of his shoulders. He wouldn’t be able to relax all the way until they were safely beyond the borders of Los Alamos, and farther still, to the edge of the field generated by Miles Odekirk’s devices.

  Jordan came trotting down the stairs, her pack bouncing on her back. When she came into the living room, she paused and pulled a key out of her pocket, then set it down on the coffee table. Hasan gave her a mystified look, and she explained, “It’s the key to the house. I figured I’d leave everything unlocked. No one will disturb anything that’s here, and it’ll make it easier when someone does come around, looking for me. I don’t know how many keys they have to this place.”

  That made sense. “I understand,” he said. “Anything else?”

  “No,” she replied. “Let me just check outside real fast.”

  She opened the front door and paused on the front stoop. Apparently, she was satisfied with what she saw, because she went to the car and opened one of the doors to the back seat, then put her backpack inside. Now unencumbered, she came back to Hasan, offering him her arm. He began to protest, but she shook her head.

  “We’ll move faster with me helping you.”

  As much as he would have liked to argue, he knew she was right. Soon enough he would be restored to himself, wouldn’t have to shuffle around like an invalid. He looped his arms in hers, and she guided him over to the car, opened the passenger-side door, and helped him slide in. After she shut the door, she went over to take her own seat, quickly settling herself in, one finger touching the button to start the ignition.

  While they were backing out of the driveway, she put on her seatbelt and said, “Better fasten yours. Not that I plan to do any stunt driving, but you never know.”

  He did as she told him, wondering what would happen if he was injured while still in the djinn-repelling field’s zone of effect. Would he have any of his djinn powers of healing, or would he be just as vulnerable as an ordinary mortal?

  Hasan thought he would prefer not to find out.

  Jordan had the car moving along at a good clip, but not so fast that their speed was likely to attract attention. Houses and autumn-hued trees passed by outside, until she pulled onto a main road and turned left, going away from the heart of town. So far they’d passed one other vehicle, a truck with a man and a woman in the front seat, but they hadn’t appeared terribly interested in what he and Jordan were doing. And really, why would they be? This was a town of humans, a place where they’d been able to live safely for two years. They wouldn’t suspect that they had a hostile djinn in their midst, let alone one who was being aided and abetted by a fellow human being.

  Despite the lack of interest shown by the other inhabitants of Los Alamos, Hasan let out a small sigh of relief as they passed the town limits and began to make their way down the steep, winding highway that would take them into Española. While there were cars parked on the side of the road, the asphalt itself was clear, indicating that mortal work crews had dedicated themselves to the laborious task of getting all the abandoned vehicles out of the way.

  Once they were down in Española, Jordan turned toward him and offered him a smile. “See, that wasn’t hard, was it?”

  “We are not out of the field yet,” he said.

  “I know, but we’re out of Los Alamos, and that was where I figured we’d have the biggest chance of someone trying to stop us. The only people in Española are those who’ve been sent out on a scavenging party, and I figured it shouldn’t be too hard to dodge a crew of four or five people — if they’re even here at all. I don’t know what their schedules are like, but I have a feeling they don’t come down here every day.”

  Hasan hoped she was right. It would make sense to go out on one of these missions where they sought what usable goods were still left, then catalogue what they’d retrieved before they went out again. Were the mortals in Los Alamos that organized? From what he’d seen so far, yes, they were.

  By all appearances, th
is was a ghost town. The streets had been cleared, but otherwise he thought everything must remain as it had been in the days that immediately followed the Dying. Storefronts boarded up, evidence of glass and other detritus still in some of the parking lots, even two years after that world-changing event. Pieces of paper so yellowed and shredded by the weather that they now looked more like dried leaves than artifacts of a civilization long gone. Yes, he’d seen much the same thing in the streets of Albuquerque — only in Albuquerque, Hasan’s erstwhile friend Qadim had done his best to clean things up, especially in the area around downtown. He’d had a vested interest, since that barren cityscape had been his gift from the elders.

  “Do you think they’ll ever settle down here?” he asked as they passed a row of fast food restaurants.

  Jordan shook her head. “I doubt it. After all, Los Alamos was a decent-sized town before the Dying, more than ten thousand people, I think. Even with some of the survivors starting families of their own, there probably can’t be more than a thousand of them. They have a lot of room to grow before they have to start worrying about moving into Española.”

  Families. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Humans always had bred like rabbits. Djinn were much more careful about such things, planning carefully when to have children, if ever. Many djinn were like him and had no siblings at all, while others might have only one brother or sister. It was sufficient to ensure the continuation of the family name — for while djinn might be immortal, they were not indestructible — without putting an undue burden on the admittedly scanty resources of the otherworld.

  He realized then that he’d never heard Jordan speak about her family. Perhaps her reticence stemmed from the pain of losing her relatives, but it did seem strange that she had never mentioned them.

  “What of your family?” he asked, and she shot him a surprised look.

  “‘My family’?” she repeated. “What has that got to do with anything?”

  “Perhaps nothing,” he said. “But you did just say that the survivors in Los Alamos were starting families of their own, and so that made me wonder about your relatives.”

  Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “I didn’t have much family to speak of. My dad left when I was a little kid, and my mother never remarried or had any other children. Her sister, my Aunt Liz, lived in Colorado Springs, too. We were pretty close. She got divorced before I was even born, and she also never remarried. So…no brothers or sisters, no cousins. My grandparents died in a car crash when I was six.” She expelled a breath, her gaze studiously fixed on the road. Hasan could understand why she didn’t want to look over at him; the portrait she painted was of a fairly bleak family history. “I probably had some distant relatives in Omaha, which was where my grandparents lived before they moved to Colorado Springs, but my mother never really tried to stay in touch. Too busy keeping a roof over our heads, I guess. What does it matter? Everyone’s gone. Everyone.”

  Better not to speak. He knew there was nothing he could say, after all. His people had done this, and he had been a willing participant. Yes, he had done his work here in New Mexico, and not anyplace she or her small family had lived, so he supposed he could argue he was not directly responsible for the deaths of anyone close to her, but that sort of rationalization would be disingenuous at best.

  An ache within him, one he wished he could blame on the effects of the djinn-repelling devices. Those machines were not the source of his current discomfort, however. He wished he could ignore it, could pretend he felt nothing.

  That would only be another lie. He knew exactly what the gnawing sensation in his midsection was.

  Guilt.

  Nothing he said, nothing he did, could change what had happened. He supposed he should be giving his thanks to God that at least he had met Jordan, had allowed her to thaw his heart. Was there any grace to be found in loving her? He prayed there might be.

  “I’m not blaming you,” she went on, apparently guessing at the reason for his silence. “Or rather, I won’t blame you for their deaths. You’re responsible for a lot, but not that.”

  “Thank you,” he murmured.

  “I’m probably just rationalizing. Anything to have it make sense for me to care about you. It’s crazy.” Still with her eyes straight ahead, not looking at him. By this point, they had left the ugly trappings of modern America behind them, and were driving through empty fields, the road bordered with warm autumn wildflowers, gold and orange. Her words hurt him, but he did not interrupt, knew that he needed to let her speak. “I mean,” she went on, “I could have made a home in Los Alamos. It’s the place where I should be. Instead, I’m going in the opposite direction, driving a fugitive djinn so he can get his powers back. And all because I think I’m in love with you.”

  Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. Hasan could see them clearly because of the way the bright morning sun slanted in through the car windows. More than anything, he wanted to reach out to her, take her in his arms, weak and useless as they might be right now. But he also wanted her to keep driving. They were getting close now. A few more minutes, and they would be at the edge of the energy field, and he could be himself again.

  “I’m sorry to have put you in this position,” he said, and hated the words as soon as they left his mouth. They sounded stiff and formal, something one might say to a fellow at arms, or a business partner, but certainly not to the woman he loved.

  Jordan lifted one hand from the steering wheel to wipe at her eyes. “It’s more like I’ve put myself in this position. I could have tried to stop myself from falling for you, and I didn’t.”

  Were feelings that easily ignored? Hasan didn’t think so, but he also didn’t try to argue with her. He understood — or at least, he thought he understood — why she would hate herself for caring for him. It was a betrayal of her very nature.

  Some djinn might try to tell him that he had betrayed himself as well, and the rest of his people, but he didn’t see it that way. For one thing, whatever atrocities mankind might have committed, whatever havoc humanity might have wreaked on this beautiful world it had been given, Jordan herself was innocent of all that. She had worked to make this earth a better place. She deserved nothing of what had happened to her. Nothing.

  Especially not him.

  “Here we are,” she said, pulling over to the side of the road next to a mile marker. “Can you feel it?”

  “No,” he replied sadly. It pained him to think of how the devices’ dark energy destroyed anything djinn about him. “Not while I’m inside the field. Outside, when I have access to my power — that is a different matter.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  She turned off the engine, and took a bulky electronic key from her pocket and laid it on top of the dashboard. Hasan sent her a questioning look.

  “I’m just borrowing the car. Lindsay Odekirk loaned it to me. I told her I’d leave it here, and then she could have someone come and get it. But none of that is going to do much good if I take the key with me.”

  “She cannot come to fetch it herself?”

  “Not really, considering she’s going to go into labor any day now.”

  For some reason, that piece of information disquieted him. Hasan couldn’t even say why, precisely, since Jordan had said that the mortals in Los Alamos had begun to have families of their own. Perhaps it was only the thought of Odekirk’s bloodline continuing, that the man who had been such a thorn in the side of the djinn community would now possibly have a son — or daughter — to carry on his work.

  “Ah,” Hasan said. “I can see why she might have other matters on her mind.”

  For the first time, Jordan smiled. It was a tired little smile, but it still lit up her beautiful blue eyes and erased some of the weariness from her features. “Well, let’s get going.”

  She undid her seatbelt and opened the door, and Hasan followed suit. A brief pause while she retrieved her backpack from the back seat, and then they were walking slowly d
own the road, retracing the steps they had taken only a few days earlier, albeit separately.

  He might not have been able to sense the boundaries of the field while he was in it, but he knew the second he had crossed that invisible border. At once the weight dragging at his legs and arms was gone, and he could pull in a deep breath of the cool air, smell the scent of dry, warm grass. It was as though a cloud had lifted from the sun, and all the color had returned to the world again.

  Without stopping to think, he plucked the pack from Jordan’s back and dropped it to the ground, then pulled her into his arms. Ah, the sweetness of her lips, the softness of her hair as it brushed against his hands! He wanted to drink her in, savor her as he hadn’t before, simply because he’d had no way of knowing how perfect she was until she was gone.

  For the briefest instant, Jordan went stiff, as though from surprise, and then she wrapped her arms around him as well, opened her mouth to his, clearly as eager to taste him as he’d been to savor her. The lingering weakness in his body was gone, and he began to harden, needing her, wanting her. Damn these heavy jeans, the way they confined him. He needed them gone.

  Well, such a thing was simple enough to accomplish, now that he was away from the djinn-repelling field. A mental blink, nothing more, and gone were the jeans and the flannel shirt and the work boots, and in their place were flowing silken robes in a deep azure hue.

  Jordan gasped, then looked down at him. “I guess you really don’t like human clothes, do you?”

  “No, I don’t.” Another blink, and she was wearing a tight-fitting silk coat in a brocade of blue and deep rose, and matching pants and under-blouse. Jeweled slippers glimmered on her feet.