At the moment, though, he just looked ill, eyes shadowed, breathing labored. I hated that they all had to go through this, but, as I’d pointed out to Zahrias, death was a lot worse than discomfort. And more final.
“Zahrias needs me?” Lauren asked.
I stepped closer to her and lowered my voice, since I really didn’t want the whole crowd listening in. “Have you heard anything about the group that went out hunting earlier? Aidan and Martine and Clay? They might have been — well, I’m not sure they were close enough for the device to have protected them.”
In an echo of my own gesture from a few minutes before, Lauren’s hand went to her mouth. “Shit. Shit. No, I’d — well, I’d completely forgotten, what with everything that’s been happening.” She glanced back at Dani, whose shoulders went up infinitesimally. I didn’t know if that was all the comment he was willing to make on the subject, or whether he simply didn’t have the energy to give a larger shrug. “But they always check in with me when they come back, so I know they’re not here.”
“Shit” was right. Aidan was the only one of the group I knew beyond attaching a face to a name, but I liked him. And even if I didn’t, there had already been enough death, enough people lost. Even three more was too many.
“If we go to look for them — ” I began, but Lauren shook her head.
“We can’t. It’s not safe.”
And that was the worst part of it. The best we were able to figure, the device could only protect an area of about one square mile. It had to stay here in Taos where it could do the most good. For all I knew, the rogue djinn were lurking right there on the periphery of its field of effect, just waiting for someone to step over the line.
Jace would never allow me to take such a risk. Aside from that, I knew I wasn’t brave enough to attempt that kind of stunt. Anyway, sacrificing myself on a hopeless mission wouldn’t help anyone, least of all the people I was trying to save.
“So…what? We just sit here and wait?”
Dani spoke for the first time then. His voice was almost as deep as Zahrias’, but softer, not as harsh around the edges. “What else can we do? This demon device you’ve brought among us is the only thing protecting us. To leave this resort would certainly mean your death.”
I was a little startled by the compassion in his voice. True, I’d already noted a number of differences between him and his brother, but even so, I hadn’t expected him to be that concerned about a Chosen woman who wasn’t his.
“Jace would never let you risk yourself like that,” Lauren added.
As much as I wanted to argue with her, I knew she was right. Hell, he hadn’t even wanted me to put myself in harm’s way while trying to rescue him. So no way would he let me go running off to save a group of people I barely knew.
“I hate this,” I muttered, and to my surprise, Lauren reached out and laid a hand on my arm.
“I know. We all do. We’re all scared, and worried, and — ”
Evony’s voice cut into the conversation. “I’ll go.”
Startled, I glanced away from Lauren and Dani to see that Evony had approached us while we were talking, and was standing a foot or so away. Her face was stony, blank, and it was obvious that she had been addressing Lauren, not me.
Lauren seemed to recognize that as well, because she said, “Evony, it’s way too dangerous.”
A lift of her shoulders. “So what? It’s not like I have all that much to live for.”
I couldn’t help myself, even though I knew I should be staying out of this. “That’s not true — ”
“Isn’t it?” Evony looked back over at Lauren, effectively shutting me down. “Anyway, none of you get to tell me what to do. You’re not in charge here.”
“No, but I am,” said Zahrias, his voice cutting through our conversation. I’d been so focused on Evony that I hadn’t even seen him arrive. Jace stood next to him, equally grim-faced.
If I’d had someone like Zahrias staring me down, I didn’t think I would have been as openly defiant as Evony. But she merely jammed her hands on her hips and glared up at him.
“In charge of all these poor bastards,” she retorted, waving one hand in the general direction of the assembled djinn and Chosen. “But I didn’t sign up to have you be the boss of me. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
Zahrias stared at her. One muscle in his cheek twitched, and I had the incongruous thought that the twitch had actually come from suppressed amusement, not anger. Maybe he just wasn’t used to people standing up to him, let alone some mortal barely more than a girl, someone who didn’t even reach his shoulder. “Young woman, since you are now a member of this community, I do get to tell you what to do. Just as I will tell everyone else what to do as well.”
As she gazed at him, open-mouthed, he swept past her with a passable imitation of his old assurance. God only knows the effort it cost him to stride so strongly, to keep his chin up while Odekirk’s device was sucking away at the very essence of his powers.
Everyone else seemed to buy his performance, though, maybe because they were so busy trying to manage their own exhaustion and worry that they didn’t have the energy to dissect Zahrias’ behavior. He made his way to the front of the group, then raised his hands. All the murmuring that had begun with his arrival ceased.
When he spoke, it was without preamble — no “my friends” or “my fellow djinn” or anything like that. “We have suffered — if not precisely a blow, since the device protecting us now did prevent any sort of actual damage — at least a shock. We thought we were safe here. We thought our fellows would honor the truce and allow us our sanctuary. These two mortals” — he nodded first toward Lindsay, and then toward me — “witnessed the very beginning of what would have been an attack, but we all felt it. We knew our brethren were gathering, although they managed to hide their intent from us, almost until it was too late.”
“Why?” asked one djinn, a tall man with dark red hair and amber eyes. “We have done nothing to provoke them.”
Zahrias shook his head. “I cannot say why. They have not communicated with me, nor anyone else, so far as I can tell.”
“But what of our own missing?” another djinn asked, this one a woman, curvy and dark. I noticed she stood alone, and that her eyes seemed to glitter with unshed tears. Something about her appeared vaguely familiar, and then I realized she was Aidan’s partner. Well, that would explain the tears. She must be out of her mind with worry. Or at least, I assumed she must be. Jace would, if their situations had been reversed. Voice shaking, she added, “Are we to do nothing?”
When he replied, Zahrias’ tone was gentler than I’d been expecting. “Lilias, I fear there is very little we can do. All we can do is hope that the djinn who attempted to attack us were thrown enough off-balance by Jessica’s deployment of the device that they had no thought for hunting down any mortals who might have been outside the safe zone.”
“That is not much of a hope,” Lilias said. One of the tears that had shimmered in her dark eyes finally fought its way free from the tangle of her heavy lashes and began to roll down her cheek.
“But it is still a hope. We cannot allow ourselves to give up. Not this early.”
As he spoke, I began to see why Zahrias had been given this post…or had requested it. I wasn’t sure which was this case, since I still knew nothing of his history. Maybe soon I’d finally get a chance to ask Jace, but I knew that time wasn’t now.
I flickered a glance over at him, wondering why he hadn’t come to stand next to me. Then I realized he was rooted in the center of the hallway, arms crossed, as if to block anyone from going out that way.
Not anyone. Evony. He’d heard her outburst, and knew he had to do what he could to prevent her from going out and committing suicide while using the rescue of the hunting group as her excuse.
I love you, I thought at him then.
His mouth curved into a faint smile, quickly disappearing, as if he didn’t want anyone else to see it.
And I love you. Because of that, I will do what I can to save your friend from herself.
It may not be enough, I said sadly.
I know. But if she sacrifices herself, it will be in spite of our efforts, not because of them.
A quick nod, and then I had to return my attention to Zahrias, because he was speaking again.
“This is not the only trial we face, unfortunately. Our powers are gone, and so we no longer have the ability to provide the comforts we’ve been enjoying here — adequate heat and light, power to run the various electronic devices our Chosen have used.”
Another murmur arose from the crowd. I could tell none of them had thought about that — the dining hall had a large fireplace at one end, and it was always kept blazing, possibly for atmosphere more than anything else. But because it had been lit, and because the room was so crowded, it was entirely possible no one had noticed it was a little cooler in here than usual.
Zahrias lifted his hands again, and the mutters subsided a bit. Not all the way, but enough that I could tell they wanted to hear what he had to say next. “I must ask our Chosen to come to our aid now. For tonight, that only means making sure we have enough wood to stock all the fires, and to help us gather bottled water and food so no one goes hungry or thirsty.”
“We’re going to lose everything in the freezers,” Phillip said, his face tight with worry. Since he’d been acting as the community’s chef, it made sense that our stockpiles of food were the first thing he’d thought of.
“Not right away,” Lindsay replied. She still looked troubled, but now that she had Rafi next to her, his arm looped around her waist, she seemed a bit more composed. “If we keep the freezer doors shut, they’ll retain their current temperature for a good while. Especially since we don’t have central heat anymore. It’s cold enough that they should hang on for longer than you’d think.”
“Good,” Zahrias said. “One night should suffice, and in the morning, we’ll have teams go out to collect generators and fuel.”
“Don’t forget about solar panels,” Lindsay put in. “I’m not a solar engineer, but I interned at a solar design firm a couple of summers ago, and I know enough that I’m pretty sure I can cobble something together for us.”
I reflected then that it was a good thing some of the pretty faces the djinn had selected as their Chosen also had some brains behind them. Otherwise, we would have been in far worse shape than we were now.
Apparently, Zahrias seemed to think the same thing, because he nodded, and even managed to smile at Lindsay. “That is a very good idea. I will let you focus on that, and then perhaps Jessica and Jasreel can help coordinate the search for getting us the generators and fuel. If we all work together, then we should be up and running in no time.”
Everyone seemed to be in agreement with that sentiment; I saw nods and even a few smiles from the crowd. Amazing how they all seemed to be focused on making life comfortable again. No one was even asking what Zahrias planned to do about the apparent change of heart of the rest of the djinn.
Then again, maybe that was exactly what he’d intended.
Chapter Two
We decided to keep the device running behind the front desk. From there, it would cover most of the downtown area — not that Taos had exactly what you’d call a downtown, but there was the plaza and the shops clustered around it, and then the commercial businesses along Highway 68, including the all-important Smith’s grocery store. Lauren promised to keep an eye on the box, since Lindsay had to assemble a team to help her scrounge whatever solar equipment and supplies might be available in the area.
Not that any of us were too worried about someone touching the innocuous-looking little black box, since at the moment it was the only thing keeping us all alive.
Jace and I commandeered a big Super Duty pickup truck, figuring the bed would be big enough to haul a couple of generators back to the resort. We’d get the fuel on a separate trip. At least the weather was cooperating; the clouds from earlier in the morning had mostly disappeared, and the sky was a pure sapphire blue. The snow on the mountains seemed to positively sparkle in the sunlight.
On a day like this, it was difficult to remember the threat we all faced. But it was out there somewhere, even if that horde of hostile djinn appeared to have gone much farther away than the mile radius the device’s field of effect afforded us.
After we’d climbed in the truck and I had pulled out of the resort’s parking lot, I asked, “Where did they go?”
Jace didn’t pretend to misunderstand. A brief glance out at the clear skies all around us, and then he shrugged. “A djinn doesn’t have to be precisely here. We have our domains beyond this plane of existence, worlds that exist next to this one, impossibly far away, and yet so close you could reach out and touch them, if only you knew how to pierce the veil that separates them.”
That sounded like something right out of science fiction. Then again, he’d already told me that the djinn had come from a different world than ours, a place where the rules of nature weren’t exactly the same as they were here. I’d had to believe him, because his people were obviously just as real as anyone else, and yet they weren’t human, no matter how much they might appear to be.
“And so when I turned on the device and drove them back — ”
“They would have returned to that plane,” he said absently, staring out the window. “So it’s not as easy as keeping a watch to make sure they’re not lurking around somewhere off in the distance. In a sense, they are still here, only in a world that Miles Odekirk’s device can’t reach.”
“Comforting,” I remarked dryly. Meaning we didn’t dare switch the thing off for even a second, or they would be right on us. But what concerned me even more was the question I had to ask next. “Jace…why? You had an agreement with them. What in the world would make the other djinn change their minds about leaving the One Thousand and their Chosen alone?”
“Ace Hardware.”
I blinked. “What?”
“There’s a hardware store. A good place to look for a generator?”
I supposed so. Having never shopped for one, I had no idea, but I figured we’d better go check. I pulled into the parking lot, which still had a few dusty-looking vehicles sitting in it — older-model sedans and compact cars, all of which apparently were beneath the djinns’ notice. Like the Los Alamos survivors, the Chosen here had gravitated toward late-model SUVs and trucks with four-wheel drive.
We stopped in front of the store, in the fire lane. That was the most convenient spot. Besides, I didn’t think the Taos P.D. would be by anytime soon to give me a ticket. Then I said, “You didn’t answer me.”
His fingers had been resting on the door handle of the truck, but at my remark, Jace let go of it and turned back toward me. Dark eyes met mine, grave and unwavering. “I didn’t answer because I have no answer for you. I don’t know. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed, or at least, Zahrias has had no indication of an alteration in their intentions.”
“I’d say what happened this morning is a pretty good indication.”
A small breath escaped Jace’s lips, almost too faint to be called a sigh. “Yes, it would appear that way. As frightening as that was, though, it wasn’t as if all the djinn who were not part of the Thousand participated.”
“How many, then?” I asked. True, nineteen thousand djinn were an awful lot, and I doubted there had been that many swirling in the skies above Taos. Far more than we had in our little community, but still…maybe a couple hundred?
It seemed my guess wasn’t too far off, because Jace replied, “I can’t say exactly, but more than a hundred, and less than five. It’s possible there is a subset of djinn who don’t agree with the majority’s decision and have attempted to take matters into their own hands.”
While I doubted anyone would find such a pronouncement exactly encouraging, it did make me feel a little better. If Jace was right, then that would mean not all the djinn were against us. Not that
I knew what we could possibly do to fight off a few hundred rampaging elementals, except keep Odekirk’s shield operating and hope for the best. But several hundred was a lot less frightening than nineteen thousand.
“Do you think Zahrias will reach out to the other djinn?” I inquired. “I mean, the ones who probably are keeping the agreement.”
Jace’s reply was a small, sad smile. “How can he, when his powers are being cut off by the device? And even if they wanted to communicate with him, they would be equally constrained. The field the device projects is invisible to you, but to us djinn looking in from the outside, it is as if everything beyond it is obstructed by dark glass. And…it is painful to go through it. That was another of the experiments Margolis had Odekirk perform on me. They would shut off the device for only a few seconds, not long enough for my powers to return, and have one of their men push me through the edge of the field. It was like receiving electric shocks all over my body. That is why the djinn turned away so quickly. They would have no idea that passing through the field was something they could actually survive.”
“My God, Jace.” I knew that he’d been through hell, but every revelation like that made me want to go back to Los Alamos and inflict a little torture of my own on the commander.
“It’s in the past.” Unbelievably, Jace shrugged, as if all the suffering he’d gone through meant very little to him. “In the meantime,” he went on, “we should look for that generator. I’m sure Phillip will be relieved if we can get the food protected, if nothing else.”
“We’ll all be relieved,” I said. “Everybody’s gotta eat — even djinn.”
Jace grinned — a real grin, like the kind he used to flash me back when I still thought he was Jason Little River. “That’s for sure. So let’s make sure we can keep on doing it with minimal difficulty.”
We got out of the pickup truck and went into the store. Its windows seemed intact, so I assumed no one had attempted to loot it. Well, Jace had told me there weren’t many survivors in Taos, most likely because the town was so small. They’d probably moved on before they could even think about raiding the hardware store, and of course, up until now, the djinn and their Chosen hadn’t needed much from it.
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