djinn wars 02 - taken

by Christine Pope

  I shook my head. “You do think of everything, don’t you?” One of these days Julia would stop impressing me. Maybe.

  A quick smile. “I try. Now get out of here.”

  Evony moved past me, darting over to the desk so she could pick up Odekirk’s device. “We should take this thing with us.”

  “Are you nuts?” I demanded. “Look at what it’s doing to Jace. We can’t have it in the car with us. ”

  “We’ll turn it off,” Evony said.

  “No, you can’t do that,” Julia cut in. “Odekirk has them daisy-chained somehow…if one is shut off, an alarm light goes on in the other two. Once you’re outside Los Alamos, it should be all right, since the cat will be out of the bag anyway, but doing it before then will only send out the alert that much sooner.”

  “It’s all right,” Jace said. “I’ve lived with it close to me for weeks. I can manage a few more minutes. Now that it’s been turned down, it’s bearable.”

  I didn’t like it, but I knew arguing any further would only waste time we didn’t have.

  “We’re running out of time,” Julia said, voice tight.

  “I know.” A pause, then, “I should do this, I think,” Jace said. With a lightning strike of a move, he pulled the gun out of Dan’s holster and hit him across the temple with it. At once he collapsed on the ground, a slow trickle of blood beginning to emerge from his hairline.

  “Very efficient, Jasreel,” Julia remarked. “My turn, I suppose.”

  “I commend you for this,” Jace told her. “And we will not forget what you have done for us.” Before she could even reply, he struck her just the same as he’d done Dan, and she, too, tumbled to the cold cement floor.

  I winced. “You sure they’ll be all right?”

  “I believe so. Dan may have a mild concussion — I was able to calibrate the blow better the second time. But other than a few headaches, they should be fine.”

  There wasn’t much I could do except nod. We certainly couldn’t waste the opportunity Dan and Julia had given us. I knelt and pulled a key ring out of Julia’s jacket pocket, then straightened. “Let’s go.”

  The three of us — all without footwear — padded down the hallway and then up the flight of stairs that led to the main floor of the justice center. Because I’d spent so many hours working in the building, I knew exactly which exit led to the parking lot. I headed there, Jace at my side and Evony only a pace or so behind us. As Julia had promised, the place appeared more or less deserted, and no one stopped us as we ran out the rear door and into the icy brightness of a winter morning.

  At once the chill from the sidewalk rose through my sock-clad feet, but I couldn’t stop to worry about that. Only a few paces to the Suburban, and then I was clicking the remote to unlock it and we were all piling in. No one protested when I got behind the wheel — maybe both Jace and Evony were used to me driving all the time, and so didn’t bother to suggest that one of them should pilot the SUV.

  I gunned the engine and then slid on some black ice as I was pulling out of the parking lot. Damn. I needed to back off. Maneuvering this boat of a Suburban was a lot different from my father’s Cherokee.

  Even though I knew I had to concentrate, I felt my throat tighten at the thought of the Jeep. I would have to leave it behind — I didn’t even know where Margolis’ goons had taken it after I’d left it parked by the side of the road on the way up to the lab — and that was like leaving the last memento of my father behind as well.

  But then Dutchie barked from the area behind the back seat where Julia had put her, and the tears receded. The Cherokee was just a car. A good one, and it had saved me over and over again, but the most important thing was that I had everyone here with me. Jace and Evony and Dutchie, somehow miraculously safe.

  We slowed to a more sedate pace once the justice center was a quarter-mile or so behind us. Yes, everyone knew Julia’s Suburban, and the windows were tinted, so you’d have to get close to see who was actually behind the wheel. Despite that, I didn’t want to go out of my way to attract attention. We still needed to get down the hill and away from Los Alamos.

  In the passenger seat, Jace still looked tense and drained. I couldn’t take my hands off the wheel, but I managed a quick glance over at him.

  “Are you all right?”

  A brief nod. “It is difficult, being this close to one of Dr. Odekirk’s devices. I’ll be fine once we’re entirely away.”

  So would we all. Well…I didn’t know about Evony, but I had to hope that eventually she’d get past the pain of losing Natila. And surely they’d have to give her refuge in Taos, even if the djinn who loved her was now gone.

  We were past the town limits now, moving down Highway 502 as it wound through the mountain pass on its way into Española. Soon we’d be coming up on the checkpoint at the bottom of the hill. I had to pray that they weren’t watching the outbound lanes, or at least not paying much attention to them. After all, anyone mere mortal heading out of the safety of Los Alamos was running the risk of coming up against the bad djinn, the ones who apparently had decided to make a sport of hunting humans.

  But it wasn’t the djinn I was worried about. Evony and I had Jace with us, and the djinn had signed a pact to leave us Chosen alone. We just had to get past that checkpoint.

  I saw it now, approaching fast in the lanes ahead. No yellow Hummer this time, but a couple of dark pickup trucks. As I’d thought, the men standing next to those trucks were looking away from us, out toward Española. I wondered at the futility of such a guard when no one new had approached Los Alamos for weeks, but Captain Margolis loved routine almost as much as he loved his petty cruelties.

  My foot wanted to lift from the gas, but I wouldn’t let it. I’d already decided the best thing to do was blow through the checkpoint at full speed. There was plenty of room on the right to go around those trucks, and I didn’t know if Julia and Dan had already been discovered, whether a warning had already been radioed ahead.

  “Jessica — ” Jace said, and I nodded.

  “I know.”

  They definitely had been warned. Two shotguns were being lifted in our direction as we barreled toward the two trucks.

  “Everyone down!” I cried, and Evony and Jace both ducked, even as one blast, then another, hit the Suburban. The first shot glanced off the roofline, but the second one hit the windshield square on, sending out a flurry of spiderweb cracks surrounding a hole I could’ve put my fist through. If Jace hadn’t gotten out of the way when I warned him, the shell would’ve exploded right in his face.

  But then we were past, although that didn’t keep them from continuing to fire at us. Another shell hit the rear window, and Dutchie yowled.

  I felt as if that shell had struck me. Oh, God, if those bastards had hit her….

  “Evony, check on Dutchie!” I screamed, sock-clad foot jammed on the accelerator as I manhandled the Suburban down the highway. The worst of the damage was on the right side of the windshield, but it was still hard for me to see.

  I wanted to pull over so badly that the compulsion was like a physical ache, but I forced myself to keep driving, to make myself breathe, until I heard Evony say, “She’s okay, Jessica. Some glass from the window exploded on her, and I think it scared her. But she’s okay.”

  The relief flooding through me was so intense that for a moment I worried I was about to pass out. I risked the briefest look possible into the back seat, saw Evony clinging to Dutchie, arms around the dog’s neck while Dutchie whuffled happily into Evony’s chest. Then I felt Jace’s fingers cover mine on top of the steering wheel. His flesh was still cold.

  As Julia had said, the cat was definitely out of the bag now. No point in being cautious anymore. “Evony, please turn that fucking thing off. The switch is somewhere on the bottom.”

  A few seconds passed while she fumbled with the device. Then she said, “Okay.”

  I glanced over at Jace, and he nodded.

  “It’s off,” he said quietl
y. “My powers are back. I can feel them.”

  In that moment, I could tell he looked better. I wanted to stare, but I knew I had to keep my attention on the road. However, even that brief glance had told me that the shadows were disappearing from under his eyes, and color had returned to his cheeks. His voice sounded stronger, too, firm and calm. This was the Jace I’d feared I would never see again.

  “What now?” I asked. “Can we ditch the Suburban? Can you just — I don’t know — blink us back to Taos?”

  An amused smile touched his lips. “If it were just you and me, I would say yes. But to take you and Evony, and the dog, after so many weeks of having the power drained from me…no, I don’t think it’s possible. We’ll have to get there the old-fashioned way.”

  It figured. Distance-wise, Taos really wasn’t so far from where we were now. An hour’s drive on a good day. But the highway was already starting to look snowy, now that we were past the area protected by Odekirk’s devices, and we had a long way to go before we got to the parts of Taos that the djinn deemed worthy of clearing.

  Then I had a thought. “All right, maybe taking all of us is asking a bit much. But up in Taos the djinn were clearing the roads. Can you use your powers to do that? It would make the rest of the drive go much quicker.”

  He nodded at once. “I should have thought of that myself. That is simple enough, since I can have the air do my bidding.”

  And then…the drifted snow that had covered the highway began to blow away, as if an unseen wind had come along to clear our path. It was no natural wind, of course, but one Jace had created for us, not blowing from one direction, but pushing the snow to either side so the center of our lane was as clean and dry as it would be in the heat of summer. I increased my speed, inching up to forty, and then fifty. If there had once been any abandoned vehicles on this stretch of highway, Margolis’ crews must have cleared them away, probably taking the most useful trucks and SUVs back up to Los Alamos.

  There was no pursuit that I could see in the rearview mirrors. Maybe now that they knew the djinn were actively hunting unprotected mortals, the survivors in Los Alamos didn’t dare to come after us, past the safety of the field projected by Odekirk’s little boxes. How much had we weakened that field by taking one of the devices away with us?

  I supposed I would never know. Right then, it didn’t seem to matter too much.

  We were away. We were safe.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “So,” Zahrias said, a frown pulling at his brows, “this is the cause of all our troubles.”

  We stood in the conference room he seemed to be using as his audience chamber. A fire crackled in the hearth, and Lauren had brought us all mulled wine, even though it was only late morning and not really an hour I would have considered appropriate for wine-drinking. Not that I minded; after that escape from Los Alamos, I definitely needed a drink. It just amused me slightly that the djinn didn’t seem to pay much attention to human notions of time and the customs associated with them.

  On the surface, our setting appeared warm and inviting enough, and definitely a welcome relief after the chilly drive we’d just endured, with the frigid air blowing in through the Suburban’s shot-up windows. But I could tell Zahrias was not pleased that we’d brought one of Dr. Odekirk’s boxes with us. Not at all.

  Evony had begged off from this meeting, saying she only wanted to rest, and Zahrias hadn’t protested, had said that of course she must take as much time as she needed. Learning of Natila’s death hadn’t seemed to upset the djinn leader much; he’d only shaken his head and then moved on, saying that we would all have sanctuary here, and that Evony should take the room where she’d stayed during our first time in town.

  Jace and I were given a more luxurious suite than the one I’d had before, and somehow clean clothes were miraculously provided for us. Both of us bone-weary, we changed and freshened up as best we could, and then came to speak with Zahrias. Apparently, he was unwilling to give us anything more than that half hour or so of downtime.

  “I thought we might study the device,” Jace said. “Evony’s idea that we should bring it here was a good one. If we can learn its secrets, then we can also learn how to keep it from being used against us.”

  “Hmm.” Zahrias crossed to the table that held the mulled wine and picked up his glass. His gaze flickered to me for a second. “I will admit, Ms. Monroe, that I did not expect to see you again…especially with Jasreel at your side.”

  Thanks for the vote of confidence, I thought. Actually, though, I really couldn’t blame Zahrias for thinking that way. If someone had asked me to lay odds on my chances of success, I wouldn’t have given myself anything over fifty to one. “We had help,” I told him. “Some very brave people put their lives on the line for us.”

  From the surprised expression that flitted across his swarthy features, I guessed Zahrias hadn’t expected that any mortal who wasn’t Chosen would have lifted a finger to help a djinn. “Is this true, Jasreel?”

  “Yes,” Jace responded. “They follow a man named Margolis, and although most in the town do his bidding, there are some who don’t believe his actions are just, who didn’t think Natila and I should have been hunted down and imprisoned. Two of them — Julia Innes and Dan Lowery — helped us to get away. I might have suffered a fate similar to Natila’s if they hadn’t engineered our escape.”

  For a second or two, Zahrias didn’t respond, only stood there with his hands wrapped around his glass, as if to re-warm the mulled wine it contained. “So it was at this Margolis man’s orders that you were imprisoned in the first place?”

  Jace nodded.

  “And what of the Chosen who were missing?” Zahrias asked then. “Did you have any word of them?”

  “No,” I said, wondering yet again what could have possibly happened to those four men and women. “I couldn’t ask outright, but it was fairly obvious that Margolis’ people hadn’t captured anyone like that, or had anyone matching their descriptions come to Los Alamos at all. It’s as if they vanished into thin air.”

  The djinn leader didn’t like my reply, I could tell; his dark eyes narrowed, and angry orange-red flames flickered into existence around his head before disappearing again. “How can you be sure this Julia woman wasn’t concealing the fact that the missing Chosen were there all along?”

  “Because I would trust Julia with my life,” I said simply. “I already have, really. She had no reason to risk herself to save us, but she did, just because she knew it was the right thing to do. I suppose there’s a very remote chance that Margolis somehow slipped the Chosen in under her nose, but I doubt it. She’s his — well, I suppose she’s like Lauren here. She keeps everything running.”

  “And yet this Margolis doesn’t realize that she’s betraying him?” Zahrias didn’t quite sniff, but it was obvious that he wasn’t too impressed with what he’d heard about the commander of Los Alamos.

  “I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss him,” Jace put in, finally going over and retrieving his own glass of mulled wine so he could take a drink from it. “Yes, so far Julia has been able to fool him, but that is only because she is a formidable person in her own right. But Margolis’ word appears to be law, and he has a sizable group of men who follow him without question. Their numbers are far greater than ours.”

  “Normally, I would say that is of no account, but for these things.” Zahrias shot a disgusted glance at the box before looking back over at me. “While I suppose I can see the logic in wanting to know how they work, I don’t see what you think we can do about it. We are djinn, not scientists or engineers. The things of this world bend to our will, and so we have no need of gadgets in the way that you mortals do.”

  His dismissive tone made my hackles go up. All right, so some of our science hadn’t ended up doing a lot for our planet. But we’d also achieved great things, and I wasn’t about to let it go that easily. “Fine, so the djinn don’t need to know how to change the timing belt on a Subaru. But what a
bout the Chosen here? Isn’t there one of them with any kind of scientific knowledge? Anyone who could at least try to take a look at this device?”

  A shrug, the shining fabric of his robe glinting in the warm reflected firelight. “Perhaps. I will admit that I have not familiarized myself with the particular talents and skills of most of them. That is their partners’ concern, save where they can be useful to the group here — like Lauren, or Aidan and David, who enjoy watching the roads for us. But I will have Lauren make inquiries.”

  That was a start at least, although I could tell that Zahrias didn’t think it particularly important to know how the boxes worked, as long as they weren’t being used directly against anyone in his group here. “Did you know that the other djinn have been hunting the rest of the survivors?” I asked.

  He didn’t reply immediately, but instead looked over at Jace, who nodded and said,

  “Yes, it seems the final purge has begun. You’ve heard nothing of this?”

  “I have not been in communication with them lately, no. But we knew this was inevitable. It’s the entire reason why you have Chosen, is it not?”

  The indifference in his tone chilled me. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever be able to figure out this man…this djinn. He didn’t seem to care at all what happened to the rest of humanity’s survivors, and yet he did appear to be concerned about the Chosen in his community, especially when it came to the four who had disappeared so mysteriously. Was that only because their disappearance affected djinn he knew?

  I had no idea. Again I puzzled at his role of leader here, when he himself was with no one, whether Chosen or djinn. Had he somehow been given this assignment, or had he volunteered for it?

  Jace said, voice tight, “True, this is what was agreed upon. But you know my feelings on this matter…and the feelings of the rest of us here.”

  A pause as Zahrias drank the rest of his mulled wine, then set the glass down on the table. When he turned back toward us, his eyes were hooded, revealing little, but something in the set of his mouth seemed to indicate that this was an argument he had had before, and didn’t want to have again.