Unseen

by Caine, Rachel

  Not the children.

  He’d been shot ensuring that Mike and Gillian were able to escape ... or Gillian, at least. In that end, there had been honor.

  “You can’t want this,” I said. “I’ve seen you working with the children. You’re not cruel, Janice. You care for them. You can’t want them to be used, twisted, made into killers.”

  “You think these children aren’t already killers?” Janice touched Elijah’s forehead, then Sanjay’s. Both boys stirred, looking dazed. She altered her tone again and projected a subtle variation of her normal warm reassurance—this one had an edge of fear, and pleading. “I need you, boys. You have to protect each other, and protect me, too.”

  Sanjay looked up at her with absolute trust and devotion. “Miss? From what?”

  “From them,” she said, and nodded at Luis, Marion, and me. “From our enemies.”

  And like the good soldiers that Janice must have made them behind Marion’s back, Sanjay and Elijah climbed to their feet and faced us with identical expressions of determination.

  Ready to fight, and die, for the cause.

  “No,” Marion breathed. She sounded aghast, and deeply betrayed. I could understand that. ... She’d been just as seduced by Janice’s powers as anyone else. Janice had a rare gift of influence, one that had served Pearl far better than stronger, more overt talents. She’d manipulated absolutely everyone, to one extent or another. I was willing to bet that gathering the children at the school, logical though it might have seemed at the time, was also an idea that sprang from Janice’s suggestions.

  While Marion had been focused on healing the children’s physical damage, Janice had been conducting a different kind of campaign ... one of steady, damning indoctrination, taking place right under the noses of the Wardens set to guard the children. Even Luis, warned that there was a traitor, had been blind to her.

  As cynical and suspicious as I was, I would have chosen her last. There was something about her that simply defied reasonable doubts.

  “Sanjay, Elijah,” Marion said, “don’t do this. We’re not your enemies. Your enemies are out there. They’re the ones trying to hurt us all.”

  “No,” Janice responded. “She’s lying to you. Those people out there, they’re trying to get to us. To save us. We need to help them.”

  “She’s right. They’re trying to save us,” Sanjay said. He sounded utterly certain of it. “You want to hurt us.”

  “No, sweetheart, I don’t.” Marion’s anguish was palpable, but it was not reassuring; the boys drew a step closer to Janice, seeking the numbing, gentle warmth that she radiated. Only Ibby had broken with it, and only, I thought, because she’d seen Janice without that mask while she killed Ben. “Please don’t do this. You know we’re trying to help you. We’ve always tried to help.”

  Her argument wasn’t going to win; I could see that. Sanjay and Elijah had both endured pain in the healing process, and they were too young and fragile to understand that the pain was necessary. Janice had chosen her willing avatars well, because even I, pragmatic as I was, wouldn’t strike against them unless forced to do so. They were a deadly combination—too small, and far too powerful.

  Marion cast out a sudden strike of power, meant to send the boys to sleep, but Elijah batted it away with contemptuous ease. It was the wrong move, although if it had succeeded, we might have had a chance. As it was, whatever doubts the boys might have held were wiped away in the face of what they saw as an attack against them.

  Elijah pushed power outward in a bone-crushing wave, directly at us. That, Marion and I blocked easily enough; it was our own specialty.

  But he wasn’t our only problem.

  “Down!” I yelled, and toppled Marion’s wheelchair to one side as Sanjay raised a hand. Flames exploded from the padding of her chair, but I pulled her safely out before she could be more than singed.

  “I have to hold the wall!” she shouted at me, and I saw the torment and fury in her face. “I can’t split my attention; I’m too tired. You have to take them down, Cassiel. Do it fast.”

  Elijah must have heard, because he sent another attack flying at us—no, not at us. At Luis and Ibby, wounded and defenseless now. I lunged in front of it and turned the power back at him in a hot golden flare. It knocked him backward in surprise—but not down.

  I rolled out of the way of another bolt of power from Sanjay, which splashed against the stone ... directly into another send by Elijah, which closed crushingly around my bones, trying to shatter them like glass. He could squeeze me to a pulp in an instant before I could get my defenses in order ... but something interfered with him.

  Isabel. She was lying on her side, eyes wide, face pale and ghostly under a coating of sweat. She was weak and terribly vulnerable, but she threw out just enough power to disrupt Elijah’s hold on me. Just enough to allow me to break it and throw him back, again.

  He and Sanjay had an excellent strategy working ... I had no effective counter to Sanjay, but avoiding the strikes left me off balance and vulnerable to Elijah, whom I could counter, if given an instant to prepare.

  They didn’t intend to give me that instant. Sooner or later, I would make an error, fall short, and they’d have me. Both of them. I needed Luis, but he was even weaker than Isabel; the bleeding from his leg continued, slowed but not stopped by the tourniquet he’d applied. Neither Marion nor I had the time or space to apply any kind of healing, and he was too weak to try it on himself. Earth Wardens were notoriously bad at self-administering their power, in any case.

  Hold on, I begged him silently through our link. Please hold on.

  We have an ace, he whispered back. Time to use it.

  I didn’t understand for an instant, and then I did, as Luis fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a small, thick bottle topped with a black rubber stopper.

  He put his thumb on the stopper, preparing to pop it open. Preparing to release Rashid, and order him to save us.

  “No!” I screamed. “Luis, don’t!”

  He seemed startled to hear me say it, and shook his head. He was starting to lose focus from the bleeding; I could see the vagueness in his eyes. “Only way,” he said. “Need his help.”

  “He’ll kill you! You’re in no condition to manage a Djinn!”

  He wasn’t listening. I lunged. He pulled back, but I didn’t have time to wrestle with him for the bottle; I balled up my fist, put a burst of Earth power through the muscles of my arm, and punched him in the jaw, a neat right uppercut that snapped his head back and sent him reeling.

  He let go of the bottle, still stoppered. I caught it, fought off his dazed attempt to get it back, and retreated to the middle of the room. Across from me, one of the stone walls that Marion had erected shattered under the force of the flames beyond, and a rippling wall of fire burst through, seeking the cooler air of our little shelter. Marion flinched, but she couldn’t seem to repair the damage. She crawled to Shasa’s side, fending off an attack from Elijah as she did, and shook her awake just as a huge white-hot fireball shot through the opening. I lunged for Luis and Ibby, covering them as it bloomed overhead, filling the room with unbearable heat and glare.

  Shasa came upright, screamed out raw defiance, and crushed the fireball into a marble-sized ball of plasma, which she grabbed and threw back out to the other side of the gap. I felt her shield go back up, and for the next few seconds, at least, she held off the attack.

  Sanjay closed in on Marion, who was struggling to put the stone barrier back up.

  Isabel squirmed out from beneath me, staggered to her feet, and got in his way.

  “No!” Marion shouted, but it was too late; Isabel channeled a raw amount of force that shocked even my Djinn senses and sent Sanjay flying against Janice before he could pull enough power to strike. “No, Cassiel, stop her! She’s not ready—this will kill her!” She choked and coughed, retching as the almost unbreathable air finally became too much.

  We were all in danger of death, I thought, but didn’t hav
e the breath left to speak. The air was thick and fetid, and it was an effort to even try to draw it in, as shimmering and hot as it was. Around us, the school was crumbling under the attack, and our circle of safety felt now like a slower, crueler way to die.

  I looked down at the bottle in my hand and scrambled up to my knees. Luis struggled to get up, wiping blood from his mouth, but he was done. There was little strength left in him now. Certainly not enough to manage a Djinn imprisoned against his will, like Rashid.

  Rashid would help us. Perhaps. But like all Djinn, he hated being compelled to do anything. Even his regard for me, even his distant appreciation for the humans around me, might not be enough.

  He might find a way to allow us to die, simply out of a basic, inhuman need for revenge. It would be easy for him, so easy.

  I couldn’t give him a reason.

  I dropped the bottle to the floor, unopened, and grabbed a fallen slab of rock. Luis, guessing what I was about to do, flailed a weakened hand toward me, but he was too late.

  I smashed the bottle with the stone, and felt a gust of something that was not quite wind, not quite power blow through us like a shock wave. It felt like a sigh.

  “No,” Luis whispered. There were tears in his eyes as he collapsed with his cheek against the stone. “No, Cass, why? Why did you—”

  “No other choice,” I choked, and fell beside him. Even Janice had collapsed to her knees, though Elijah and Sanjay were still moving, still a threat. “Can’t compel him.”

  He was our last hope, but Rashid didn’t appear. Seconds ticked by, brutal and hopeless. Isabel went down, and Shasa; I dropped the stone and crawled to her, pulling her into my weak arms. The power inside me boiled impotently. There was nothing it could do. I tried to soften the stone beneath us, provide an escape route, but our enemies had thought of that, too.

  No way out.

  Elijah began to claw at the walls with his power, fighting Marion for control. He had more power, and he was winning.

  “Give up,” Janice said between coughs. Her eyes were bloodshot and strained from gasping for what little air was left. She no longer radiated warmth and comfort, only desperation and fury. “Why won’t you just give up? Do you really think you can win?”

  I didn’t give up because I couldn’t. That, I thought was something Janice, a mercenary at heart, could never really understand ... that there were some battles too important to retreat from, at any cost.

  I’d gambled on Rashid, but that might have been my own blindness. I trusted a Djinn because I’d once been a Djinn, and yet I knew all too well that he had no obligation, no reason to help us. Luis had been ruthless, but he might have been right to keep Rashid captive.

  No. I had done right.

  I would die doing right.

  I would die beside Luis, holding Isabel, and at least we would be together. At least that.

  A blast of fresh air swept through the room, sweet and cold, and I gasped it in with helpless hunger. Luis’s lungs heaved, too, and Isabel’s. It braced all of us, and gave us a precious few more moments.

  Unfortunately, it also gave Sanjay the fuel he needed to ignite an intense, tightly compacted fireball in the palm of his small hand, and fling it directly at me.

  I had no chance of avoiding it, or of turning it aside. I reached for Earth power to try to form a shield of stone, but he’d acted so quickly I was drastically unprepared.

  Luis lunged across me and intercepted the strike. The incandescent ball of boiling plasma hit him in the chest, and threw him like a rag doll into the cracked, smoking wall. He screamed, and convulsed, and I tried to get to him. I tried, but Sanjay threw another bolt, and this time I was able to raise the stone in time to block it, but Luis ...

  He was lying motionless, limp as an animal broken at the side of the road.

  The scream that came from my throat left it bloody and raw, and instead of relying on power I rushed the boy, shocking him, and grabbed him in my arms in a tackle. He felt scalding-hot, as if in the grip of a killing fever. I put my hand flat on his forehead and managed to moderate the power that I poured into him, although my instincts were to kill, to punish. ... But it wasn’t the boy I needed to kill.

  It was the old woman, with her fixed and mocking smile, who watched from behind Elijah, with her other sleeping hostages around her. I lunged for her.

  Elijah simply batted me aside, as if I were an insect, and sliced his hand down at my neck. I sensed the force he was wielding, blunt and brutal; he’d have crushed my flesh and bones, destroyed me without a single moment of mercy.

  Something caught his hand on the way down.

  Rashid.

  The Djinn’s perfect suit and tie were at odds with the feral twist of his lips and the fire in his eyes—silver and as hot as the blaze bursting the stones around us. He held Elijah by the arm and looked down at where I lay dazed on the floor. “Get up,” he said. “And don’t think this makes us even, Cassiel. Your human owes me debts that will take generations to repay.”

  “I know,” I said, and rolled to my feet. “Is the air your gift?”

  “I couldn’t have you dying before I reaped my rewards.” Rashid looked down at the boy, who was struggling to break free. “This one’s stronger than I’d expect.” And Rashid was controlling him without much apparent effort. Impressive.

  “Don’t harm him,” I said.

  “Really, do you think I am so cruel?” Rashid did a good job of seeming offended, but I knew he wasn’t; I knew him too well to think he would blink at any action, no matter how morally offensive to a human. “Hush, child. Enough.” He touched a fingertip to Elijah’s forehead, and the boy went limp. Rashid dropped him to the floor and extended his hand to me. I wasn’t too proud to accept the help.

  “Luis,” I said, with dawning horror. “Luis was hit—”

  “Yes.” Rashid didn’t move; he didn’t so much as glance at where Luis lay. I rushed past Rashid, but he caught me and dragged me to a sliding stop. “Wait.” He held up a sharp finger to silence me, more of a threat than a gesture. Then he tilted it toward Luis.

  Who was sitting up, staring down at the charred hole in his shirt. It was a black-edged gap of more than ten inches across. Beneath it, his skin looked normal and undamaged.

  I wasn’t imagining it this time. His flame tattoos moved, shifting like shadows in nervous flickers, and then went still again.

  Luis touched the burned edges of the fabric and looked up at me, lips parted in wonder.

  “What happened?” he asked. He still looked pale and ill, but he should have been dead. That plasma ball from Sanjay had hit him with full force, and as an Earth Warden he had no real defense against it.

  As an Earth Warden.

  Luis, whether he recognized it or not, was manifesting a critical second power. I’d seen it, from time to time; I’d felt it in those inked tattoos, but I hadn’t understood what it was. But I did know that this time it had saved his life, and mine as well.

  “As you see,” Rashid said, “he’s in no immediate need of my help. Not that I would give it.”

  “He’s still bleeding,” I said.

  “Survivable. And also not my problem.”

  I had half expected that. “Then can you help us out of here?”

  Rashid’s handsome, inhumanly sharp face relaxed into an unexpectedly charming smile. “For a price, of course.”

  There were too many lives at stake to play this game. “I freed you,” I said, and held his gaze. It wasn’t easy, with those hot silver eyes boring into mine. “I freed you, and that is price enough, Rashid. Don’t push your luck.”

  “Don’t push yours, friend Cassiel. One day you’ll need me more than you need me today.”

  I looked around at the collapsing shell of our safety. At Shasa, somehow holding back the fire, at the last edge of her strength. At Marion, doing the same with the crumbling stone barrier. At Luis, Isabel, the fallen children. “If I need you more than this,” I said, “then I don’t think ev
en you will be enough.”

  Rashid cocked his head, as if surprised by that, and nodded. “Await me,” he said, and walked out, through the barrier of flames. Fire didn’t bother Djinn. In fact, it strengthened them. Djinn were born of inferno, long ago; that was why we’d been named devils, from time to time. But we were simpler than that.

  And much, much more.

  The attack against us fell into confusion, and then died away. The fires, left undirected by someone with that affinity, snuffed themselves out; they’d long ago exhausted their natural fuel. A few guttered in the ashes, but most of it was smoke, and even that quickly thinned.

  Rashid came back, dragging two bodies. I didn’t know either one, but he hadn’t left much to recognize, either. He dropped them at my feet, like a cat leaving kills for its owner, and turned toward Janice.

  I’d almost forgotten her. She was moving quietly toward the back of the room, where the stones had broken. No doubt she’d planned to slip out while we were distracted.

  She was carrying the two boys in her arms, one on each hip.

  Rashid looked at me. “Yours?” he asked.

  “Mine,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, there will be a charge. We’ll discuss that later. Privately.” He grinned again, and then turned his attention to Luis. “And later for you, too, Warden.”

  Luis didn’t try to speak. He just shook his head. I glanced at him, tormented; he needed healing, and quickly. Rashid wasn’t about to do it; in fact, as I turned toward him, the Djinn evaporated into flickers of darkness and was gone.

  Marion waved me on. “I’ll take care of him,” she said. “Go. Get her.”

  I rolled the tension out of my shoulders and walked toward Janice. She tried to move toward the exit, but I easily outmaneuvered her. Anger made me quick, and feral.