Unseen (19 page)

My eardrum gave a peculiar flutter, and then Luis’s voice said,
What happened to you?

I couldn’t really answer him. Instead, I tapped the connection again.

You’re hurt
, he guessed.

I gave him another single tap.
One for yes, two for no, okay?

It was an excellent guess.
Yes
, I signaled back.

Hold on
, he said, which was not the response I expected.
Are you close to the school?

No!
I added the emphasis by tapping harder, two times, then another two, just to be sure.
No!

Then what the hell do you want,
chica
?

I tapped the connection, steadily, five times, drawing attention to its presence. After a few seconds, he said,
You need power, yeah, I got that. Come in to the school first.

NO!
My signal this time was two strikes, as hard as I could make it. I gave out an audible growl of frustration.

Fine
, he said.
I’ll come to you. Got your position on the aetheric. Be there in half an hour.

No matter how many times I tapped the connection, or how hard, he refused to speak further. I gritted my teeth in frustration, and rode the bike up the narrow, winding trail. I was approaching the school from the south, but off the expected road; I knew I’d be running into the school’s first line of boundary defenses soon. Luis was taking his life into his hands coming out, but he still had a better chance of surviving that than I did coming in.

I needed to meet him halfway.

I was still well shy of the defenses—or so it seemed—when Luis appeared, on foot, at the top of the ridge above me. He didn’t say anything at first; neither did I, as I idled the bike, then cut the engine and settled it on the kickstand. The descent from the ridge was steeper than I would have attempted, but Luis took the direct approach; he broke loose a thick slab of rock with a kick, stepped on it, and rode it like a surfboard down the rugged, snow-dotted hill, skidding to a halt in front of me.

Earth Wardens. So showy.

“Well,” he said. “You came back.”

“I had to,” I said. “There’s a traitor with a Djinn at his command inside the school. No one there is safe, and nobody can be trusted.” He nodded, not looking away from my face. “You’re not surprised.”

“No,” he said. “I’m not.” He looked up the slope, and I realized that we weren’t alone.

Rashid was standing there, looking spotless and sober in his black suit. He folded his hands and stared down at me with an expressionless intensity that made me feel very, very vulnerable. If I couldn’t fight a mere Weather Warden’s attack, how much chance did I have against a Djinn?

“You came back,” Luis repeated. “I didn’t think you would, Cass. I really, really didn’t.” And then he said, almost in a whisper, “I’m so sorry. I did tell you that you weren’t going to like what I was doing.”

Rashid jumped off the ridge and landed flat-footed beside Luis. No mistaking it; Luis hardly glanced his direction. No surprise at all.

The realization came to me slowly, but it brought with it a massive shift of perspective. Luis wasn’t surprised by Rashid’s presence ... because he knew that the Djinn was there.

He knew
why
the Djinn was there.

And there was only one person who could know that.

I stared at Luis, and after a moment he reached in his pocket and took out a small, thick bottle sealed with a simple rubber stopper. He held it up for me to see, then put it back.

“You,” I said. “You have Rashid.”

“Yes.”

“Before I left you?”

“Yes,” Luis said. His voice was soft, but definite. “After you told me you were taking off, he showed up, carrying a message from the other Wardens. It was a God-given opportunity, Cass. I couldn’t take the risk that Ibby would be left without a last line of defense. That’s what he’s for.”

“You enslaved Rashid.” I felt sick, lost, and deeply betrayed. “Knowing what you know, you still did it, by force.”

Luis had the grace to look away. “I wasn’t sure it would work,” he said. “But I had to have something in reserve. I couldn’t depend on you; I knew that. You
told
me that, straight out.”

I had. I just hadn’t expected him to take me so literally.

“You’re not turning against the Wardens, or the school,” I said. “Then why—?”

“It was a strategy with Marion. We knew you’d leave us; we needed to flush out the threats along the way. I wanted to warn you. I tried to warn you.” Luis seemed uncomfortable now, and reluctant to spell it out; Rashid, on the other hand, smiled and picked up the thread.

“What your faithful lover is trying to say is that Marion ordered Warden Harley to his position in the first place. When you left, Luis arranged for me to send you there as well—expecting that with Harley a sitting target, any opposition would be drawn to him.” He shrugged. “I admit, the bargain to destroy Warden Harley was all my doing. But you didn’t have to kill him yourself. No harm done.”

“Shut up,” Luis said, and uncorked the container.

Rashid gave him a sudden, startlingly violent look that dripped of hatred. “A moment,” he said, voice still smooth despite the depth of that emotion. “She needs to know this.”

“What?” I asked.

“You can’t believe him,” Luis said.

“
You
can’t believe him,” I corrected him. “He has no reason to lie to me. Rashid?”

“The children from Chicago,” the Djinn said. “I know where they were being taken.”

“It doesn’t matter—she could have moved them anywhere . . .”

He smiled, but it wasn’t at all friendly. “I was
thorough
. Their final destination was in New Jersey.”

I could believe him or not, and clearly Luis wasn’t prepared to trust his word, but something in Rashid’s gaze prompted me to believe. I inclined my head slowly. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Destroy the bitch. That’s why you’re here, not for this mortal nonsense.”

That broke Luis’s temper with an almost visible snap. “Back inside the bottle, Rashid. Now.”

Rashid stretched himself out into a thin black mist and flowed into the glass. Luis slammed the cork home and dropped it into his pocket. “I said it before—you can’t believe him. He was supposed to warn you before sending you in there,” he said. “I told him to do it, but I didn’t make it an order. I didn’t think I had to. I thought he was your friend.”

“He was an ally,” I corrected. “And it wasn’t a strike at me; it was a strike at you. I was incidental. Also, I thought
you
were my friend. But you used me.”

“Had to. We needed to make sure we got all of Pearl’s scouts.”

“You sent me out
blind.
Knowing the odds.”

“Yeah, that’s how it worked out,” he said softly. “What, did you think you were the only hard-ass on the team, Cass? The only one who could make the hard choices? I chose to do what I had to. I had to protect this school and the kids inside. I trusted you to do what
you
had to do to protect yourself. I didn’t think it would send you running back here.”

I bared my teeth. “I came running back here to
save you.
”

“I know that now,” he said, and stepped forward. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you more than that, but I really thought Rashid would warn you. I really did.”

I took in a deep breath. “Give me the bottle.”

“I can’t do that. We need him. He’s the last defense for the kids.”

“Only if you don’t lose control of him, and he’s already fooled you once, Luis. Managing a captive Djinn is something that even the elder Wardens did carefully. You can’t expect someone like Rashid to just let you order him. Free him. He’ll help you of his own will.”

Luis shook his head. “I can’t count on it. There are too many lives at stake, and this is too important. There’s no traitor at the school, Cass. I have control of the Djinn. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”

I gave him a long, dark look and turned away to mount my bike. I felt filthy, inside and out. Betrayed in a way that I’d never expected.

“Wait.” Luis leaned on the handlebars of the Victory, stopping me as I kicked the engine to life. “You need power before you go. Let me do that, at least.”

I hated it. I hated
him
for it. But I hated myself, worst of all, for accepting. Luis took my hand in his, and the familiar hot surge of energy swept through me, healing and sure. I would have sworn that the man wielding that power could never have betrayed me, or deceived me ... but he had.

And it sickened and frightened me, that I could so misjudge him in this.

As soon as it was practical, I pulled free of him and turned the bike on the narrow trail to head back the way I’d come.

“Are you okay?” Luis asked me. The warmth in his voice made me feel a little more betrayed, a little more angry. “Cassiel—”

“Think on this,” I said. “If you’re not the traitor, who created the mudslide that almost killed me on the way here?”

He had no answer for that.

“Watch yourself,” I said. “And watch Rashid. He’ll betray you if he can.” I stopped short of saying what I felt:
And you would deserve it.

Because even though I agreed with that, I loved him, dear God, I loved him, and that was utterly damning.

I put the Victory in gear and roared away.

Chapter 8

MANY HOURS LATER,
I stopped for gasoline and a meal at a diner that proved to be delicious enough, though I avoided any kind of beef, in honor of my recent new friends from the cattle truck. It was, by that time, nearly six in the morning, and I dialed my friend in the FBI with great pleasure. “Hello, Agent Turner,” I said, with a good deal more cheer than was perhaps called for. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Matter of fact, you didn’t. Sorry about that, Cassiel.”

“I would never wish to cause you inconvenience.”

“I thought the Djinn didn’t lie.”

“Who ever told you that?”

“Huh, good point. Where are you?”

“A diner outside of Albuquerque—the Adobe Bowl. You know where it is?”

“I’m not that far away. Stay put. I’ll come to you.”

“I’ll be here.” I hung up without any kind of conventional end to the conversation; in my experience, that left the other party feeling off balance and frustrated. I liked to have Turner frustrated; he tended to give more away than he intended.

I ordered pie and coffee, and nursed both while the sunrise turned the land to intense bands of color—purple for the mountains, dark green for the foothills, ochre and gold for the flatlands. There was a television running silently in the corner of the diner, tuned to a news channel. One of the stories was about an abduction of children that began in Denver and ended in Chicago, which had been foiled by a fast-thinking citizen. All the children had been recovered safely, and the kidnappers either dead in the ensuing gun battle with police or fled. A manhunt was under way.

I doubted they would ever find the bodies of those who’d “fled.” Rashid had not been in a very good mood, and after posing as the “fast-thinking citizen,” he would want his pound of flesh.

The children were safe. That made me feel a distant, cold satisfaction, if not happiness; but even the satisfaction was wiped out by the next story, which involved the grisly discovery of a shooting victim in the woods, two men dead of apparent natural causes and one who’d been torn apart by wild animals.

Luis had gotten what he’d wanted from me. Full value.

They hadn’t found the one who’d been sealed alive inside the tree, but he was as dead as the others, no question about it.

“Gruesome stuff,” said Turner as he slid into the booth across from me, a porcelain cup of coffee already in his hand. He was a thin, bland sort of man, and as usual he was dressed in what I considered the FBI uniform—a dark suit, a plain tie, a white shirt. Turner was, however, also a Warden—not very powerful but well trained, at least. I doubted his FBI bosses had knowledge of that particular aspect of his life. “What kind of pie was that?”

“Good,” I said. He sighed, motioned to a waitress, and pointed at my pie.

“Another one of those, unless it’s cherry. I don’t like cherry.”

“Coconut,” the woman said. “That okay?”

“Brilliant.” He sipped coffee and returned his attention to me. He’d showered recently; the ends of his hair were still dark and damp against his neck, and his face seemed freshly shaved. By contrast, his shirt seemed wrinkled and stale, and his suit hadn’t seen recent cleaning, either. “Nice trip?” He glanced over his shoulder at the TV. “You pass that place along the way, the one with the dead guys?”

“I think I would remember something like that.”

Turner had enough experience with me to recognize a non-answer when he heard one, and for a moment I thought he might continue to pursue it, but he decided not to, as his slice of pie was deposited in front of him. “I’m sure they needed killing,” he said. “That would be the usual excuse, even if you’re not from Texas.”

“I thought you investigated things like that.”

“Murder isn’t a federal crime,” he said, “luckily for you. Abductions are, which is why I was tracking this Denver thing until miraculously everything just went wrong for the kidnappers. Kids got out of it fine, which was another miracle considering the bullets that started flying around. Incidentally, although this isn’t going out to the media, all of the adults in the plot were either recent converts to the Church of the New World or hired guns paid as muscle. And the kids were all Warden kids. You got any insights?”