Windfall

by Rachel Caine

Chapter Eleven

  All she had to do was open her hand. It was a good long ways down to an ugly, bone-crunching impact on the busy freeway below. Alice didn't move; it was possible, given the power balance, that there was nothing she could do that wouldn't kill the hostage caught in the middle.

  "Alice, what's going on?" I asked.

  "Who's Alice?" Cherise asked, craning her neck. She'd ventured over to stand next to me. "That guy's named Alice? Hope it's his last name. "

  "Shut up and go back to the car!" I practically yelled it at her. She winced and danced backward, holding up her hands in surrender.

  This was out of control, and it was very, very dangerous. Prada and Alice couldn't unleash anything like a full-scale Djinn war here; there were way too many innocent people in range. They could bring down this whole bridge. There was no way I could protect against that.

  "This isn't your fight," Alice said to me. Her attention was riveted on Prada, on the man Prada was holding. "Leave. You'll draw their attention if you interfere. "

  "Me? Wait. . . their attention? Who are you talking about? Alice, talk to me! What the hell's happening?"

  I could feel Cherise looking at me strangely, since I was apparently having a conversation with thin air. I couldn't worry about that right now.

  "Go!" Alice said sharply, and I felt a sudden push on the aetheric. She meant business. "I can't protect you. Stay away from us. "

  I was liking the sound of this less and less. "Not until I know what's going on with you guys. "

  She made a growling sound. It was really unsettling, because so far as I'd ever noticed, Alice in Wonderland hadn't been big on growling like a rabid animal.

  The growl broke off as if somebody had pulled the switch on it, and she swiveled away from me to survey the general area. "Too late," she said. "They're here. "

  As I turned, I saw the other Djinn. Four of them, misting into visibility at strategic points in the crowd. She was outnumbered. Probably not outclassed, but still.

  "You have to stop," Alice said, turning back to Prada. "He'll forgive you for what you've done, but you must stop now. No more. "

  Prada sank her flawlessly polished talons deeper into the Warden's left arm, and pulled him off balance again. He teetered desperately, struggling to stay alive.

  I could hear his gasps even over the shouts of the onlookers, trying to talk him down. They, of course, were operating under the assumption that he was crazy, and could choose to do something on his own. Could save himself.

  I knew better.

  Around me, the four new Djinn were closing in. Slowly. They seemed to be either cautious about Alice's abilities, or enjoying themselves. Maybe both.

  This didn't make any sense. Djinn didn't bring their fights into the human world like this, not so publicly. And a Warden trapped in the middle, a tender morsel between tigers. . . no, this wasn't good at all. Things were shifting. I could feel that, even if I didn't know why it was happening.

  Prada was aiming a cold, hard, inhuman smile at Alice.

  "You should run, little one," she purred. "I promise not to chase you. "

  "I'm not running," Alice said. "You started the fight. You should be prepared to carry it all the way. "

  "I am. "

  "Then leave the man out of it. He doesn't matter. "

  "Of course he matters!" Prada gave her a contemptuous look. The Warden's feet slipped, and he flailed for balance, anchored by Prada's ruthless grip. The crowd of spectators who'd gathered gasped. A trucker leaned out the door of his semi, open-mouthed.

  I didn't have a lot of time. I could hear the wail of sirens approaching; the cops would be here soon, and God only knew what that would mean.

  Alice folded her hands together and watched. Wind ruffled her cornsilk-smooth hair, fluttered the sky blue dress and white pinafore. She was straight out of Lewis Carroll, but when I focused on the adult strength in that child's face, I could see something older, stronger, and far scarier than anything out of the Looking Glass.

  Prada had made her angry. That was probably a really, really stupid move.

  "That guy's gonna jump," Cherise murmured softly from behind me. "Oh my God. Oh my God. . . "

  The four other Djinn-had to be allies of Prada-were stalking closer. Alice suddenly made her move, lashing out with an explosive flare of power. It hit Prada, looped around her, and attempted to jerk her and her hostage off of the railing and onto the relative safety of the bridge, but it backfired. Prada, straining to counter it, nearly went over instead. Alice immediately dropped the attack when the Warden screamed in panic.

  With all the power she had, she was helpless to do anything without endangering innocent lives. She needed help.

  I had no idea whether Alice was on the right or wrong side in this, but at least she wasn't the one holding a guy over a three-story drop.

  I considered my options, and decided on something relatively risky. Djinn are, essentially, vapor in their atomic structure; they can increase their weight and give themselves the corresponding mass, but just now I figured that Prada was more interested in keeping her balance than having true human form. A human appearance was doing the job, for her purposes. She didn't need the actual reality.

  All I needed to do was hit her from behind with a powerful wind gust, enough to break her grip on the guy she was holding, and at the same time tip him backward and encourage him to hop down onto the concrete again.

  Simple. Relatively elegant. And a hell of a lot better than waiting for the Djinn Deathmatch to turn up a winner.

  I closed my eyes, took a fast, deep breath, and reached out for control of the air around me.

  And missed.

  I gasped and reached farther, stretched. Felt a faint stirring come to me. A stiff breeze. Nothing nearly strong enough. Oh my God. . . I felt clumsy, drugged, imprecise. Horribly impaired. I fought my way up onto the aetheric, feeling like I was swimming against a flood tide, and when I arrived everything was gray, dimmed, distant. Gray as ash.

  It was like what had happened to me over breakfast with Sarah and Eamon, only far worse.

  I buckled down and went deep, all the way deep, into reserves I hadn't called on since I'd survived the Demon Mark. Pulled energy out of my cells to fire the furnace of power inside. Pulled every scrap of power I had and threw it into the mix. . .

  And it wasn't enough. I could bring the wind but I couldn't control it. It would be worse than useless, it would hit with the force of a tornado and swirl uncontrollably, throw the man's fragile human body onto the concrete and that would be my fault. . .

  Prada sensed I was doing something. She snarled and extended her free hand toward me, talons outstretched and gleaming, and it was d�jr vu all over again.

  I could feel her reaching into my chest to take hold of my pounding heart. She wouldn't even have to work hard to kill me; it would be a simple matter of disrupting the electrical impulses running through nerves, just a quick jolt . . .

  "David!" I yelped. I didn't mean to; I knew better, dammit, but I was scared and there was a Warden who was going to die because I wasn't strong enough. . .

  "David? Where?" Cherise, distracted from the drama for a second, stared at me.

  "Who, the guy up on the rail? That's not David, is-"

  I felt the warm surge of power, flaring to a white-hot snap, and David came from out of nowhere between parked cars, olive drab coat belling around him in the wind. Auburn and gold and fire in flesh. Moving faster than human flesh could manage. Nobody standing around watching the action even glanced at him. To their eyes, he didn't even exist.

  The other four Djinn in the crowd froze, staring. And as one, took a step backward.

  Prada hissed and instantly transferred her attack to him, which was a mistake; it brought him to a stop, all right, but only because he wanted to get a good, hard look at her. He looked tired, so horribly tired, but he dismissed whate
ver she was trying to do to him with a negligent shake of his head. He looked at the man on the railing, then the cops. Took it in, in a single comprehensive glance.

  I wondered, not for the first time, what Djinn saw when they studied a scene like that. The surface? The glowing furious tangle of human emotions? The energies we exerted, even unconsciously, on the world around us?

  Whatever it was, it couldn't have been pretty. I saw faint lines groove themselves around his mouth and eyes.

  His eyes turned to hot, molten metal, and his skin took on a hard shine. Getting ready for battle. He looked at Prada, who returned the glance with level calm.

  "Why are you doing this?" he asked.

  "I don't answer to you," she replied. "You betrayed us. Turned your back on us. "

  David turned to Alice, who raised pale eyebrows. "It's begun," she said. "It's spreading like a disease. A Free Djinn kills a master, sets loose a slave, who frees another, who frees another. "

  He looked appalled. "Jonathan ordered this?"

  "Of course not. " Alice's cornflower blue eyes fixed on Prada again, unblinking.

  "Ashan killed her master for her, in return for her loyalty. "

  Prada echoed, sarcastically, "My master. " It was a curse, loaded with acid and venom. "He didn't deserve to lick my shoes. I broke no laws. I never touched him. "

  "What about him?" David said, and nodded at the Warden she was jerking around on the railing. "What has he done to you to deserve this?"

  Prada's elegant lips compressed into a hard line. "They all deserve this. "

  "Oh, that's where we differ," he said. "They don't. Let him go. If you do, I swear that I'll protect you if Alice makes a move against you. "

  "David," Alice said, and there was a warning in it. "I'm here on Jonathan's orders. " He ignored it.

  "I'll protect you," he repeated. "Let him go. "

  Prada bared perfectly white, shark-sharp teeth. She looked, if possible, even more feverish. "You're Jonathan's creature," she said. "You always have been. He and his creatures don't command me, not anymore. "

  David looked-well, shocked. As if she'd just told him the Earth was a pancake carried on the back of a turtle. "What do you mean?"

  "I follow the one who knows that humans are our enemies," Prada said. "The one who understands that our enslavement must end, regardless of the cost. I follow Ashan. "

  Oh, shit.

  I was looking at a civil war. Playing out right here, messily, in the human world-Djinn Lord Jonathan and his second lieutenant (now that David was incapacitated) Ashan had had some kind of falling out. The Djinn were splitting into sides. Ashan hated humans-I knew, I'd met him, back when I'd been a Djinn.

  Jonathan didn't hate humans, but he didn't love us, either. We were just an annoyance and, at best, he wouldn't actively exterminate us. Allowing us to die was another thing entirely.

  David was the only Djinn I'd ever met who seemed to really care one way or another about the fate of humanity as a whole, and David was nowhere near powerful enough to be in the middle of this. Not these days. If the other Djinn were wary of him, it was only because they knew him from the old days.

  They couldn't yet see the damage that had been done to him.

  He didn't look impaired, though, not at the moment. The wind ruffled his bronze-struck hair, and the light in his eyes was like an open flame. More Djinn than I'd seen him in a long time. Less human.

  He turned slightly and shifted his gaze to me, and I felt that connection between us pull as tight as a belaying rope. I was his support, his rock. And he was in free fall now, burning through his fragile resources at a terrifying pace.

  I have to try to stop this, I felt him say across that silent, secret link. Hold on. This may hurt.

  He wasn't kidding. Suddenly the drain between us-the one-way flow cascading from me into him-opened up to become a torrent, and damn, it didn't just hurt, it felt as if my guts were being ripped out and scrubbed with steel wool. I must have looked like hell, because Cherise called my name and I felt her grab me by the shoulders. I couldn't pull my eyes away from what was happening in the Bermuda triangle of the three Djinn standing in front of me, and the four moving into position to attack David from behind.

  Whatever was about to happen, it was going to happen now.

  David started walking forward. Prada's eyes-burning ruby red now-followed him, but she didn't move. Still caught in her iron-hard grip, the Warden watched tensely, too. Helpless to affect any outcome. He wasn't a Weather Warden, I could sense that much, and I doubted he was an Earth power. Probably Fire, which wouldn't do him a damn bit of good right now.

  Poor bastard. He'd spent his life thinking that he was a pinnacle of power in the world, and he was getting a hard lesson about where he really stood in the great scheme of things.

  David reached the railing. Prada didn't make a move. David considered the metal for a second, then hopped up with a fluid, catlike movement, and began walking the thin, slick curve. He was smooth and careless about it, as if it were solid ground. No hesitation. No human awkwardness. It was as if gravity was just another rule to break for him. Even the gusts of wind didn't have any effect except to whip the tail of his coat out to the side as he covered the rest of the distance toward Prada and the Warden.

  It was the single most inhuman thing I'd ever seen him do.

  David was still two or three steps away when Prada let out a high-pitched shriek like ripping metal, and let go of her hostage. David lunged forward, but he was too late. The man windmilled for a fraction of a second, and then his head and shoulders leaned back, and his battered cross-trainers slipped off the slick metal of the railing.

  And then he was gone. Heading for a fast, ugly death.

  "David! Do something!" I screamed. Everybody else was screaming, too, but David heard me; he turned his head, and even at this distance I saw the hot orange flare of his eyes. As alien as the perfect balance he demonstrated up there on the railing. I saw the doubt in his face, but he didn't argue, and he didn't hesitate. Without a sound, he spread his arms and jumped off the overpass.

  Graceful as a plummeting angel.

  At the same moment, Alice moved forward in a blur, launched herself up and out, and took Prada in a flying tackle out into space. The other four Djinn launched after her like a pack of wolves. They were a snarling, snapping, furious bundle of power, and I heard Prada howl in fury and pain a second before they all disappeared with a snap so loud it was like a thunderclap. Gone.

  I lunged forward, gasping, and if there were people in my way I didn't care.

  They moved, or I moved them. I banged hard into the railing, hot metal digging into my stomach, both hands reaching down as if I could somehow grab hold, do something.

  Anything.

  "David!" I screamed.

  I didn't see anyone down below. The cops had arrived on the street below, a sea of flashing lights and upturned faces. No sign of David. No sign of the Warden.

  Movement in the deep shadows of the overpass drew my frantic eyes. They were hanging in midair. David had hold of the man. The two of them were suspended, turning slowly and eerily in the wind. A silent ballet.

  Nobody else could see them, I realized. Just me.

  I felt sick and cold and terribly, terribly weak, and realized that the flow of energy from me to David had gotten bigger. Wider. Deeper. As if we'd broken open some dam between us, and there was no stopping the torrent until the reservoir was dry.

  "Oh God," I whispered. I could literally feel my life running out.

  He looked up, and I was struck by the white pallor of his face, the bitter darkness of his eyes. "I can't," he said. I could hear him, even across the distance, as if he were speaking right next to me. "Jo, I'm killing you. "

  "Put him down first. "

  He tried. I felt him start to move but then he lost control, and it was free fall. He managed to brake, bu
t it wasn't going to hold, and then he was going to plummet. I had about three seconds to act.

  I wasn't a magician, able to suspend the laws of gravity at will. I had power, yes, but it was best used on the massive scale if I had to move fast, turning forces that measured in the millions of volts. Power that could destroy, but rarely heal. To grab the Warden required pinpoint control of very treacherous forces, precisely balanced winds from at least three quarters, and an exact command of how much force was being exerted on fragile human flesh at any given instant.

  David was a bright spark, fading. Between us was a black bridge, a fast-flowing river of energy going out of me, into him. Being devoured.