To my surprise, I did recognize the two people sitting at Lauren’s table. They were the guys from the roadblock out on the highway, now wearing sweaters instead of the heavy parkas they’d had on while performing guard duty. Their plates were mostly empty already, so it looked as if Evony and I had gotten here later than I’d thought.
“Hey,” said the blond one. “Glad to see you again. I’m Aidan.”
“Hi,” I said, while Evony murmured a half-hearted greeting.
“And I’m David,” the dark-haired young man put in. “Have a seat.”
Evony and I sat down, and Aidan picked up one of the bottles of wine at the center of the table and asked, “Red okay?”
“God, yes,” Evony replied, eagerly holding out her glass.
I picked up my glass as well, and he stood and poured for us. Lauren resumed her seat on the other side of David’s chair, then took her own glass, which was a little less than half full.
“So,” Evony said, glancing around the room. “No djinn?”
Lauren and David exchanged a quick glance. “No,” Lauren responded. “This is our party. That is, I think some of them may drop by, just to see how things are going, but they wanted this to be for us.”
“It looks great,” I said, even though I was a little disappointed. I wanted to see how the djinn interacted with their Chosen, what their relationships appeared to be like. Since I was still planning to leave for Los Alamos the next day, weather permitting, I knew I might not get a lot of chances to observe these people with their otherworldly partners.
But, despite my disappointment, the place really did look beautiful. Someone had set a large fir tree in one corner, and, judging by the cohesive look of the ornaments hanging from it, they had to have raided the resort’s holiday decorations to trim the tree. Evergreen garlands swagged the staircase off to one side of the room, and everyone was nicely dressed. Well, why wouldn’t they be? They had all the shops and boutiques in town to choose from when it came to putting together their holiday wardrobes.
“Well, I’m going to load up my plate,” Evony announced. “You ready to eat?”
“I was ready hours ago,” I said, and my table companions smiled. After getting up from my seat, I followed Evony to the buffet line and, as she’d so eloquently described it, began to load up. Turkey and ham and wild rice stuffing and potatoes and…well, basically the sort of meal I hadn’t thought I’d ever eat again. With a small pang, I thought of the venison I’d left defrosting in the refrigerator back at the house in Santa Fe. I’d planned to make venison cutlets for Christmas Day dinner, but my discovery of Jace’s true identity and his subsequent kidnapping by the Los Alamos survivors had driven those plans right out of my head.
What were they feeding him? Probably not turkey and mashed potatoes.
I bit my lip and forced myself to concentrate on filling up the last section on my plate with what looked like homemade cranberry sauce. Where they’d gotten the cranberries, I had no idea, but I supposed they must have scrounged frozen ones from the supermarket. Anyway, I told myself that bursting into tears in front of everyone certainly wouldn’t solve anything, and besides, getting a good meal in me could only help restore my energy levels for the next day.
A final pause to pick up a dinner roll, and then I navigated between the tables back to where Aidan and Lauren and David were sitting. Their plates still held traces of dinner, so clearly they’d already eaten and were more or less hanging out at this point. I had to hope they wouldn’t mind Evony and me eating in front of them.
She sat down a minute after I got back, her plate looking even more packed with food than mine. Clearly, worry over what might be happening to Natila was not affecting Evony’s appetite.
It did feel a little strange to eat when the other three Chosen were just sitting there and drinking wine, chatting about the weather and the possibility of some skiing, but not discussing anything that I really wanted to hear. I wanted to know who their djinn were, how they had met them. How they had come here.
But maybe that was all old news to them. I had no idea how long Lauren or Aidan or David had been here in Taos. For all I knew, they’d gathered in the small tourist town not all that long after the Heat had done its dirty work, and therefore had known one another for months. From the easy way they conversed, joking and laughing, that seemed entirely possible.
They let Evony and me eat, for which I was grateful, because that way I didn’t have to attempt to make conversation. Eventually, though, I’d cleared off enough of the food on my plate that Aidan apparently thought it was safe to ask,
“So, you really came here by the High Road?”
I had no idea how he knew that. My intuition told me that Zahrias had been the one to give the Cherokee the push that got us out of the snowbank, and so I supposed it was possible that the story had originated with him and made the rounds from there. I didn’t know how much interaction he had with the Chosen, if any, but he could have always said something to one of the other djinn.
“Yes,” I replied.
“That must have been some driving,” David added, popping the last bit of the roll from his plate into his mouth.
Uncomfortable at being the center of all their attention, I could only shrug. “It wasn’t so bad. I just drove as slowly as I could. It felt like it took forever, but it got us here.”
“Why the High Road, though?” Lauren inquired. Her fingers were resting on the stem of her wine glass, but I noticed that she didn’t appear inclined to pick it up and take a sip. From the easy way she smiled, it looked to me as if she’d already had a few. Maybe she was trying to slow down a bit.
“Jessica was afraid we’d run into those Los Alamos assholes if we took the main highway,” Evony said, reaching out for one of the bottles of wine and refilling her glass.
Again, the three Chosen exchanged a glance that I couldn’t quite decipher. After an uncomfortable pause, Lauren remarked, “Well, I suppose that makes sense.”
I felt like I had to ask. “Have they tried to come up here?”
“To Taos?” David said, then smiled derisively. He had great teeth. I supposed they’d always stay that way, now that he was under his partner’s protection. “I’d like to see them try. They wouldn’t get within ten miles before the djinn blasted their asses off the face of the earth.”
“But could the djinn really do that?” I asked. “I mean, with that device the survivors have — ”
“What device?” Aidan asked, leaning forward and frowning. It was an expression I doubted he wore often; to me he looked almost too sunny and laid-back, the kind of guy whose biggest worry was how good the powder would be on the ski slopes that winter.
So they didn’t know about that scary little box? I shot a questioning look at Evony, and her shoulders lifted. It seemed the djinn weren’t exactly broadcasting the fact that the Immune from Los Alamos weren’t quite as defenseless as the community here in Taos seemed to think.
“Um, the one they were using to interfere with — ”
“And how are you all faring?” a new voice broke in.
I looked up to see a tall dark-haired man — djinn — pause behind Lauren’s chair and lay a hand on her shoulder. She smiled up at him, but it was a very different sort of smile from the ones she’d offered the rest of us. No, this one was softer, warmer, more…bedroom-y, if that was even a word. Like she was thinking about all the things she’d like him to do to her, and she’d like to do to him. I knew that smile well enough, because I’d felt it on my own lips more than once when I was daydreaming about Jace. I knew right away who this newcomer must be, even before Lauren said,
“Jessica, Evony, this is Dani.”
“It’s very nice to meet you,” I said politely, although inwardly I couldn’t help being suspicious. I doubted it was coincidence that had made him show up at our table just as I was about to tell the other Chosen about the way their djinn might not be quite the invincible force they thought they were.
&nb
sp; “Hi,” Evony put in. From the way she didn’t quite smile, I got the impression she realized as well that Dani’s sudden appearance had to have been calculated.
“I am very sorry for both your losses,” he said, his expression turning grave.
“‘Losses’?” I repeated, then shook my head. “Actually, our partners were taken. We certainly didn’t lose them, and we fully intend to get them back. Don’t we, Evony?”
“Yeah,” she said, dark eyes narrowed slightly.
“Ah,” Dani replied, looking somewhat taken aback. “Well, that is a noble ambition. But if you don’t mind me stealing Lauren away?”
She got up from her seat at once, looping her arm through his. I had the feeling her next question was asked purely for form’s sake. “Will you two be all right on your own?”
“Fab,” Evony said, sipping from her wine.
I was about to say we wouldn’t exactly be alone, not if Aidan and David were still with us, when two female djinn approached, both of them dark-haired, voluptuous, and wearing low-cut tunics with full, filmy pants underneath, one outfit in shades of blue, the other warm brown. They offered us polite smiles, but also seemed intent on removing their partners from our presence.
And the two men appeared all too happy to go. They wished us a merry Christmas and then left the restaurant, heading off toward one of the wings of the resort where the rooms were located.
“I think we’ve been dumped,” Evony said. Once again she reached out for the wine bottle, only this time I gave her a sharp look.
“You might want to slow down with that,” I told her, and she scowled.
“Sorry, Mom, didn’t think I had to worry about driving.”
No way was I going to get in an argument with her right here in front of everybody. Not when I could see a few of the Chosen giving us speculative glances, as if trying to figure out how we’d managed to drive away all our dinner companions. I also noticed that no one else attempted to approach us. Maybe they all thought that losing your djinn partner might be catching, like the measles or something.
“Do what you want,” I said, then pushed my plate away. There was still most of a roll and some mashed potatoes remaining on my plate, but I found I’d lost my appetite. “I want to get to bed so I can get an early start tomorrow.”
She set down her wine glass. I could tell from the way her gaze darted toward me and then the windows that she was wondering if such a plan would even work, given the current weather conditions. But all she said was, “So we can get an early start, you mean.”
Relief rushed through me. We hadn’t really gotten the chance to discuss it, but I supposed that somewhere deep down I was worried Evony might want to stay here where it was safe, wouldn’t want to go chasing off to Los Alamos with me. On closer examination, though, that wasn’t really fair to her. She certainly hadn’t given any indication that she was any less devoted to Natila than I was to Jace.
“Right,” I said.
“I’ll be up in a few. They were putting out some kind of pie, and I haven’t had a real dessert in, well…not since, you know?”
I did know. Luckily, I’d never had much of a sweet tooth, except for a fierce craving for chocolate a few days out of the month. It was something I’d been able to keep indulging, since the real estate developer who’d built my Santa Fe refuge had laid in quite a stockpile of dark chocolate in a variety of flavors, including my new favorite, the kind with some chili pepper mixed in.
But pie was no inducement for me to stay at the party, and now that I’d gotten enough to eat, I could feel the weariness really beginning to set in, a dull ache in my shoulders and head. Maybe I’d take a long, hot bath before going to sleep. It was still a little early for bed, after all, and a bath would help to ease some of the knots in my neck.
“Well, enjoy the pie,” I said, and headed off toward the corridor that led to my room…or rather, the room Zahrias had given me to use while I was here.
I couldn’t help wondering if he planned to make an appearance at the party, but I somehow doubted it. He really didn’t seem like the partying type. Truly, I couldn’t imagine him doing much of anything except hanging out in that room of his and drinking wine and looking brooding, but I supposed that wasn’t fair. I didn’t know anything about him, except that he was in charge of this odd little community here in Taos. Had he been one of the djinn who’d conspired to spread the Heat all over the world, or was he one of the thousand conscientious objectors? But no, that didn’t sound right. Lauren had flat out said that Zahrias didn’t have a Chosen.
Because I was so preoccupied, I almost collided with someone who was coming down the hall toward the dining room just as I was leaving it. A pair of strong hands caught me, holding me away.
“I’m so sorry,” I began, then paused as I realized the person whose hands now rested on my arms was a djinn. Like all of them, he was tall, but his hair was more a warm brown than the black that Jace and Zahrias shared.
Piercingly blue eyes seemed to bore into mine. “My fault, I fear,” he said. “I was hurrying.”
“And I wasn’t looking where I was going.” As gently as I could, I shifted so he would be forced to let go of me. A slight hesitation, and then his hands did drop away.
“You must be Jessica.”
I wouldn’t bother to ask how he knew that. Apparently, I was pretty famous in Taos. “Yes,” I said simply.
“Aldair,” he replied.
“Nice to meet you, Aldair,” I said. Something about the way he kept staring at me was, to put it mildly, unnerving, so I added, “I was just going back to my room to rest, but I think there’s still some dessert if you hurry.”
“Ah, that,” he responded. “Yes, I suppose I should check to see what there is.”
I think I smiled. Then I ducked my head in a nod of farewell and hurried past him. Although I wouldn’t allow myself to look back, I still caught a glimpse of the djinn in my peripheral vision. He hadn’t moved toward the dining room, but only stood there, watching me.
A second later, I had to make a left to go down the hallway where my room was located, and Aldair was gone. I let out a quick sigh of relief, my steps speeding up until I was practically running by the time I reached my door.
Even after I was inside, and the lock engaged, I couldn’t help feeling uneasy.
Who was this Aldair? Why had he been staring at me like that…and why did it unnerve me so much?
Chapter Six
It could have been the luxurious bed, or the bath I’d taken before going to sleep. Whatever the reason, I slept much later than I’d intended, and woke up to see light peeking around the curtains in my room. By instinct, I glanced toward the nightstand next to the bed, but there was no clock radio or iPod dock. Strange.
But I had my watch, which I’d kept set according to the clock in the Cherokee, and that told me it was almost nine. Shit. Half the morning gone. True, under normal circumstances, you could make the drive from Taos to Los Alamos in an hour or so, but the weather lately hadn’t exactly been normal. Besides, I realized I probably wouldn’t want to go straight there from here anyway. If the survivors really were watching the highway, I’d want to leave from Santa Fe so they wouldn’t think anything was out of the ordinary, that I was heading out directly from the house.
Since I’d taken that long bath the night before, I got myself together quickly this morning — a fast five minutes in the shower, just to freshen myself up, and then I was out and getting dressed. I laid Evony’s borrowed sweater aside so I could give it back to her, brushed my hair and teeth, and applied some of the tinted lip balm I’d brought with me, then gave Dutchie her food and water. She’d need a walk before we headed back to Santa Fe, but I knew she could hold on a little bit longer.
While I was performing all these tasks, however, I could feel an undercurrent of dissatisfaction running through me. To be fair, I hadn’t had a clear plan when I’d come here, but I supposed I’d thought I would get some kind of assistance, s
ome kind of input. True, Zahrias had been far friendlier than I’d expected. That friendliness hadn’t extended to any sort of an offer of help, though.
Well, what did you think he was going to do? I scolded myself. He may be running the show here, but he’s also a djinn who can be affected by that little device the Immune have, just like anyone else of his kind. He can’t exactly drive you to Los Alamos and blast his way into the place.
All right, that was true enough, but…. I sighed and shoved the last of my meager belongings into my bag.
Just as I was zipping it up, I heard a knock at the door. I glanced at my watch; ten minutes until ten. That had to be Evony coming along to collect me so we could get going. Dutchie thumped her tail in anticipation; obviously, she was thinking the same thing.
But when I opened the door, I saw Lauren standing outside. She glanced past me to the freshly made bed and the bag sitting on top of it, and a little frown creased her forehead. “Were you going to leave without getting breakfast?”
“Well, I ate enough last night to hold me for a while,” I replied with a smile.
This time she didn’t return the smile. Still with that same frown pulling at her brows, she said, “Zahrias wants to speak with you.”
Maybe he’d decided to help me after all. Jace was one of Zahrias’ kind, and it seemed wrong that the leader of the djinn here in Taos wouldn’t offer some kind of assistance with a rescue attempt. “Okay.” Then I tilted my head at Lauren. I just had to know. “What, are you his personal secretary or something?”
The frown disappeared, and she gave a small laugh — a light normal sound, one that reminded me I hadn’t had much to laugh about lately. “No. Zahrias and Dani are brothers, and I volunteered to help out with any sort of administrative work he might need done.” She added, glossy lips quirking a bit, “I was an executive assistant…before. So I guess I don’t have it quite out of my system.”
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