Unbroken os-4

by Rachel Caine

  All stories eventually end in tragedy, but that was more tragic than most.

  Luis’s touch on my shoulder drew me back down, and I fell into my body with a snap of sudden sensation as nerves and muscles woke and complained of my absence. “How bad?” he asked quietly.

  “A wildfire in the forest. The city’s already lost, though they’ll fight to the last.” My voice was soft, and a little sad. Some part of me, some Djinn part, craved that experience, the wild and furious power, the lack of responsibility for my own actions. Glorious destruction.

  “What city?” Luis was already digging out his map from the pack he’d somehow managed to carry strapped on his shoulders during our mad run through the forest last night. The map was waterproofed in plastic, which was a lucky thing, as rain was starting to fall now from the gently gray sky in a soft, steady mist. Luis spread it out on a log and looked at me questioningly.

  My knowledge of human geography was sketchy, at best, and I studied the flat lines and names uncertainly.

  Isabel appeared at my shoulder and pointed decisively. “Portland,” she said. When we both glanced her way, she shrugged. “Fire Warden,” she said. “I can feel it.” She frowned a little, at the dot on the page, and her fingertip touching it. “I’ve been sending them power, but I don’t think it’ll be enough. Do you?”

  I silently shook my head.

  “Any Earth Wardens working it? Weather?” Luis asked.

  “Five Earth Wardens,” I said. “And Lewis Orwell is working from a distance. I could see his aura from here.” Lewis was the most powerful Warden alive today, but even he couldn’t stop what was coming. Not by brute force. “He’s managing the evacuation, such as may be possible. But there will be loss of life.”

  It was a still, quiet morning, and it was the beginning of the end of the human world.

  The three of us stood in silence for a moment, considering that, and then Luis cleared his throat and said, “We need a plan, and I got nothing.”

  “I do,” Ibby said. “You won’t like it, but—”

  “Hush,” I said, but I didn’t even know why, in that moment, except that a feeling had crawled over my skin, an instinct as primitive as fear of the dark. Predator, something whispered to me. Danger.

  The forest had gone quiet. Luis started to speak, but I held out my hand to silence him and listened, head down.

  When the attack came, it came with the suddenness and ferocity of a bolt of lightning. There was no gradual gathering of power, no sense of a warning—only a sudden, shocking, overwhelming blast of fury, power, and hatred.

  I had no time to prepare, but something in me, some vestige of Djinn, had gathered up such power as I still had, and flung it outward in defense. It wasn’t much, and it didn’t stop the Djinn that rushed at me, but it did slow her, just enough to allow me to grab Luis and Ibby and drag them down, straight down, into the living earth. I didn’t have enough power left to sustain us, and unlike a Weather Warden, I couldn’t draw air to us once we were buried in the smothering, softened ground.

  But I didn’t need to. Isabel and Luis, after a shocked second of adjustment, both added power to our flight through the ground, and the three of us swam around rocks, through the gnarled traps of tree roots, diving down and then up through the black gritty soil. I hardened the ground behind us as we rolled up into the open air, gasping and coughing, and sealed it behind us.

  It wouldn’t save us for long. The Djinn had senses we couldn’t imagine, and powers we couldn’t match. We needed help, powerful help.

  “Ground yourselves!” I shouted, and grabbed both Luis’s hand and Isabel’s, as the two of them drew power out of the thick taproot of the world’s energy. It should have come as a thick flow, like honey, but instead it was a geyser of power, blasting into Luis, into Isabel, channeling through me into a blinding, crippling burst. A shield burst out around us, a thick pearlescent shell that crackled and sizzled.…

  And on the other side, I saw a form striding out of the mist, heading for us with relentless, steady speed. It was indistinct for a moment, and then took on shape and color. He was tall, lean, and with skin an unsettling indigo color, and silver eyes.

  The Djinn Rashid had not developed an appreciation for human clothing since last I’d seen him, but his nakedness did not seem to me to make him vulnerable, or weak; instead, it made him seem eerily invincible.

  As he was.

  “Rashid!” I called, but even as I did, I knew it was useless. That was the shell of the Djinn I had known, but not the essence of him; his uniqueness had been displaced, overridden by the madness and need of our mutual mother.

  He held out both hands toward us as he continued that steady advance, and an intense white-hot fire poured out of his hands toward us. It met the shell we’d thrown up, and the thin protection hissed, sizzled, went opaque beneath the incredible power of the onslaught. Around us, trees were burning, bursting as their sap boiled within. We’d be dead in seconds once the shield failed.

  Inside the bubble, things were not good either… of the three of us, none had Weather talents, and the temperature and quality of the air trapped within rapidly degraded into a molten, sour mess. It would be a close race to see which would destroy us first: fire, seared lungs, or simple asphyxiation. But fighting Rashid, or any Djinn, was a desperate gamble now; he had infinite resources and few vulnerabilities. Attacking him was our only real option, but we’d be cruelly exposed for a few seconds, and it wouldn’t take him that long to finish us.

  I didn’t count Rashid as a friend, exactly, but he’d been an ally, a strong (if sometimes treacherous) one. If I could reach that part of him, perhaps, just perhaps, there was a chance we might survive this.

  I had to try. Dying inside our own shield had no glory at all.

  I didn’t tell Luis or Isabel what I was doing; there was no time for the inevitable debate. I took in a hot, searing breath, sent out a silent prayer to whatever power watched over wayward, fallen Djinn, and yanked my hands free of theirs to break the circuit.

  The bubble around us shattered, and I put my hands flat on the backs of my lover and his niece and shoved them facedown into the leaf litter of the forest, then sprang up out of my crouch and straight for Rashid. I had no facility with fire, but one of the two Wardens I’d left behind me managed to counter his attack for a split second, just enough to put me close enough to grab him.

  It was a suicidal tactic, but all I had left. I wouldn’t allow him to kill those I loved in front of me, not as long as I had breath in me.

  The silent, peaceful forest was now a vision of hell. I could feel the fury and pain of the Earth vibrating through the ground, pouring out of the burning, mutilated trees. The fire cast a ruddy glow over the mist, turning it bloody even as the heat burned it away, and in the unnatural flames Rashid’s skin looked blue-black, his eyes as hot as molten metal.

  I held his hands apart and out from his body, and fire poured from his fingertips to ignite the fallen leaves piled around us.

  “Rashid!” I shouted, and pulled myself closer to him, body-close, feeling the feverish intensity of the Mother through his skin. “Rashid, stop! You must stop!” I was using physical contact, trying to waken his individuality, his memories, his conscience. I saw a flicker in those unnatural eyes, just a bare second, and I knew he was still there. Trapped, fighting, but there.

  He couldn’t win the battle any more than I could, though. We were still allies, but helpless to reach each other.

  I was going to die. So would Luis and Isabel.

  No. Not that. Not now, now, after all the fight and pain and blood. I would not allow that.

  I pulled power from the Earth beneath me—not the sentient power of the Mother herself, but the silent, pulsing well of her blood, her energy, her life. I could reach it only through my connection to Luis, but he’d locked it fully open now, and although it was direly dangerous I consumed as much as I could pull, fast and painfully dragging it through Luis’s fragile human for
m as he lay on the smoldering leaves.

  I used myself as a lens and blasted it on through Rashid’s body, sweeping away the influence of the Mother, just for a single fierce moment.

  The fire stuttered and stopped its rush from his hands, leaving only floating cinders, and Rashid’s eyes cleared, blinked, and focused directly on mine.

  “I can’t,” he whispered. He sounded shaken, more vulnerable than I’d ever heard a Djinn to be. “I’m sorry, Cassiel. I can’t do it. I’m going to kill you. All of you. And I don’t want that.”

  I sensed a presence behind him, twisted and dark, slithering up in the confusion of burning vegetation. He didn’t; he was focused on me, on the distraction I had inadvertently provided.

  I held his gaze. “I’m sorry, too,” I said, very sadly, and then looked over his shoulder. “Do it now.”

  Esmeralda rose up behind him, a terrifying specter of twisted nature. Her eyes were slits of gold and black, and her fangs had appeared, cruelly sharp and curved, jeweled with venom.

  She struck so rapidly I never saw her move; suddenly her fangs were buried in the hollow of Rashid’s neck, her reptilian eyes burning into mine from the distance of mere inches, and I saw her jaws work, forcing in the venom.

  Rashid screamed and tried to turn, but I held him still. Those silver eyes rolled up, turned pure white, and I felt him grow limp in my grip, dragging me down with him. He collapsed into the burning leaves, and I rolled free.

  Isabel climbed to her feet, extended her hands, and began extinguishing the flames. Fire is a living thing itself, growing and consuming, and like any creature it will fight for its existence; Isabel needed help, but I lingered where I was, looking down at Rashid. He lay silent and limp, eyes open and white.

  There was a rustle in the leaves, and Esmeralda rose up next to me, swaying on her snakelike body. She wiped silvery blood from her pretty mouth, staring down at her victim with an avid hunter’s gleam in her now-human eyes. “He tastes like the Mother,” she said, and licked her lips. “Like life and death and power. I could get used to that.”

  “No,” I said softly. “You couldn’t. Is he dead?” He looked dead, and although I had reconciled myself to the idea that many, many worthy souls would perish today, it hurt like raw open wounds, seeing him so still and… broken.

  Esmeralda shrugged, as if she couldn’t care less. “Don’t know,” she said. “My venom has killed Djinn before, but he’s pretty strong. Probably not. He’ll just be out of the fight for a while.” She slithered off to check Isabel and Luis.

  I crouched down and put my hand on Rashid’s forehead. Djinn didn’t have pulses, not unless they were manifesting a completely human form; Rashid didn’t bother with such minute details. But I could feel a tiny, whispering thread of power still inside him, like an echo. He was there—injured, frail, on the verge of falling into darkness, but there.

  I bent closer, put my lips close to his pointed indigo blue ear, and whispered, “Don’t come after us again, Rashid. I don’t wish to kill you, but I will. You know I’m capable of doing that, even to you.”

  “Cass?” Luis’s voice, from behind me. I sat back on my heels and looked over my shoulder at him. The flickering firelight was almost extinguished now, but the trees were still popping and smoldering, dropping cinders, not flaming leaves. Heavy gray smoke had replaced the earlier mist, and it rolled sullenly around our feet and hazed the air. “Cass, we’ve got to get the hell out of here. If there’s one Djinn, she’ll send others.”

  “Maybe not,” Isabel said in a distracted tone as she focused on controlling the last still-burning tree that ringed us. “The battle with the Wardens outside of Portland is really fierce. I don’t know if she’ll care enough about us.”

  “Better we don’t find that out, Iz. Let’s get these out and move.” Now, Luis linked hands with her, and together they snuffed out the flames.

  Isabel looked at him oddly. “Iz?” she said. “You’ve never called me that before.”

  He stomped out a few remaining embers that were trying to take root in the half-burnt leaves. “I called you Ibby,” he said. “But Ibby’s gone. You’re different. So now you’re Iz.”

  She’d aged her body overnight, and matured in many ways over the past few months, but that was still the hurt of a child on her face, swiftly hidden. “Iz,” she repeated, and forced a smile. “Okay, Tío. Iz it is.”

  “Iz it is,” Esmeralda repeated, and laughed. She held out her hand, and Isabel slapped it. “Awesome. I like it better. Ibby was a baby’s name. Now you’re fierce.”

  She was. There was something sharp and angry in Isabel now, something forged out of hardship and pain. I didn’t like it, but I was practical enough to know that we needed it now. All of us needed to be sharp, angry, and strong.

  This world was no longer any place for a child.

  I cast a last look at Rashid, lying almost-dead in the leaves, and nodded to Luis. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 2

  OUR REAL ENEMY was not Mother Earth, but she was a formidable obstacle to overcome in finding our true fight; she was awake, though not fully aware. In the entire history of the Djinn, I could remember only a handful of times she had stirred in her long, ancient sleep, and those had been catastrophic events that had obliterated entire species, simply wiped them from the geologic record.

  I’d never seen her so close to actual living thought. If she came fully to life, was able to direct the Djinn as a real army instead of an instinctive team of antibodies fighting infection, the battle would be short, devastating, and there wouldn’t be even bones to mark the end of the human race, which seemed to be where she had focused her rage. Animals, plants, insects—those were collateral damage, as they so often were. But humans… Humans were the target. Their homes would be gone, their illusions of safety shattered. There was nowhere to hide when nature herself hunted you.

  By contrast, the enemy we sought—my former sister, Pearl—had wrapped herself in layers of protection, hiding herself so thoroughly that it would be hard indeed to dig her out now. She hoped that most of humanity died; it would be easier for her to rule in the aftermath, I suspected.

  “We need to join the Wardens,” Luis said when we stopped for water and to consume a piece of energy bar that he’d split among us (except for Esmeralda, who smiled and told us she’d eaten her fill before; I think none of us wanted to know exactly what she’d consumed). “They’re getting hammered out there. They need every possible pair of hands.”

  I wanted to argue that we should continue against Pearl, but my heart wasn’t in it. There was no point in winning that fight, should the Wardens lose their own; one way or another, humanity would perish. “All right,” I said. “For now we will join them. Where is the need greatest?”

  “Hang on,” Esmeralda said. “I didn’t slither my ass all the way up from New Mexico to come fight on the side of the fucking Wardens. I thought we were going after the bitch who did things to Iz and the other kids.”

  “We will,” I said. “But this is more pressing. You know what’s at stake. Is your grudge more important?”

  Esmeralda tossed her hair back over her shoulders, crossed her arms, and swayed on the thick, muscular column of her snake’s body. “Pretty much, yeah,” she said. “I don’t forgive, and I don’t forget. I thought you knew that, freak.”

  I smiled. It felt sinister on my lips. “Freak,” I repeated. “Interesting, coming from you.”

  “Hey!” Isabel said sharply, and put herself between us. “Es, I need you with me, and if Cassiel and Luis say we need to help the Wardens, then that’s what we should do. Are you with me?”

  Esmeralda didn’t look away from me and my smile. “Sure,” she said. “But I’m not with them. I’m never with them, and they don’t get to give me any fucking orders.”

  “We’ll see,” I whispered. Her dark pupils began to contract into reptilian slits.

  “Enough!” Isabel shouted, and pointed at me. “Cassiel, stop it. You, too,
Es. This is the last thing we need!”

  She was right in that, although I thought it wouldn’t be long before Esmeralda and I chose to finish our dance. I nodded and stepped back. The mutant girl nodded, too, and showed just a little of her snaky fangs as she grinned, like a swordsman baring the first inch of blade.

  Luis was staring at me with worried focus. “We going to have a problem?” he asked. “Because Iz is right—we don’t need it right now. And she saved our lives. Rashid was going to roast us like marshmallows.”

  “I know,” I said. “And I also know that she can’t be trusted. Not completely.” I didn’t bother to keep my voice down.

  “And you can?” Esmeralda took a swig from a water bottle and passed it on to Isabel, who drank as well. “Because I heard you were all about Djinn first, humans second.”

  “I used to be,” I said. “Not so long ago. Yes. But I’ve changed.”

  I hoped I had, at any rate. At this moment, with my instincts and hackles raised against Esmeralda’s perceived threat, I wasn’t so certain… until Luis took my hand, and I glanced at him. The concern in his dark eyes warmed me and made the darkness slip away in shame. Yes, I’d changed. We’d all changed.

  Even Esmeralda, because before she’d become friends with Isabel, she’d never have bothered to act to save a life except her own. Not that Esmeralda would ever acknowledge it.

  Around us, the forest was coming alive again—birds calling, the soft whisper of animals moving through the underbrush. The oppressive sense of danger had passed, and below us the trees stretched down into a soft winter-brown valley still streaked with mist even now that the sun was high. It was chilly, but not cold, and the clear blue sky promised no chance of snow, which was good news for our progress.