Thin Air

by Rachel Caine

Page 31

  "You didn't make a mistake," I said. I couldn't see Lewis or David. I couldn't see anybody, since my hair had fallen across my eyes. I was blind and helpless, and I could feel something closing in around me on the aetheric, something like a smothering coating of plastic, sealing me off from access to the powers that I was about to be driven to use. "No! Wait, listen to me! You didn't make a mistake, Lewis; it's me! She's lying to you; don't you understand? She's. . . "

  The wind blew my hair away from my eyes, and I saw her. The other me. She'd left the SUV, and she was standing next to David like she belonged there.

  It was a good thing I'd had a lot of recent experience seeing myself from the outside, because it allowed me to get over the shock fast. Yeah, that was me, down to the last well-dressed detail. David, or someone who'd cared, had gotten her a nice flare-legged pantsuit with a fitted jacket, something that hugged her body and made her look tall, lean, elegant, and businesslike. In short, she looked like she belonged. Like she was more than capable of handling whatever needed to be handled.

  Me, I was a cheap fax copy, grubby and soiled with road dirt and smoke. And I'd lost a shoe.

  "I can't believe you got her," she said. "She must be planning something. She shouldn't be this easy to catch. "

  David took her hand. The Demon exchanged a look with him and smiled. It was my smile, dammit. And my love in her eyes. She'd taken it. She was using me just as much as she was using him.

  "We got lucky," David said. "We're even luckier that Venna decided to cut her losses. Although why she'd be helping a Demon. . . "

  "She wasn't!" I yelled. They ignored me.

  "I want you out of here," David said to the other me. "I'm not taking any chances. Not again. " I hated the way he leaned into her space, the way his lips brushed the shining curtain of her hair. The way his hands curled around hers, so gently and protectively. "Take the truck back to the lodge and wait there. "

  "David, she's a liar!" I said. "So, Fake Joanne, what's next? You can't control David, can you? He's too powerful. So maybe you find a way to hurt him so badly one of the other Djinn has to take over, one you can subvert. Got to be a weak one in the bunch, right?"

  She watched me with steady, familiar eyes. She looked completely real. Completely me. "I'd never hurt David. The fact you think I would just proves who you are. "

  "You'd never hurt David unless you know you could get away with it. " I panted. "Look, what do you really want? My life? Well, you can't have it, so just hand over the clothes and stop using my face and move on. " Toward the end I sounded-and felt-savage. Like I could rip her head off with my bare hands for what she was doing to me. All I wanted to do was live, and she'd taken that away.

  She stared at me for a few more seconds, and there was something like pity in her face. There but for the grace of God. . . I knew what she was thinking. It made my stomach hurt with the intensity of my fury. "Say something," I said.

  "Why?" she asked. "What's to say? You tried to steal my life away, and you've failed. Game over. "

  I turned to David, willing him to believe me. "David, if you kill me, she wins. The Demon wins. "

  She laughed. "Nice. I was waiting when she'd pull the old 'You're the bad twin' on us. Come on. Who do you think's going to believe you this time? I've got my memories back. You're nothing but a cheap copy. "

  That was an echo of what I'd been thinking. I blinked, startled. Either she could read my thoughts-icky, but possible-or her mind simply worked the same way. If she'd taken on my memories, my experiences that completely, if she could fool David and Lewis, then maybe she really had become me, as much as a Demon could.

  That made my job a hell of a lot harder, because she wasn't faking. As Venna had warned, she really was me, in all the ways that would count.

  I looked desperately at Lewis, at David. "Guys. What if you've got the evil twin standing right there? What if I'm the one she stole everything away from? Kill me, and you'll never be able to fix that; it'll be too late-"

  Evil Twin snorted, exchanged a wry look with David, and walked away, arms folded. Heading calmly back for the SUV.

  "Wait!" I yelled. "David, you know me! You have to know that's not me!"

  That earned me nothing. Evil Twin opened the passenger-side door of the truck and climbed in, then slammed the door. Lewis and David exchanged another one of those unreadable looks. God, I'd never realized how scary it was from this end, faced with these extremely competent people. How desperate it was to be on the losing side.

  She's going to pull it off. She's going to have David, live my life, and be happy until she pulls off whatever evil plan she's concocted, and there's not a goddamn thing I can do about it.

  I hated losing.

  Wind whipped across me, blinding me with grit and a mouthful of black smoke from the still-smoldering wreck of my car. "Then just get it over with," I choked. "If you've got the guts, just do it. "

  The SUV's engine started up, and it drove away, slowly winding around the trees. Taking my future with it.

  "We're not going to kill you," Lewis said with an eerie amount of calm. "We couldn't, could we? If you're a Demon, you'd just assume another form. The only way to destroy a Demon without sacrificing a Djinn is with another Demon. "

  "Guess you don't have one of those handy," I said, and closed my eyes in exhausted relief.

  When I opened them, David, expressionless, was taking a sealed bottle out of his coat. There was red wax around the stopper, and an ancient-looking seal dangling from a complicated knot of ribbons.

  The knee in my back dug in harder when I tried to raise up, driving me flat and helpless. I struggled to reach for power, but whatever they'd done to me up on the aetheric was holding fast. I couldn't move the weather, or fire, and when I tried to grab for the slow throb of energy in the earth, something slapped me back with stunning force.

  Lewis. I'd recognized the handprint of the slap.

  "No," I said quietly. "You can't. David, you can't. I'm not a Demon! David, no!"

  He walked toward me, put a hand in between my shoulder blades, and nodded to Lewis to let go. The relief of the pressure coming off my back didn't last, because David's hand might not have been as heavy, but it was just as effective in restraining me.

  "This bottle contains a Djinn," he said. "A Djinn infected with a Demon. Under normal circumstances the Demon wouldn't migrate back to a human, but you're different. Demons will destroy each other by preference. If there's any good news, it's that by destroying you, we're going to save a Djinn's life. "

  "David, no! I'm not a Demon!"

  It was no good. He was going to do it. I could see it in his eyes, in the fierce, focused determination on his face. "Please," I said. I dropped all my defenses, and let him see me as vulnerable as I really was. "Please don't do this to us. "

  His lips thinned, and he flinched a little. "I wish you didn't look so much like her. "

  "I am her, and if you open that bottle you're going to find that out, because the Demon won't migrate, and then you'll have a much bigger problem! David!" He wasn't listening to me. I heard the crackle of the wax seal breaking. "David, God, stop it! Our daughter isn't dead!"

  It seemed like, for one second, time stopped. Even the wind ceased to blow. Then it all snapped back with a vengeance, as David snarled and grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked it painfully back, staring into my face with terrifying fury.

  "You," he said, "don't talk about my daughter. Ever. "

  It hurt to talk, but I had no choice. "David, if you open that bottle, you're making a huge mistake. Imara's alive. She's become the Earth Oracle. Go check if you don't believe me. " I tried to swallow, but the painful angle at which he was holding my head made it almost impossible. "Go on. I'm not going anywhere. "

  He was about one second from killing me. Or popping the cork on that sealed bottle. I didn't know what that would do, but it wouldn't be good.

 
I got support from an entirely unexpected quarter: Lewis. He said quietly, "It couldn't hurt to check. "

  "Stay out of it," David hissed at him.

  "What if we're wrong? Look, I'm the first one to want to believe in miracles, but Joanne's memories came back too fast; we both said so. What if. . . " Lewis looked at me, then at David. "What if this one's telling the truth? If you're wrong and you open that bottle, we can't make that right without a lot of death and destruction. "

  "She's lying!" David's grip on my hair tightened. I squeaked faintly, sure my neck was on the verge of separating from my shoulders. That would be a real mess.

  "Then go and check. " Lewis sounded awfully calm. Almost offhand about it. "She's not going anywhere. It's a short trip for you to Sedona and back. "

  The pressure on my head relaxed so suddenly it was all I could do to keep my face from bouncing off the road. The push of his hand on my back went away at the same time. I struggled up to my knees, trying to put my shoulders at some angle that didn't hurt like hell, trying to ignore the cutting ache of the zip-ties on my wrists, and looked around. The other Wardens were standing silently around. Nobody was shifting attention, including Lewis.

  David vanished with an audible pop of air.

  I let my head drop. Sweat ran down my cheeks, funneled to the point of my chin, and pattered on the stained fabric of my blue jeans.

  I had no idea what he was going to find, or believe. But at least I had five minutes.

  "If you try anything-" Lewis began.

  "Yeah, yeah, you'll kill me," I finished in a tired mumble. "Save your breath. " What if Imara didn't appear to David? I hadn't even considered that maybe he wouldn't be able to see her, or that she might not want to see him. It had seemed like my only shot, and now that I thought about it, it was thinner than a Hollywood starlet on diuretics. "I am so kicking your ass later, Lewis. "

  He smiled. Cynically. "Always possible," he said. "Shut up before I seal your mouth. "

  He could do it, too. I shut up and concentrated on breathing, and wondering where the hell my Djinn cavalry had ridden off to. Venna had just left me. Cut her losses and skipped. I didn't know if Ashan was dead in the wreck, or if she'd taken him with her; either way, nobody was stepping up for me when I needed it.

  My fingers were tingling. I tried adjusting my wrists, and to my shock I found that the zip-ties were softening. Stretching like rubber bands. I stopped moving after the first second, holding my breath and praying that Lewis-or the other Wardens-hadn't noticed. It didn't look like they had. "How's Marion?" I asked. "I didn't hurt her, did I?"

  "Marion's fine. " Lewis's tone said the subject was not only closed but locked. "Last warning. Shut up. "

  I'd blurted out the question only to keep him from noticing that I was working my hands free, but the Warden behind me, some young brown-haired surfer dude, yelled a warning. "She's getting loose!"

  Narc.

  I abandoned any pretense of trying to keep it low-key, snapped the zip-ties, pushed myself up from the road, and ran for the nearest fallen tree. I dove behind it just as a firebolt zipped toward me, and the wood exploded into splinters and flame. I didn't stop. I crawled, frantic to find some way, any way, to defend myself, but it was a useless effort. Lewis was blocking me on the aetheric. The other Wardens weren't as powerful, but they were competent enough, and when I rolled for the shelter of another pile of brush it went up in flame, driving me back. A gust of wind hit me full in the chest and knocked me back, staggering, and I tripped over a sudden profusion of wildly growing tree roots erupting out of the ground to wrap around my feet.

  It was over that fast.

  The Earth Warden-the young girl of Chinese ancestry, I guessed, who was standing nearest to me-fastened me down with more whipping roots, saw-edged grasses, vines. . . anything that would hold. I wrestled futilely, then relaxed as a vine wrapped three times around my throat and squeezed.

  "Right," I choked out, and shut my eyes. "I'll wait here, then. "

  The minutes ticked by, each one both torturously slow and unbelievably fast. I could almost see the sand running out in the hourglass-or, more appropriately, the blood dripping out of my veins.

  I wondered whether I was going to end up dead at David's hands, or some crazed, Demon-infected Djinn's. Either way, my prospects looked none too shiny.

  I sensed the disturbance of air that accompanied David's arrival, and opened my eyes as he formed, already striding out of the air. He was wearing his coat again, the long olive-drab military coat, and under it his shirt was black, as were his pants. He looked ready for battle, and the look on his face was fierce and focused.

  Shit. I'd thrown my last set of dice, and I'd lost.

  "Well?" Lewis asked. David didn't pause, and he didn't answer. He kept walking, past Lewis, right to me.

  Then he ripped the roots out of the ground that held me down, unwrapped the vine from around my neck, and collapsed to a kneeling position to gather me in his arms and rock me slowly back and forth. His hands stroked my back, up and down, then moved up to cup the back of my head. I felt a burst of heat move through me, sealing cuts, healing strained and herniated muscles, infusing me with a warm glow of safety.

  He felt so incredibly warm, real, and solid against me.