Unseen

by Rachel Caine

I rolled the tension out of my shoulders and walked toward Janice. She tried to move toward the exit, but I easily outmaneuvered her. Anger made me quick, and feral.

  "I can still kill them," she warned me. "Doesn't take much. You know that."

  "It wouldn't take much to kill you, either," I said. "And I'd do it before I let you go. I don't want the boys harmed, but if you do it, it's your choice. Mine is to stop you."

  "At any cost," she said. "Really."

  "Yes." I felt more like a Djinn in that moment than at any point I could remember since falling into flesh. "I promise you, you won't leave here alive unless you put those boys down, safely."

  Janice flinched. What she saw in me woke fear, and obedience. She bent and carefully laid Sanjay down, then Elijah. As she straightened, she held up her hands in surrender. "All right," she said. "They're down. Deal?"

  "Deal," I agreed. And on the aetheric level, I wrapped power around her rapidly beating heart. She tried to stop me, but in the end, without her glamour, she was far weaker than I'd expected. "I didn't tell you I would let you leave alive. Only that you wouldn't if you failed to do what I said. You bargain badly."

  And then I killed her.

  It was a great deal more merciful than she deserved.

  Marion was dangerously weak, but her power and mine sufficed to heal the ragged tear in Luis's artery, at least well enough that he could move safely. The volume of blood he'd lost was another matter. We accelerated the production of it, but it would be days before he was himself again. Still, he was conscious, steady, and able to walk, if stiffly; that was a great deal better than either of us had expected.

  There was a bruise forming on his chin. He rubbed it as I helped him to his feet. "Damn, girl, you didn't have to make your point quite that hard."

  "There wasn't time for polite argument," I said. "And you deserved it."

  He sighed. "Yeah, I kinda did. But you're not going to hear it again. I'm blaming it on the blood loss."

  His sense of humor was back, for which I was heartily grateful. I braced him until he could stand on his own, and tried to step away.

  He didn't let me. His hands went around my upper arms, and held me in place, close to him. "You bet our lives," he said. "On a Djinn's goodwill."

  "It was better than betting it on his obedience," I said. "You tricked him into the bottle. It wasn't his choice. This was. You have to trust Djinn, Luis. You can't force them to be what you want them to be."

  I was speaking of Rashid, most certainly, but I was also speaking of myself. And he knew that.

  "You still hate me?" he asked. "Don't go saying you didn't. I felt it. I know how much it hurt you, what I did. What I said, sure, but mostly what I did. I never wanted that, Cass. Never."

  "And I never wanted to leave you," I said. "Please believe that."

  He nodded, eyes gone dark. "Did you find her?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you hurt her?"

  "Some," I said, and shook my head. "Not enough. Not nearly enough."

  "You will."

  "We will."

  "Yes." He kissed my forehead, with so much tenderness it melted the last of the icy pain within me. "We will."

  We left the ruins behind.

  The other Wardens had met us on the way to the fire road, to the east ... a ragtag, injured bunch, but they hadn't lost anyone else. A few asked about Janice. None of us commented on her loss with more than a brief acknowledgment of it. I wondered what Marion would say, in the end. She, more than anyone else, had made a catastrophic mistake in allowing Janice such unfettered, trusted access to her most vulnerable charges. The pain of that weighed heavily on her--visibly, in fact, in the slump of her shoulders and the new lines on her face. I'd managed to retrieve her wheelchair from the ruins, but the electrical power had been destroyed, and no one had the energy left to repair it. She pushed herself along the rocky path, face welded into an emotionless mask. Alone with her thoughts, and her failures.

  Miraculously, only one of the children had died: Mike, whom I'd found outside of the building. Gillian seemed inconsolable; she'd sought out Isabel, and the two girls walked together, hands clasped. I wondered how that friendship had developed. They didn't seem at all similar, really.

  Humans often confused me, though.

  The Wardens traveled in unexpected silence, communicating in careful whispers and gestures as we moved down the twisting path. At regular intervals, we paused to take a head count.

  Just before we reached the fire road, we stopped for the last one. Luis and I stood together, not touching but closer than we'd felt since the decision to bring Isabel here. I still didn't know if that had been a mistake, or a necessary evil; she seemed better, despite the desperate last stand in the school. Maybe Marion's treatments had helped, though the seizures she'd suffered still frightened me, as did the pessimistic estimate of her chance of long-term survival.

  I looked around for her, but there were two other Warden children behind us. "Ibby?"

  Someone shushed me. Gayle passed me, rapidly conducting her head count. Then she came back, frowning, counting again.

  Dread gathered in my stomach. I stopped her. "What is it?"

  "Two short," she said. "I didn't see anyone leave."

  Neither had I, and it alarmed me. I'd been vigilant. Whoever had left the party had done so under cover of a veil, and a very good one.

  Luis and I exchanged a look of perfect understanding, and spun away in separate directions, checking faces. When I reached the end of the line, I turned and ran back to meet him halfway. We instinctively grabbed hold of each other.

  "She's not here," Luis panted. "Ibby's gone. The other girl, too. Gillian."

  Gillian, who had been so distraught. But had they gone on their own, or had they been taken?

  "We have to look for them," Luis said. "They've only been gone fifteen minutes, since the last check. Can't have gone far."

  Gayle grabbed him and pulled him to a halt. "Hey!" she hissed. "We've got refugees and wounded, and we don't know that they're safe yet! We can't go tearing through the woods shouting!"

  He shoved her back, but he must have known, as I did, that she was right. "Then what?" he spat back, but quietly enough. "Someone took her! I'm not just giving up on her!"

  "We may be able to track her on the aetheric," I said quietly. "And we don't know that she was taken, Luis. We don't know that at all."

  I was trying to prepare him, because I didn't believe, not for a moment, that Ibby had been spirited away against her will. The child was, if nothing else, a fighter; she'd been taken once, and she would never go quietly again. Added to that, she was in the midst of a group, and no one had noticed her, or Gillian's, disappearance.

  She'd gone willingly, wherever she had gone. And she'd taken Gillian with her.

  "Well?" Gayle whispered. "We can't wait. I have to keep them moving. We're vulnerable out here."

  "Go," Luis said. "We're staying." I nodded. We stepped out of the group, and Gayle, after a troubled frown, led the others on into the dark. It took surprisingly little time before we were lost in the dark again, just the two of us.

  Luis limped over to me as I stood surveying the dark, cold woods. The school's fires had gone out, or at least sunk to sullen ashes; it was once again full, true night, and a moonless one. "Let's go," he said, and limped on, back toward the trail. "We might be able to pick up their tracks where they left the group." I didn't move. After several steps, he stopped and looked back. "Cass?"

  "Stay where you are," I said softly. "Don't move."

  I heard a soft, whispering laugh through the trees. "You're good; I'll give you that," said a woman's voice. I recognized it all too easily. "Mira, he's a tasty one. Yours?"

  Luis started to turn, but Esmeralda--Snake Girl--whipped out of the shadows with blinding, reptilian speed, wrapping coils around him with crushing force. Her human half rose up, beautiful and terrifying as she hissed and bared her venomous fangs. Luis struggled, but Esmeralda was to
o physically strong to budge ... and when I tried to break her hold, my Earth-based powers bounced off of her without effect. In a very real sense, Esmeralda was part of that power. It had taken a Djinn's death to seal her in the form she was in and take away much of her strength; that only served notice of how incredibly powerful and dangerous she'd once been.

  I thought I could defeat her, but not with Luis held hostage in those muscular, tensing coils. She could crush him before I could save him.

  "Very tasty," Esmeralda said, and lowered herself to look into Luis's eyes. "You have good instincts, Djinn. This one's no rabbit. He's more of a tiger."

  Luis tried something--I couldn't tell what, but it didn't matter; at the first sign of his drawing power, Esmeralda tightened her coils, and I heard bones and muscles creaking under the stress. He gasped, and then couldn't pull in another breath to replace the one he'd lost. The panic in his face made her smile. "Definitely a tiger," she said. "But tigers die just like rabbits, hombre. So play nice."

  "Let him breathe," I said. "Please."

  She glanced at me, raised her eyebrows, and tossed her dark hair back over her shoulders. "Since you ask so nice, sure." Her smile was real, and vicious. "You want to ask me why I'm here?"

  "I know why you're here," I said. "You're here because Ibby told you to come here. When?"

  That startled Snake Girl, and once again I saw that flash that betrayed her genuine youth. She might exude self-confidence, but beneath it she was still a girl, one who'd made tremendous mistakes. "Who says I come running when some little brat calls?"

  "Because you liked her. Because you saw in her what you once were. And because she asked your name."

  "You think I'm that simple?"

  "No," I said. "I think you're that lonely, Esmeralda. How did she send for you?"

  Es slowly unwound herself from around Luis's body, and he staggered and backed away toward me. The two of us against the monster ... but I wasn't seeing a monster anymore.

  Es settled her coils comfortably, a glistening mound of sinuous flesh, and propped her chin on one hand. Her elbow rested on the top of a coil. "She called the shop and left a message to tell me where she was. She said she liked it here, but she figured things would go wrong. She thought I could help. She said it was the least I could do."

  "Can you help?"

  "Yeah, probably." Es shrugged. She studied her fingernails, and frowned at the dirt she found beneath them. She'd been traveling a long way, I realized; her shirt--the only clothing she wore--was dirty and torn, and her previously shiny, perfect hair was rough and tangled. No doubt she could manage to hide herself effectively with what remained of her Earth powers, because otherwise her travels would have been brief, and full of general panic. But even then, she hadn't had an easy time of it.

  I was willing to bet it was the first time she'd risked the outside world in quite some while.

  "The girls," I said. "Do you know where they are?"

  "Ibby and the redhead? Yeah. I know where they were going."

  "And you just let them go?" Luis said. His fists balled up, and I saw the black tattoos on his arms glitter in the starlight and start to smolder. His use of fire was purely instinctual now, not directed with anything like precision. I laid a hand on his shoulder, and felt him deliberately reach for calm. "Where are they?"

  "Doing something brave," Esmeralda said. "They knew somebody would be coming for the convoy you have on the road. They split off. They're going to intercept them."

  Luis spat out a curse. "We already had perimeter security," he said. "The last thing we need is two of these kids out there handling power they shouldn't be touching!"

  "Listen, man-cake, I already slithered past your so-called perimeter security, like, fifteen times." Es sighed. "You Wardens. Es stupido. You'd do better with third-rate rent-a-cops; at least they'd have guns. Ibby was right. If you want to keep your convoy from getting trashed, you'd better get your best on it. And the kids, they're good. Better than you."

  "Es," I said, "the more those girls use their powers, the more broken they become. They started too young. You understand that better than anyone."

  The Snake Girl looked away, and didn't comment. Her coils shifted restlessly, and there was a slight, instinctive buzz from her tail rattle. "They'll be okay," she said. "Look, you can't protect them. They're going to do what they're going to do."

  "It's killing them," Luis said.

  Esmeralda's dark gaze flashed up to lock with his. "And?" she asked. "What do you think making them not use it is going to do? Kill them slower? Some of them won't make it. Some will adapt. That's the way things go in this world. You can't stop it, and you'd better not get in the way."

  "I'm not letting her do this," he said. "Cass. Let's go."

  "You won't find them," Es said. "One thing that kid knows how to do is hide. You won't find them unless you trip over them by accident in the dark."

  "Can you find them?" I asked.

  Es considered the question, and then tilted her head a little. "Maybe," she said. "Maybe I don't want to, though."

  I had let this go on too long, I decided. I was a little fascinated with Esmeralda, the way a mongoose is fascinated with a snake, but enough was enough. Luis was right. We couldn't allow a six-year-old child to fight a battle for us.

  I had been sending tendrils of power out through the roots of trees around us, and now, with a snap of will, I triggered the trap. Branches slammed down, forming a thick, springy cage around her. Roots squirmed from the dirt and wrapped around the branches, weaving it together.

  Esmeralda let out a hiss of surprise, and I heard the dry rattle of her alarm. She battered the cage with the coils of her body, but it was tightly woven, and impossible for her to get real force into her struggles. "Let me go, you cold bitch!" she screamed, and ripped at the wood with her hands--but those were merely human hands, without the strength necessary to shred the tough fibers. "Let me go!"

  "Once you tell me where they are," I said. "You know this is too dangerous for them. Don't let them down, Esmeralda. They meant for you to tell us. They hoped you would."

  "That's not what she said." The snake's coils pulsed against the cage, trying to push it apart, but the trees were firmly rooted deep in the earth. Esmeralda subsided, panting, glaring through the mesh at us. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the branches. "She said not to let anyone find her."

  "She's a child," Luis said. "And she's too brave for her own good. She needs us. Tell us where she is or I swear to God I'll rip off your rattle and feed it to you!"

  Esmeralda was silent for so long I wondered if she would tell us, and then she finally said, "I'm not afraid of you. I'm telling you because I think the gringa bitch is right; the kids shouldn't be doing this alone. I was going to go help them anyway."

  "Where. Is. She?" Luis almost snarled it, and I felt the burning aura of fire around him again, a kindling that raised the temperature by several degrees.

  Esmeralda sensed it, too, and went very still. The dry buzz of her rattle grew louder as she reacted to his threat, but she had nowhere to run, and she couldn't strike to defend herself. Luis wouldn't burn her alive--at least I didn't think he would--but his rage was clear.

  "If you stand between me and Isabel, I'll wipe you off the face of the earth," he told her. "You take us to her. Do it now."

  He nodded to me, and I released the cage of branches, which sprang back into their normal positions with a creak and rustle of dry needles. The roots shriveled back into the ground.

  Esmeralda was free, but she still didn't move. The steady, unnerving buzzing continued, like bones in a bottle.

  "You keep it in mind," she said. "I'm not your bitch. I'll crush you and eat you if you mess with me."

  Luis brushed it aside with an angry swipe of his hand. "We can kill each other later. Ibby. Now!"

  She relaxed a little, and the rattling slowed, then stopped. "All right," she said. "Try to keep up, asshole."

  She could mov
e with astonishing speed, and with a quick, sinuous flash, she was already disappearing through the trees. The pale white of her rattle was the only visible sign of her.

  "Run," I said, and took off in pursuit.

  Chapter 14

  IT WASN'T THAT I had forgotten Luis's leg injury, but I'd known he wouldn't allow it to slow him down too much. Even so, he labored very hard to keep the pace, gasping for air, and when he faltered I grabbed him and pulled him along. He dug deep for the strength to deny the pain, and I blocked it as much as I could. The patch to his torn artery was holding, and that was all I could hope for now. This pursuit might do irreparable harm to him, but he wouldn't give it up. There was no point in asking.

  Esmeralda's snakelike form whipped around trees, threaded between boulders, slipped over shadow-protected drifts of snow that hadn't yet melted. I expected her to slow, but if anything, she increased speed, and the starlight wasn't enough to keep her in sight. I tracked her on the aetheric; her aura was eerie and weirdly wrong for the shape she held in the human world. It was more as she imagined herself ... but she wasn't human at all. A feathered serpent, magnificently colored, gliding silently through the world above. The deadly sense of menace from her was even stronger in that realm of force and will, and I realized once again what a power had been leashed inside those snake's coils.

  Whoever the Djinn who'd defeated her was, he must have been astonishing. And remarkably selfless.

  It took a quarter of an hour, but Esmeralda's progress abruptly ceased, and I dragged Luis to a panting, trembling stop a few feet behind her. Her rattlesnake-patterned coils pulled themselves together in a tense pattern, bracing her for a strike, but the rattle remained silent.

  Luis collapsed to one knee, and I heard a soft moan out of him, something he tried to muffle but couldn't. The pain was intense; I felt it burning between us, and touched his damp shoulder to try to numb the screaming nerves. He shook me off. His long, dark hair was soaked with sweat and clung to his face in sharp, sticky points. "Is she here?" he whispered. I shook my head. I didn't sense her, but there was something gathering on the aetheric around us, dark as a coming storm.

  There was a flash of blue-white light to the east, and in its glow I saw Isabel standing back-to-back with Gillian. They were surrounded by what looked like half a dozen wolves--big, rangy ones, circling and charging in to nip at them. It wasn't natural hunting behavior, although wolves could certainly hunt humans if they chose. I felt the pressure on the animals in the aetheric, heavy enough to make my head ache even at this distance. The wolves were letting out soft yips--not excitement, but pain.