by Rachel Caine
Francis motioned us to what I thought was the old formal parlor — the stiff Victorian furniture I imagined had once occupied it was long gone, replaced by a sturdy, battered leather sofa and big, comfortable chairs. David paused in the doorway, his gaze darting around the room. Reading the past echoes of energy stored here in the walls, the carpet, the life of the house.
All I could see was a room ... and tucked in the corner next to the couch, a baseball glove and bat, with a dirty red ball cap piled on top. I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of it once I’d seen that sad little cluster of things, tucked away like Ethan had just dashed off upstairs to wash his hands before dinner. I sat down in one of the chairs. Lewis and Francis took the sofa, and David leaned against the wall, arms folded.
“Lewis here already knows this story,” Francis said, “so I’ll just be repeating it for the two of you. My grandson Ethan was starting to show the signs, you know the ones. Real strong earth potential in the boy. He has a connection to the land, to the animals. Like his mother.” I almost missed the brief flash of pain that sheeted across her face, like lightning. “He came back from ball practice on Tuesday, around ten thirty, just like usual. He went out to feed Drury — his dog -- and take him for a walk. I thought he’d be back for dinner, like always. When he wasn’t home by dark, I started calling folks. By midnight, I was calling the police.” Francis nodded to Lewis. “And you, of course.”
He took up the story from there. “The cops haven’t found a trace of any stranger in the area. They brought in scent dogs, but the trail went cold. There's an Amber Alert, but no leads so far.”
“And the Wardens?” David asked.
“I sent Edward Tally first, and a team of other Earth Wardens. He brought along Gregor.” Gregor was one of David’s Djinn, a burly, intimidating guy in human form with a bluish cast to his hair, very Aladdin gone bad. “They spent the whole day looking. Gregor tracked the boy out to the desert, but he lost him. He wouldn't say anything else.”
“I don’t think he had anything else to tell you," David said. “There’s power involved here, something big enough to block a Djinn and the Wardens. That doesn't bode well. It also rules out mere humans.”
I took another look at the baseball glove, the bat, the cap. I thought about the smiling boy in those pictures out on the living room wall, and the flash of stoic grief that had shown briefly in Francis’s face. “We should start from the beginning,” I said. “If Gregor picked up a trail, we can, too.” I stood up, and Lewis and David echoed the movement. “Let’s retrace his steps. Maybe we can find something they missed."
Francis didn’t rise. She sat there on the sofa and looked up at us, and suddenly she didn’t look strong, or capable, or in control. She looked tired, and very hurt. “Bring my boy home,” she said. “Please, bring him home.”
Lewis took her hands. “I swear, we will.”
###
“So, about Jane,” I said, as we let the screen door slam behind us, and the hot afternoon closed in. “Probably ought to talk about the big elephant in the conversational room. Is Ethan’s mother accounted for?”
“Yes,” Lewis said. Just the one word, dry as the desert air.
“You’re sure. Because I’m thinking if she got herself out of confinement ...”
“She hasn’t. I checked in person,” he said. This time the conversational door was slammed completely shut. “Next idea.”
“I’d say interview all the ranch hands and staff, but — “
“Police are all over that. We need to use the time to our advantage.”
I wasn’t sure what advantage there was. There wasn’t anything much to be found out in the yard, which was a big, carefully tended patch of hardy grass beaten down in places by a big, friendly chocolate Labrador who loped around the chain link and barked at our passage. He was big enough to take down a bear, but I wasn’t worried; Lewis could charm a shark, much less a dog. Built-in, deep-seated Earth powers. I had some, but not nearly as much.
No dog on this earth would go after David, no matter how hungry or angry.
We left the yard and headed for the barn. Lewis and I called up power out of the ground, a thick, golden tingle that spread through the soles of my feet and crept through my body like vines around a tree. Lewis spread the power out in a shimmering golden net that lapped our ankles like fog, spreading and rolling. “You think there’ll still be a trace?” I asked. For answer, Lewis lifted the dirty red ball cap I’d seen back in the house.
“I’ve got a DNA sample,” he said. “Here.”
I took the cap and turned it inside out, running my fingers along the sweat band inside. I didn’t have either the native skill that Lewis was born with, or the training, but I could sense the essence of the boy who’d worn the hat. It seeped into me like a faint, but definite, melody — a child’s melody, simple and beautiful.
I couldn’t hear my own song, but I suspected it was as baroque as an Italian opera.
Lewis slowly turned, orienting off toward the West. David was facing that direction too. As I shifted my weight to follow suit, I heard/felt the melody grow just a tiny bit stronger, and then I saw it — a very, very faint glimmer in the golden field of power Lewis had laid down.
A trace, literally, of Ethan’s passage through this part of the world.
I wasn’t looking forward to a long hike, even though I’d worn sturdy shoes. “There are ATVs in the barn,” I said. “We could make better time that way.”
“We’d lose the trace,” Lewis said. “It’s faint enough that doing it on foot will be hard enough.”
So much for saving myself effort. I should have known that traveling with Lewis was going to mean an excess of healthy exercise. He loved to hike.
“I’ll take the lead,” David said. “If the track disappears, I may still be able to find it.”
“Stay in sight,” Lewis said. “Last thing I need is three people to find.”
###
It was my vacation, and I was spending it tramping through a breathtakingly empty prairie of fine reddish sand, broken with clumps of spiky bushes that erupted out of the soil like grasping hands. Lewis and I worked hard to maintain the field of power surrounding us as David led us deeper into the wilderness — away from roads, trails, and except for the white plumes of planes far overhead, away from civilization. Lewis continued to pick up random sparks of energy that were signatures of Ethan’s trail, but they were few and far between; I doubted any lesser Warden could have managed to find them at all, in so much open space.
The boy had gone pretty far out. I wasn't sure what that meant, but so far, there wasn't any sign that he'd been with anyone else on his nature walk.
David kept ahead of us, but as Lewis had requested, he never got out of our sight. The Falworth-Davis ranch house vanished into the distance behind, and after a couple of hours I broke out water and passed it to Lewis as we paused for a break. David stood motionless on the horizon, facing outward, waiting.
“So, did I interrupt something?” Lewis asked, and took another thirsty swig from the bottle before handing it back.
“Only our first real vacation together in, well, ever. At least, one without a crisis hanging over our heads.”
“Sorry.” Lewis looked down at the swirling golden fog around us, and passed his hand idly through it. It eddied and curled over his fingers, clinging like a pet. “I’ll get you back on a plane tonight if I can. Tomorrow, latest.”
The plane part didn’t appeal to me, but going home did, so I nodded. “Can we talk about Jane now?”
“Jane?” Lewis didn’t look at me; he continued to stare down at the golden fog in his hand. “She’s secure.”
“You’re sure about that.”
“Positive. I checked on her in person before I came out here. She’s in a padded room in Warwick, Rhode Island. They had to dope her last week. She cut herself again, pretty bad this time.”
God. I couldn’t help but remember the pretty, sweet, gentle girl I’d k
nown in college. “You dated her, right?” Lewis had been a serial dater, back then, but he’d mainly gone for the “normal” girls, the non-Wardens at Princeton. Still, Jane had wanted to be normal, and I thought I remembered seeing him with her.
Lewis continued to sweep his hand through the fog. “Back in the day, yeah,” he said. “Before she had her breakdown. Before they screwed up the surgery and left her broken for good.”
I heard the sharp bitterness in his voice. “You liked her.”
“Yeah. I liked her.” Lewis opened his hand and let the golden power roll out of it. He rose from his crouch and scanned the horizon with distant, cool brown eyes. “Let’s keep moving. There’s a cold front coming in from the west. We’ll have rain by tomorrow.”
I blinked, surprised. I hadn’t felt it, but when I opened up my Weather Warden side, I could feel the tingle of the approaching front, the energy being produced as it collided and rubbed with the warm, dry air.
Lewis could balance all this without even thinking about it. That was ... quietly terrifying.
We followed a trail of tiny sparks, and David’s footprints, across an empty space as the sun blazed across the sky.
###
Trouble came on us suddenly, and without any warning. One minute David was there, striding over the sand, following his own invisible trail, and the next he was ... gone.
Lewis accelerated into a lope, long legs eating up space. I had to push myself to a flat-out sprint to catch up. The golden mist around us roiled and eddied; I faltered in my concentration, panting with effort, but Lewis didn’t. When we reached the last spot I’d seen David, the fog was still with us, blanketing the area and sparking with bursts of power. The place David had been glowed hot orange, and the molten-glass color pooled into the hollow of his footprints. Oddly, the fog wouldn’t flow past that point; it piled up there, as if held back by an invisible glass wall.
I walked to the spot. “Careful,” Lewis said from behind me.
I gave him an impatient wave and edged closer. David was at the bottom of the hill. He was crouched, both hands on the sand, like an animal ready to spring. “David?” I asked, and felt a tightening of my guts when he didn’t respond. “David!”
“Something’s wrong here,” he said. His voice didn't sound normal. "Stay back."
I didn’t. I slithered down the sandy hill, half running, half sliding, and landed in a burst of blowing dirt at his side.
Lewis, on the other hand, stayed where he was, at the top.
I crouched down next to David. “What is it?” His face was starkly pale, and his eyes — his eyes were glowing a desperate red.
“Black corner,” he said. “It’s a black corner.”
“I don’t know what that means! Are you all right?”
He tried to get up, but staggered and almost fell. I grabbed him to steady him. “We have to get out of here. Now.”
“What did he say?” Lewis called from the top.
“Get your ass down here and help me!”
“Not until I hear what he said.”
Son of a bitch. “He said it’s a black corner. What’s a black corner?”
Lewis didn’t move. “A dead spot. A spot that’s been burned, damaged through all the planes of existence. There are five or six in the world, but the Djinn can’t sense them; they only know they’re here when they walk into them. Sort of like aetheric quicksand.”
“God dammit! Help me get him out of here!”
“I can’t,” Lewis said. “I’m sorry. If I go down there, I’ll be just as useless as he is right now. You have to find a way to get him back up here without me.”
“You can be such a — “ I controlled myself and slowed my breathing. “Fine, help me pull him up there.” He shrugged off his emergency backpack and unzipped sections, coming up with some thin, flexible nylon rope neatly stored in a figure eight.
I tied one end around David’s waist. “Right!” I yelled. “You pull, I’ll push! Go!”
David was not quite dead weight. He had balance, and he could move a little on his own behalf, but I could see that it was torture for him to fight to stay with us. Black corner. I couldn’t feel a thing, except —
No. I couldn’t feel a thing at all. I stretched out my senses, but it was like grabbing with a phantom limb. I felt nothing from the earth beneath my boots, nothing from the sky and wind. No sense of the world at all. I was entirely, magically blind.
I concentrated on taking in raw, dirt-fogged breaths as I pushed David up the hill.
We were halfway up David jerked, as if something had struck him hard, and a half-second later I heard the rolling crack of a rifle. It took me a stunned instant to process the evidence — the hole in his back, the limpness of his body against the rope’s pull — and then I screamed. Lewis was already yelling. “Get to cover!” he shouted, and let go of the rope. David and I rolled back down the slope, into the black corner. He flopped flat on his back, red eyes open. Unmoving.
I grabbed his outflung wrists and began dragging him toward the shelter of a low dune — the only thing around. Something puffed dust in a small cloud near my feet. I heard the snap of the shot following close behind, but I kept my head down and continued to drag David with all my strength. My breath was coming in short, gasping bursts, and I was starting to shake as adrenaline rushed into my system, trying to give me fuel for the fight.
“David?” I cupped my hands around his face. He didn’t blink. His pupils had expanded, leaving only a small ring of red around the edges. “I know you’re in there. Don’t you dare leave me!”
No response. I closed his eyes with my thumbs and rolled him onto his side, so I could get a better look at the wound in his back. It was big, and it was bloodless; I could see the ragged track going all the way through him. God, I could see daylight.
It would be a fatal wound for a human, but David couldn’t be killed by a bullet. Not even here? some part of me whispered. He’s weak. He’s failing.
I needed to find out where the edges of this dead zone were, and figure out a way to get David out. Now.
“Lewis!” I shouted. “I need a plan!”
“I know! Stay put!” came his distant response from the other side of the hill. I couldn’t feel anything happening, but I saw sand begin to stir up there on the hill, rising up into a curtain, then into a thick red wall as Lewis created a diversion. It pushed forward, and stopped dead at the spot where David’s footprints had shown the limits of the black corner.
It curved around, driven by howls of wind, and slowly defined the edges of the place where even natural forces had no power. Now or never, I thought. I needed to act — get to the shooter and stop him while Lewis commanded his attention and clouded his vision. I pressed David's hand in a silent, desperate promise, and then got to my feet and sprinted hard for the closest edge of the black corner.
I didn’t make it. Another shot rang out, and I zigged, fast. Sand shifted under my feet, and I went down, rolling.
As I struggled to rise, I felt my hands skid painfully on something hard. Wood. I got a palm full of splinters.
There was something was buried under the sand.
“Jo!” Lewis was yelling at me from outside the black corner, but I couldn’t answer him. I knew I had seconds, at most, to save myself, and no power at all. The sand wasn't enough to protect me from the marksman aiming at me.
I swept my hands along the wood, frantically seeking edges, and found them. I heaved with reckless strength, and a broad, heavy trap door creaked up. I slithered into the gap and dropped down into darkness as the door banged shut above me.
The place smelled of fear and sweat and the natural by-product of someone being trapped for a few days. I held myself still, listening, and picked out the sound of breathing. “Ethan?” I whispered. “Ethan Falworth-Davis?” I heard the breathing catch, and start up again unevenly. “Your grandma Francis sent me. My name is Joanne.”
“Prove it,” said a childish, disembodied voice.
“You got a flashlight?” For a kid who’d spent days in the dark, Ethan sounded remarkably calm. “My batteries are almost out.”
“No, sorry. Not even a match.”
“Okay.” He switched on a flashlight, and although he was right, the batteries were definitely failing, it lit up the tiny space like a flash bomb, putting everything in stark relief. Ethan was still wearing a stained baseball t-shirt with a red logo and sleeves. The box we were in — I couldn’t think what else to call it — was concrete on the sides, with metal sheeting on the inside of the wooden door above.
It was full of wrapped plastic packages, and I didn’t think anybody would come all the way out here to stash their corn meal and flour.
“That’s not mine,” Ethan said, sounding remarkably adult about it. He was the same boy from the photos, only he’d lost the smile. Big, earnest dark eyes, and a serious, square face. “I think it’s, you know, drugs and stuff.”
“I think you’re right,” I said, and crouched down next to him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged, embarrassed. “It’s my hideout. I found it a few months ago, but it was empty. When I got here, I found all this stuff, and then this guy showed up. I couldn’t get out, but he couldn’t get in, either.”
“He couldn’t?”
For answer, Ethan lifted a pistol. It was a matte-black semi-automatic, and the slide was jammed all the way back. My heart did a little stutter, and I held out my trembling hand for it. He gave it to me.
