by Rachel Caine
"Oh yeah?" Joanne licked her spoon contemplatively. "What thing would that be?"
Bordan only smiled.
Joanne must have read my expression quite well enough to see my desperate need to avoid this subject. "Cassiel? I'm not going to ask what it is. Just if you want to do it."
"No," I said. My throat felt tight and dry. "No, I do not want to do it."
"Settles that." She turned her attention back to the other Djinn. "So I guess our message to Ashan would be to kiss our pretty human asses, the end. See yourself out, then, unless you change your mind about the ice cream."
Bordan looked as if he didn't know whether to laugh or kill her. "You don't understand," he said. "You don't know Cassiel at all. She is not some stray cat that will befriend you if you feed her."
"Well, true, she's more like a tiger. But I already trust her one hell of a lot more than I ever will Ashan. Because I do know him, bucko."
"This is a senseless waste of time," Bordan said. The fire had faded out of his eyes, and he looked a little taken aback. Clearly, he hadn't been among humans much, either--or if he had, he hadn't been prepared for the experience of Joanne Baldwin. I confess, neither was I. "She will die if she doesn't agree to his wishes. She has no choice."
"Bullshit," Joanne said with an indecent amount of cheer. "She's not dying. Not on my watch, she won't. Point of information you can scurry back to Ashan and whisper in his ear: Cassiel can draw power from Wardens, just like any other Djinn. And that makes your blackmail about as effective as a roadblock in the middle of a parking lot, doesn't it? So blow."
"What?" Bordan looked completely confused now.
Her tone chilled. "Get out of my house," she said. "Now. And tell Ashan any future visitors should make appointments with my social secretary. Oh, wait--don't have one. So tell him to just start holding his breath until I get back to him."
Bordan's skin took on a hard glitter, like the ice on the tub of ice cream, and his eyes had an obsidian glitter sharp enough to cut. "You mock me."
"Well, you may not have a sense of humor, but don't let anybody tell you you're not perceptive." He didn't seem to know how to take that response. Joanne rolled her eyes. "Go away, or you're going to find out just how much power I really do have. You're annoying me. You really don't want to do that. I've been annoyed all to hell and gone the past few weeks already."
I looked at her, still speechless. She was different to my eyes in that moment--strong, confident, and utterly sure of herself. Not a Djinn, who would never have been so direct. But for a human . . . formidable. Even without access to the aetheric, I felt power stir in the room, and knew it was rising up around her, framing her like a fan of hot, swirling light.
Bordan might have been her superior in raw power, but only if he was allowed to strike. And I could see, from the way he bowed his head, he was far from free to do so. "As you wish," he said. "Keep the traitor. But if you do, know the risk you take. We may not be as forgiving in the future."
"We'll see," Joanne said. "Must be one hell of a dirty job, if you're that intent on making her do it."
I could have told her, but it was a thing I strove to suppress. A shame I couldn't bear to let surface, except in brief, painful surges.
Bordan couldn't answer because he wouldn't know. It was not a thing that Ashan would ever allow to be common knowledge, not to the other Djinn. That was one advantage I had; my spectacular ejection from the Djinn would cause doubt and rumors. And Ashan could not afford that. He might be powerful, but he had never been loved.
"If this is your decision," Bordan said, "you may live with it. And, in time, regret it."
Without another look in my direction, Bordan vanished, and took my last lingering hope with him. I would not be accepted back among the Old Djinn. I could never be one of David's New Djinn; Ashan had ensured that by blocking my path to the aetheric levels of the world.
I could never be truly human, either.
In the lingering silence after, Joanne said, "I don't know about you, but I think this situation just upgraded from ice cream to alcohol."
I had never tasted wine before, and the strong smell of it nauseated me. I wet my lips with it and put it aside, revolted. Everything seemed wrong suddenly. My skin felt tight around my body, my borrowed clothes rough and abrasive as sandpaper. The light was too harsh, the room cluttered and full of sharp edges. I reached blindly for a chair and dropped into it, covering my eyes. I was shaking, and there was a pressure building inside of me, as if I might somehow inexplicably burst.
Instead, I felt wetness bleed from my eyes and flow down my cheeks. I wiped at it in confusion and saw tears on my pale hands.
"No," I said. "No, I am not human. I do not cry like some helpless . . . animal!"
But I continued to sob, undone before the burning power of my own despair, and it made me angrier than ever. When Joanne tried to speak to me, I hit out at her, shoving her back.
She dealt me a sharp, stinging blow across the face. I cried out from the surge of pain, clapped my hand to my burning cheek, and stared at her in astonishment. My nose was running. I felt miserable, and miserably human.
"Stop acting like an ass," she said. "You're alive. You're not lost, and you're not dying. Ashan won't take you back--well, boohoo. I've met the guy, and frankly I consider that a bonus. If you want to survive, you're going to need us. You need the Wardens. Stop being an idiot."
Was I being an idiot? I felt like one, but only because I lacked the power to hit back. I glared at her, willing her to feel my anger. She did not seem impressed, but then, I'd heard the stories. . . . She had faced down Ashan and won. She had defeated Demons.
My feeble anger did not precisely terrify her.
"I don't need your Wardens," I said flatly. "I don't need humans. I will never need them."
"Guess what, Cupcake. You not only need Wardens--you might as well get used to the concept of needing humans, too, because you are one," Joanne said. "For all intents and purposes. So I think you'd better reconsider." She reached out, grabbed a box of pop-up tissues, and lobbed it neatly into my lap. I slowly pulled sheets from it and wiped clumsily at my streaming eyes, my dripping nose.
Joanne rolled her eyes. "Here," she said, and grabbed a fresh tissue. She clamped it over my nose. "Blow."
"What?"
"Blow out through your nose. C'mon, you're a bad-ass Djinn--you can manage to blow your nose like a two-year-old."
I blew, feeling humiliated and filthy and desperately angry about it. Then I got another tissue and blew my nose again, by myself, and felt some of the stinging in my eyes subside.
Joanne looked at me in silence for a few seconds. I looked back, utterly unable to find anything to say.
"Ice cream's melting," she said. "Bring the wine."
I suspected later that she deliberately failed to warn me about the effects of the alcohol.
The next day, I left Joanne's house for the first time, as what passed for human. She had found clothes for me--clothes to her own taste, not necessarily mine, although she had acceded gracefully to my request for the color to be light rose instead of the icy blue she originally chose. I had had enough of cold.
The trousers were long, slim, and white, fitting well enough around the contours of my body. She had found me ankle-high boots of a soft white leather, and a white silk shirt under a pale pink jacket, tailored close. My hair remained unusual, but I decided that I liked its fine, drifting, puffball wildness. It suited me. It's like a bag of feathers, Joanne had said, and given up trying to tame it into anything like a human style. At least it's not going to get messed up in the wind.
Still. "I feel like a fool," I said, as she opened the door of her car.
"Well, you shouldn't," she said. "You do look exotic, but kind of fabulous at it. Besides, you're riding in a sweet vintage Mustang. Enjoy the experience."
I had no idea what that should mean. I understood the automobile was a vehicle for transportation, but the other subtleties esc
aped me. I folded myself awkwardly into the machine's passenger's seat, fumbling with the safety belts she told me must be worn.
Joanne activated the machine, which rumbled unpleasantly, and the reek of burning metal made me feel trapped and claustrophobic. The windows rolled down, thankfully. I close my eyes as she drove and let the wind play over my skin and in my hair. It had a seductive pleasure to it, this sense of touch. Capable of so many different tones and colors.
"Doing okay?" she asked. I opened my eyes and nodded. The car was moving fast, too fast for me to focus on anything in particular, unless it was at a fair distance. Driving looked complicated. I felt an unexpected stab of nervousness; there was so much I had never done and wasn't sure I could learn. Humans seemed to overcome barriers as easily as breathing. I wasn't sure I had the instinct.
Joanne made no further comment. It wasn't a long drive, wherever she was taking me. We followed the coastline for a while, and the sight of the rolling, sparkling sea made me long to stop this rattling human contraption and take a seat on the sand, watching the surf roll. The Mother is there, I thought. In the water. In the ground. In the air. I had avoided thinking of how cut off I'd become from the pulse of the Earth, but the sight of that vast, moving ocean brought back the sense of isolation. I could walk her surface, but never know her, not in the way I had once. I was no longer her child; I was far, far less.
I was both glad and disappointed when the road turned away from the sea, and I lost sight of it among cars, streets, and the concrete canyons of the human-built city.
Joanne pulled the car to a covered area in front of a large, towering structure, and stepped out without turning off the engine. A uniformed man handed her a slip of paper, got into the driver's seat, and looked at me in surprise. I stared back.
"Hey." That was Joanne, opening my passenger's-side door. "That's the valet. We're getting out here."
I felt a fool again, and more of one when I realized how many people--strangers--seemed drawn to stare at me once I was out of the vehicle. Many people, men and women alike. I was doing nothing to merit their attention, but still they stared. Most looked quickly away when I glared at them.
Joanne led me inside of the building, and artificially cool, dry air closed around my skin, making me suddenly grateful for the jacket. How did humans cope with such drastic changes? It seemed insane. Why would they not simply accept the temperature as it came?
We went through a narrow hallway, which opened into a huge, soaring open room that lifted toward heaven. I stopped and stared. I knew humans built on a vast scale, but knowing and seeing seemed to be quite different things.
Concentric, gently flowing levels rose, stacked one atop the other, and it took me a moment to realize that each of the squares of metal evenly spaced on each level was, in fact, a door. Doors to rooms. So many separations between humans. It was a bit baffling how it all fit together.
There was a large central column in the center of the atrium, which housed banks of glass-faced rooms. No, not rooms: elevators, devices to move people between floors. Joanne led me into one, pressed a button, and leaned against the wood paneling to give me an interested look. My feet sank deep into richly woven carpets, and around us, music played, as soft as the whisper of the aetheric.
"You're handling it well," she said. "Being out in public for the first time."
Was I? I felt awkward, anxious, and freakish. I decided to stare out into the atrium as the elevator surged upward, carrying us into the air, far up. I pressed close to the glass, fascinated, and was disappointed when we slowed and stopped near the top of the building. The perspective change reminded me of looking down as a Djinn. Of flying. Of the aetheric.
"Coming?" Joanne asked me as she exited the elevator. I wasn't sure I wanted to, but I followed. We walked around the sinuous curve of the level, open to the atrium below, and Joanne paused next to one of the metal doors to knock. Apart from the number engraved on it, the door was identical to every other.
It swung open, and I faced another human, one also known to me, at least by appearance. His name was Lewis, and he was also a Warden. A favorite of Jonathan's, as I remembered. I had never met him, but I had seen him before, on the aetheric.
I looked him over anew with human eyes. We were almost of a height, but that was where our resemblance ended. His hair was a dark chestnut brown, shot through with strands of red and gold. His skin was tanned dark, and his eyes were rich brown, very deep and secret. The current fashion among human men, I thought, was to shave their facial hair; he had clearly not bothered for at least a day or more.
His clothes were plain--a dark shirt, denim pants, blocky, hard-leather boots.
And there was no mistaking the sense of power that clung to him like smoke and shadows.
"Come in," Lewis said, and stood aside to let me enter. I did, followed by Joanne, and found that the room was small but well-appointed, much like Joanne's home. A bed took up most of the space. A couch near the window held two other occupants. One was David, looking more purely human than ever.
I did not know the other person. He was male, of a darker, more coppery skin than Lewis, and he had black, smooth, close-cropped hair. He had shaved, I noticed. He wore a loose shirt and dark trousers, nothing remarkable.
"Right," Lewis said. "Cassiel, have a seat. You know who I am?"
He pointed to a chair at the desk. Joanne settled herself on the couch next to David, and Lewis took a seat on the edge of the bed, facing me.
I slowly lowered myself into the chair. "Lewis," I said. "Leader of the Wardens."
He and Joanne exchanged a quick glance. "For now," he said. "You never know how long those kind of things will last in times like these. You're Cassiel. Until recently, you were a Djinn."
I nodded.
"And now you need the help of the Wardens to draw the energy you need to stay alive."
Nothing to do but nod again, no matter how much I resented it. I had the feeling that Lewis's dark eyes did not miss my reluctance.
Instead of asking me another question, he looked at David. "What's her story?" he asked.
David took his time composing his answer, but he didn't look at me for permission, or apology. "Cassiel has always been on Ashan's side," he said. "A True Djinn, very old. Not exactly an ally to mankind in the past. I can't tell you much about her. Among the Djinn she's known as being stern, unforgiving, and arrogant, but Ashan cutting her off from the other Djinn seems to have mellowed her. A little."
Mellowed? I glowered at him. Of all he had said, that was the most offensive.
"Will she keep her promises?" Lewis asked.
"Don't ask him," I said. "Ask me. They would be my promises."
They all looked at me. David gave me a trace of a smile. "She's right," he said. "But if you don't mind me saying it, Cassiel's never been one to lie. She wouldn't deceive you. It would be"--his eyebrows quirked; such a human gesture--"undignified."
I couldn't disagree with it. I fixed Lewis with a long, challenging look, and got a half-bitter smile from him in response. "You don't exactly come begging, do you?" he said. "Hungry?"
For a moment, I thought he meant hungry for food, but then I knew what he was offering. I didn't look at Joanne or David. I held his stare. "Very," I said evenly.
"Want a taste?"
Lewis held out his hand to me. I stood up, looking down at him, trying to read his expression. It was a test, I knew that. But what kind of test, I couldn't tell.
I slowly reached out and took his hand in mine, as if we were merely shaking hands in the human fashion. A complicated set of emotions sped through me . . . fear, most strangely. Hunger. Longing. An almost irresistible urge to take, and take, and take . . .
I allowed myself to merely touch on his power, drawing a thin thread of it into myself. It flowed through my veins like gold, and despite everything, I could not resist a slow, trembling sigh.
And then I let go, stepped away from him, and settled back in my chair.
&
nbsp; Lewis lowered his hand back to rest on his knee. There had been no change in his expression at all, but suddenly I knew what he was thinking and feeling. The power I'd taken from him granted me that kind of access, an intimacy that was startling because it was so different from what I'd experienced with Joanne. It was as if for a moment I was Lewis, and I could see all his past . . . his longing for Joanne, never to be truly sated. His solitary life. His discomfort with the responsibility he now held. His deep, abiding wish to simply be.
"You should have been a Djinn," I said, surprising myself, and Lewis blinked.
"Probably," he said. "But here we are. So, you obviously have control of what it is you do. I know you could have grabbed for all the power you could hold, but you didn't. Why?"
Because it was a test. That was true, but also not true. "I am not a beast," I said. "I can control my needs, just as you can."
I didn't look toward Joanne, but I saw a spark go through him, a tiny tremble that meant he'd understood precisely what I meant. "How can I be sure of that?" he asked, a little more sharply. He didn't like a stranger knowing his secrets.
"You have my promise," I said. "I will never take more than I need, and I will never deliberately injure or weaken a Warden in the process, unless they are attempting to do harm to me." I had with Joanne, but I'd been new and afraid. I understood better now.
"And you'll ask permission first," Lewis said.
"Yes. I will ask, unless it is an emergency."
"You realize this is a promise," Lewis said. "You sure you can keep it?"
"It's no more than the promises humans make with each other to live in peace together."
"People break those all the time," Joanne murmured.
I knew that far better than she did. "No doubt they do, when they are threatened. I make the same promise, with the same understanding. If I am not threatened, I will live in peace with you. But I won't die quietly." I didn't try to explain or insist. I just waited. They would trust me or not; there was nothing I could do to convince them. Lewis glanced at David, then Joanne. I didn't see them make any obvious signals, but he must have gained some understanding, and I realized with a jealous rush that they were communicating on a level I would never again attain.
They were speaking in the aetheric.
