Caine, Rachel-Short Stories

by Rachel Caine

  He didn't know if he really cared anymore, at least about the human world. He had once, but that had been in their youth, when humanity was full of promise and hope. Now that the species was approaching its maturity, it didn't strike him as deserving of so much effort. If the storm ripped their so-called civilizations out by the roots and sent the few survivors back to stone tools and conjuring fire, well, it might not be a bad thing. Maybe they'd get it right a second time around.

  He doubted it, though.

  "Oh, hell, I don't know," he said out loud, surprising himself. Nobody to talk to but himself, and the fiddler crab working its clumsy, angular way along the rocks next to him. The crab paused, watching him with beady eyes before edging away with its gigantic left claw upraised. "So what do you say? Do I just let 'em all die?" The crab didn't seem inclined to answer, except to lean back even farther and click its claw threateningly. Probably wondering how the hell it had managed to get into so much trouble. "Humans, I mean. Wouldn't be hard. All I have to do is sit back and wait, that storm will do the rest."

  The crab looked nonplussed. "Yeah, I get your point, you're not in favor of humanity. Too many crab dinners. But what about the things they've done in the last few thousand years? The wheel, harnessing fire, farming, architecture, sailing ships ..." He wasn't impressing the seafood, that much was clear. The fiddler crab edged away a little bit more. "Look at the art, the music. They tell stories, you know. Nobody else tells stories. Maybe that makes them just a little bit closer to divine."

  A wave, stronger than the previous ones, thundered on the rocks and threw up a titanic amount of spray. The crab, caught by surprise, was swept off, rolled in the surf, righted itself and quickly scuttled back onto the rocks. Jonathan thought it looked just a little embarrassed. "Not convinced?" he asked. The crab rocked back and forth, as if deciding whether or not to make a break for it and take its chances on the beach. There were seagulls circling. Probably not the best situation for a crab. "How about this: without humans, there's just nobody to talk to. Pretty compelling argument, right?"

  The crab scuttled forward and nipped at him, suddenly and weirdly brave. Jonathan scooted it back with his foot, and watched the thing snap its pinscher threateningly at his boot. "So no, then," he said.

  The crab decided to give up. He watched it sidle over the edge of the rock, down to the sand, and scuttle off into the lacework of foam that flecked the smooth brown sand. Crab business. Probably just as important as anything nine-tenths of the humans were doing at the moment. It all boiled down to the simple things, in the end. Birth, reproduction, death.

  Birth. Now that was a tricky one. As if he'd conjured her up, the image of David and Joanne's daughter appeared next to him, sitting on the rock, knees drawn up, black hair blowing in the stiff ocean breeze. Beautiful in ways her mother couldn't imagine, this child, this potential. She was a dizzying incongruity. A difference in the world. And as things stood, she'd never live, not unless David died and that flood of energy washed over the seed that constituted an embryonic Djinn.

  Life. Death. Birth.

  Damn near the same things, in Djinn terms.

  "Hey," he said to the ghost-girl. She didn't respond, of course. Even he couldn't get ghosts to talk. "You look a lot like her. Her. You know who I'm talking about."

  No answer. Her hair stirred and lifted and swirled in the wind, black silk flying, and her eyes were like David's, full of secrets and gold.

  Nothing here but pain, in the end. Jonathan sighed. "Get lost, kid."

  She whispered away on the wind, like sand dropped in a hurricane. He was left with less interesting company: the storm, the increasingly distant fiddler crab, his own thoughts.

  It was getting cold, and it was getting late. Time to make something happen. That was his specialty, really, knowing just where to push, and when.

  This time, he pulled.

  The result came as a dark breeze on the back of his neck, a shiver on his newly-formed spine, and the certainty that something was behind him. Death. Cold and immediate.

  "Jonathan." A hoarse scrape of a whisper, more stone than voice.

  And this was how it was going to end. Together again. Jonathan felt a bright burst of something inside -- grief, rage, hope, fear, love -- and twisted to look behind him.

  A flash of black in shadow. Angles and cutting edges, nothing soft, nothing remotely in human form. Standing still, David looked like a pile of volcanic glass. Fire hardened into cold, gleaming ice.

  "You've looked better," Jonathan said, and turned his back. He pitched a pebble into the ocean. It was swallowed up by swirling foam and roaring surf. "I told your girlfriend to find a way to fix you. Guess she wasn't quite as good as she thought she was. Figures." Not that he'd really expected her to manage it. But she'd surprised him before, David's little dark-haired honey. By still being alive, if nothing else. He'd never met a human who could have weathered the storms -- pun intended -- she'd been through in the past year.

  Had to admit it: he respected her. A little. More than another of her six billion fellows, anyway.

  David didn't answer. Couldn't, probably. Nothing left in there that could form words, really -- just hunger and torment. That was what human love had done for him. Cored him out, left him hollow and empty and dead.

  Jonathan shook his head. The surf pounded spray into the air; it clung to his hair, moistened his skin, slid down his neck and into the black cotton t-shirt he was wearing. Uncomfortable, being human. He forgot how strong the sensations were. He supposed if you got into the thing enough, it could be addictive, but he usually got bored long before the supposed charm of the human condition made itself felt.

  He was waiting for David to lose control and strike, but it looked as if he'd have to wait a while; David was silent, motionless, just a black hunk of angles sitting behind him. A constant nervous vibration, but no sense of forward momentum.

  Jonathan watched the vast storm moving across the ocean, driven by a blind and instinctual hunger. It rolled like black milk poured in water, terrifyingly packed with energy, alive and incredibly hungry.

  The storm was an Ifrit, really, given massive scale. It would eat until it satisfied its mindless cravings, and then it would .... what? Die? Be reborn? There'd never been a storm like it, in all the memory of the world. No telling what its life cycle encompassed.

  "What's it going to take?" Jonathan asked. He was facing the storm, but it was David's question. "What will make you save yourself? You're a goddamn Ifrit, David. Not like you have a choice."

  And, incredibly, the pile of shadows and angles that had once been someone he knew, someone he valued, whispered, "Always a choice."

  "Not this time, kid." Jonathan stood up, dusted off the khaki pants he'd manifested along with the skin, muscles and bones, and walked to where David was waiting. David's angular shadow shifted, light crawling on broken curves and jutting angles, but he didn't attack. "No choice for anybody here. I'm tired, I'm no longer needed here, and you need to live. It's that simple."

  "No."

  "You've got to be kidding me. You're not that strong. It's fate. Just let go."

  The shadow stood up from its crouch, revealed itself in all its black, broken glory. Lightning stabbed hard across the sky, bleaching everything else, but David stayed as black as a hole in the world.

  "No," the Ifrit said again.

  Fear tightened the back of Jonathan's neck, and he felt the first chilly drops of rain. The storm wasn't coming ... the storm was here, now. And it was going to sweep this planet clean of its human infestation, once and for all. That was its blind hunger, its mission, and its destiny. He couldn't stop it this time, because he finally understood that part of what was keeping this thing alive was his own power. His own anger.

  And as he stood there in the full glare of that future, knowing it was partly his fault, he realized that he didn't want it to happen. Humankind wasn't disposable. In a very real way, they were his responsibility -- his unpleasant, surly c
hildren.

  He couldn't let it end like this. He didn't want to be standing in an empty world, talking to a stupid damn crab for eternity.

  "David," he said. "It has to be now. Now."

  "I won't."

  The wind was shrieking, the rain pounding like bullets. The waves were pressed flat and whipped to foam by the momentum of the storm. "Now, dammit!"

  "No!" The Ifrit was trembling. Almost convulsing with the need to feed. Its voice -- David's voice -- sounded like the harsh crunch of gravel, barely even recognizable as language. "Not you." The fever-heat of hunger was coming off it in waves.

  Fuck it. It was past time for him to be moving on, whether David wanted to know it or not. And it was time for David to heal.

  "Do it," Jonathan said flatly, "or I swear to whatever god you choose that I'll find your girl and kill her especially hard, even if the storm doesn't."

  The Ifrit's claws sank into his chest with a whipcrack motion. Reflex, more than intention; he felt David trying to pull away, screaming, but it was too late.

  Too late for anything. Everything.

  It hurt. That was new, too; pain was newborn to him, shockingly real, and he felt the human heart he'd constructed faltering and struggling. He let it go. Let his body melt away, until he was Djinn, fire, free.

  The pain stayed. He heard David crying out, struggling to let go, but it was too late for anything like that now.

  There was a kind of peace to it, Jonathan thought. Weirdly, at last, peace.

  He felt the presence of others on the shore. Ashan, gray and grim. Rahel, her brightness dimmed, unnaturally still and silent. Many others, coming to see the end of things.

  He bled, and bled, all his life sucked away, until he was ashes, embers, dust. Barely alive.

  "No," David whispered. He was exactly as Jonathan remembered him, all those long-ago thousands of years ago -- human in aspect, kneeling over him as he breathed his last. Darkness overhead, so much darkness, and David's eyes as bright as suns. "Don't do this, Jonathan. Don't."

  David's hand gripped his tightly. He was flesh again, wasn't he? Flesh and bone and spilling blood.

  Mortal. Afraid. Hopeful.

  "Don't go," David cried. "Don't leave me!"

  There were no words for where he was going now. He wanted to tell him that he still loved him as his own soul, but it was too late. No matter. He saw it in David's eyes, and when David spoke again, it was in the old tongue, the ancient tongue, the voices of angels.

  I have made a covenant with thee, he whispered, and they were close in that instant, two fires together. As my own soul. My own soul. Stay.

  He couldn't stay. Jonathan let go, and it was like falling from the tallest mountain, falling into darkness and seeing his people, his children recede above him.

  One last act of love left. He let go of the last ember of his life, the last primitive spark, and felt it fly up and ignite into a beautiful thing, a girl, a girl with David's brilliant eyes and her mother's coal-black hair and beautiful, cocky smile. Saw her look down on him, and tears like fire fell.

  Don't cry, he told her. Your name is Imara. Take care of them.

  And then he was in the arms of the Earth.

  A Test of Patience

  This story is a standalone Djinn tale featuring Ashan and Jonathan. The setting is India, 1857, at a place called Bibighar. The setting and actions depicted here are, to the best of my ability, historically accurate. I chose to tell this story from the point of view of one of the Englishwomen at Bibighar, but a similar story could have been told from the viewpoint of any of the thousands of Indian women who suffered just as terribly at the hands of the English during this same period.

  Atrocities in wars cut both ways.

  Patience Verity Cadwallader Jones.

  She repeated her name to herself, a rosary of despair for all that she wasn't Papist. For as long as she could remember her name, she would survive, no matter what happened, no matter what ...

  The smell. Oh God in heaven, just when she imagined she'd grown accustomed to it, could bear it just a little, it turned in her throat and choked her. She whimpered a little, and tried not to move. Tried not to breathe, except in light, exhausted gasps. It was so hot, and she'd been so long without water, and the weight pressing down on her ...

  She felt pressure lessen against her shoulder. Something had moved. Some body had moved, but how as that possible, they were all dead, weren't they ...? How could anyone have survived ... and how had she? She'd felt herself going away, and then ... and then she'd been back, waking in the heat, the rot, the vile horror of living.

  She heard voices, speaking in foreign, liquid syllables. Richard's words came back to her. There's no need to learn the language, Patience, the servants all understand English perfectly well or they wouldn't be employed here. You need never speak with the locals directly, nor would it be proper for an Englishwoman to do so.

  He had said that in February, and now it was July, mid-July and so stunningly hot, the heat like wet wool, and she was lying under a pile of decaying corpses and she wished, oh God she wished that she had learned how to beg for her life in the tongue of the natives.

  Another rustle and shift. The voices came nearer. They were pulling bodies from the pile -- burying them? She felt a surge of sheer horror. Bad enough to be trapped here, smothered in rotting flesh, but still worse to be dumped in a grave, covered over, left to die alone with a mouth full of dirt. She would scream. She must.

  Another body rolled away, this one from atop her back, and she could not resist a deep gulping gasp. The sound was lost in the continued keening. Male voices shouted in a confusing babble, and she felt a foot press into the flesh of her lower back.

  She was able to turn her head, just a little, and through the tangled dark veil of her hair, she saw a scarecrow of a woman struggle up from the pile of corpses just a few feet away. With an icy shock Patience realized she was Leticia Grainger, although this bloody, battered skeleton was so far from that fine, sheltered young lady as it was possible to become. She had been a shallow little thing, much given to gossip and flirtation, and now ... now she was quite insane.

  Patience watched as another woman rose from the pile as well, staggering, bleeding profusely from a dozen slashes to face and body. She held a blond-haired boy in her arms, oh sweet merciful Lord, still alive, there were children still alive ... More than one. A third woman rose from the corpses, and lurched after Leticia Grainger and the others, and behind her came three -- no, four small children, all screaming in raw, hoarse, agonizing little voices.

  Nowhere to run. The crowd in the courtyard, all dusky faces, held no forgiveness and no mercy. There was one escape, and one only: the uncovered central well in the courtyard. Leticia leaped upon the stone rim, and without ceasing her terrible mad screams, jumped. Her screams echoed for long, long seconds. They seemed to go on forever.

  The bleeding woman with the child in her arms followed, crossing the open space in a drunken stagger, and pitching headlong into the darkness. The third woman hesitated and looked around, as if hoping that a redcoated savior would suddenly burst from the crowd and spirit her away. Patience saw the hope leave her, and only a sere, terrible serenity take its place.

  "Come," the woman said, and reached out her right hand for the smallest child, a girl of only two or three. The little girl took it, staring up. Unasked, another child moved closer and took her left. "There's nothing to be afraid of, my dears. We'll only fall a little."

  They were gone in a bloody flutter of skirts. The last child, older, burst into tears and tried to run, but there was no rescue except for the waiting black hole, and in the end, he jumped.

  Patience slowly sat upright. Incredibly, no eyes turned toward her. She studied the faces -- dark, hostile, unknowable faces -- and she knew that she would die soon, as soon as they troubled to notice she still drew breath. She wished she had the courage of the other women. All she could do now was wait.

  A hand closed
on her shoulder, and Patience was pulled to her feet without seeing who it was who held her. She waited for the sword thrust, or the musket ball, for it had been guns that had started this, she knew, the new Enfield rifles with their cursed greased cartridges that used the fat of cows and pigs, things forbidden to Muslims and Hindus ...

  "Up," a light, cool voice said in flawless English. A pressure of a palm beneath her elbow, and she somehow gained her unsteady feet. The same pressure kept her upright, balanced, and she looked over her shoulder at what must surely be her executioner.

  He was a tall, strong, straight-backed man in nondescript gray robes, hair of the same silvery-neutral shade. Pale skin. And his eyes -- She had never before seen an angel, but surely angels had such eyes as that.

  "Come," he said, and she went, never thinking why or how, never questioning until their steps led away from the stinking, suffocating pile of corpses in the courtyard and into the blessed shade. She flinched when he moved her toward the building itself; the memories screamed in her, unbearably loud.

  As if he understood, he directed her around the corner, and it was the oddest thing, it seemed that no one beyond it could see them. She had been used to the stares of the natives; any time she had ever ventured from the small quarters she maintained for Richard she had endured the constant pressure of eyes on her. But now she might as well have been one of the dusky women in their saris. Or not even that, perhaps; no one glanced at her, or her princely escort.

  No one at all. It was if they had both become completely invisible.

  She faltered again, felt the world spinning, smelled corruption, and knew that she was going to die now, because the story of Patience Verity Cadwallader Jones could not be a happy one, could never be now, after what she had seen and done ...

  "Careful," he said. "You're weak. Take it slowly."

  His hand was between her shoulders, holding her upright, and her cheek rested against the cool fabric of his tunic. He smelled of cloves and cinnamon, hot metal and a light tint of something like dust.