by Rachel Caine
Peace, I thought to it. I don't want to be here, either.
I felt sick, weak, and empty, but the people around me were alive. So was I.
It was something, in a world of nothing.
After far too much fuss and bother, we were moved to another plane. By the time the flight finally departed, the brief, violent storm was breaking, and the sun burning away the black clouds.
Manny met me at the Albuquerque airport.
If I had expected a welcome, I would have been disappointed; no smiles for me, only the fiercest of frowns and a hard grip on my arm to march me toward the exit.
"We were delayed," I said. "The first plane was struck by lightning."
"Yeah, I know. Accidentally on purpose. Don't say anything until we're in the van."
The van was idling at the passenger pickup location, and the driver was Luis Rocha. He gave me the smile that Manny had not, as I slid into the seat behind him. Manny climbed into the passenger's side and slammed the door with vicious fury.
"Drive," he told Luis. Luis cocked an eyebrow toward me as he shifted the van into drive and pulled into traffic.
"He's been like this all day," Luis said. "You owe me for putting up with him."
I did not reply. I was watching Manny, trying to determine why he was so angry with me. Granted, I had not asked his permission to travel, but did he truly expect that I would? It seemed difficult to believe. I was not a slave, nor was I a child.
"Who is it?" Manny asked me. "You said you knew who started the fire. Who?"
"I spoke with a Warden in El Paso named Molly Magruder. She is directly responsible."
Luis's reaction was instructive; he flinched, and the van veered until he quickly corrected it. Behind us, someone honked a horn in annoyance. Luis made a rude gesture out the window.
"And?" Manny prodded. He'd noticed his brother's reaction too, but he didn't comment.
"She created the fire, but it was at the request of someone else. Your boss," I said. "Scott. The same Weather Warden who just tried to silence me, and a plane full of innocent people, in El Paso."
That brought a long, thoughtful silence, during which the two brothers exchanged glances. Luis shrugged. Manny, I thought, went from angry to seeming a bit ill.
"You're sure about this?"
"Sure? No. I have the word of Molly Magruder, and the attack on my aircraft. I cannot positively identify a Warden by his actions, unless I'm connected to him."
Luis cleared his throat. "That might be a little tough, then, because we just got a bulletin come over the Warden network. Molly Magruder was killed."
"Killed," I repeated. It did not immediately hit me what this might mean. "Killed how?"
"Murdered," Luis said. "She was found in her house, dead. Somebody had crushed her heart inside her chest." He shifted his gaze from the road to the rearview mirror, and met my eyes. "Somebody like an Earth Warden."
"Or a Djinn," I said.
"Exactly. You got anybody that saw her alive after you left her house? Maybe saw her waving bye-bye to you from the door?"
"No. I did not see her again. The driver picked me up at the curb." I began to understand exactly what he meant, and it was unpleasant. "You mean that they will believe that I killed her."
"Did you?" Manny was looking out the window, not at me. Luis gave me another quick, almost involuntary glance in the mirror.
"No."
"That's all you've got to say about it?"
"I left her alive. I took a cab to the airport. I boarded a plane, which was attacked by a Weather Warden. What more is there to tell?"
"She's got a point," Luis offered. "She can't just make up an alibi out of nothing."
"I'm not asking her to! But there's got to be some way to prove--"
"Find the killer," I said. "It isn't Scott, clearly; he was well capable of attacking me at the airport, but it takes an Earth Warden to crush a heart in the chest."
"Or a Djinn," Manny said.
"Or both."
Manny looked directly at me. "I think you'd better explain why Ashan hates you so bad."
I was wondering just when the subject would arise; I was surprised that it hadn't already, as Manny felt more and more comfortable around me. "I can't," I said.
"Won't," Luis supplied. "That's what she means."
"Yes, won't," I said sharply. "It's Djinn business, and none of yours."
"It's our business when we're neck deep in it!"
"That has nothing to do with this! This is some petty Warden political--"
"We don't know what this is, and neither do you! I'm sick of your damn secrets!" Manny's shout overrode mine. I sank back against the upholstery and turned my attention out the window, shutting him and his brother out for the time being. I crossed my arms, then remembered that humans did that in arguments to indicate they were set in their opinions. I uncrossed them and put my hands in my lap instead--not because I wasn't set in my opinion, but because I did not want to be seen as that human.
Ignoring them quieted things down considerably. The remainder of the conversation occurred between Luis and Manny, and it was in lower tones. I did not pay much attention, watching as the streets and houses of Albuquerque flashed by.
We pulled to a halt in front of Manny's house. Angela and Ibby were in the front yard, and Ibby immediately bounded to the fence to wave as Manny and Luis descended from the van. Manny, in a fit of very human pique, did not open the back sliding door for me. It proved more difficult to manage than I'd thought, and so I was just exiting the vehicle as Manny and Luis crossed the street and entered the front yard gate.
A car started its engine down the block and pulled out into the road, heading toward us--a large black car, with heavily tinted windows. Older. More solidly built than newer models. I did not pay it much mind, save to wait for it to pass so that I could cross the street.
It slowed a little as it approached.
I saw Luis recognize the danger first--a widening of his eyes, a cold shock in his expression. He was closest to Ibby, and he grabbed her and hurled her violently to the ground. Her scream cut the morning like a silver knife, just an instant before the air shattered under the thunder of guns firing.
I saw Angela and Manny fall. Luis dived for the ground, covering Isabel.
Bullets pocked pale holes in the house behind them, shattered windows.
The black car applied speed and screeched around the nearest corner.
I screamed in rage, and the day went red. They dared. They dared attack those I protected!
I did not think about my actions. I simply threw myself into pursuit.
Human bodies are not meant for such excesses, but I poured energy recklessly into my tissues, forcing the muscles to extreme efforts, and although the car accelerated away, I began to catch up. I heard yelling inside the black sedan, and a gun appeared from the back right side and fired at me. I dodged and continued to gain on them.
The car took another corner on two wheels. More gunfire opened up, this time from the passenger's side of the vehicle.
It missed.
I gained.
When I sensed my muscles were capable of no more effort without serious damage, I slowed. The sedan pulled away, and I heard whoops of victory from within it.
If they had seen the snarl that formed on my face, they would not have celebrated so quickly.
The paved street rose up to my command, twisting and cracking in an oncoming wave six feet tall. The car slammed into it at killing speed, and the sound of rending metal and shattering glass was louder than gunfire.
I quickly eased the ground back into place. The asphalt topping was broken and pitted, but that could not be helped. I saw the red glow at the edges of my vision sparkle into black, and knew that I was in danger of overextending myself, spending too much power. Not even rage could fuel me past that point.
I walked up to the shattered car. Inside were shattered humans. Some were even alive, though I did not think they would be for
long. For a moment, I wondered if I should feel something for them--regret for ending their lives? They were young, but they had fired guns at a child younger still, and that I could not forgive.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the emergency number Manny had shown me to report an accident, and began the walk back to the house. After a few moments, I realized how exhausted I was, how much that effort had drained from me. More than I'd expected.
More than I could afford.
Manny will help, I thought, and something flickered inside of me, a pale shadow of a connection. Manny?
The connection snapped, a physical sensation that brought with it a white-hot flash of pain. I stopped, panting, and braced myself with my hands on my knees.
Manny?
I forced myself to a jog. People were peering from their windows, looking at the steaming wreckage in the middle of the street; a few noticed me, but there was little to connect me to the event other than proximity. I kept moving. I heard sirens, but the emergency and police response was from behind me.
I turned the corner and slowed to a walk. Manny's house was within view, eerily quiet now that the shooting was done. I could not see anyone. Likely they had all gone inside, which would be a sensible thing to do. . . .
No, I saw Isabel. She was huddled next to the fence, clearly terrified. Her small fists were balled up to cover her mouth.
And then I saw Luis Rocha, on his knees next to two prone human bodies. There was blood on his hands, splashed on his shirt. Thin threads of it on his face. As I watched, he put the palm of his right hand on the chest of the man lying on the ground. He braced it with the left, then pumped, hard, five times. Leaned forward to tilt the head back and breathe into the open mouth.
He was gasping and sweating with effort. Luis's eyes fixed on me, and all the pieces flew together, took on weight and meaning. It all hit me with the force of a head-on collision.
Manny. Manny was lying on the ground. Manny was bleeding.
He was trying to save Manny's life. Next to Manny, Angela was already dead, with a bullet lodged in her brain. I could sense the inert darkness in her. Her life, her energy, was gone, fled beyond where I could chase.
"Get over here!" Luis screamed at me. I vaulted the fence and ran to his side, knelt beside him, and took his hand. I had no power left, barely enough to continue to nourish my human body, but what I had, I gave.
It was not enough. Luis's Earth powers were already depleted from his efforts, and although I tried to amplify what was left, it was too little, the damage too great.
Manny's heart had been shredded by the force of the bullet. Another had broken his spine.
He was dead. The last wisps of energy faded out of him, left the body empty and dark in front of me.
Luis realized it at the same moment, and as I glanced up at him, I saw the overwhelming horror and loss dawn in his face.
"No," he said. "No. No!"
I said nothing. There was too much inside of me, too much to understand, to feel, to process. Manny was gone. He would never laugh at me again, or be angry, or take my hand and give me some of his life. He had no life to give. He was no longer in the flesh stretched out before me.
Angela. Angela would never make her child another meal, touch her with love and kindness, wipe away her tears. Angela had made me food in her kitchen, and smiled at me.
They were my friends.
They were dead.
I was unprepared for the harsh burn of grief. It made the world unsteady around me, made me tremble deep within, and I could think of nothing, nothing to do. Tears stung in my eyes, and I felt them fall, cold as diamonds.
Luis's dark eyes locked on mine, and they ignited not with tears, but with fury. "Where were you?" he screamed, and grabbed me by the shoulders to shake me with brutal force. "You bitch, where did you go? They were dying! They were dying!"
I understood then. Angela and Manny had fallen as I'd taken up the pursuit of the car. I had left Luis alone with them, with the overwhelming task of trying to save one or the other . . . or neither.
I had spent my energy in vengeance. Would it have made a difference if I had immediately linked with Luis and struggled to heal the damage done? No, something inside of me said, but I couldn't be sure of that. If I'd acted for life, instead of death . . .
Luis shook me again, screaming at me in Spanish. I knocked his hands away with a sharp impact of my forearms against his and took in a steadying breath. My heart was racing, my tears falling in cold streams. I felt dead inside, not merely from the expense of power but from the loss of something I had not even known I could value.
"Isabel," I said. Luis, face still contorted in fury and grief, rocked back on his heels, away from me, and looked at his niece. She was weeping, curled in a ball with a dirty-faced doll clutched to her chest.
"Oh, mija," he whispered, and the anger melted from him. "Oh, no."
He got to his feet, moving like a man twice his age, and picked the girl up in his arms. I put a hand on her back--partly to comfort, and partly to sense her physical condition.
She was unharmed, though Luis's hands left streaks of her father's blood on her clothes.
"Take her inside," I said. "Call the police."
He walked up the front steps to the door. Isabel's eyes were open but seeing nothing. She was sucking her thumb.
Luis turned her face away from her parents and me, and sent me a glare that would have quailed even Ashan. "You should have stayed, you Djinn bitch," he told me. "If you'd stayed, they'd be alive."
I knew, as I knelt next to the dead body of the man who had been my Conduit, and my first real friend, that Luis was right.
I should have stayed.
Chapter 7
STRANGE, HOW ONE person's tragedy so quickly becomes someone else's job. The ambulance attendants first, though their efforts were small; they knew well that neither Angela nor Manny would ever rise again. They left the bodies there, in the front yard, for the police. As they walked away, they were talking about stopping for a meal.
As if life went on.
I wanted to destroy them, snuff them out like candles, but I knew that Manny and Angela would not want it so. I didn't have the power to do it, either.
I stood, still and quiet, waiting. I won't leave you, I told them. Not again.
The police arrived moments later--a marked cruiser, with flashing lights and sirens. One of the officers immediately made a straight line for me; the other began moving back crowds of neighbors and passersby who had gathered to gawk.
"Ma'am?"
I focused away from Manny's bloody, empty face to the smooth expression of the policeman opposite me.
"What's your name?"
"Cassiel," I said. He wrote something down and waited, as if I should have more to say. Ah yes. Last names. Humans had last names, denoting family lineage. "Rose. Cassiel Rose." So read the identification card in my pocket. When he asked, I produced it, and he wrote down more information before handing it back.
"Can you tell me what happened here?"
I did, as best I could. The black sedan approaching, the gunfire. Chasing the car. I stopped short of admitting that I'd caused the crash.
He let several beats of silence go by when I was finished. "You . . . chased them."
"Yes."
"You chased a car full of gang-bangers who'd just shot up a house."
"Yes." I didn't know why he was asking. I didn't think I had been unclear.
"You catch up with them?" he asked.
"The car crashed," I said absently. "I called the ambulance."
"Lady--" He shook his head. "What the hell were you thinking? They could have killed you, too."
Certainly. I wondered why he thought I did not know that, but I remained silent.
"You know these two?"
"Yes," I said softly. "Manny and Angela Rocha. They live here with their daughter, Isabel."
"Isabel," he repeated, scribbling in his notebook. "Where's the daugh
ter?"
"Inside with her uncle Luis. She's five."
He paused, glancing up at me, and made another note. "She was here when it happened?"
"Yes."
"And the uncle?"
"Yes."
"Either one of them injured?"
"No."
"Did you see any of the people shooting?"
I shook my head. "I was on the other side of the street," I said. "Getting out of the van."
He tapped a pencil on his notebook. "How are you connected with all this?"
"What do you mean?"
"Come on, lady. You don't exactly fit in around here."
I supposed that I didn't. It wouldn't have taken a great detective to determine such a thing. "I'm a colleague of Manny Rocha's," I said. "I work with him."
That seemed acceptable. "Where?"
"Rocha Environmental Services."
"And you do--what, exactly?"
I gave him a flat, emotionless stare. "Analysis."
Whether he believed that or not, it didn't seem he was inclined to press. He took down my telephone number and address, and went inside the house to speak with Luis.
Again, I was alone with the dead.
Death, for Djinn, is dissolution--being unmade. Undone, as I'd been undone by Ashan. But this . . . the flesh remained, a constant reminder of what was lost. Manny's eyes were open, the pupils huge and dark, and I wanted awareness to return to his body. I wanted him to look at me once more. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry for my choices.
He is not lost, something told me. Nothing is lost.
But my connection to him was gone, and even if Manny's soul had passed on, it had traveled to a place I could not reach and might never reach. There was a hole here, in this world, where he had been.
I was alone. Strange that it should hurt so much.
Next came a rumpled, tired-looking detective, who asked the same questions again. I gave the same answers. He also spoke with Luis, who remained in the house, and then a coroner's van arrived.
I thought it odd that it took almost an hour before Manny and Angela were at last declared dead. I remembered older days, older ways--a priest might have tapped them on the forehead with a small hammer, to claim them for the gods then, but no one would have questioned that they were dead. But in these days, these times, pictures were taken to document their ends, and then they were lifted and sealed into black plastic sheaths.