Caine, Rachel-Short Stories

by Rachel Caine

Empty.

  “You’ve been shooting at him?” I asked.

  “I had to. He shot at me first.” For all his bravery, this was a little boy, and I saw that he was deeply scared. “He missed me, though. I just shot to scare him. That's not mine either. I found it in here.”

  “You must have done a really good job of scaring him,” I said. “How long have you been down here?”

  “I don’t know. Days, maybe. It got really boring after a while. I figured somebody would find me.” He gave me a faint smile this time. "I told him I'd blow all this stuff up if he tried to come in."

  "Ah ... and do you have dynamite in your pocket or something?"

  "Kind of," he said, and turned the flashlight away, on another box. It had Army stenciling on it, identifying the contents as MK2. It was also clearly marked as EXPLOSIVE. "I didn't open it, though."

  I didn’t have a pry bar, but the wood was pretty old; a well-placed smack shattered the top enough to give me a look at the interior.

  “Sweet!” Ethan said, wide-eyed.

  Grenades, the old pineapple kind. I swallowed hard, thinking about the damage a kid could do to himself in an enclosed space with military explosives. I grabbed two. “Don’t touch these,” I said. “Promise me you won’t, no matter what. I can’t take them with me, but I don’t want you messing with this stuff. It’s very dangerous.”

  The kid looked deeply offended. “I’m not stupid.”

  At his age, I certainly had been. “Seriously, Ethan. Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  I looked at the gun. "I wish we had a reload for this."

  He pulled the top off of another nearby box. In it were three more magazines, fully loaded. “I was going to put another one in,” he said, clearly embarrassed. “I kind of forgot, and then when I heard you coming, I couldn’t find the box in time.”

  Which explained why he hadn’t shot me, thank God. I decided to save the gun lecture for later, changed out the magazines and worked the slide to load one in the chamber. “So, this is your hideout?” I asked. It didn’t make sense to me, a budding Warden seeking out — even accidentally — a secret hideout in a black corner, where he couldn’t feel the earth around him.

  Ethan was quiet for a moment, then said, “It’s the only place where I can be me again. You know? Out there, there’s all this noise in my head, all this stuff. Here, it’s just ... me.”

  That made more sense than I’d expected. I remembered what it had been like at puberty — powers waking, complicated by hormones kicking in. No wonder he wanted to have a quiet place to just be. Warden powers were a heavy burden, and he was young. Too young.

  I took a deep breath. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You stay here until I come back for you, okay? Don’t worry, it’s all going to be all right. Just chill.”

  “Chill? I can do that.” He grinned at me, and something struck me full force -- a powerful sense of recognition. I knew that smile. I knew those dark eyes. It was only a glimpse, and then it was gone, and I wasn’t altogether sure I hadn’t imagined it.

  I heard the snap of a rifle shot overhead, muffled by the concrete and wooden and metal, and realized that I was probably running out of time. “I’ll be back for you. Ethan, stay put. Whatever happens, stay where you are.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’ll -- ” The flashlight batteries flickered, then gave up the ghost, plunging us into darkness. Ethan’s voice stuttered, then strengthened. “I’ll be okay.”

  “I know you will be.” I hugged him, on impulse, and he wrapped his arms around me with near desperation. “Be right back, hero.”

  I climbed up on the crates, wary of my weight on the creaking wood, and managed to get a broken piece of concrete wedged near the hinges to hold the door open at an angle as I crawled out. With any luck, the angle and the blowing sand would confuse the rifleman; if not, the metal and wood were at least a thin cover.

  I didn’t know where Lewis was, but the sandstorm was in full roar now, except in the area where I was lying. It was eerily quiet here, the eye of the storm.

  It occurred to me, as another shot rang out and shivered the propped-up door, that the shooter wasn’t out there.

  He was in here with me, inside the black corner. Very close.

  I crawled over to the side and risked a look around the door. If I didn’t have cover, neither did he. I saw a flutter of cloth on the ground, and a glitter of sun on glass. He’d taken a sniper position, probably at the maximum range of the pistol in my hand, and I wasn’t that good a shot. Likewise, the grenades were only as good as I could throw, and I was no professional.

  While I was considering the best course to get my message across to Lewis, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Oh. Right. Magic didn't work in the black corner ... technology evidently did.

  Lewis didn't waste time on pleasantries. “I’m at the edge of the black corner, maybe fifty feet away. I got one of them.”

  “Bully for you. Mine’s the sniper, and he’s staying put.”

  “You okay?”

  That was beside the point right now. “I found Ethan. He’s in a smuggler’s box under the sand. We need to get him out of there.”

  Lewis was so quiet I thought about saying, over, but then his voice came in a rush. “I’m coming in. Get him ready. I’ll pull him out and get him to safety.”

  The tacit understanding was that once that was done, I’d be on my own. I was kind of okay with that.

  Ethan nodded. A second later, Lewis’s pale, tense face appeared above us in the small opening. “Up!” he said, and reached down. I lifted, and Ethan raised his arms. Lewis lifted him straight up and out, and held the boy close to his chest. I saw relief chase fear across his expression.

  “Get him clear!” I said. “Here, take this!” I tossed up the pistol, and then one of the grenades. “I’m blowing the hell out of this place, so get the kid as far away as you can!”

  Lewis and Ethan disappeared from my narrow view, and I could only hope they were taking me seriously. I jumped for the opening above and hauled myself up by main strength belly down on the hot sand. I saw tracks leading toward the only cover available — the far sand dune where I’d left David.

  As I got to my hands and knees, I heard a voice from behind me say, “Don’t move.”

  I froze. Through the sweaty, dusty curtain of my hair, I saw a man dressed desert camouflage crouched nearby, aiming a rifle directly at me. He’d made better time advancing than I’d hoped. “Who else is down there?” he demanded.

  “Nobody.” I slowly came upright, sitting on my knees, careful to keep my hands at my sides. “Who are you?”

  “Who the fuck are you, you crazy bitch? Cops? DEA?”

  “You wish. Look, I'll make you a deal — forget about your drugs and get the hell out of here. We’ll call it even.”

  “Know what?” He took aim. “Think I’ll just kill you instead.”

  “You sure about that?” I turned my left hand over and showed him the grenade. “Already pulled the pin. Shoot me, and we’re both buzzard meat.”

  “You think I’m stupid? You didn’t pull the pin.”

  I smiled, cold and certain. “Can you really tell from there? Then shoot me. Or leave. Your choice. But I'm not alone, and you really don't want to screw with us."

  He wasn’t sure I was bluffing. He couldn’t be, without coming even closer. After a long, frozen second, he took a step back. As he retreated, I edged closer until I was holding the grenade over the door of the smuggler’s box. Even if he was tempted to shoot me, he wouldn’t dare now. He still hoped to get his drugs out of the deal, if nothing else.

  "Keep moving," I called to him. "I won't drop the bomb if you leave quietly."

  I stayed where I was until he was he mounted a dusty camouflage ATV — it was nearly hidden in a new sand dune, thanks to Lewis’s distraction windstorm — and began revving it toward the horizon. Only then did I breathe a sigh of relief and relax my grip around the grenade.

  The pin �
�� still in place — had branded a red ring into the skin of my palm. I pulled the pin, dropped the grenade into the smuggler’s box, and ran to join Lewis and Ethan. We all threw ourselves flat.

  Nothing happened. No explosion.

  The grenade was a dud.

  Lewis slowly got up, holding Ethan close to his side. He stared after the retreating sniper on the ATV, and the expression on his face was somewhere between terrifying and outright insane. “Let’s go,” he said. He looked down at David, still lying silent on the ground. “He’ll be okay once we get him out of the dead space.”

  I nodded and grabbed David’s wrists, and we made our way to the closest edge of the black corner.

  As we stepped across that invisible boundary, it felt like I’d been suffocating, and now I was given sweet, delicious air. I hadn’t realized how much my body craved its connection to the powers, to the earth, to the wind and water and fire. I hadn’t realized how alone I’d been, until I wasn’t.

  As soon as David was pulled across the terminator, he pulled in a deep, retching breath and rolled over on his side. I flopped down beside him, holding his hand, and watched as the wound in his chest knitted itself closed. Not a single drop of blood.

  “You’re all right?” David’s voice was rough, not entirely steady, and his eyes faded from red back to gold-flecked bronze. He got to his knees. I met him there, and our embrace was desperate and hungry. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t even help myself.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “I know you are.” His arms tightened around me. “We need to mark this place, warn the Djinn. They can’t be here.”

  “Yeah, it’s not so healthy for Wardens, either.”

  Lewis was holding the boy in his arms, but Ethan was squirming to get free. Lewis set him down, and Ethan hurried over to me.

  I was watching Lewis, who continued to track the sniper on the ATV as he buzzed toward freedom.

  Boom.

  ATVs have gas tanks. It didn’t make a very big explosion, but it was certainly big enough. I winced and averted my eyes, but Lewis wasn’t done yet. He turned his hand over, and I saw the dull green pineapple shape of the grenade. He pulled the pin like he’d done it for a living, and in one smooth motion, tossed.

  It arced through the air, perfectly placed, and dropped neatly into the open hole of the smuggler’s box.

  "Mine was a dud," I said.

  "This one's not."

  On the count of three, the entire thing exploded in a blast of flame, debris, and airborne cocaine. When the stunning blast died away, there was just a smoking hole in the ground,

  “Pretty good throw,” I said, and met Lewis’s eyes. “The kid likes baseball. I guess that kind of thing runs in the family.”

  Lewis said nothing. His gaze flicked to the boy, and I saw it again — Ethan’s fine walnut-brown hair, his dark brown eyes. The shadow of Lewis’s smile on his lips.

  I let my expression ask the question. Does he know? Lewis shook his head, and I saw the secrets in him, and the torment. I knew why Francis had called him now. I knew why Lewis couldn’t walk away with Ethan still missing, and delegate.

  David certainly knew; he’d probably known it from the beginning, from the history written in the walls and floors of the Falworth-Davis house. Lewis must have been a frequent visitor. I knew him well enough to know he’d want to be part of Ethan’s life.

  “It’s complicated,” Lewis said, answering some question I didn’t know was in my face. “In the beginning I was on the run from the Wardens, for years. I didn’t want to put Ethan at risk. Later — it didn’t seem like the right time.”

  “Time for what?” Ethan asked, and looked at us both in turn.

  David studied the horizon, removing himself from the entire conversation as effectively as if he’d held up a NOT HERE sign.

  “To tell you,” Lewis said, and stopped, as if the words just wouldn’t make it to his lips.

  He needn’t have bothered. “That you’re my dad?” Ethan shrugged. “I know that. I always knew it.”

  Lewis blinked. So did I. Even David raised his head. “You did?” Lewis asked, clearly mystified.

  “Sure. I could feel it. Grandma says I’ve got the gift. Whatever.” Ethan shrugged. “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it or anything.”

  Lewis slowly sank down into a crouch, bringing himself to eye level with the boy. He didn’t say anything. Neither did Ethan.

  After a long moment, he opened his arms, and Ethan flung himself into them. This time, when Lewis picked him up, Ethan didn’t try to struggle free. I clutched David’s hand tightly as I watched the two of them together, father and son, and I was overcome by a feeling I didn’t really understand — longing, regret, pride, anguish.

  David knew. He put his arm around me. “It’s good he has someone,” he said.

  “Lewis, or Ethan?”

  “Both.”

  I couldn’t dispute that.

  It was a long hike back through the desert, but somehow, it seemed like we were all family, together.

  Claimed

  An original Weather Warden short story by Rachel Caine

  I didn't know Djinn could sleep -- not the way humans did. That was a new thought, and a very pleasant one ... after all, most of my encounters with David, from the moment I'd spun off the road and nearly run him down, had been on the order of cars speeding along on parallel routes, only to veer off in the curves.

  But David did sleep. And that meant I could not only make love with David -- which was a rare and fascinating thrill -- but I could do the human thing too, curled against his smoldering warmth, both of us exhausted from a long day of driving as we headed for Las Vegas, and our latest life-threatening crisis.

  We were sleeping off our worries in a kind of nice roadside motel, one of the bigger chains that promised free in-room wireless internet (not that I had a computer with me) and free movies (though not the ones that featured titles like Hot Atlanta Nights, which was disappointing). On the plus side, the motel had little baskets with free skin care and hair products. So when I'd gone to bed, I'd smelled clean and floral and felt almost normal.

  My peaceful dreams suddenly changed to dreams that involved spontaneous human combustion, and as I opened my eyes I realized it wasn't just the bad take-out Chinese we'd had. David's skin had suddenly become unbearably hot -- a ruddy bronze, and it was too hot to touch, as if he'd just rolled out of a blast furnace.

  He jackknifed upright, breathing fast. I sat up too, slowly, staring at him in profile. I could see steam rising off of his cheekbones, out of his metallic auburn hair. I smelled scorching cotton, as somebody had walked off with an iron left sizzling on a pair of sheets. There goes the security deposit, I thought crazily, though I was scared half to death. It's not my fault. That's just how my mind works sometimes.

  "David?" I asked. He turned his head and met my eyes, and for a chilling, weird second, he looked right through me. I had no idea what he saw for that eternity, but whatever it was, it must have been horrible. "David, it's me. Joanne ...?" He still didn't seem to hear me. "David!"

  The spell broke, and his eyes widened, their molten color dying back to a calmer brown. His skin cooled and took on merely human hues, but when I touched him he was still very warm. Fever hot.

  And then he grabbed me and held me, stroking my hair, running his hand down my back. Rocking me, holding me tight against him as if he was deathly afraid that I'd slip away.

  "What?" Not that I minded this, not at all. I relaxed against him, and felt him relax a bit, too. Animal comforts. "What happened?"

  His voice was soft, nearly inaudible. "Nothing."

  Ah, the famous, reflexive denial. He was good at it. "Wow, nothing looks a whole lot scarier than I'd imagined it would. Being, you know, nothing and all."

  He buried his face in the curve of my neck, and I felt his lips press warm against my skin. "It's nothing for you to w
orry about," he finally said. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you. Please, you need rest. Go back to sleep."

  He lowered me to the sheets again, smiling, and except for the faint trace of darkness and fear in those luminous eyes I might have forgotten all about it. He had ways of making me forget, and I didn't think they had anything to do with the supernatural. Well, not that much to do with it. He was just ... yeah.

  But he didn't follow through with the expert seduction I'd expected, if he'd even been considering it. He just settled down, rolled over on his side and stared at me. I stared back. Seemed like the thing to do, and besides, I was wide awake now. Over his shoulder I saw the green glow of the motel room clock. 4:25 in the morning. We had plenty of time to drift off again, and he was right, I did desperately need it ... but somehow, I knew restful sleep was going to elude me. Again.

  "Tell me about your nightmare," I said.

  "I don't dream," he lied.

  "Wow," I said, "then that must have been a totally new experience for you, having a nightmare. Which you did."

  He reached out and traced a warm finger down the cool skin of my shoulder, down my arm. Drawing shivers. "I'm not human, you can't psychoanalyze me."

  "Hey, I'm not making any guarantees of therapy here, and anyway I do better with weather than people. But -- I want to know. And I think you need to talk about it."

  His eyes flickered, and being Djinn, that wasn't descriptive -- they really did flicker, like flames. Complete with orange sparks. His hand spread out on my arm, closed around my wrist. David made me feel small and fragile, two things I was not. Paradoxically, he also made me feel safe, although I could feel the breathtaking strength in him. His fingers lightly stroke the inside of my wrist, where I knew he could feel the quickening of my pulse.

  "You could make me talk," he said. I thought he meant in the usual way, with bribes of hot sweet kisses and skin, but he continued without looking up at me again. "You can make me do anything, if you ask it three times."

  It sounded casual. It wasn't. And it wasn't a joke. He was right -- I could make him talk, not from any threat or physical violence, but from the power I held over him.