by Rachel Caine
“Then reckon with me. Not her. She took possession only to save my life.” I hesitated a moment, then said, “What happened here, in this place?”
He didn’t have to answer me; a captive Djinn could easily use the rules of his confinement to throw endless obstacles in the ways of humans with whom he had issues. I counted it a fairly good sign that he said, “Djinn. Of course. There is an anima here. They waked it and moved on, and it did the rest. And will continue to do so.”
An anima was the spirit of a place, a kind of tiny splinter of the Mother’s consciousness, though it was difficult to tell how linked it was to her, or whether it was its own creature, like the Djinn. Anima were generally benign, though some darker ones gave rise to legends of hauntings.
This one, though, was mad and angry, left to stalk through a dead town and rip apart anything that intruded on its fury. There would be many of these, I realized now… pockets of seeming calm that would lure in the unsuspecting, only to trigger a boundless rage. The Djinn had set traps, knowing that humans would seek safety in places that looked safe, comfortable, normal.
I couldn’t help a shudder. The anima wasn’t dead here, only hurt and waiting. It wouldn’t wish to fight a Djinn, so Rashid’s presence alone saved us… but the next to stop here wouldn’t be as lucky.
Rashid stared with those unsettling eyes and an expression I couldn’t read, then said, “If you’re done with using me, child, you can put your toys away.”
“Oh,” Isabel said softly. “Oh, uh, I don’t know how—”
“I’m hardly likely to tell you.” For all his menacing talk, Rashid was, I thought, showing remarkable restraint. Djinn were naturally inclined to take every advantage to trick their masters, but he was deliberately refraining.
Isabel looked frankly panicked. This was well outside the narrow bounds of her experience, and her hand was shaking. Any Djinn with half an impulse toward freedom could have startled her enough to drop the bottle, shattering it on the rubble and setting its captive free.
But Rashid did not move.
“Find something to put in the opening,” I told Isabel softly. “A cork would be best. Something that fits tightly.” She looked around frantically, while Rashid crossed his arms, rocked back and forth on his heels, and shook his head. She finally held up a triangular cosmetic sponge to me, and I nodded. “Now tell him to go back in the bottle.”
“Go back in the bottle,” she said in a rush, and then her cheeks turned red. “Please?”
“For the Mother’s sake, school her if you want to keep her alive,” Rashid told me, but he disappeared, and I gave the girl another nod.
“Push the sponge in tightly,” I said. She did, and let out a sudden gust of breath. She held the bottle out to me, and I took it. “Good job, Iz. Never forget, a captive Djinn is not your friend, only your tool, and tools can turn in your hand. Don’t use him unless you have no choice.” I gave her an odd look then, and voiced the question that had suddenly come to my mind. “How did you know about the bottle?”
The hot red blush in her cheeks grew stronger, and she looked down. “I thought I’d better get your bike,” she said. “I was putting it in the truck when all this started. I was kind of—looking around.”
“And how did you know what it was?”
She frowned and stared at the bottle in my hand—an ordinary empty beer bottle, somewhat ridiculously sealed with a flare of cosmetic sponge. “Can’t you see it?”
I saw nothing beyond the obvious. “What do you see?”
“Him,” she said. “It’s like a sun inside there. It burns.”
That was… impossible. I stared from the bottle to her, thoughtfully, and then became aware of a sharp ache in my right side. The first of many complaints from a body that had sustained much abuse; it was the first voice of a mob’s roar, all clamoring for attention. I had many cuts, some deep, and more than a few cracked bones and torn muscles.
And no time for any of it. “My bike is in the van?” I asked. “And where is the van?”
“In the parking lot,” she said. “I’m sorry, Cassie, I was going to go, but—”
“But then you saw what was happening,” I finished for her. “And you decided to stay and help. Iz, you can’t do that. You must follow orders. Do you understand? I told you to take the van and go. You might have gotten yourself killed along with me.”
“I didn’t,” she said. “And you needed me. You did.”
It was difficult to argue the truth of that, especially when I had to use her stabilizing arm to limp my way out of the wreckage of the store.
The contrasts were eerie. The store was a pile of wreckage and shredded human remains, but just beyond it the street lay quiet and calm, only a few scattered bricks to show any disorder. The parking lot where Iz had left the van still sat unmolested, all the cars shrouded now with a faint coating of dust that still hung in the twilight air.
“What was that?” Iz asked me, as we got into the van. I took the driver’s side.
“I don’t know,” I said, and looked out on the still, picturesque little town. “But I don’t think we’ll find anything else we can use here.”
Or, I added silently, any survivors. A few lights burned in the windows, but there was an emptiness to this place that went deep, all the way to the unsettled core of the earth.
We would, I thought as I jump-started the van and got it rolling toward the exit, go around this place. Well and far around. For all its peaceful appearance, there was a curse hanging on this place, and a powerful one. I wondered what Rashid would tell me if I removed him from the bottle and asked what had happened here to madden the anima so horribly.
I wondered whether he would lie to me.
Probably.
Transportation acquired, we chose a different route at a crossroads rather than visiting the silent town of Hemmington; this one led to an even smaller hamlet, but thankfully there were people on the streets and cars passing through. The people were scared and nervous, and the cars seemed to be loaded with possessions, but it was better than our last stop.
Luis, always cautious, gassed the van up and did the grocery shopping himself (as if it had been my fault!).… He returned with much the same choices I would have made, but had thrown in some candy bars and soft drinks. “Comfort food,” he said. “Ain’t like we’re going to have a whole lot of comfort, overall. Here, I also picked up camping gear. We’re going to need it, one way or another. Not likely to be a lot of four-star accommodations in our future.”
He’d also, without pointing it out, added some interesting survival tools to our supplies, including a rifle, ammunition, some wickedly lovely knives, and other things whose purposes weren’t quite as clear to me. Esmeralda understood their purpose, however. “Water disinfection tabs, portable chemical heating pads… You’re getting serious about this survivalist stuff. Good for you. This shit’s going to get real, fast.”
“You didn’t see that town,” Isabel said from where she sat on the dirty floor of the van, knees pulled up to her chest. She wasn’t looking up as we inventoried the contents of the bags that Luis had brought, and I worried about the stillness of her posture. It seemed more traumatized than I had expected—but then, I had dragged a child, only six years old in real years, if not in body, into a place full of danger and very real horror. What had I expected, that she would easily adapt? Simply accept what she’d seen?
I sank down beside her and put my arm around her. “We won’t go back,” I said.
“We should,” Iz whispered. “All those people. They all needed help, and nobody was there for them. Now they’re just… waiting. All alone.”
It was, I realized, the neglect that bothered her; we’d left that town without burying a single body, recognizing a single lost life.
I took her hand in mine and squeezed, just a little. “I know,” I said. “But, Isabel, you know we cannot go back there. We just can’t. It’s too dangerous, and all that we can offer them is a pyre or a grave. Th
ere are people who need our help to stay alive, and that is where we must turn our efforts.”
“We could use him,” she said.
I knew who she was talking about, but it was something I didn’t want to bring up—not here, not in front of Esmeralda, who was tightly coiled in the corner, watching us with her bright, odd eyes. She was, I thought, jealous. Jealous of the two of us, together, sharing this small grace. Perhaps she’d even been jealous of the fact that I’d taken her with me on the trip to Hemmington. I had no way of knowing; she’d never admit it, if so.
But I didn’t trust her, and couldn’t help that fact. Telling her there was a Djinn captive in a bottle was something far too dangerous. The temptation would be irresistible for her—either to torment the Djinn, or to use him for her own benefit. She had a bad history of that kind of behavior, after all.
No, far better I keep Rashid as a secret, for now. I might have need of him—or Isabel might, though I couldn’t trust his forbearance with her for long. He wasn’t a creature of patience.
“Hey,” Luis said, and I glanced up at him. Iz did not. “Let’s talk outside a minute, Cass.” I nodded, hugged Iz once more, and stood to follow him out of the van. He slammed the grimy back door and turned the handle to secure it, then walked away. Not far, but far enough that it was clear he didn’t want to be overheard.
Then he turned on me and said, “You almost got her killed.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I never intended—”
“You may not intend it, but you can’t say you couldn’t anticipate it. I’m not letting her out of my sight again. Or you. No more splitting up, no matter what.”
“You needed time to—”
“To heal? Yeah. And you’re covered in cuts and bruises and from the way you’re leaning, you’ve got a cracked rib going on there, too. So you tell me, how are we protecting each other, exactly? How can we?” He swallowed hard and put his heavy, warm hands on my shoulders. “We have to look out for each other, because we need each other more than ever. So don’t try to protect me by putting me in the rear, okay? And I won’t do it for you. We look after the girls, and we watch each other’s backs.” He paused, and smiled a little. “God, you’re beautiful.”
I laughed out loud, because it was blackly comical—I was dirty, covered in bruises. My hair still had the shredded remains of leaves from the night in the woods. I’d been coated in dust in Hemmington, which at least had served to mask the nightmarish remains of blood and other less identifiable substances from the abattoir of that destroyed market. “No,” I said. “Not now, and perhaps not ever. But I think you are just surprised to see me standing.”
“Hell, girl, I’m surprised either of us is breathing. And you are beautiful. Always.” He kissed me so tenderly that it stilled everything for a moment, all the pain and fear and worry and time ticking away. And then he made me smile by saying, “Okay, I’m not saying you couldn’t get an upgrade with a shower and shampoo, maybe a change of clothes. I would personally love to see you in a towel right now.”
“You’re insane,” I said.
“Yeah, well, some people cope with certain death by getting a little bit horny. Why, are you saying you wouldn’t like that right now?”Oddly enough, even after everything—or, perhaps because of it—the idea had a certain bizarre appeal. I was overwhelmingly aware of time passing, of the situation worsening around us, but the fantasy that somehow this could stop just for an hour, perhaps two—that we could find some beautiful, quiet space for the two of us and live that fantasy out, in private—seemed breathtakingly lovely.
And impossible, of course. But I was starting to realize that today, and every day after, would be a study in the impossible. Each minute we both still lived was an improbable gift.
“If you can find a motel,” I said softly, with my lips close to his ear, “and find a way to keep the girls safe and elsewhere, then I will be happy to show you how I feel about your suggestions. Though I fear now is not the time.”
“I know,” Luis said, and pressed his lips to the sensitive skin beneath my ear, waking shivers. “But I figured the thought might keep us both focused for a while.”
It was certainly having a focusing effect upon me, but just then a sharp, shrill tune came from Luis’s pocket, and he pulled back and fumbled for it with evident surprise. “Thought all the grids were down,” he said as he checked the screen of his phone. “Back up, I guess. For now.”
“Who is it?”
He shook his head and pressed the button to accept the call. “Rocha,” he said. “Who is this?” I couldn’t hear the response, but I could see his face—still and frozen halfway to a frown. “What?”
I mouthed the obvious question again, but he looked away from me, frown slowly deepening. When I started to speak aloud, he held up his hand, palm out, to stop me.
“Yeah, I hear you,” he said. “You can’t be serious. It’s me, Cassiel, my niece—we aren’t exactly the infantry. You want an extraction, you’re going to have to send in reinforcements. Lots of them.”
Another pause. He turned completely away from me and lowered his voice. I picked out words that were disturbing, in or out of context—suicide, dangerous, impossible—but then he ended the conversation as suddenly as he’d started it, and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He stayed turned away from me for a few more seconds, hands fisted, and then slowly faced me.
“So,” he said. “I guess you heard something about that.”
“A suicide mission,” I said calmly. “Impossible. You used the word dangerous, but clearly that was superfluous, given the rest of it.”
He grinned, but it was a small, tightly controlled expression, and above it his eyes remained serious. “They’ve got a small group of Wardens trapped, and they need an Earth Warden to go get them. They’re Fire and Weather, can’t do it on their own. So I guess we’re drafted.”
“Where are they?”
He pointed down. “They’re trapped in a collapsed mine shaft,” he said. “And it’s deep. But since there are six of them, and we’re losing manpower all the time, I guess HQ doesn’t feel like writing them off quite yet. They want our—and I’m quoting here—best efforts at rescue.”
I raised my eyebrows. “How far down?”
“Honestly? Nobody’s sure. You know those miners in Chile they rescued a couple of years ago? Not quite that far, but farther than any sane person should have ended up. I’m guessing a Djinn shoved them in there and slammed the door.”
“And could still be guarding it,” I said. “Perhaps.”
“Yeah, maybe so. Which is why I don’t want Iz and Esmeralda along for the ride on this one. We take them all the way to Seattle, get them settled and safe, and then we go on to the rescue.”
“We just agreed we wouldn’t split up.”
“You want to drag two kids down hundreds of feet into gas-filled tunnels where any little spark could blow us all up? I’m pretty sure Esmeralda wouldn’t go anyway, which would split us up to begin with. And I don’t want Iz down there. Call me crazy, but I think we’ve done enough to her for one day.” By we he meant, of course, me. I’d done enough to her for the day. And he was entirely right. “We’re going to need help, especially if there’s a Djinn involved.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Will you trust me in this?”
“Don’t I always?” he asked. “What am I trusting you about, specifically?”
“I’d rather not say right now.”
His head tilted a little to the side as he regarded me, and although the trust I’d requested was there, so was a healthy dose of doubt. I didn’t blame him. I’d have felt the same, really. “But you’re going to say before we’re half a mile underground and getting hammered by a pissed-off insane Djinn, right? And it’d be real handy if you had, say, a Weather Warden in your back pocket who could manufacture breathable air, because I’m thinking the lack of that will be a little challenging.”
“Trust me,” I said again.
He dragged a gentle finger down the side of my face. “Oh,” he said. “Cassiel, if I trust anybody today, it’s you. I got no choice, do I?”
In truth, I wasn’t sure that made me feel very much better.
“Excuse me,” said a new, and very tentative, voice. I turned, and there was a woman standing a few feet away, with her hand clasping that of a small boy of about six years old. She was pretty, and the uncertain voice seemed to match her hesitant body language. “Did you come from out of town?” That was a polite way, I thought, of saying that we weren’t from around here. The boy ogled Luis with fascination, especially the flame tattoos that licked the skin around the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt.
“Yes, ma’am,” Luis replied. He sounded extremely polite suddenly. “We’re just getting a few supplies, then we’re heading out.”
“Oh, I wasn’t— No, of course you’re welcome here. I’m sorry if it sounded like you weren’t, sir. That wasn’t what I meant, not at all.…” She was flustered now, and solved it by extending her free hand to him. “I’m Lucy. Lucy McKee.”
“Hello, Mrs. McKee.”
“I only asked because the phones are down, and there’s a lot of rumors—the TV reports look just awful. Is it terrorists? Do you know? A lot of people are saying it’s terrorists.” She had large blue eyes that her son had inherited, and they both looked at us with grave, hopeful intensity.
“No, ma’am, I don’t think it’s terrorists,” Luis said. He said it gently, but firmly. “Right now, there are a lot of things going on, but none of them are man-made as far as I’m aware. You should tell your family to stay together. You have a disaster plan, don’t you? How to contact each other? You’ve got food and water supplies?”
“Well, a few, but—”
“Get more,” he said. “Mrs. McKee, I don’t want to scare anybody, but I’m not telling you anything that they won’t be saying on the radio and TV soon. Keep in contact with your people, and get yourself supplied with food and water. Don’t try to go to a bigger city right now. That’s where the trouble will be worse. Understand?”
