Unknown os-2

by Rachel Caine

  I growled softly, and the sound rumbled through the metal of the car. “You’re telling me who he did not choose. I only need to understand who he did choose.”

  “Only to explain,” Rashid said. “Because we all acknowledge that Rahel would have been, in fact, the logical choice. Instead, we are saddled with . . . Whitney.”

  I was not at all certain I’d heard correctly. “Whitney. Who is Whitney?”

  “Our newest Djinn,” he said. “And you will be very, very unimpressed. I confess that I am completely baffled by his logic. Perhaps the woman he’s consorting with has finally driven him insane.” Rashid sounded not just bored, but actively angry. Jealous, I assumed, not very charitably. Rashid did seem to me the type to think he was the natural heir apparent of all the powers in the universe.

  Of course, from what I had seen of him so far, he might have been correct to do so.

  “I will need to see Whitney, then,” I said.

  “That might be a problem, since David ordered her not to leave Jonathan’s house.” Rashid cast a scornful glance over me. “I doubt you can go to her. Not in that form.”

  He was right. Humans—and undeniably, I was trapped in human form, unable to shift from it without massive expenditure of power, more than I could safely draw from Luis or any other mortal—could not perform the trick of sifting through the planes of existence, like dialing the tumblers of a lock, to reach the nonspace that held the Djinn stronghold . . . a shifting place, out of phase with the rest of the realities. Once inside, Djinn were insulated from most, if not all, dangers outside; it would take the death of the universe itself to destroy Jonathan’s house.

  And it would destroy a mere mortal to attempt the access. I knew of only one who’d accomplished it—Joanne Baldwin, David’s sometimes human, always presumptuous lover. But she’d been a Djinn at the time, so that hardly counted.

  I held Rashid’s gaze without blinking. “If I can’t go to her,” I said, “then you must. I need the list. Tell her.”

  “No,” he said. “Ask her yourself. If you can.” He bared his teeth. “Or ask the Oracle. She can give you access. Of course, the Oracle’s not as tolerant as she once was. She’s become . . . more powerful. Less accessible.”

  That didn’t bode well for my chances, but my chances of getting to this Whitney were even smaller, considering her location and my human-form disability.

  I looked at Luis and said, “I will go to Sedona to see the Oracle.”

  “Wrong,” Agent Turner snapped. “You’re going nowhere except where I take you. I told you, I need your help!”

  “You need help,” Luis agreed. “Tell you what, I’ll go with you. Let her do this. She gets her hands on that list of potential targets and we can start preventing this crap before we’re chasing after missing kids in trouble, maybe suffering or dying. Yeah?”

  Turner didn’t like it, I could see that from the stony look on his face. Still, he knew that Luis was right; if there was a way to prevent more missing children, more dead children, he would have to risk it.

  “Fine,” he said. “So how does this work? You just blip out, or . . . ?”

  “Like this?” Rashid gave him a vicious smile and disappeared so suddenly that Turner involuntarily veered the car to the right, staring. Air made a small thunderclap of sound rushing in to fill the space he had occupied.

  Turner looked at me in the rearview mirror.

  “No,” I said wearily, and settled back in the seat to close my eyes. “Not like that. Not anymore.”

  More was the pity.

  In Albuquerque, Agent Turner let me off at my apartment, where I had left my motorcycle parked beneath a shaded awning. He was impatient to be gone, but Luis got out with me, walked me around a corner of the building, and turned to me. It was a cool evening, clear and dry, with the smell of sage and pine flavoring the air. The barely seen smudges of the mountain peaks rose up to the north, lifting part of the city out of its bowl. Overhead, stars sparkled cold in a vast, otherwise empty sky.

  Beautiful and only lightly tamed, this place—like the man facing me, hair stirring just a bit in the breeze. Artificial lights glinted on his skin, shadows darkened his eyes, and he said, “You be careful. Remember what happened last time.”

  Last time, Pearl had sent her forces after me on the way back from Sedona. She’d broken my leg. She’d almost killed me—and would have succeeded, if Luis hadn’t come to my rescue. As I thought about it, my still-healing arm twinged. The bones were fixed together, bonded and straight, but nerves were still repairing themselves.

  I nodded without speaking. I was no longer sure how to speak to him; something had changed between us, something fundamental had shifted beneath our feet. I wasn’t sure if I had forced that change, or he had, or if it would have happened no matter what we did.

  All I knew was that it felt . . . different. And it hurt to leave him.

  Luis lifted his hand and touched the side of my face. The skin of his palm felt warm against my skin, and I closed my eyes in an involuntary spasm of delight. I sensed the power coursing in his veins, natural as the blood that ran with it.

  “Take what you need,” he said. “I’m not sending you out there unprepared and underpowered.”

  He didn’t know what he was asking. Not really. I pulled in a quick breath and opened my eyes again, meeting his.

  “I could hurt you, doing this too quickly,” I said. “I don’t wish to do that.”

  Luis laughed, but it was soft and humorless. He shook his head. “You aren’t going to hurt me any worse than anybody else has,” he said. “I didn’t grow up soft, chica. I took bullets before, you know. Knives. Took a hell of a beating when I was jumped into the gang. So just do it already, we’re burning starlight.”

  Drawing power was usually a slower process, and I had almost always been careful to draw at levels that didn’t risk his comfort, much less his life. But Turner was waiting, and the clock on a child’s life was ticking, and we had no time for the niceties even if the FBI agent was inclined to allow us our leisure.

  I slowly put my hand over Luis’s where it rested on my cheek, feeling the pulse under my fingers race faster.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I will try not to hurt you.”

  And then I let loose the hunger inside of me. It was not so much a matter of taking from him, as allowing the barriers to drop; the void in me, the cold, hungry vacuum where once the life force of a Djinn had been, sucked power from him in a ravenous stream. Too much, too much . . . it felt astonishingly good to me, like being bathed in light, but I also felt the sudden stabbing pain of overloaded nerves. My pain, but also his.

  Luis trembled, but he didn’t try to pull himself away from me. His eyes continued to focus on mine, dark and drowning, and I forgot how to breathe as he poured life from his body to mine. There was an intimacy to it that went beyond mere bodies, went into realms of spirit, of pure and perfect life.

  It was so hard to pull away.

  I finally sucked in a shaking gasp and slammed shut the barriers between us again. I hadn’t felt so powerful, so alive in a very long time, and it was so very hard to give that up. Even so, this rich, intense intoxication was only a fraction of what I’d been as a Djinn. I could drain a dozen like Luis, a hundred, without coming near that lost perfection.

  That was exactly what Ashan had meant to do to me, in throwing me into human flesh. He didn’t need to torment me. He knew that every time I came up against the natural barriers, I would torture myself, thoroughly, with my hunger and possibilities.

  It troubled me less than he’d planned, however. I could be tempted, but I was also, by nature, a practical sort of predator; draining a hundred Wardens would kill them all in the process, and even then, I would never again be what I had once been. It was easy to forget when I was fighting for survival, subsisting on barely enough energy to live; it was worse still when I had a taste of the power.

  Luis was shaking, but he kept his hand on my face until I tight
ened my pale, thin fingers around his and pulled them away. His pulse was thundering now, and his face had gone starkly pale under its copper. He was not precisely gasping, but his breathing was more ragged, and more rapid, than I would have liked. I reached out to lay my hand flat against his chest, feeling the too-quick laboring of his heart.

  “I’m okay,” he said before I could speak. He smiled, but I saw the pain underneath it. “Is that better for you now?”

  I nodded, unwilling or perhaps unable to speak. My eyes were glowing, I knew it; I’d rarely been able to afford that sort of display, but it was raw nature, and I had no doubt that I looked . . . different just now, as I struggled to manage the power he had given me in such an intensive burst. I could see the change in his expression. I just could not decide what precisely it was that had created such an indescribable tension in his face . . . fear? Or desire? Something of both, perhaps.

  He surprised me by saying, in a low, rough voice, “If we didn’t have someplace to be right now, I would take you inside and get down to business.”

  I blinked. “I don’t understand.”

  He took in a deep breath, then let it out, and finally, I recognized the waves of emotion coming off of him, resonating within me. They were just . . . unexpected.

  “No,” he said. “Don’t suppose you would. You watch your back, Cassiel. I mean that.”

  Our hands were still linked, fingers wound together in pure, primal need.

  “And you,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. “I will know if you need me.” Immediately, I realized that there were several likely interpretations of that, and immediately amended it to, “Need me to help.”

  He laughed. It was still soft, but this time, it was lightened with considerable humor. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. I’ll keep you on the psychic speed dial. What is that, pound 666?”

  He raised my hand as if it was the most natural motion in the world, and for an instant I felt the softness of his lips burning against my skin. Then he let go, took a step back, and turned to walk back to Turner’s idling sedan.

  I pressed my back to the rough, warm wall and breathed, breathed, breathed.

  Then I went inside, recovered my helmet, and got on my motorcycle for the trip to Sedona.

  Chapter 5

  THERE IS NOTHING, in my human experience, as freeing as a fast ride on a powerful motorcycle. It’s a great deal like being a Djinn, in certain ways; there is momentum, power, a sense of barely controlled ferocity raging beneath the surface. A connection to all things—to the wind battering and caressing you by turns; to the ground beneath you, coated in a layer of man-made surface that nevertheless contains its own power, its own connections to life.

  It is also loud and exhausting, and by the time I finished the long ride following Interstate 40 west to Flag-staff, I had eaten enough grime and dust to last several human lifetimes. It was now deep night, and traffic was almost nonexistent save for some long-distance trucks still plying their trade.

  I stopped for a rest. I had human bodily needs; I could go without food, but water was a necessity that I found I needed both to dispose of and take in. Rest-rooms at gas stations were an unpleasant and shocking surprise; I had never considered the serious drawbacks of such lazily-cleaned rooms. I was completely unable to ignore the filth, and wasted a burst of power to turn the sinks, floors and porcelain toilet into sparkling, clean examples of their kind before using the facility. I felt that was a much less judgmental response than simply blowing the place off the face of the Earth, which was also a distinct temptation, especially when the storekeeper overcharged me for a bottle of cold water. I paid without complaint, however. I had learned from our earlier problems with law enforcement. Although I could easily overpower, or at least evade, it would be much easier to simply avoid being noticed at all.

  That ship quickly sailed, however.

  Outside, a whole noisy, thundering fleet of motorcycles pulled in, blocking my own vehicle against the building. Where I was wearing pale pink leather, these other riders were in battered blacks, studded with metal. Their vehicles were better kept than their persons, which were scruffy, badly washed, and—from their expressions—not especially friendly. Big, bulky men, for the most part; those who were smaller or thinner seemed even harder by contrast.

  They surrounded my Victory in a ring of metal and bodies.

  They were silent when I exited the store, downing the last of my water. I paid them no attention and threaded my way between the bikes until I reached my Victory, which was a calm, gleaming island in the sea of chrome and attitude.

  There was no chance, once they saw me, that this was going to end well. I saw it in the predatory smiles, the shift in body language, the gleam of their eyes.

  End well for them, of course.

  I straddled the motorcycle, tossed the empty bottle effortlessly in the trash twenty feet away, and said, simply, “Move.”

  They laughed.

  “That’s a whole lot of bike for you, lady,” one of them said. “You sure you can handle it?” That woke suggestions from several about what else I could handle, or might want to.

  For answer, I gave the speaker a brilliant, false smile. “Your bike is also nice,” I said. “Is it a ten speed?”

  This was an insult that someone had offered me once, which I had of course ignored; Luis had been the one to explain the pointed joke to me, after the fact. Intellectually I understood why a prideful human might be offended by such a comparison, but it still meant nothing to me, really.

  However, it did mean something to this man, whose entire self-image was bound up with his motorcycle, his image, and his pride.

  “What’d you say, bitch?”

  “I believe I said move.” Perhaps I should have added, please. I wasn’t much in the mood.

  The man who’d spoken got off his motorcycle and came to walk around mine, and me. I didn’t bother to turn my head to watch him as he went behind my back; better to appear completely relaxed and unconcerned than to show an instant’s doubt with a pack like this. “I didn’t diss your bike, bitch. Why you got to go insult mine? That’s a Harley Softail Superglide, not a goddamn Schwinn. You’re riding, what, a Victory? That shit ain’t even been on the road ten years yet. This Harley’s been riding longer than you’ve been alive.”

  That made me smile. “Oh, I doubt that,” I said, and looked him squarely in the face. “Are you going to fight with me now?”

  They laughed. It was spontaneous and genuine, but there was also an edge of menace to it that might have raised hackles on anyone else.

  “Oh, baby, you don’t want to go there,” he said. “You really don’t.”

  I smiled.

  “If you’re not man enough to fight,” I said, “I think you should get on your bike and pedal away.”

  The laughter faded. The smiles died. And what was left was cold, hard, and intense as the night sky overhead.

  The leader said, in a low voice, “You are a piece of work, bitch. I ought to smack the living shit out of you. Teach you not to talk back.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Are you trying to frighten me?” I asked. When he didn’t immediately answer, I said, helpfully, “I’m only trying to understand what you want. If you’re hoping to frighten me and make yourself feel mightier, then I’m afraid we’re both wasting time. And I can’t afford that. I’m in a hurry. If I have to kill you, I’d like to do it quickly.”

  He stared at me hard for a few seconds, and then one of the other men nudged him and jerked his chin up at the eaves of the store. There was a security camera there, which I already knew. The leader stared at it, then turned back to me. “You know what? You’re fucking brain damaged. Better run on to your crystals and moonbeams and pyramids and stop messing with the real world before you get what you’re asking for.” He smiled, entirely falsely. “Have a nice fucking day.”

  Silence. The desert air blew cool over my skin and tossed my pale, pale hair around my face, but I didn’t blink. Neithe
r did the biker standing across from me.

  These men had not survived to reach the status of roaming predators by accident. Some sense warned him that I was deadly serious, that I was not someone to toy with idly. Between that, and the silent witness of the camera, they would either let it go, or bide their time.

  He looked at his friends, shrugged, and gave a sharp nod. Those blocking my motorcycle backed their vehicles away, a complicated maneuvering done in close quarters, accomplished with skill, grace and efficiency. They left me a clear path from my front tire to the highway.

  “Thank you,” I said. I had promised Luis to try to use that phrase more often, and this seemed an appropriate moment. I kicked the Victory to life, donned my helmet, and eased out onto the road, opening up the throttle once I’d gained an opening.

  I heard a full-throated roar behind me, and looked in my side mirror to see the entire pack of black-clad bikers spilling out into formation behind me, following. So. They had been biding their time, after all. Well, it was their choice. I had been very clear about the fact that I was in no mood to play games to enhance their egos. I considered the best way to disable their Harleys without undue violence; I could easily shred their tires, for instance. I could soften the metal of the frames, breaking the bikes apart under their own torque. I could simply disengage a few critical connection points to force them out of control.

  I was spoiled for choices, and spent a few empty miles considering which of them might result in the least amount of injuries. They pulled steadily closer.

  The leader yelled something at me, and I felt a raw, wild excitement in his voice. He meant to take his power back, redeem himself in front of his men.

  He meant to fight.

  I was not necessarily opposed to obliging him . . . and then I felt a raw surge around me. Wild energy, sweeping through the aetheric and down into the real world like an invisible tornado.

  “Get away from me!” I shouted to the bikers, who had closed in around me, engines roaring. The leader leered at me. He thought I was afraid. Idiot. “Get out of here or you’ll be killed!”