Unknown os-2

by Rachel Caine

  My powers were limited by Luis’s, though I could wield them more creatively; I quickly altered the composition of our skin and lungs to make us fire- resistant, though making us fireproof was beyond my capabilities. It was good that I did this, because Luis plunged into the flames, grabbed the child, and pulled her off the bed and into his arms. If he’d been a normal human, he would have sustained terrible burns.

  The moment the girl was in Luis’s arms, the flames began to die away, hissing and sputtering into nothing an instant before the overhead fire-suppression system began raining and sounding its alarm. I cut the flow of power, and Luis’s body and mine reverted to their normal states.

  “What the hell . . . ?” A crowd of people had formed in the doorway to the room, but two broke away from the pack to rush inside, looking very much in command. One, dressed in a white coat, I assumed was a doctor; the other was, of course, Detective Halley. It was Halley who’d spoken. “What happened in here?”

  The doctor ignored such concerns and moved to take the girl from Luis’s arms. “No,” Luis said. “Not a good idea.”

  “I need to examine her for burns!”

  “She’s not hurt. She’s just scared.”

  “And dangerous,” I said. “And wrong.”

  Luis’s gaze brushed mine. He knew what was wrong with her her, just as I did; the child’s powers should have been dormant until her body had time to grow the channels through which they would run. She was too young—far too young—to bear this kind of burden. It would be difficult enough at adolescence, with the sort of raw ability she had just demonstrated.

  “How did this happen?” I asked him quietly. Luis cradled the child in his arms, and she clung to him with her small arms around his neck, blue eyes wide and terrified. I retrieved a thick, nubby blanket from the closet, which was the only place in the room that had been protected from both the flames and water dousing, and took it to Luis. He wrapped it tight around the girl.

  “I didn’t mean to,” she whispered, very seriously. “I really didn’t.”

  “I know, mija,” he said. “Don’t you worry, nobody blames you. I’m Luis. What’s your name?”

  She considered the question very seriously before answering, “Pammy.”

  “Pammy, what’s your last name?”

  “What’s yours?” she asked. Luis smiled.

  “Rocha.”

  “That’s a funny name.”

  “Maybe so. It’s Spanish. Is yours funny?”

  “Gegenwaller,” she said, very proudly. “It’s German.”

  Luis shot a glance toward Detective Halley, who nodded and pushed his way out of the crowd in the doorway. He had the information he needed, and he would begin his search. “Pammy Gegenwaller,” he said, “where are your parents?”

  Her face just shut down, becoming a still, empty mask far too old and experienced for her few years. “They’re not important,” she said. “The lady said so.”

  “The lady,” I said. “Who is the lady?”

  Pammy turned her face away, pressing it against Lu-is’s neck.

  “Hey,” he said, and jiggled her gently in his arms.

  “That’s Cassiel. She’s nice. She won’t hurt you.”

  “She will,” Pammy said. “Just like the lady.”

  Some of the paralysis among the medical staff finally broke, and as if by common consent, a swarm of them broke the invisible barrier at the threshold and surged around us. A nurse plucked Pammy from Luis’s arms, and as she yelled in protest I saw a flash of pain and fear go across his face. “Wait!” he snapped. The nurse paused, frowning, struggling to hold the flailing child. Luis put a hand on Pammy’s forehead and murmured, “Sleep now, sweetheart. You’re safe. You have to trust these people, they want to make you better. Okay?”

  He was using his powers in a strong but subtle way, a kind of sedation that swept over the girl and relaxed her body. Her eyes drifted closed, and she rested her head on the nurse’s shoulder.

  Luis removed his hand. “She should stay asleep for a while,” he said. “Keep someone with her. I left a suggestion with her that she’ll trust you, but if she gets frightened that could change. Keep her calm and you shouldn’t have any trouble. Don’t leave her alone.” He reached in his pocket, took out a small notepad and scribbled down a note, which he handed to the woman. “Call that number. It’s the Warden hotline, they’ll assign someone with the right power profile to come help. If nobody’s available, I’ll come back. My number’s on there too.”

  “All right, let’s move her to a fresh room. Somebody get maintenance in here! And call the fire department—they have to sign off on this!” the head doctor bellowed. The nurse took Pammy away, heading from the room. Luis and I followed, but he stopped once we were in the hallway. The air reeked less of smoke and melted plastic, and I took several grateful breaths.

  “You understand what she said?” he asked. “What just happened?”

  “The child was a latent Warden,” I said. “Someone woke her powers, far too early for safety. Someone female. Someone like me.”

  “A Djinn,” Luis agreed. “And I think we both know who that would be.”

  Pearl.

  Pammy had been at the Ranch, where Pearl trained her captured Warden children—but trained them for what? To do what? “She was rejected,” I said. We had seen other examples of it—children who had been brought to Pearl for evaluation or training, but had failed whatever obscure standard she had applied. Many had been used as perimeter guards for the Ranch, where the group kept a stronghold.

  Pammy had either escaped, or been returned because she had become uselessly sick. “Pearl had to change her location,” I said. “Perhaps she’s changed tactics as well.” We had found her stronghold in Colorado, and by the time we had assembled sufficient strength to try to take it, it had been destroyed, only her expendable human allies left behind. She’d taken the children with her.

  We had spent weeks trying to find any sign of where she might have gone.

  “Maybe,” Luis said, “and maybe this is her goal—maybe Pammy didn’t fail. Maybe she’s exactly what Pearl wants her to be: a child time bomb.”

  I considered it, then slowly shook my head. “No. Pearl is not interested in random destruction. She has a purpose, though the purpose is not yet clear. But if she returned this child, Pammy fell short of her expectations.”

  That put a bleak light in Luis’s eyes. “Christ,” he said. “The kid could probably blow up the hospital if she got angry enough. That’s not enough power?”

  “Not for Pearl,” I said. “Not yet.”

  He sighed. “I need three shots of whiskey and about a day and a half of sleep. We can’t keep going like this. Time to stand down for a while.”

  I didn’t want to, but I also felt the drag of exhaustion, and the faint, fine trembling in my muscles. My flagging brain interpreted sights and sounds as too slow, too fast, too bright, too loud; I did need rest, and if I needed it, Luis desperately needed it.

  “Home?” I asked.

  “Home,” he said. “Now.”

  Chapter 2

  HOME FOR LUIS was his brother’s home, which he had decided to keep after Manny and Angela’s death. Partly this had been to allow little Isabel some continuity and familiarity in her life, although expecting her to return was less logic than sheer, bloody-minded determination. Partly it was convenience. Luis had moved from Florida, and had not yet rented an apartment before the murders.

  I had an apartment, but it was not a home—merely a way station where I kept my few belongings, slept, and cleaned my body.

  The Rocha home was . . . more.

  “I should take you back to your place,” Luis said as he unlocked the front door of the small, neat house; that took a while, because he had installed new locks and an alarm system. His words lacked conviction, and I ignored them, moving through the opened doorway into the familiar living room. It was comfortably furnished, with things that did not quite match—the sign of p
eople who had bought their possessions over time, and because of love, not fashion. Unlike his brother and sister- in-law, Luis kept it very neat, but there was a sense of peace in it. Order. Love. Some sadness.

  It eased some anxious, tired knot in my soul.

  I locked the door behind me and sat down on the couch. Luis glanced at me without speaking and went into the kitchen. He came out again with two glasses—both decorated with colorful cartoon characters—and a bottle of amber liquid, which he set on the coffee table before sinking down next to me with a sigh that spoke of utter weariness. “Drink?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Do I?”

  He poured me a thin line of liquor and handed it to me. “Try.”

  I sipped carefully and made a startled, strangled sound as the fiery, smoky flavor coated my tongue and throat. Luis leaned forward and tipped a much more generous portion into his own glass, lifted it vaguely in my direction, and said, “Salud,” before downing the liquid in two heavy gulps. I took a larger sip. It didn’t burn as much the second time, and had more flavor.

  Luis refilled his glass. I drained mine in three more slow sips, feeling an odd calm begin to work through me. Distilled chemical sedation. I began to understand why people sometimes pursued this course of action.

  Luis put his glass down empty, refilled mine, and poured himself a third helping. “Last call,” he said, and capped the bottle. “How is it?”

  “Interesting,” I said. I wasn’t quite sure I approved of the changes in my metabolism, but somehow that disapproval remained theoretical, and far away from the warmth that coursed through my body. I felt looser now, less on guard.

  Less constrained. It sparked dangerous memories of being free, powerful, utterly different than what I was now.

  Luis watched me over the rim of his glass as he drank—this time, much slower, almost matching my careful sips. “You were good today,” he said. “We were good today.”

  It wasn’t often the case. Luis and I didn’t know each other as well as Manny and I had; I had been comfortable with Manny, and I had understood the dynamics of our relationship, which were almost all professional in nature.

  Luis was . . . complicated. I responded to him more strongly, both in terms of the power passed between us, and in purely physical ways. Since becoming human, my flesh had surprised me more than once, and continued to act in mysterious ways that seemed divorced from the cold logic of my thoughts. I was not sure how humans combined these things. Or Djinn, for that matter; I had never been one of those who enjoyed assuming human form and playing at being mortal. Some, like David, almost were human. Others, like Ashan, wore flesh as a skin-deep suit, nothing more.

  I wasn’t sure which more accurately described me; it seemed to be a shifting question.

  I sighed and leaned my head back against the couch cushions. “Do you think she will recover?” I asked, cradling the glass between my long white fingers. Luis finished his last sip of whiskey.

  “It’s not a matter of recovery,” he said. “She’ll learn to live with it, or she’ll become more and more unpredictable and unstable. If that happens, the Wardens will have to remove her powers. God help whoever gets that job. It’s risky enough with an adult.”

  There was a small, elite force of Wardens devoted to tracking down those who were, or became, dangerous and bringing them back for that process, which was a kind of psychic surgery performed only by the most expert Earth Wardens. There was every chance of leaving someone scarred, psychically crippled, insane, or dead.

  Yet some Wardens actually chose to take the risk, rather than continue as they were.

  And some had to be treated by force.

  “I hope that will not be necessary,” I said. I put the glass on the coffee table and felt my whole body relax as I curled in on the couch, knees up, body turned toward him. My head rested against the cushions.

  “Yeah,” Luis agreed. He hesitated, then leaned over and put his own glass down. “You want another shot?”

  I glanced at the bottle. “No,” I said. “Do you?”

  “Can’t,” he said. “I set my limits, and I stick to them.”

  Limits. That was a concept unfamiliar to most Djinn; we had few limits, and those few were imposed on us by the immutable laws of the universe. Still, I understood him; I had imposed rules on myself here, in this place, simply by agreeing to live as a human instead of perishing as an outcast Djinn.

  Some of the limits were even my own choice.

  I realized that I hadn’t spoken, and Luis had fallen silent, and we were still looking at each other. I had noticed that humans did not typically gaze steadily at each other, unless they were seeking confrontation; glances were more common, polite and fleeting.

  This was different. Luis watched me as if he had forgotten how to blink. There were thoughts behind this, thoughts I could not understand easily, having little experience of the human condition.

  I understood my reaction, however. Deep within my body, warmth was blooming, spreading, and my blood was moving faster through my body. My breathing had deepened. My pupils, I suspected, had widened.

  Arousal—deep, violent, and primal.

  And hotly enjoyable.

  “I should get you home,” he said, finally. His voice sounded different—deeper, slightly rougher, as if he had to force the words out.

  “You can’t drive,” I said, and looked at the bottle on the table. “Three drinks would be too many, correct?” Except that as an Earth Warden he could easily control that; he could dismiss the alcohol from his system with a simple pulse of power, or at least minimize its effects.

  If he wished.

  “That’s true,” he said, in a neutral voice. “I should probably wait a while.” He picked up the bottle and looked at it with dark, narrowed eyes, then slowly uncapped it and tipped another splash of amber into his glass, then my own. He didn’t speak. I didn’t either. We sipped the whiskey, intensely aware of each other’s presence, and when I had finished the glass I felt stickily warm, impulsive, aware of every nerve in my body.

  I sat up abruptly and stripped off the pale leather jacket, dropping it onto a nearby chair with a heavy thump. Beneath it I wore a thin pale pink cotton top, sleeveless. I had not bothered with the inconvenience of a bra; my body was not built in such a way as to make it structurally necessary, although I sometimes wore one for comfort, or to satisfy societal expectations.

  But not today.

  As I sank down on the couch again, skin lightly flushed and damp, Luis looked sideways toward me. Not toward my face. Toward the thin cotton fabric, where my nipples were hardening in reaction to the cooler air, and responding to his rapt attention.

  Still, I said nothing. Neither did he. He raised his eyebrows and took a last sip of his drink, then put the glass down.

  “Cass,” he said then, very softly. “I’m not sure we ought to be doing this.”

  “Why?” I asked. I angled my body sideways on the soft cushions, and met his eyes directly. “You want me to be human. Yet you resist when I try.”

  Luis let out a shaky laugh. “Yeah, I’m resisting all over the place, here. Lady, if I was resisting, I would have stopped at half a glass of whiskey and booted you the hell out of my house.”

  I frowned, trying to work it out through the warm hazy pleasure that was coursing through my body. “But you didn’t.”

  “You noticed.”

  “But you are not sure—”

  “Indecision. It’s the human condition, Cass. Get used to it. Although they’re going to kick me the fuck out of the Guy Club if I go all virtuous right now, with a drunk hot woman trying to get in my pants.”

  He said woman, not Djinn. That was somehow significant to me. Some barrier between us that I’d barely been aware of had fallen away, and I didn’t know why. It could have been the alcohol, of course, but I didn’t think so. It might have equally been the extreme focus of the two of us working to save the small child in the hospital . . . or, simply, th
at we had both been thinking of this moment for some time, and denying it was so.

  I slid off of the couch again, shoved the coffee table back so violently that the open bottle of whiskey teetered in an unsteady dance on its surface, and I reached out to catch it and center it before it could tip. Then I lifted it to my lips and tilted it, my gaze still hard- locked with Luis’s. Silky, liquid heat poured into my mouth, and I held it for a moment in savor before swallowing.

  Then I put the bottle down and knelt astride Luis on the couch. My weight came down on his tensed body, and I settled against him in intimate contact—closer than I had ever been to him, in fact.

  He made a startled sound, low in his throat, and I felt his muscles go tight all over his body, as if he was fighting his own impulses at a well-nigh-cellular level.

  “If you don’t find me attractive,” I said, “tell me to go.”

  It was patently evident that he found me attractive. With my weight pressed hard against his hips, it was very difficult to argue the point.

  He closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath. I could feel his heart pounding. I could see the pulse throbbing in his temple. A drop of sweat slid down the gleaming flesh of his throat, and I watched its glide with single-minded intensity. I strongly considered licking it.

  “It’s the whiskey talking,” he said. “You’re going to hate us both tomorrow.”

  I laughed softly. “I don’t need whiskey to make me hate anyone,” I said. “It is my natural state. As you very well know.”

  Luis pounded his head backwards against the soft cushions of the couch, twice, then opened his eyes to look at me. The distance between us seemed to contract, even though neither of us moved.

  “I wanted to hate you right back,” he said. “I tried. When Manny died—”

  He’d been right to loathe me. I had seen Manny and Angela fall, fatally wounded, and instead of leaping to save their lives as Luis had done, I ran after those who had harmed my friends. I had selected vengeance over mercy. That was Djinn instinct, and it was still a raw wound inside of me.