by Rachel Caine
“I amend my earlier statement,” Whitney said.
“Can you fix the tires?”
“Sure,” Whitney said, “if I was there, sugar. I’m not.”
“I can,” David said quietly. “But it’s going to take some power. Are you up to it?”
I nodded, not sure I was, but willing to give it a shot. David closed his eyes and concentrated, and I felt the car lurch again as the tires melded themselves back together and reinflated.
They immediately blew out again. David flinched in surprise. “There’s something working against me,” he said. “Feel it?” I did. It was big, and inimical, and I didn’t like it at all. Whitney stopped the car. “Whitney, keep moving. We can run on rims.” No response. “Whitney?”
The radio stayed dead. The avatar just sat, staring blankly ahead, like a doll whose batteries had run down.
Suddenly, David looked sharply to his right, into the dark, and said, “We have to get out of here. Now.”
“We were doing that,” I said.
Luis Rocha didn’t waste time arguing; he popped open the door. “I’ll push,” he said. “Better than hanging around with a big target around our necks.”
The avatar wasn’t steering, though; he was just sitting, inactive, and David finally dragged him out from the wheel and shoved him into the backseat, then installed me as the driver. Ah, that felt strangely good, even with busted wheels. Rocha and David got behind the car and pushed. I thought it was odd that David didn’t do it himself, and odder still that they were working so hard at it. . . .
And then David stumbled and went to one knee. Rocha let loose of the car bumper and stopped to help him, and I instinctively hit the brakes in alarm.
That was our undoing.
The wheels sank into asphalt that suddenly felt like mud—thick, clinging mud. The front tipped down, and I realized that someone, something was softening the road underneath me. Miring the car in a modern-day tar pit.
“Out!” It was a white shadow at the window—Cassiel—and she didn’t wait for my agreement, just reached through the open window and dragged me unceremoniously through. She was sinking into the road, too, and slung me through the air to the side. She was stuck, but she pulled herself free with a wrenching effort and jumped for the safety of the gravel at the freeway’s shoulder. Luis Rocha, already there, caught her as she landed.
David was off the road, but down, and I scrambled to get to him. He was panting, eyes wide and blind, pupils very large.
“What is it?” I asked, and ran frantic hands over him looking for injuries. “David, what’s wrong? What’s happening?” Because I couldn’t see it in Oversight. I couldn’t see anything. . . .
Anything at all.
It was as if the aetheric had gone completely dark.
The breath went out of me, and I felt utterly, completely alone in a way that I hadn’t since I’d been stripped of my powers. I still had them—I could feel them inside me—but I was blind, in a magical sense. I heard a surprised sound from Cassiel, and a curse from Luis. It wasn’t just me, then. We were all stricken with this supernatural blindness.
And something was very, very wrong with David.
He managed to focus on my face, and said, very faintly, “Kill him.”
I looked over at Luis Rocha, who held up his hands in defense. “Not me, man. I’m not doing it!”
But who did that leave? Not Cassiel, not me . . .
The avatar.
I looked over my shoulder at the car, which was still sinking—it was up to the door level now, embedded in the road’s soft surface. It was as if the road was eating it. Digesting its metal and rubber, plastic and glass. There was a constant crackling sound, and a fizzing, that was faintly sickening, especially considering how much I loved that car.
But the avatar wasn’t inside it anymore.
“It’s the Djinn,” I said to Luis and Cassiel. “Watch out. He’s not channeling Whitney anymore.”
“Who is he channeling? Satan?” Rocha asked. “ ’Cause this doesn’t feel so great, and I can’t see a thing on the aetheric. Cass?”
“No,” she said tersely. “I hear the bird. It may be coming in for us again.”
If she could hear the whisper of feathers in the wind, I couldn’t. But she was right, because a second later I saw the blur of feathers, and the bald eagle dive- bombed Luis. He wasn’t fast enough, and the claws ripped bloody furrows in his upraised right arm. I felt the force of the wind from the eagle’s furious wing beats as it hovered, snapping its hooked beak at his face.
Cassiel was faster. She reached out and grabbed the eagle’s body below the widespread wings, and as the bird shrieked in alarm and battered at her, she summoned up power, and I felt myself sway with weariness.
The bird went quiet. Not dead, just stunned and sleeping. “Hush, child of the sky, I won’t hurt you,” she told it, and I saw a kind of tenderness in her that was . . . unexpected. She’d always struck me as pretty damn pragmatic, but maybe that was only when dealing with humans. She took off her jacket and wrapped the bird securely, with its head sticking out. It made an effective straitjacket. “We need shelter. There were more on the way.”
She’d also said something about bears, and wolves, and mountain lions. I didn’t want to deal with that out in the open, either, especially since the normal Earth Warden defenses weren’t working.
Cassiel’s motorcycle, which had been parked on the side of the road, suddenly tipped over and began sinking into the black tar. She let out a curse that I was pretty sure she’d learned from Rocha and ran to muscle it away from the asphalt and onto the sand—not that that was going to help, I wanted to tell her. There was no safe ground, not really.
But I’d feel better with a roof over our heads and something like walls giving us some defensive shelter.
“Right, the hotel,” I said. “David, can you get up?”
He nodded, but his face had gone pale under its metallic luster, and I didn’t know how much he could do on his own. Rocha and I each took a side and helped David stumble across the long parking lot, heading for the doors. They were blocked off with DO NOT ENTER yellow tape and plywood across what had once been a glass entry. I burned the padlock into slag and unlocked the hasp, left David leaning on Rocha, and stepped inside the ruined casino and hotel with the battery-powered lantern upraised.
The light couldn’t reach far, but it looked like a typical Vegas sort of lobby—ornate carpet (stained by black smoke and loads of footprints), marble counters that still looked intact, some kind of fancy ceiling overhead but probably not as nice as one of the name-brand casinos, like the Bellagio or the Venetian. This was where your grandmother’s bingo club, not the high rollers, stayed when they went to Vegas. Whatever guest rooms still remained were probably no better than an anonymous chain hotel on the cheap.
The fire had consumed most of the casino, it looked like; the damage got worse, and the smell of burnt wood and plastic was chokingly strong, still, even though there was no hint of embers around. This place was a total loss. I imagined they were waiting on insurance before demolition, but in the current dire circumstances every insurance company in the world was probably out of business already, no matter how well funded. This place had just seen the Reaper early, that was all.
But it was still standing, and it would do.
“Right,” I said. “Looks like this part of the building is the least damaged. Follow me.”
It was horror-movie spooky as we moved in our own little island of light through the silent, dark, cavernous lobby. Carpeting squished in places under my feet—still not completely dried from the hundreds of gallons of water that had been dumped in here to finish off the fire, I presumed. The smell of mold overtook the stench of smoke as we went farther in, and I saw black swathes of the stuff on baseboards and in corners. Yeah, this place was finished, even in less apocalyptic circumstances. In Las Vegas it was always considered easier to demo and rebuild than renovate.
At the
far end of the lobby was a long marble concierge’s desk, and behind it was an almost undamaged door that said STAFF ONLY. I felt like breaking rules. I opened it a couple of inches and peered inside, and saw a big lounge area with nice chairs and sofas, a big- screen TV (dead, of course), and coffeemakers with glass carafes full of molding brew. Snack machines, phones, even an internet portal in the corner. And beyond that . . . showers and lockers.
It looked perfect, and I led them all inside.
“Oh,” I sighed. I couldn’t help it; the sight of those gleaming bathroom fixtures was just about more than I could take. I forced myself to check for security. It being a casino hotel, there weren’t any large windows, only slits up near the ceiling too narrow to crawl through. There was an emergency exit at the back, but it was secure. I summoned up more power in the form of fire and used it to hard-seal the metal door to its frame. If I had to undo it, it might slow us by critical seconds, but better to be safe. I didn’t like having easy access at our backs.
“Clear,” I said, and came back with the light. Cassiel and Rocha were easing David down into a chair. “I think the coffee’s past its sell-by date, but there’s shelf-stable food, water, and sodas. And showers.” I put the lantern on a coffee table and knelt down next to David to take his hand. “Talk to me. What’s happening?”
“Darkness,” he said. “Can’t see anything. Feel—drained. Like there’s something trying to pull my power away from me.”
That wasn’t good news, not at all. And the fact that Whitney had so precipitously deserted us wasn’t good, either.
“He’s right,” said a new voice from behind me. I whirled around, ready to blast something with a fireball, but then I held up as the speaker walked into the light. Rahel, back to her old golden- eyed self, but subdued. She seemed as uncertain as David. “I was following on the aetheric. I hit—something. A block. I had to take physical form to get this far. I don’t think I can reach much of my power. It’s like—”
“Like a black corner,” David said. “But only at half strength. It feels artificial. Imposed.”
Rahel walked over to a candy machine, smashed a hand through the glass, pulled the whole thing out in a spray of fragments, and contemplated the selection. She chose a Three Musketeers bar, which I found weirdly amusing, and I watched as she peeled it and bit. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Rahel eat before.
She chewed for a few seconds before swallowing and saying, “It’s coming from the avatar. You know this?”
“David told me,” I said. “But I don’t know how to find him. Do you?”
“No need to find him. He’ll come to you, soon enough.” She nibbled her chocolate bar and selected other things from the machine—M&M candies, a Twix bar, some kind of cookies. She tossed those to each of us. Weirdly, I’d been craving M&M’s, and the smack of that yellow packet in my hand felt like manna from heaven. I ripped it open, popped two peanut candies in my mouth, and chewed. The rush of sweet/salty grounded me a little more, made me feel just a touch better.
“So we wait?”
“Yes,” Rahel said. “I’ll keep watch. Perhaps you should shower.” She emphasized that with a sniff and a pained expression. “If I’m trapped here with you, sistah, you can at least not reek of blood and sweat.”
I almost, almost smiled, but I didn’t think I had that particular expression in me at the moment. Rahel didn’t wait for a response. She walked past us to lean against the doorway to the lobby, peering out with infinite patience as she nibbled down the candy bar.
I looked at David. “You going to be all right for a few minutes?”
He nodded. “Be careful.”
“Trust me, nothing is going to stand between me and that shower right now. I’d shoot Gandhi and Mother Teresa both to get to it. That’s literal. Because I have a gun.”
I kissed him and felt him respond, just a little. He wasn’t that bad off. “Be careful,” he said again.
I stood up. Luis and Cassiel were huddled together, talking in low voices, but they looked up when I cleared my throat. “Shower,” I said. “See ya.”
Selfish, I know, but at least Rahel had reinforced my obsession with getting clean. I ducked into the staff shower area. Lockers were mostly empty, although a few employees had left behind bath products and—in some cases—magazines of questionable taste. I grabbed a selection of shampoos and conditioners, and a still-clean towel, and I dumped my filthy clothes into the sink to soak with some liquid soap on board. Even the rough wash I’d given my shirt back at the nuclear plant hadn’t held up well.
The water was on, but—no surprise—cold. I yelped in surprise when the icy drops hit me, but the sensation of water around me was so breathtakingly good that I ignored the temporary discomfort. I used a little candle flame of power to heat the water locally, and that was even better. It took three shampoos of my hair to get all the dried blood and grit out of it, but by the time I’d finished I felt, once again, clean and whole. I shut off the water, dried myself, and went back to where I’d left my clothes in the sink.
They weren’t there. The sink was empty and dry.
I wasn’t alone in here.
“You should burn those,” said a voice from the shadows, outside of the reach of the thin light trickling in the door from the other room. “They really don’t suit you.”
Ashan. I pulled in a breath to yell, but my vocal cords seemed to be paralyzed. I couldn’t even get out a squeak. I saw him now, materializing out of the shadows, perfectly manicured, with that faintly contemptuous expression that never seemed to leave his face. He looked like every terrible boss I’d ever had, and every bad boyfriend, too.
Except for the white eyes. Those weren’t like anybody I’d ever known at all.
“It’s over,” he said. “And you owe me pain, Joanne Baldwin.”
I needed to scream. I needed to move, but my whole body seemed to be frozen now, and all I could do was watch as he paced forward, confident and steady as a panther.
He was in no hurry, and it seemed to take forever before he was standing in front of me. I realized that there was someone else in the shadows—the avatar, left abandoned like a defective toy. His eyes, too, had gone white.
Ashan closed his hand around my arm, and my towel disappeared in a flash of heat around me. For a second I thought he wanted me naked—and that was particularly sickening—but no, he just wanted me clothed. I’ll say this for Ashan: the bastard is cold and brutal, but he does understand fashion. The clothes that settled on my skin were tailored, understated, and more or less what I would have picked, if I’d been able.
“Don’t thank me,” he said, as if he’d read my mind. “I just don’t want you to imagine I have any use at all for your flesh. Humanity serves no purpose to me except as . . . fertilizer.” He smiled, a thin razor-cut of his lips. “There’ll be a rich growing season for years to come, in the silence that follows this day. And we have you to thank for it. You and my imposter brother.”
I wasn’t sure which I hated more—the sad, resigned distance of my daughter about the loss of the human race, or the lip-smacking delight of Ashan. No, I was sure; Ashan, for the win.
I’m going to kill you, I thought, and I hoped he really could read minds after all. I’m going to smash you until there aren’t two aetheric particles sticking together with your name on them. I’m going to stop you.
It was about as effective as a rabbit’s scream in the jaws of a wolf, but I was going to have attitude to the end. What else did I have?
I had power.
His blackout of the aetheric had distracted me, and so had his special guest appearance in my shower, but I could still pull power. I had to pull power, even though the whole area seemed resistant to it.
I filled myself with Earth power, and reached out for the metal pole behind him. With one swift pull, I yanked it out of the tiled floor, bent it, and slammed it into his back. There was no pointy end. I wanted it to hurt.
He jerked and looked down at the hol
low metal pole—about three inches in diameter—sticking out of his chest. A human would have bled, but Ashan never bothered with genuine human flesh and blood, so it was really more of a shell—a particularly convincing plastic doll. It probably hadn’t hurt him, but it had really fucked up the line of his expensively tailored suit, which did my heart good.
I pulled the pole out of him before he could get a grip on it, remove it, and beat me dead with it.
It obviously hadn’t hurt him much, but that was okay, because the pole was a distraction, and I hit him with my second attack, which was a vicious piledriver of wind that focused on that hole I’d made in Ashan, from front to back. The wind forced itself into him, and I increased the pressure to insane levels. Ashan’s white eyes widened. I suddenly found myself back in possession of my voice.
“Bye now,” I said, and with a brutal burst of Weather powers, I blew him to pieces. His scream was short-lived, but very satisfying, and then he was a misty after-image on the air, and I blew that back to hell where it belonged.
I hadn’t killed him, but I’d definitely hurt him that time. The fact that he didn’t re-form and come after me was proof of that.
David hit the door at a run and skidded to a halt, staring at me.
“One second,” I said. “I have something to do.”
I walked out to the other room and began yanking open cabinets until I found a bottle of some kind of coffee flavoring. I dumped its contents out and walked back to the shower area. By then, David had oriented on the remaining threat: the avatar, who was still standing frozen in the shadows.
“Sorry,” I said to him, “but we can’t let you run around loose. You’re too much of a wild card.” I held out the open bottle. “Be thou bound to my service. Be thou bound to my service. Be thou bound to my service.”
Nothing happened. I frowned at him, then at the bottle. Yep, it was empty, and open. I shook it, which was a stupid thing to do, but to no effect. I tried again, reciting the words thrice.
