Unbroken

Chapter 8

AN HOUR LATER, we’d moved so much earth and stone that Luis called a rest, and I sank gratefully down against the cool clay wall, gulping down sweat-warm mouthfuls of water until the plastic bottle was dry. “Eat,” Luis told me, and pressed an energy bar into my hand. “Then have more water, but slowly. We’re sweating it all out.”

I nodded. I didn’t feel hungry, but he was right—I needed to keep my energy levels high. The power he was channeling was burning through both of us, and despite the fact that we were literally grounded by—surrounded by—earth, the task was growing rapidly more difficult. As we drove deeper, the pressure on us, and the earth through which we moved, grew more dense. I felt filthy—my clothing clinging and heavy with sweat and caked mud, my skin smeared and as damp as if I’d just emerged from a salty ocean. And yet I was chilled, and grew more so the longer I rested. The damp, cool air made me feel every ache in my much-abused body.

I had time to examine the damage to my left arm, and used a little power to smooth the jagged metal back over the broken cables. It would take time and concentration I didn’t have now to fix everything—if I survived, which was far from a given just now. I did not favor our chances. Most of my arm was dead to sensation now, though the first two fingers and thumb could still curl, grip, and hold, and there were ghostly echoes of touch available from them. The Djinn had done damage to me, but it would have likely torn off a flesh limb. I’d been lucky.

“We’ve only got about another hundred feet,” Luis told me. I nodded; I could also see the glow of the Wardens in Oversight, like fireflies trapped in a bottle. They were all alive, though some were prone on the ground—sleeping or unconscious. “Once we break through, we heal whoever needs it, rest, then start the trip back. We’ve been lucky so far. Maybe it’ll hold out.”

By lucky, he meant that the Earth herself didn’t seem to have objected to our journey under her skin; it was a dangerous place for Earth Wardens, although it was equally powerful… a bit like Weather Wardens traveling by airplane. We were completely at the mercy of our element here, and never more than now, when the Earth herself was at least partially alert to the presence of Wardens pricking her skin. It would be a mere shiver for her to crush us here… or dispatch a wave of Djinn to destroy us.

I hoped she would not do that, because Alvin’s abilities horrified me in ways that Edie’s did not.

“I wish we knew what was going on out there,” Luis said. “Orwell said they still had a few days to make port. Maybe they’re making better time than expected.” He was trying to be hopeful, but we both knew that what the Wardens could do now to control any Djinn-fueled disaster would be like spraying a fire extinguisher on a lava flow. “Seattle seemed to be holding its own.” He didn’t mention Portland.

I handed him another bottle of water, which he sipped in carefully controlled doses. I tried to emulate him, though I wanted to guzzle it as quickly as the first. My body seemed deeply starved for moisture. “We need a day off,” I said, and that startled a low, bitter laugh from him. “Perhaps a vacation.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “On a nice white sand beach, with the sun shining and a cool breeze blowing. Turquoise blue ocean. Maybe a couple of palm trees. Definitely some cold cerveza.”

It sounded peaceful, I had to admit, though I had no real experience of the sort of thing he was speaking about; I’d seen photographs, and I could imagine it would seem relaxing. “Perhaps it would be a bit dull for us,” I said. That got a less bitter chuckle.

“Girl, I’m definitely hoping for dull. Way too much adrenaline on this ride for me, you know?” He put his arm around me, and for a moment, at least, I felt as if I could breathe easily. Luis had that effect on me, though I don’t think it was any sort of magic. Just… love.

Its own kind of magic, most likely.

We finished our water, made sure the children had finished theirs, and then began the sweaty, brutal work again. A hundred feet became fifty, then twenty, then ten.

And then we broke through into a cavernous space, dark and echoing, and heard a glad outcry from the other side. The first opening was small, but not too small for a dirty arm to be thrust through, to grab Luis’s hand. The babble of words from the other side made it impossible to pick out anything in particular, so Luis pulled free, bent lower, and yelled, “Get back, all of you! Coming through!” He waited for another fifteen long seconds, then said, “Here goes!” and sent a last shockwave of power through the wall of tightly packed clay and till, and it crumbled in a shower and pulled into a pile behind the four of us. As the dust settled into a dull gray cloud, I was snatched into a desperate hug from a woman I didn’t know; she quickly abandoned me to throw her arms around Luis, but I was instantly assaulted by yet another grateful Warden. There were too many of them, and all too grateful.

No one tried to hug Alvin, and those who dared approach Edie received a furious glare that warned them off. After the first rush of overwhelming glee, the Wardens began to sort themselves out into individuals for me.… The one with the most presence seemed to be the smallest, a middle-aged man with a barrel chest, dressed in the grubby remains of a quite nice business suit. The tie was long gone, but he’d kept the jacket, and his pale blue shirt remained relatively clean. “Thank you all,” he said, and held up his hands for quiet. The chatter among the other Wardens died down, as if they had become used to following his lead; that surprised me, because there was a strong-faced older woman in the group who I’d have pegged as a natural leader at first glance. There were two other women, one thin and athletic, one much rounder, but taller. The other two men were as different as possible from each other; one was a sullen-looking young man in a battered T-shirt and mud-caked jeans, and the other was a silver-haired, dignified old gentleman in walking shorts and a brightly colored, squarishly cut shirt. “Thank you so much for coming for us. We were starting to think we’d been left for dead.”

“Not at all,” Luis said. “Believe me, you’re needed up top. It’s our job to get you back in the fight.”

“It’s still a fight?” The older man looked surprised. “I thought it’d be over by now.”

“If it was over, they wouldn’t be here to get us,” the horse-faced woman said, and offered her hand to me. “I’m Salvia Owens.” Under the coating of grime, her skin was a dark brown, and her eyes seemed to have a green tint to them in the glow of Luis’s self-contained, floating light, which had brightened to show the group.

I shook and said, “Cassiel, and this is Luis.”

“I’m Mel,” the man in the business suit said. “That’s Will, Carson, Naomi and Phyllis—Phyl, for short. And the kids…?”

“Edie and Alvin,” I said. “It’s a long story, and we don’t have time for it now.”

“Why not?” Edie asked. “What were you going to say about us? That we’re freaks? We are,” she confided, looking straight at Mel. “I’m stronger than you are. Or you. Or you.” She singled out the Weather Wardens in the group. Mel frowned a little, but he must have sensed that she wasn’t lying, because he gave Luis and me an uneasy glance. “And don’t even ask about Alvin. You don’t want to know what he is. Better hope he doesn’t show you.” She held up her hand, palm out toward Alvin, and he smacked it, though not as if he was in any way exultant. Merely meeting her expectations of behavior.

There was something of me in him, I realized, something of a stranger trapped in a world he didn’t understand, or truly fit inside. Sad. By any logic, that should have brought us closer together—we outcasts should stick together.

But not this time. What drove us was so very, very different.

“Is anyone here in need of medical help?” I asked the Wardens. They seemed grateful for the change of subject, but no one had significant injuries or problems. Remarkable, but they’d had access to clean, clear water; there was a large, still, dark pool in the middle of their cave. The Fire Wardens had kept clean-burning warmth available, and the Weather Wardens had scrubbed the air to keep it breathable.

Altogether, a successful isolation, though it couldn’t have gone on forever. For one thing, they’d run out of food, and that was something neither Weather nor Fire could manufacture from stone and water. We shared energy bars all around—two per person—and explained what we’d be doing on the way back up—it was similar to how we’d descended, but theoretically, it would be easier, since the earth and rock had already been loosened. Theoretically.

Luis touched me on the shoulder, as I drained another bottle of water. “Cass,” he said. “I know we probably ought to start back; there’s no time to waste, but—”

“But we need to rest,” I said, relieving him of the burden of confessing it. He hated to seem weak to me, or to anyone, but I could sense his exhaustion, and my own body was in no better condition. “I agree, but I think these people are ready to leave this place.”

“Oh, we can wait,” Mel said. “We need the food and time to get it in our systems anyway. No sense in starting this completely drained—believe me, I know how hard it is. Rest for a while.” He moved off to another part of the cave and sat down to distribute the extra food we’d brought. They fell to it with enthusiasm.

Luis sank down next to me and stretched out with a soul-deep groan. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this bad,” he said. “Though I keep saying that around you. How come what we do never involves beaches and suntan oil, anyway?”

I smiled. “Have you seen how pale my skin is?”

He cracked an eyelid and gave me an all-over assessment. “Oh, yeah. You’re Snow White, chica. I always had a thing for that girl.”

Edie and Alvin were huddled together, whispering; I didn’t like that, but they weren’t doing anything overtly dangerous or suspicious. “Luis,” I said. “Get up.”

“I just got down here!”

“Follow my lead.”

He sighed. “Don’t I always?”

I slipped the canvas bag containing extra supplies off my shoulders and retrieved Rashid’s glass bottle from inside; I slipped it back inside my jacket and zipped it closed, holding it firmly in place. Edie and Alvin had stopped whispering, and they both looked up as I approached, with Luis only a step behind me.

“Are you hungry?” Edie broke apart an energy bar and passed the boy a piece.

“Not right now,” I said. I moved fast, laying my hands on both their hands, and sent power racing through their nervous systems, triggering instant unconsciousness—at least, in theory. Alvin switched off like a light, his small body sliding to the side.

Edie didn’t go down. My damaged hand had bled off some of the power, and as she batted it away, scrambled to her feet, and reached for power that would sear my flesh from brittle, baking bones, I saw my death in her eyes, saw it closely…

… And then she gasped in surprise, and her eyes closed, and she toppled. Luis, who’d brushed the back of her head with his palm, caught her and laid her carefully down next to Alvin.

Then he turned on me. “What the fuck are you doing?” he shouted. “Goddamn, Cass—”

“It had to be done,” I said. “If you want to rest safely, they had to be under control. You know that. They’re not hurt.”

I said that last for the benefit of the other Wardens, who had jumped up in confusion and alarm. They didn’t like it, but after a moment, one by one, they took their seats again.

I took out insulating blankets and wrapped Edie, then Alvin. “They’ll sleep,” I said. “And so should we, Luis.”

“Damn,” he said again, and shook his head. “I just don’t ever know what’s in your head. I swear I don’t.”

“Am I wrong?”

“No,” he said. He sounded discouraged about it. “Just—cold. I understand why you did it, but… damn.”

That hurt, but I went back to the spot where we’d left our few belongings and stretched out on my side, pulling one of the thin blankets over my aching body. After a moment, Luis lowered himself down next to me and scooted close. His warm, strong body fitted itself against mine, and I was reminded, again, of the miracle that had happened between us… that despite my sharp, bitter barriers, he’d found a way inside, and allowed me to learn to trust. What hurt, I realized, was that I’d wanted him to approve of what I’d just done—and that wouldn’t have been trust. It would have been blind obedience.

I snuggled back against him, and his breath ruffled my pale hair. His arms went around me, locking me in warmth and protection—me, who had never needed protection since the dawning of the world.

And I cherished it.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I disappointed you.”

“No, you shocked me,” he said. “You’re not wrong, Cass. I guess I’d rather you were, but you’re not.” He kissed the back of my neck, waking shivers, and murmured, “Someday, when all this is done, we’re going to rent some fancy hotel room with a great view and never leave the bed. Okay?”

“Yes,” I said, and smiled as I closed my eyes. I could almost see it with him—the soft sunlight, the glittering ocean, the crisp pale sheets over his bronze skin. “I will hold you to that promise.” I turned in his arms and kissed him, a slow and fevered press of our lips that throbbed with our pulsebeats. There was something about Luis that made me feel more alive, more real than I’d ever known. All the long eternity I had lived, and I had never understood why any Djinn would wish to seal themselves in flesh, live this strange and fleeting life with humans… but now, I couldn’t imagine leaving it. There was something precious in it that had never been real to me, until him.

“Whoa, girl, let’s not get this going,” he said, but he was smiling as he kissed me again. “Thought we were supposed to rest.”

“You are my rest,” I said. It was a surprising thing to say, but it was true; I felt clenched muscles relax in his embrace, more than ever in sleep.

He said nothing, but he held me close, and in his warmth, in the silence filled with his breathing and heartbeat, I finally really rested.

It couldn’t last, and didn’t. Hours passed, and some part of me never failed to be aware; when Mel finally moved from his spot on the other side of the cavern and came toward us, I was instantly awake, sitting up and ready. The time had worked its healing, at least a little; Luis seemed to move more easily as he got to his feet, and the pulse of power between us felt strong and resilient.

“Time to go,” he said. “Mel, get your folks together. Cass—” He looked at me, then at the two children still peacefully sleeping in their blankets. They looked innocent and vulnerable, but it would be a grave mistake to assume they were any such thing. “Cass, what are we going to do with them?”

“We leave them food and water and blankets,” I said. “They’ll survive.”

It took him a few heartbeats to understand, and then I saw the weight come down on him, like the earth itself had descended. “Oh God,” he said, and wiped his hand across his face. “You cannot be serious about this.”

“It’s the only way,” I said. “We need to take them out of the fight, but I won’t have the blood of children on our hands, Luis. I can’t. If we leave them here, they’re safely contained. There’s no other place we can guarantee that, not up there, and we cannot give Pearl the chance of having them as allies. This is our only opportunity to take them from her without killing them. You know it.”

“Jesus. I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this, to just leave them here, all alone, but…”

“You can’t!” The Warden Salvia said, and thrust herself out in front of the group of adults, staring at us with horror. “What are you talking about? You can’t just leave children down here. I don’t care how much food and water you give them—they’re just kids! We have to take them with us!”

“You don’t understand,” I said. “They’re not—”

“You don’t understand,” she said, and I felt the sharp prickle of Weather power coming to her call. “I’m not letting you do this. We’re not. Right?” She sent a glare at Mel, the nominal leader of their group. He was still frowning, trying to understand what was going on, but he slowly nodded.

“No matter what you might think they are, they’re kids,” he said. “And you can’t abandon them like this.”

“I’m saving their lives,” I said. “If you wish to start a fight here, then do so, but I warn you, I’m not inclined to lose.” I lowered my chin, and felt the instincts boil up inside me—all the anger and trapped desperation that I’d kept so well under control during the endless trip down. “I came to rescue you, but if you want to be left with them, I will oblige you. You’ll find that the view from within the tiger’s cage, with the tiger inside, is not as innocent or charming.”

Luis stepped in front of me. “This isn’t a fight. Listen to me,” he said. There was a quiet, controlled energy to him now, something that drew all their focus away from me. Unlike me, he invited their trust in a subtle application of Earth power that I couldn’t possibly have matched; I could feel it surrounding him like a warm, soft cloud. “These aren’t normal kids. I wish they were, believe me, but I saw them do things today that no adult Warden would have done, much less could have done.”

“Even so…” Salvia began, but he cut her off—softly but firmly.

“They destroyed a Djinn today,” he said. “Consumed him, like candy. You have no idea how dangerous they are, but we can’t let them out of here. There’s enough danger up there already.”

He stopped there, and the silence spoke for itself. The other Wardens shifted and exchanged looks; even Salvia looked shaken.

“I’m not just leaving them here to die,” Luis said. “We’ll send help for them, but we have to get out before they wake up, because believe me, if we don’t have a ton of barricade between us and Edie, she’ll burn us all without a second thought.”

That got them moving, though from the frown on Salvia’s face, I thought she wasn’t quite done with the issue yet; Luis and I joined hands and began forcing open the passage ahead. Behind us, we began to let the debris fall in a curtain, to block off the cave again.

Burying two children alive.

Mel turned toward us, eyes large and all pupil in the fire-lit darkness. “We can’t just leave them alone,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do it.”

Before I could stop him, he lunged through the falling rocks, and was gone.

“Dammit!” Luis spat, and tried to slow the flood of debris. I fought him. “Cass, let me get him out of there!”

“No,” I said. “He made the choice. He knows the risks. Let him go. Maybe he’s right. Maybe an adult should stay with them. Just not one of us. If Edie got her hands on an Earth Warden…”

Luis understood; he could imagine what she’d do. I felt the shudder move through his flesh. “Yeah,” he said. “We have to keep going. You pulled the pin on that grenade. Focus on the fill behind us. I’ll do the front.”

From then on, it was pure concentration, effort, sweat, dirt, and pain, physical pain that drove everything else away, for a time. Moving so much earth was hard enough the first time; the burn was blowtorch-hot in my muscles now, aching in my head. The air was fresh, at least, and kept as cool as the Wardens could manage.

There was no room for claustrophobia, only focus. On effort.

I felt the roar of power explode behind us when Edie and Alvin woke; we’d tunneled a long way toward the surface, and there were metric tons of rock, dirt, and clay between us, but even so, I felt the temperature of the air ratchet up, trying to broil us alive. Edie’s pique, expressed in fire. The Weather Wardens controlled it, looking shocked by the child’s power. Salvia, at least, realized what might have happened had we given in to good impulses. She was the first to say what we all knew: “Mel’s dead. They killed him.”

“Burned him,” one of the Fire Wardens said, shaken. Phyllis, I thought. “They burned him alive. All he wanted to do was help them.”

Luis didn’t say that he’d warned them.

We didn’t say anything at all, just put our hands and heads back to the hard work of saving us. Luis and I were gasping for breath, sweating, trembling by the end of it; it was only the helping hands of the Wardens tearing their flesh and fingernails that broke through the last barriers. We were too weak.

And so it was that we were helpless, drained, and entirely off guard when the harsh glare of the sunlight through smoke resolved and showed us what stood before us.

“I’ve been kept waiting,” Ashan, my Djinn brother, lord, and master, said. He stood facing us, flanked by others, a row of impenetrable and immortal force. He’d clothed himself in a human shell, a pale and perfect imitation of humanity down to suit and gleaming silk tie, but his eyes were a bright, unearthly swirl of colors that, taken together, made up white. “I don’t like to be kept waiting, humans.” He looked at the Djinn standing at his right and left, and nodded. “Take them.”

There was a sound around us then, a kind of crystalline creaking, like frozen wind chimes, and everything seemed to grow darker. Even the Djinn seemed surprised. Ashan lifted his head, and whatever he saw on the aetheric made him gesture to the other Djinn in a blur.

But it was too late. I don’t know what descended on them, and on us. I saw the Djinn grabbing for the Wardens, for Luis, and Ashan came for me, but something got between us. Something worse than Ashan.

Something that had me.

I tried to rise. Tried to fight.

Darkness took me down, fast and merciless, and the last thing I saw was Ashan and the Djinn retreating, and abandoning me to my fate.

They kept me in the darkness, and the worst of it was that I didn’t know why. Why keep me alive? Why not kill me outright, as would have been best and safest?

But there was no doubt they wanted me alive. Suffering. Waiting.

I was aware of time passing, but there was nothing I could do except count the ticking seconds by the measured, rapid pace of my heartbeats. I was confined in a tiny space, but there was air flowing against my face. Whoever had me didn’t wish me dead.

Not yet.

I had no illusions that miracle—or nightmare—would last forever, but it seemed to stretch to the breaking point. My mind was full of questions and fears. The Wardens we’d rescued… the children we’d abandoned.

And, always, Luis. I could no longer feel his presence, or the bond between us… yet I wasn’t dying the slow, starving death of a Djinn cut off from the aetheric, either, so he must have been alive. That was all I could hold to for hope.

I was in a prison. A prison built to hold Djinn, indefinitely; it would do equally well to hold a Warden, no matter what their specialty. I could call no powers, not even a spark of light, and the tiny opening around me seemed to shrink, inch by inch, as my panic increased. I forced myself to breathe more and more slowly, focus on small sensations and details. The Djinn wouldn’t understand human instincts, human frailty; if I panicked in this tomb, I would go mad before they noticed my lapse.

And then the pain began.

It started in small ways at first, a burning sensation on the outside of my left thigh, a pinch in my right upper arm… and then it grew worse. It wasn’t burning, or pinching. It was something pressing into me, with exquisite slowness. Pushing, and pushing, and pushing, sharp points digging until they broke the skin and bored deeper.

Those were the first, and not the worst. The torture came so very, very deliberately. There was nothing human about it, nothing driven by hate or fear or anger.… No, this was a cold, empty kind of pain, inflicted in a lifeless and distant way.

I couldn’t keep calm. The pain ate away at my hard-fought reserve, sped up my breathing, brought back all the desperate panic that I’d striven to keep sealed away.

And it went on, and on, and on. The red-hot, invading pain. The whispering trickle of blood against my skin. My own ragged, too-fast breathing stirring the lank strands of my hair in the tiny spaces.

And then the screaming.

My voice wore raw soon, and my throat ached and bled from the effort. There was no more peace, no more logic, no more planning left inside me. Only the pain, the terror, the despair.

And then, from a vast distance, came the whisper of… music.

It wasn’t music as a human might hear it; this was the language of the Djinn, of tens of thousands of immortal voices raised together in a sound that held nothing but exaltation, beauty, harmony.

It was the sound of worship, and madness… a divine, thoughtless madness that had no room for individual pain or pleasure, sadness or joy. It was my brothers and sisters, but they had ceased to be the individuals I’d once known.

They sang as they killed.

Death was moving across the face of the world, and I could feel it. Worse: I could be it. Some part of me knew the insane peace of surrendering will, conscience, logic, of becoming the Great Beast, and hungered to join it.

And then I heard Pearl’s voice whispering to me. Let go, she said. Let the music fill you, Cassiel. Let the earth take you as you change. I will make you into a creature of terror and beauty, a weapon for the new Mother’s hand. I will make you my angel—not of mercy, but of death. Shining, cutting, crushing death, and you will be as beautiful as a knife. This is why I’ve spared you all this time, to serve me. Fight and die, or surrender and be reborn. Your choices, my sister.

No. No, these could not be my only choices. It didn’t matter whether I closed my eyes; I could see nothing, not even a glimmer of light, but now I deliberately squeezed them shut and brought up vibrant images in my mind: Luis, lying propped against pillows in bed, tracing his fingertips over my body, smiling. His skin gleamed like fine new bronze, and the indigo lick of flame tattoos on his arms had a sinuous grace and beauty that made me shiver. His eyes were a rich, dark cocoa, and his kisses held spice and sweetness and woke vast, unhurried needs inside me. His touch trailed heat, and his tongue woke fire.

I reached for him, and for an instant, just a single flash, I saw him. Not the image of him from our bed, not the smiling, lazy, sexual creature I’d imagined in that moment—no, this was a frightening vision of a hard, battered man, stained with smoke and blood, and his eyes were as dark as empty windows as he drew and shaped a fireball in his hands.

And I heard him, just a whisper. I might have imagined it, so quickly did it pass.

Luis said, I’m coming.

And then the singing madness rose inside me to a shattering pitch, and the needles piercing me drove deeper, and it was all darkness, solitude, loss. I was weightless, then falling into the darkness.

Alone.

Trapped.