by Rachel Caine
I turned away and stared at the burning ruins. Adrenaline and fear made it difficult to sort out my emotions, but I calmed myself and listened, listened for that tiny whisper that always existed--that fragile yet steely-strong connection with Luis.
I felt a discordant jangle of emotions not my own.
Alive. He was alive, somewhere in there.
I opened my eyes, turned to Gayle, and said, "They're inside. We must get them out."
She looked at her exhausted, wounded band, and the huddled, frightened children they protected. "I can't. I'm sorry, but we have to concentrate on protecting these kids. We can't go back in there. I have only one living Fire Warden, and she's badly injured."
I couldn't fault her logic, or her judgment, but I wasn't willing to accept defeat that easily. Not when it meant the lives of those I loved. "Then watch my back," I said. I handed her the rifle, and she checked the clip with a competence that gave me confidence.
"Good luck." She nodded. "If you can get them out, head for the fire road to the east. If everything works right, we should have rescue transportation coming in the next twenty minutes, but we can't wait for you for long if it means risking the lives of those we already have."
I rolled to my feet and ran, keeping low, around the side of the school. The flames weren't as intense here--in fact, part of the wall seemed intact, though heavy iron gray smoke poured through shattered windows. The door was open, and two small bodies lay huddled together on the bare ground outside.
I ran for the fence, still largely intact on this side, ripped it apart with Earth power, and left it dangling open behind me as I scooped up the two children and dragged them away from danger. Both were almost unrecognizable under the thick layers of soot on their faces, but I knew the bright red blaze of her hair--the girl was Gillian. It took me longer to work out the boy's identity, but of course it was Mike, her constant companion and protector.
Mike was dead. I checked him to be sure, and tried all the techniques I knew to revive the boy, but his spirit was gone, and his body unresponsive. He'd been badly burned, his lungs scorched beyond any survival. Mike, the Fire Warden, had been overwhelmed by the blaze he'd tried to manage.
But he'd saved Gillian--no doubt at his own expense. She was unconscious, and suffering from smoke inhalation, but alive. I poured power into her to stabilize her condition, and then plunged back through the fence and handed her off to Gayle, who put her with the other injured children.
The door into the building was firmly closed and blazing hot, but so far there were no flames at the window where the two children must have escaped--only a thick black river of smoke pouring out.
I climbed in.
The smoke closed around me like hot, smothering cloth, and I immediately dropped to the floor to try to find anything like breathable air. It was there, but very thin and tasting of toxins. I couldn't see well--between the billows of gray and the dazzling leap of fire on the far wall, it took me a moment to realize that I'd dropped into some kind of library. Books were aflame at the far end of the room. A plastic chair and table were in place, but melting into surrealistic shapes as the flames approached. I crawled, feeling the synthetic carpet clinging and sticky beneath me. It, too, was melting from the heat. Breathing turned more difficult as I approached the far doorway; there were flames pouring through it, but moving along the ceiling, and only gradually descending toward the walls.
Still possible, if not safe.
In the hallway, I came across another body--a Warden. It was young Ben. He'd been shot in the back three times--center chest twice and once in the head. Dead. I left him and crawled on, not knowing if it was even possible to find the others. All I knew was that Luis, at least, was still alive, somewhere in this inferno.
And I had to find him. I couldn't leave him to face this alone.
At the end of the hallway, a curtain of intensely hot flames burned--intensely hot, and oddly directed. Focused. Pearl's attackers were focusing their efforts here, which meant that there was some reason for it.
Someone was conducting a spirited and lasting defense.
It was counterintuitive to head for the worst of the blaze--not to mention insane--but I sensed the roil of power that overlaid the conflagration. That wasn't merely fire ahead of me; it was a weapon, wielded by a master.
And there was an equally expert defense, mounted from the other side.
I had no protection I could summon up for the risk of burning, but there was no question in my mind of turning back. Luis was beyond that thick wall of destruction. Isabel would be there with him.
And I would not abandon them.
I should have taken Ashan's offer. As a Djinn, I could have entered this fight with significant advantages ... but at the risk of losing what made me want to fight so hard. It was the losses I'd suffered that made me part of this world; Djinn had no such connection. Not the Djinn I had known, or been.
I couldn't give up my hard-won humanity for power. I had to find a way. I rose to a crouch, readied myself, and closed my eyes.
And then I raced forward, into the fire.
Humans have an atavistic terror of burning, and I hadn't counted on it being so strongly encoded in the cells of my body, but the instant I felt the flames hiss through my hair and clothes, my body went into terrified overdrive, releasing massive amounts of adrenaline, blocking out pain. The world shrank to a single, unalterable imperative: run.
And I ran, straight and fast, through a roaring fury of heat. Even with the deadening influence of the adrenaline, I distantly felt the lash of pain as my clothing caught fire and burned around me. Every step forward seemed to take a nightmare hour, though it couldn't have been more than a few seconds before I hit the barrier at the end of the fire.
It was an impenetrable barrier of stone, flung up out of the Earth's bones.
I couldn't stop. I reached out to Luis and pulled an enormous, crippling flood of power that melted the stone in front of me in a rippling wave. It was extraordinarily dangerous, and I felt the pressure being exerted from the other side to block me out. The stone hardened, and I faced a nightmare possibility of being trapped, sealed in the rock, crushed ... but then the pressure fell away, and I tumbled through into hot, smoky air that felt as cold as ice against my scorched body. I hit the smoldering wooden floor and rolled. Someone threw thick cloth over me, and I felt hands slapping at me, trying to douse the flames. At the same time, someone sent an enormous burst of power toward the stone wall through which I'd come, to seal it shut again.
The first face I saw as the blanket was withdrawn was Luis's. His eyes widened, and his lips parted in either horror or astonishment--it could have been either, given my current state--but then he pulled me up to a sitting position and hugged me fiercely. The adrenaline was fading as quickly as it had dumped into my bloodstream, and the pain that flashed through me was agonizing ... and then muted, as his healing power began to do its work.
No, not just his power ... Isabel's, as well. She was beside me, too, and her hand was resting on my shoulder. The two complex signatures of power, as distinctive as types of wine, mixed inside me and exploded in a powerful new way, driving my cells to heal at a dizzying rate.
I hugged them both close, shuddering in shock and gratitude, and felt Isabel's arms wind around my neck. Oh, child. Beautiful child. I kissed Luis quickly, put my hand on his unshaven cheek, and said, "Ben's dead. So is the boy, Mike. Gillian is alive--I got her outside the fence. Gayle has most of the others hidden outside, waiting for transportation."
"We've got almost everyone else," Luis said. "It happened fast. I don't know how; Ben must have been taken out first just as the fireworks got started. They meant to burn us all."
I didn't think so. I looked up at the others, who were sitting or lying in the small defensive space left to them. Marion still had her wheelchair, and she took time to spare me a quick look from her maintenance of the barrier that held back the ravening fire. "Thanks for joining us," she said. "
But it might not have been a good idea. We're not doing so well."
She was right about that; the situation looked bad. Earth could defend against Fire, but not for long. Ben's Weather skills had been their best possible option; he could have kept the air fresh and clear, and starved the fire, given enough time and power.
The elderly Earth Warden, Janice, was in charge of the children, who were huddled close against her for comfort. She'd put two of them under, and they seemed to be sleeping with unnatural peacefulness. When I met Janice's eyes, she said, "We can't have them panicking." And she was right about that; having these extraordinary children losing control of their talents here, now, would be deadly to us all.
Isabel tugged on my sleeve. I looked down at her in distracted affection and kissed her forehead, but she only tugged harder. She leaned in and whispered in my ear, "We're in trouble."
"I know that, Ibby."
"No, we're in trouble. Really."
"Can you get through the fire and get out?"
"Sure," she said, and shrugged. "But I can't get anybody else out. They'll let me go; they already told me so. And Sanjay and Elijah, too. But nobody else. And I can't leave Uncle Luis."
"You may have to," I told her. "You may have to take the other two and leave, if they'll let you."
She gave me a long, sober look. "That's what they want us to do. They want us to go back to the Lady."
My arms tightened around her. I thought of Zedala, of those other fanatical children; Ibby, Sanjay, and Elijah would make perfect assassins, if she continued their indoctrination. I couldn't allow that to happen to them.
But at least they'd be alive. My alternative might be to watch them die in a particularly horrible way.
I turned to Luis, but he was moving toward Marion, who was beckoning for his help. He was limping, and there was a broad, bloody stain on the leg of his pants. A bullet wound, but one he was managing well.
Ben had also been shot, from behind, by someone he must have trusted. He'd been heading to join Marion, or to warn her. "Ibby," I said. "You said we were in trouble. You didn't mean the fire, did you?"
"I saw her shoot him," Ibby said, still in that tense, quiet whisper. "I didn't know how to stop it. You should have showed me how to stop the bullets from exploding, and I could have stopped her from killing Ben. But it was too late then. I couldn't bring him back. Nobody else saw it, and I don't think she knows that I know."
My gaze moved around the room, and fell on Shasa, who was deep in concentration, hands held palms out. She was sending waves of control against the fire, but whatever or whoever directed it against us was stronger. She was shaking, and damp with sweat as much from effort as heat.
"Not her," Ibby whispered. "Her."
I turned and met Janice Worthing's calm, kind eyes--only in that instant they weren't calm, or kind. Only blank with calculation. And I felt something go still and very quiet inside me.
I had known. On some level, I'd been uneasy with the woman, though everything and everyone around me had given the lie to that instinct. I should have listened to my Djinn side, I realized, the cynical and mistrustful side that had refused to be swayed and charmed by her subtle use of power.
Janice Worthing had been the traitor in the heart of the school, and no one, not even Marion, had suspected her. I wondered how long she'd been waiting to strike--months, maybe years. Maybe she'd been an early convert of Pearl's, or maybe she'd simply been for hire. She didn't, even now, strike me as a true believer--more of a mercenary.
She was holding little Elijah, the youngest of the children, in her arms. He'd been sent into a deep artificial sleep; to all appearances, her cradling of his body was gentle and protective, but suddenly I saw it differently.
Suddenly, Elijah was a shield.
"Let go," I said to Ibby. She shook her head. "Ibby, let go and go to your uncle. I don't want you to get hurt." This was, in many ways, more dangerous than anything else that might have happened ... that the traitor was locked in here with us, in this desperate last stand, ready to strike at will. I wondered why she hadn't done it already, but I thought I knew. She didn't dare strike until she could ensure that she would take out all of the remaining Wardens in one blow--Marion, Luis, Shasa, and now me, to complicate her problem. Janice's mission must have been to gather the most powerful children and bring them out alive to Pearl.
She'd gathered them. Now she simply had to kill the rest of us to ensure her victory.
I peeled Isabel's arms away from my neck and pointed her at Luis. "Stay with him," I said, and she backed toward him, never taking her wide dark eyes from Janice.
Janice cocked her head slightly to one side, and I saw the recognition in her eyes. She knew that I knew, and that Ibby did as well. Her charade was ending.
"Well," she said, "it was nice while it lasted." She extended one hand toward Luis, and the bullet wound in his thigh suddenly broke open, pumping bright red blood in a fountain. Ibby stopped, shocked, and backed away from the spatter in instinctive horror. Luis let out a choked cry and grabbed for his thigh, squeezing with both hands; Marion spun her chair toward him and slapped her hand atop his. She was splitting her concentration dangerously, and as I'd noted when I'd left the school, she'd already been tired. She had to pull away as a fresh attack pounded against the stone walls she'd thrown up, and the bleeding increased again as Luis sank down to a sitting position on the floor. Ibby ran to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"No, no, Isabel, you're in no shape to do that kind of work," Janice said, and I felt a subtle, wrong shift in the energy coming from her. The edges of it brushed me, and I felt sick, wrong, twisted ... but it wasn't directed at me.
It was directed at Isabel, who screamed and dropped to the floor beside her uncle, writhing in the grip of one of those seizures I'd witnessed before.
Janice had induced it. Deliberately.
I snarled and turned on her, every instinct--Djinn and human--screaming inside me to destroy the woman ... but I couldn't. She had Elijah's neck in her hands, and the boy was asleep. He couldn't fight back.
"I'll flay you," I said, with an eerie control that I didn't feel. "I'll flay you and feed your skin to the pigs while you watch. Stop hurting them."
"Back off, and I will," Janice snapped. "Ah, ah, Marion, stay where you are. Don't make me start thinning the herd."
Marion's face was frightening to behold, but she stopped her slow advance toward Janice. I could feel her gathering up her power, getting ready to strike, but like me, she was at a severe disadvantage.
As long as Janice had the children gathered around her, we were limited in what we could do.
Shasa's concentration broke as the situation in the room finally dawned on her. She opened her eyes, startled, and glanced at Janice with a frown. "What the hell is going on?" It was only at that moment that I realized how much Shasa's power had kept the ravening inferno at bay around us; smoke poured through tiny cracks in the stone, and the rock itself snapped and hissed under the pressure of the heat. Marion's barrier couldn't exist for long without Fire Warden assistance. "Janice? What's she talking about?"
"Nothing," Janice said in that warm, soothing voice that had lulled so many into trust. "She's a traitor, Shas. She's one of them. She left us to give them intel, and now she's back to finish the job. She brought this on us, and we let her inside."
That held just enough truth to distract Shasa for another critical moment ... and then Janice extended her hand and tapped the Fire Warden on the shoulder. Just a light tap, but I felt the cold breath of power settle around the girl.
Shasa collapsed as her eyes rolled back in her skull. She looked fragile, suddenly, like a broken doll. Without her power supporting it, the defenses around us began to snap and shift under the pressure of the forces outside.
Pearl's forces.
My lips peeled back from my teeth. I glanced over at Luis, who looked pale and shaking, but he'd stripped off his belt and was twisting it around his thigh, attempt
ing to slow the loss of blood. Isabel had collapsed against his side, trembling and writhing in the grip of the seizures, and the sight of that fueled my rage to dangerous levels.
I turned to Janice. "Put Elijah down," I said. "Now. Or I destroy you. You're no match for me."
"Oh, you're right about that," she replied, and gave me her sweet little grandmotherly smile. I almost preferred Zedala's fanaticism, in that moment; Janice's violence and cruelty were coldly calculated, and in a sense that made it all the more horrible. "But then again, I've got some advantages, don't I? If you want the bleeding to stop, and Ibby to survive this latest attack ... you'll stand aside. I can call off the attack. We can arrange a peaceful exchange--these children for your lives."
"And yours."
"Well"--she shrugged--"naturally someone has to go with them to take care of them. And I'm one of the best." The smile turned hard around the edges. "Even Marion said so."
Marion remained silent, but her expression could have shattered stone. I'd never seen a human look so implacably angry. That was the kind of rage that Wardens tried to avoid--the kind that drove them to extremes even a Djinn couldn't comprehend. This offended her in every way possible, from her compassion for the children to the massive and unthinkable betrayal of trust Janice had perpetrated.
"I think Cassiel is wrong," she finally said, very softly. "Flaying is too good for you, Janice. I'll have to think of something ... better."
Janice lost her smile altogether. "The New Mother is going to kill you all, in ways worse than you'd ever think of trying on me," she said. I realized, with a grim, bleak amusement, that Pearl had given herself a title. How very like her. "Don't be stupid. Let me have the kids. Let me walk away. I can guarantee you'll live to lick your wounds."
"She's lying," Marion said. "She doesn't intend to let any of us out of here alive."
"And I don't intend to allow her to live, either," I said. "Stalemate."
Janice laughed. "Is it getting hotter in here, or is that just me?"
It was. The stone around us was cracking, friable under the unrelenting pressure of the fire. Smoke poured thinly through the cracks, adding to the oppressive heaviness of the air. I realized I was breathing more and more deeply. The fire outside was turning the air toxic, and without a Weather Warden to cleanse it, we had very little time left, even if the fire didn't reach us first.