by Rachel Caine
She smiled and didn't answer.
"Should I say good-bye to him?" I asked it as a straightforward question, because in all honesty I was at sea with this, with all the tidal sweep of emotion in this moment. I hadn't seen Luis since we'd fought and caused each other such pain, but I hadn't ceased thinking of him, and aching within for the anguish we'd caused each other. "Would that be ... kind?"
"Not to you," Marion said. "But it might be the right thing to do, yes."
"And Isabel?"
"She's asleep," Marion said. "I wouldn't wake her up, but you can look in on her."
And if she woke, what then? What excuse would I give to avoid seeing the betrayal and disappointment on the child's face? Would I lie to her to save myself the discomfort?
The hard fact was that when I left, she, like Luis, would see me as a traitor--as the villain she had secretly believed I was. And that was my personal burden, because I could not stay here. I could not allow my personal feelings to get in the way of my duty.
Did that make me cold? Perhaps, from a human perspective. I couldn't think of it in such terms anymore, not if I hoped to prevent the ghastly atrocities I saw here at this school.
"Cassiel?" Marion raised her eyebrows.
"I think I'll rest first," I said.
I left, but tired as I was, I was unwilling to take the opportunity to sleep. I found myself wandering the school, watching the children sleeping, or at play, or studying. They looked normal, much of the time, the way Isabel did when watching her movies or playing her games. It was the flashes of ungovernable temper that were dangerous--or unstoppable fear. Those were the things that Pearl had woken in these children--or perhaps they were normal enough, except when paired with the fearfully strong gifts she'd woken as well. I saw Mike, as always serving as Gillian's protective shadow; I watched Elijah with his beautiful, brilliant smile charming his tutors, until the clouds once again crept over him and anxiety made him difficult to manage. I was standing in the corner, observing but not taking part, when Shasa entered the room, spotted me, and drifted in my direction. I thought she might be inclined to needle me, but she only leaned against the wall beside me, crossed her arms, and finally said, "You're probably wondering where their parents are."
I hadn't been, surprisingly, but now that it occurred to me I did wonder. Luis was so protective of Isabel--was that not the normal human condition, to be concerned for one's own?
I lifted a single shoulder in response. Shasa jerked her chin at Elijah. "Orphans," she said. "All orphans. Every one of them. Parents killed in the Djinn rebellion, or in accidents, or in storms, fires, earthquakes ... the usual fate of Wardens, sure. But every one of the children Pearl really focused on was an orphan, including your Ibby. Ever wonder why?"
I considered it now. "Because it's easier to twist a child who has no roots," I said. "No one to care. No one to watch. No one to fight for her."
"Oh, believe me, we care," Shasa said. "We watch. We fight. And if I ever see that bitch, I'll make her understand that we're a community, we Wardens. We stick together." She sent me a sidelong look. "Maybe you can tell her next time you see her. From me."
"Yes," I said. "Perhaps I will explain it to her in great detail."
"Is it true she's one of you? One of the Djinn?"
"Not anymore," I said. "But then, neither am I, if you wish to be technical."
"So you say." Shasa seemed unimpressed. "My aunt seems to like you. She doesn't trust you, though. Seems that nobody trusts you, really. Including your own Warden."
"How do they feel about you?" I asked.
She laughed. "About the same. I don't go out of my way to be liked. Never seen much point in it."
We had that in common, it seemed. After a moment, Shasa pushed off from the wall and walked to Elijah, who was wavering between smiles and tears, and when he saw her his face simply lit up with joy.
There was much to be said for the judgment of a child, I thought. And for not much caring about the opinions of others.
"Shasa," I said as she lifted Elijah in her arms. "I'll be leaving soon."
"Yeah, I heard. I'm planning a party, with cake and balloons. You're not invited, though."
"Look out for them," I said. "All of them."
She looked up, holding a laughing Elijah on her hip, and frowned. "You got something to tell me? Something I should know?"
"Nothing definite, or I'd stay. But--it's too good a target, this place. These children."
"Yeah," Shasa said. "I know. We all know. But keeping them separately wasn't helping. At least together they can help each other. We haven't got a lot of choices."
I definitely understood that, but I still couldn't silence the tremor of doubt deep within that had started upon first glimpsing this place. They'd located it far from a ley line, which was a part of the network of aetheric forces that allowed Pearl to establish footholds and compounds for her own misguided followers. There were no obvious signs that Pearl's people were even aware of this location, and yet ...
And yet.
I couldn't wait for the fight to come here, not with so many fragile lives at risk. I had to act first, and as aggressively as possible.
That meant abandoning Ibby, and Luis, and destroying all that I'd worked so hard to build with them.
And it hurt.
My God, it hurt.
I went to say my good-byes to Luis. His door was closed, and I knocked. I heard a rustle of sheets inside, but nothing else.
I knocked louder, and then I turned the knob.
Locked.
I snorted. That was only a token gesture--he knew perfectly well that a lock couldn't keep me out if I wished to come in. I snapped it and repaired it as soon as the door swung in, and shut it behind me. The room was dark, but after a second there was a click, and the bedside lamp flickered on to illuminate Luis, propped up on pillows, staring at me.
I felt nothing from him. He'd closed himself off. Only the quiet whisper of the connection between us was left, but nothing came through it to indicate to me what he was feeling.
"Come for the big scene?" he asked. "Sorry. I'm all out of drama. I thought you were leaving already."
"I am," I said.
"So go."
"I will. I came to see you first."
"Yeah, well, I don't want to talk about it. Locked door doesn't mean anything to you?"
"It means you're angry."
"Damn straight I'm angry. Christo, woman, how you think I ought to feel, like twirling on a mountaintop and singing? How you think Ibby's going to feel when I tell her you dumped us?"
"I think she'll feel very hurt," I said. "Especially if you lie to her about my motives."
He sat up, and the sheet slid down his bare chest. The light seemed to be devoured in the dark shadows of his flame tattoos that ran up both arms. His voice came low and almost savagely rough. "You'd better not mean that, chica. You'd better not say I'm a liar, because you're the one leaving, not me."
"If you tell her that I'm dumping the two of you, you're lying," I said. "You're lying to yourself, and to her, and that's unforgivable. I'm not turning my back on you out of some petty disagreement. I'm fighting for you."
"I never asked you to do that!"
"You didn't have to," I said. "I fight for you because it's my duty. And I fight because I love you, Luis, and because I love Ibby and I can't bear to see either of you harmed again. And I always will love you, no matter how you feel. Because that's the curse of being a Djinn; we don't fall out of love the way humans do. That's why we so seldom try to love at all. I thought you knew that." I felt out of breath, saying it, and a little sick. There were some weaknesses Djinn don't want to admit, and this was the worst. Our constancy.
I wanted to stop this. I wanted him to reach out to me, love me, forgive me. I needed that from him, because I could never, ever go back to simply thinking of him as a friend, an ally, a disposable human being. He was real, and he had my heart.
Perhaps he could turn
his back on what we'd built. As a Djinn, I didn't have that option. The pain would echo forever in the empty places that were left.
I turned to leave. I suppose I was hoping that he'd stop me, say something, do something, and that there would be a shining, soul-easing moment of reconciliation between us.
And he said, very quietly, "Cassiel."
I looked at him, and saw that a struggle was going on inside of him, one I didn't fully understand. "Cass," he said, "you're doing what you've got to do. I know that. I don't like it, and I don't agree with it, but I know. But there are things I have to do, too. Things you aren't going to like, either."
I felt my forehead wrinkle into a frown. "What do you mean?"
"Since we talked I--I took some precautions. For Ibby's sake."
"I don't understand. What precautions?"
He shook his head. "You wouldn't agree. Best I not tell you. But just remember--I didn't do it for myself. Just remember that."
He wasn't going to admit anything to me, I realized, not directly. I studied him, still frowning, and then nodded. "Be careful," I said. "Watch out for yourself, and her. And all of them."
He nodded, without a single word of comfort, of understanding, of acknowledgment. It was only as I walked away, feeling the burning weight of my own pain, that I realized I hadn't, in fact, told him good-bye at all.
But I believed that he had nevertheless understood what I meant.
Chapter 6
WELL BEFORE DAWN, I kicked my motorcycle to growling life in the fenced compound. Marion had gotten up to see me off, but there was still no sign of Luis. I felt ... unfinished. And deeply guilty, although I knew it was no fault of mine that duty drove me to this. I was acting to preserve him, and Ibby. I could do nothing else.
All I really wanted was his understanding, but it seemed he couldn't give it to me. I hoped that eventually he would at least be able to grant me forgiveness.
I looked back over my shoulder to where Marion's wheelchair sat on the porch; she was, as always, alert and seemed not to be tired, although I knew that the pace must be wearing her down. "Guess I can't talk you out of it," she said. "Even though you know you could do a lot of good here."
"I can do a lot of good anywhere. You know I'm right about this," I replied, over the engine's noise. "Tell Luis ..." I didn't know what to tell him. I didn't know what he would accept from me.
Marion evidently did know, because she nodded. "I will," she said. "He loves you, you know. That's what makes this worse for him. He's a proud man, and he wants to be with you."
"And I want the same things," I murmured, but I wasn't sure she could hear me. "Marion, be careful."
"Always. I've survived this long. I'll survive a few more years, I promise you." She held up her hand, palm out, in farewell. When I faced forward again, I saw a neat hole had been made in the fence for my motorcycle, an archway not unlike the entrance to an old church. Well, this was a holy place, in a sense. A place of refuge.
I hoped it remained that way until I was able to return.
The opening sealed behind me with a white-hot snap of power, and by the time I looked back, there was a veil over the entire school. No lights showed, nothing except blank, featureless woods covered in thick mounds of snow. Unless I took the trouble to mark its location on the aetheric, I'd never find it again. That eased some of my anxiety, but not all. Not nearly all.
Once I was on the road, which was mostly still navigable, though a challenge to even my driving skills, I triggered the cell phone embedded in my helmet, and called my FBI contact in Albuquerque, Ben Turner. "I'm heading back," I told him.
"Jesus Christ, Cassiel, do you know what time it is?"
"Before dawn."
"It's three fucking o'clock in the morning. I don't get up at this hour. I don't even make love with my wife at this hour. What is so important?"
"I'm heading toward you," I repeated patiently. "I should be there tomorrow morning. Where do you want me to go?"
That triggered an ominous silence, followed by, "You want to know where you should go tomorrow? At three in the morning?"
"I like to be prepared," I said. I also enjoyed making Agent Turner's life a living hell; he had done me a bad turn or two, fairly recently, and I still owed him all the petty annoyances I could imagine.
But I also meant what I'd said. I did like to be prepared.
"Luis got a phone call a few days ago," I said. "Someone in the FBI would very much like it if we came back to be debriefed. Do you know why? Was it you?"
"No," he said. "And at this hour, I mostly don't care, either."
"Find out," I said. "I need to know what's happening."
He swore at me and hung up the phone. I smiled a little, in the secret shadows of the morning, and thought that the score might have righted itself just a tiny bit--but he had much, much more unpleasantness due to him. Lucky for him, Djinn are very inventive.
My smile faded as I tried to imagine what had proven dire enough for the FBI to demand our presence in the first place.
I had expected to be distracted by leaving Isabel and Luis behind. What I had not expected was how much it would continue to fester inside me, like an unhealed wound. I told myself that I didn't need them; my reliance on Luis had been, in the beginning, purely practical, but I could drain power from any Warden, willing or not. I had no need to be tied down with the complications of an emotional relationship, with Luis or with a child. I had not been put here to indulge my own impulses. Ashan's curse, which had reduced me to human flesh, was never meant to make me truly human, only to teach me the risks and humiliations of failing to meet my Djinn obligations.
And yet, it hurt to leave that odd, precious relationship behind me. It hurt so much that two hours into my drive, as the sun rose in a glory of gold and red above the trees, I couldn't bear it any longer. The world had not changed. I had.
I pulled to the side of the narrow, still-shadowed road, yanked off my helmet, and threw myself into a run. I needed to feel my muscles working, my body screaming, but even then, it wasn't enough. I stopped, breathless, and sank to my knees.
The scream welled up in primal fury out of the very core of me, and I howled my anguish out to the world. It tore the tranquil quiet to shreds, echoing from stone and sky, and still it wasn't enough.
I sat on the ground with my forehead pressed to my knees, shoulders shaking, as my grief poured out of me in agonizing waves. I wanted Luis's arms around me. I wanted the warmth of Isabel's smile. I wanted to feel part of them, instead of so ... cold. So alone.
But I was alone. I had always been alone, in a very real way; alone even among the Djinn, my brothers and sisters.
And now I was alone here, in this world, with nothing to bind me to it but necessity.
So cold, necessity.
Eventually, even that faded, but the anguish wasn't any less; I was simply too tired, too numb to give it voice. I had to keep moving, I knew that, but it still took a real effort of will to roll up to my feet, dust myself off, and walk back to where I'd left the motorcycle leaning by the roadside. On the seat was the helmet, and black fury twisted inside me as I contemplated putting it back on. I was no human to need that frail protection. I dropped the helmet and kicked it, hard; it skidded away into the trees.
I mounted the Victory and was about to bring it to life when a voice said, "I never thought you had the capacity to cry, Cassiel. Much less the impulse." It came from behind me, and I twisted around to see a Djinn sitting--reclining, actually--on the branch of a tree above me. He was a beautiful creature, and human only in form; his skin was storm-gray, and his hair seemed to flow like liquid gold down his bare shoulders. All of him was bare, in fact, and as perfect as a Greek sculpture--every muscular line of him drawn with a master's eye.
His eyes glowed a vivid, warm violet, casting their own light in the shadows.
His name was Rashid, and he had been useful to me before. I would not go so far as to classify him as an ally, because I coul
d predict the actions of an ally with reasonable certainty; Rashid was fascinated with me, but it was a magpie's fascination with a shiny object. He might aid me, and he might peck at me simply for the amusement value. Still, he had definitely helped me before, which was why I didn't reach out and snap the branch he was sitting on with a bad-tempered burst of Earth powers for surprising me. He'd seen me cry. That was reason enough to dislike him, for all his naked glory.
And it was ... quite glorious.
"Has clothing gone so far out of style?" I asked him. "I've not been paying attention to fashion."
He smirked. "I heard you'd begun to ... appreciate the male figure," he said. "I hoped you might appreciate mine."
"I don't," I said. "Anything else?"
He rolled sideways, falling from the branch, twisting, and landing lithely on bare, perfectly formed feet. He still wasn't bothering to cover himself, and I had to admit, the manhood on display as he walked toward me was ... impressive. Though only in a technical sense, of course.
"Well," he said, "I thought you might like to know that Pearl's taken a new group of children. Her followers struck in Denver, and they're moving their captives in a van toward a nexus of power."
All my theoretical appreciation of his form evaporated as I fixed my attention completely on his face. There was no human sense of outrage there, only a distant and odd amusement. "Where?"
"Where are they now? Or where are they going?"
"Going," I said, and started the engine.
"Oh, you won't get there in time," he said. "They're driving fast, and they'll arrive at their destination in less than six hours. It would take you, oh, twenty to reach them, even if you pushed your machine and yourself to the limit. Once they're in the nexus, Pearl can transport them anywhere she wishes. You'll never find them again."
I bit back a growl of frustration. "Then why tell me?"
He grinned, and his teeth seemed sharper than before. "I thought you might be grateful for my help."
"And how do you propose to be of help, you useless naked fool?"
"Temper, Cassiel," he chided me, and kept his grin. "I can slow them down, of course. I could even try to free the children. For a price."
Bargaining was a way of life among the Djinn, but that didn't make it any more welcome at this moment. I needed a friend, not a mercenary. But I'd left my friends behind, and Rashid was what I had left.