Unknown os-2

by Rachel Caine

  “We need all the Wardens you can find,” I said. “All of them. We need to attack all of these at the same time, force her to fight multiple fronts. You understand?” I turned to Agent Sanders. “There will be humans to fight, or to rescue. Can we count on you to do what is needed?”

  “You want teams at each of these locations.”

  “Are you saying they’re not already there, feeding you information?”

  He was silent, watching me, and finally gave a single nod. “All right,” he said. “When?”

  “Let me check on Wardens,” Luis said, and slapped his pockets, looking harassed. “Cell phone?”

  Agent Klein stepped up and handed it over to him. Luis flipped it open and began making calls. I left him to it, staring at the shimmering, featureless domes on the screen.

  Sister, I thought. We were sisters once. So much alike. But she had learned to love killing, and I had learned to embrace the opposite. That was a harshly learned lesson, courtesy of Ashan, probably one he had never intended. But one I valued, nevertheless.

  It occurred to me that she expected me to act against her as Ashan wished, destroying humanity to cut her off from her power. Reducing me to the same state that she had once been in.

  Driving me mad, because assuredly, with so much death and agony coursing through me, I would destroy myself. I’d become like her.

  Obsessed with the end of all things.

  I wondered if Ashan had thought of that, too. Of what would happen if I turned toxic, like Pearl. Two of us, rending the world apart.

  I could only imagine, old and clever as Ashan was, that he’d already seen that possibility.

  That meant that should I execute his orders . . . execute humanity . . . there would be someone standing in the background, waiting to destroy me, as well.

  It would be the only safe thing to do.

  And suddenly, Rashid’s inexplicable attachment made sense. He was not Ashan’s creature, but he was Ashan’s hireling. Close to me not because he was interested, or concerned, but because he was waiting.

  Waiting for what he, and Ashan, knew was inevitable.

  My hands—flesh, and metal—clenched into fists. “No,” I murmured. “Not inevitable.”

  The FBI agent next to me looked up, frowning. “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing is inevitable,” I said. “Not even death.”

  I left her wondering, and turned to walk outside of the tent, breathing in the fresh, crisp air. It was mostly untainted by the massive cities around us, although I could still catch the occasional stench of exhaust and oil. I leaned against the rough bark of a tree, breathing deeply, and then crouched down to place both hands flat against the ground. I could sense something here, something like I had felt back on the ridge where I’d buried the child. A presence, though distant and elusive. Her presence.

  “Help me,” I whispered. “Help me understand what I should do.” Then I directed it upward, outward, to the greater power beyond the vast one of this world. “Help me save them.”

  A cool breeze drifted across my face like a caress, and I turned into it and closed my eyes. This moment felt peaceful, almost worshipful in its intensity. As if I was alone, connected once more to the life I had once led. Connected to eternity.

  Then I heard a snapping of twigs, and opened my eyes to see Agent Ben Turner shove aside underbrush and step out to face me.

  The Warden was not his usual, nondescript self. He’d been in a fight, a hard one; there were bruises forming on his face, and one of his hands looked swollen into uselessness. Broken, perhaps. He was breathing hard. His FBI-issue Windbreaker was ripped—no, shredded—and I saw blood spotting his shirt. Minor wounds, it seemed, but the look in his eyes told me that he did not consider them so.

  “You did that,” he said. “You set that bastard on me.”

  Rashid. “No one commands Rashid,” I said, which was quite true, albeit misleading in this case. “You drew his attention yourself, by taking the scroll. You knew he wanted it for himself.” I raised my eyebrows. “Do you still have it?”

  “What do you think?” he snapped, and held up his swollen hand. “He broke my fingers to get it!”

  That did sound like Rashid. “He didn’t like you turning against us. Neither did I. Neither, I suspect, will the other Wardens.”

  “You think I give a crap about what the Wardens think?” Turner snapped. “I did what I had to do. You people are out of control. Look at what they just did in Florida—Jesus Christ, they stole a fucking cruise ship. With innocent people on board. They kidnapped people, and you know some of those people are bound to get caught in the middle. That’s what I’m left with—loyalty to a bunch of assholes who think nothing of collateral damage? No. No more. The Wardens need somebody telling them where their limits are, if they can’t see it themselves.”

  It was a long speech, and he was winded by the end of it. And emotionally exhausted from the passion he’d poured into it. I wondered what collateral damage he had seen, or experienced himself. I wondered if his own hands were entirely clean of the blood.

  “I have never loved the Wardens,” I said, which was entirely true. As a Djinn, they’d been the enemy to me: enslavers of my own kind. Not only no better than human . . . worse than human. When the pact had shattered between the Djinn and the Wardens, freeing the captives from their forced servitude, no one had taken more satisfaction from that than I.

  But I also knew that the Wardens were what they were for a reason. They were ruthless, self-centered and ferociously competitive, yes; they were also self-sacrificing and magnificent, when necessary. These things did not make for comfortable, easily categorizable analysis. The Wardens, like nature itself, were neither good nor bad. They simply were. And were required to be, for the sake of the fragile lives in their trust.

  “You think the government can control them?” I asked. “You think you have enough will and power of your own to force the Wardens into it?”

  “I’m not alone,” he said. “There are other Wardens who think things have gone too far.”

  “Then take it back from within. But if you think that subjugating them to the will of political appointees is a good idea, then I suggest you are allowing your hatred to blind you to reality,” I said. “It doesn’t matter now. We will need your help.”

  “My help?” He laughed, but it had a wild, dark sound. “Why the hell would I help any of you?”

  “Because you’re not a bad man. Because you are sworn to help, to protect, and not to run from battle, yes, but mostly because you, Ben Turner, the man beneath all that, wants justice. And wishes to save children. I saw that in you when we first met, Ben. You want to save them. You need to save them.”

  He blinked, but he didn’t disagree with that, at least. “There are children in that compound,” I said. “Isabel Rocha is one of them. You saw Brianna. You saw Gloria. You saw the others. You know we can’t let them be destroyed, not without losing our own honor.”

  He leaned against another tree across the clearing, cradling his wounded arm in his good hand. He looked tired, and achy, and a little lost. “So what are you going to do?”

  “Go get them,” I said. “And you will come with me.” He held up his hand. “Yeah, about that. I don’t really think I’ll be a whole lot of help.”

  Luis stepped out of the tent, looked from me to Agent Turner, and said, “Hey. Are we going to beat the crap out of this guy?”

  “I think Rashid’s already performed that service,” I said. “What’s left is healing him so that we can use him.”

  “Dammit. I always miss out on the beat-down and end up doing the cleanup. Sucks being an Earth Warden sometimes.”

  “Sometimes,” I agreed, straight-faced. “Will you do it?”

  “Of course I will,” Luis said grumpily. “I’m not going to waste my energy on pain maintenance.”

  I did not blame him. Turner, for his part, looked apprehensively relieved, if such a thing were possible. Luis glared at him, then
went to him and took his wounded hand. He was true to his word; I heard the tiny snaps and pops of bones straightening, being forced back into their shapes and sockets, and Turner’s face went dirty-pale, and he leaned his head back against the tree, rigid and fighting to control his impulse to scream, faint, or vomit. Or some combination of those three. But I suspected Luis did, after all, put in some nerve blocks. He wasn’t unnecessarily cruel. Merely . . . proportional.

  It took a few long moments of concentration, and then Luis let go and stepped back. Turner lowered his hand and stared at it in bemused wonder. Tried to move his fingers, and winced a little.

  “Yeah, the muscles will complain for a while,” Luis said. “They got beaten up too. But the bones will hold, as long as you don’t do something crazy with them, like hit somebody. Best I could do on short notice.”

  “It’s better,” Turner said, with a little sense of wonder to it. “I think it’ll do.”

  “It will have to,” I said. “We’re going into the compound.”

  Turner’s head came up, and his eyes widened. “What? When?”

  “As soon as the other teams are in place,” I said. “Luis will be able to hide our presence from any regular humans; if they have Wardens on their side, it might be a bit more difficult, but we can manage.”

  Fooling Pearl would be the much greater challenge. That was why I had asked for the coordinated raids on each location; if her attention was split, if she realized she was under threat on all fronts, she might miss me until it was too late.

  Perhaps. Or perhaps she’d simply recognize my presence, withdraw from every other front, and focus on killing me.

  If killing me was her intent, of course. I wasn’t altogether certain of that. If she’d wanted me dead, surely she could have sent overwhelming force to manage it by now. No, I thought she wanted this. She wanted me to come here.

  I didn’t think it was merely for the satisfaction of watching me die, although that might easily be a consideration. No, there was something else.

  Something I was missing.

  Luis was watching me. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” I said. “And the Wardens?”

  “Got them to coordinate something out of New York, but we’re screwed having any Wardens on the ground for this—it’ll be remote attacks at the other locations, but they’ll make it as good as they can. I’ve got them on standby. All you have to do is give me the go.”

  “We go now,” I said. “I will give the signal for the attack when we are in position there. Get ready.”

  Agent Turner raised his eyebrows, but didn’t respond otherwise; he walked into the tent. A moment later, his superior burst out, looking thunderous. “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded. “I’m not letting you take people in there now. You don’t even have cover of darkness!”

  “It wouldn’t matter if I did,” I said. “Either we’ll be able to hide, or we won’t. Light or darkness is irrelevant to her. But if you want to be useful, make a distraction that will draw the attention of her soldiers.”

  “What kind of distraction?”

  “Mass our people at the chasm. Make it look like you’re going to come across,” Turner supplied, unexpectedly. “Start using the bullhorn. Tell them you want to talk.”

  I nodded. I had been frankly thinking of something more violent, but that would work and expose the men and women here to less risk overall. “One hour,” I said. “It will take that long for us to get across the chasm, deal with her countermeasures, and reach the dome.”

  “Without being detected,” Sanders said. “Right. Sure.”

  It was not a perfect plan. And I knew, knew that I was missing something vital. But my conviction was that I had no time to waste, or this would be intensely worse, very soon.

  Chapter 10

  KITTING OUT LUIS, TURNER, and me in FBI- issue bulletproof vests—worn beneath my leather jacket, for my part, and with the FBI identification blacked out with tape for Luis—was the work of moments. Turner was freely given one of the compact assault weapons. Luis and I were flatly denied, although Sanders did, in private, slip us sidearms.

  I looked at the other two Wardens in silence for a moment, standing on the edge of the chasm, as a light breeze blew across the open space and rustled the trees above us. “This will be dangerous,” I said bluntly. “Very dangerous. If you wish to stop here . . .”

  Luis made a rude noise. “Shut up and dance, Cass. Ibby’s over there, right? I want her back. Now.”

  I nodded and turned my focus to Turner, who was staring into the distance as if reviewing all the choices that had led him to this somewhat distressing moment. Turner finally shrugged. “I’m in,” he said. “You were right. I may hate what the Wardens stand for these days, but these are kids. Innocent kids. And they need our help.”

  That settled, we began to climb down.

  Luis and I had agreed to preserve power whenever possible, so the climb was managed the normal human way—hands and feet, carefully placed. Straining muscles. An ever-present, patient threat from gravity, and a fluttering fear that never quite could be brushed aside. Pebbles and dirt rattled constantly, and although I went slowly and carefully, this use of human skills was new to me. I was confident enough on trails, however steep, but this . . . this verticality was different. It looked easier, in theory. In practice, I was out of breath and trembling well before the bottom was close enough to promise a survivable fall.

  A small but robust creek ran through the muck at the bottom, and we paused to wash the sweat from our faces and necks. “Don’t drink that,” Luis told me, and tossed me a bottle of water he’d put in a net holster on his belt. I gulped down several mouthfuls and passed it on to Turner. Luis drank last and returned the now half-empty bottle to its carrier. “She could have poisoned the creek,” he told me. “I don’t see any fish or insects down here.”

  He was right. The bottom of the chasm seemed eerily devoid of the usual creatures. Just the water, hissing on its way.

  “Later,” he said. He knew I was thinking of repairing the damage she’d done, if he was right about the environmental poison. “We’re saving our strength, remember?” I did, but I didn’t like it much. “How are we on time?”

  Ben Turner checked his watch. “Twenty minutes,” he said. “That gives us another twenty for the ascent, and twenty to deal with whatever’s at the top and get in position. And you’re sure that’s reasonable, right?”

  I wasn’t, but there were no reasonable expectations to be had in any of this. I just faced the upthrusting wall and began to pull myself up, one painful foot at a time.

  We were halfway up when I felt a surge of power coming through the aetheric. “Luis!” I called sharply, and he looked up. “Hide us!”

  He took a deep breath, and lowered his head. We all froze in place on the rock face, and when I glanced down again, I saw nothing. No men below me, only vaguely man-shaped juts of rock.

  Pebbles fell from above as someone leaned over the edge. There was a soft, inaudible report made in a child’s high voice, and then another, adult voice clearly said, “Raise it anyway. It’s good practice for you.”

  I rested my forehead against the stone and tried not to interfere with Luis’s concentration. It was, at the moment, all that stood between us and death. We were too high to fall without serious injury, and too far from the top to launch any kind of effective attack. With one of the child-Wardens above us, we couldn’t strike in any case.

  Below, I heard something odd. The hissing of the water took on volume, depth, built to a roar. I felt harsh gusts of wind whip up, battering me against the rock, and the cold spray as the stream built in volume, being forced from its underground source at an ever-greater volume. In the distance I heard a sudden boom of thunder, and felt the snap of lightning. Clouds were moving overhead now, driven by the unbelievable fury of Warden magic, clumping and thickening into a storm.

  Raise it anyway.

  The Warden had been instructed to use wi
nd and water to scrub the entire chasm clean of any potential threats. I assessed our options. There weren’t many.

  Luis’s voice suddenly whispered in my ear, in that eerie nonvocal communication. I’m going to lock us all down, he said. It’s the wind that’s a danger. The water won’t come high enough to drown us.

  Agreed, I sent back.

  Beneath my hands, the rock suddenly softened, flowing around my hands, and I felt the same happening where my boots were jammed into precarious footholds. The rock solidified, trapping hands and feet into secure pockets. I couldn’t fall now.

  I also couldn’t move on my own will, without undoing the power Luis had put in place.

  The winds rose, whipping through the narrow chasm. At first it felt like shoves, then battering blows. Debris slammed through—lighter things first, then larger pieces of wood, flat rocks, discarded metal. I kept my face down, pressed to the stone, partially protected by my arms. It was all I could do.

  Lightning flared in lurid, graceful fans overhead, and just when I felt that the wind would rip my arms out of my sockets with its relentless push, it began to slacken. Rain pounded down, instead, hard and silver, ice cold. I gasped and waited for it to stop.

  I rose into the aetheric, anchored by Luis only a few feet away, and watched the glow of the two Wardens standing at the edge of the chasm, above. One—the child—glowed in colors that shouldn’t have been possible, and the damage was awful and obvious in the persona he projected out into the world; a twisted gnome of a boy, scarred and melted. He’d been taught this. Forced into it.

  The woman with him was little better, though her particular darkness glowed like poison through her veins. Her own choice, not imposed on her. She had power of her own, though not enough to have been a Warden in her own right. Possibly, once, one of the Ma’at.

  The adult and the child stopped their interference with the energy of the storms, the river, the wind, and almost immediately it all slackened and fell into a confused, roiling mess. Neither of them bothered to balance the power out. That was dangerous; aetheric energy, summoned and left undirected, could trigger all manner of disasters, especially here, near the brilliant flood of energy that was the ley line, the invisible network of energy that linked together nexus points.