Undone

Chapter 6

ANGELA WAS WAITING outside for our arrival—I didn’t think Manny had called, but I supposed that Luis might have done so. She looked tense but carefully composed, and rose to her feet to embrace Manny as he came up the front steps. She framed his face between her hands, gave him a long, loving look, and said, “Go get cleaned up; you smell like an ashtray.”

He kissed her quickly and went inside, which left the two of us standing together.

“Do I smell like an ashtray?” I asked.

Her lips curled unwillingly into a smile. “I’d guess you do, but I’m not getting close enough to sniff you.” She cocked her head slightly, studying me. “You do look more like a scarecrow than usual, es verdad. After Manny gets through, maybe you can shower. I can find you something to wear.”

“No,” I said. “I’ll wear what I have.” The thought of wearing someone else’s clothes made my skin crawl with horror. “But I would be glad of the shower.”

“No problem.” Angela opened the screen door for me as we entered the house. “Keep it down; Ibby’s taking a nap.”

Ibby, in fact, was not. The child bounced up from the couch and jumped in place, face alight with pleasure. “Cassie, Cassie, Cassie!”

I sighed. “Cassiel, please.” For all the good I sensed it would do. Angela stifled a laugh.

I had no idea of the human protocol for such things, but I knelt down, and the child rushed my arms. Warm, chubby arms around my neck. A moist kiss on my cheek. “Ewwww, you smell like burning things,” Ibby said.

“I’m about to wash it away,” I said soberly. “Will that be better?”

She nodded vigorously, curls bouncing. “Were you at a fire?”

“Yes, Ibby.”

“Were there firemen?”

“Yes, quite a few.”

“Was it a big fire?”

“Big enough.”

Ibby’s dark eyes widened, and she looked around the room. I didn’t understand at first, until her eyes filled with tears and she wailed, “Where’s Papa?”

I had no experience of crying children, but luckily, Angela quickly encircled her daughter in her arms and patted her on the back. “Hush, mija, Papa’s fine. Hear that? He’s taking a shower right now.”

“Was he in the fire?” Her small voice trembled.

“He was there with Cassiel,” Angela said, and her gaze touched mine for a moment. “But look, they’re both fine. She’s fine, and Papa’s fine. So what are you crying about, Ibby?”

Ibby’s sobs became sniffles. “Nothing. I’m not crying.”

“Good girl.” Angela kissed her cheek and let her slip back to the floor. “Go play, mija.”

Ibby wandered down the hall toward her room, pausing at the bathroom door to listen to the fall of water. She looked back at me doubtfully, and I nodded. I was trying to convey that her father was, in fact, fine; I couldn’t tell if she believed that, but she went to her room at the end of the hall, and after a few moments I heard music playing.

Angela let out a slow breath. “She gets so anxious when she thinks something’s happened. She knows Manny’s got a hazardous job. We try to keep it away from her, but she’s a smart girl. She knows.”

I wanted to tell her that Manny was in no danger, but in truth, I couldn’t be sure of that. Luis’s words had robbed me of my confidence, made me doubt all my certainties. “I told you, I will watch over him,” I offered. It felt awkward, but still, it also felt . . . right. I saw relief spread through her. She trusts me to keep my word. That felt oddly important—and also a weight on my shoulders.

“That’ll make Ibby feel better,” Angela said. She didn’t say, and me, but I understood that to be true. “You probably need something cold to drink.”

I was, in fact, thirsty, and I followed her to the kitchen, where she chatted about meaningless details of the day, as if we were friends. I supposed we were, in a way. I sipped the iced tea she prepared and nibbled at a cookie from a plate on the table.

Manny came in, hair damp and curling from the shower, dressed in fresh clothing. He grabbed a cookie and ate it in two bites. Angela kissed him on the cheek and gave him a glass of iced tea, and the two of them talked in Spanish for a moment. I was content to let the sounds wash over me. There was something oddly calming about such normality, even if it was so very human.

Ibby crawled up into the chair next to me and reached out for a cookie.

“Ibby!” her mother said sharply. The child pulled back and looked abashed. “Ask.”

“May I please have a cookie, Mama?”

“Yes, you may have one.”

Ibby surveyed the plate and took the largest. I approved of her strategic approach.

“What did Scott say to you, Manny?” I asked. I reached for a second cookie. After all, I was both older and larger than the child. It seemed fair.

“That I should have sent the files off for archiving months ago,” he said. “Some kind of regulations. Like we didn’t have other things to worry about.”

“He blames you?”

“Let’s just say it won’t come out in my favor in the report.”

“Do you think—” I paused, because I realized that this might not be the best moment to pose the question. Still, it needed to be asked. “Do you think someone was aiming for you or Luis, rather than the destruction of the office?”

Manny looked tired. The fine lines around his eyes were etched more deeply than before, and his skin seemed more sallow. “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t know why anybody would come after me.”

“And Luis?”

He didn’t answer. Angela did. “Lots of people got problems with Luis,” she said. “He’s the kind of guy who makes enemies, you know? A lot more than Manny.”

I understood that, on some instinctive level; Manny was more concerned with his family, and while he had courage and determination, his goals were centered on his wife and child.

Luis was different. I couldn’t tell what Luis desired, or what drove him, and that made him dangerous to me.

“Mama, may I have another cookie?”

“No.”

“Cassie had two.”

I broke my cookie in half and offered it to Isabel. “Cassiel,” I said.

She giggled.

The laptop that Manny had provided me with was at my apartment. Upon arrival, I logged in, as Manny had shown me, to the Warden computer system and began to research Luis Rocha.

His personnel file was impressive and extensive. The most recent entry was by someone I knew—Joanne Baldwin, who commended Luis for his quick action during a Florida emergency, an earthquake, shortly before he had left the state to return here to New Mexico. It must have happened before I had fallen, though I’d had no hint of it, far above in the aetheric.

Luis was more powerful than I had thought, and better regarded among the Wardens. This was not necessarily a badge of honor; many Wardens were corrupt, and no few of them had used their power for their own enrichment. Power tempts humans in ways that it does not seem to warp Djinn.

Then again, Djinn seemed to have many shortcomings, as well, now that I was in human flesh.

In the earliest entries, notes were made of Luis’s gang affiliation. It had been a difficult decision, it seemed, whether or not to bring Luis into the Wardens organization. They had almost decided to go the opposite direction—use an Earth Warden to remove his powers permanently. I knew something of that process. It was painful, and it had a significant failure rate, both in terms of how often it worked and how often the patients died.

Luis was lucky the Wardens had been too selfish to give up a strong talent. But they had kept eyes on him, and still did, from all indications.

Luis Rocha might be well thought-of by his peers, but he was still not trusted by the administration. Interesting. I wondered if he knew.

I learned nothing more from the files, save what I already knew: The Wardens regarded Luis as a much stronger talent than his brother.

When I turned to Manny’s personnel records, I began to understand why. Manny was, without any question, loyal and honest, but he had failings, and they had been ruthlessly documented. Late paperwork. Failure to follow Warden regulations regarding office procedures. Sloppy documentation. These were not major infractions, only a long-standing pattern of behavior that had contributed to Manny being regarded as less than excellent at his job. Coupled with his low level of power, it meant that he would never rise much higher than his current position.

But nothing pointed to a reason anyone might wish him dead. There were no references of enemies, conflicts, nothing.

Manny did not make enemies.

Luis, on the other hand, did. He had exceptional successes, but his path was littered with conflict. I began to see a pattern to it, although it was not obvious; Djinn, after all, were students of patterns.

Those Luis had clashed with, both inside and outside of the Wardens, had been dishonest in some way. Like his brother, Luis cared fiercely about such things; unlike Manny, he often took on—and defeated—those who did not. Surprisingly, this had not harmed him as much as I would have expected. His records showed that every investigation of his conduct had been decided in his favor.

Unlike Manny’s. No one was likely to be Manny’s enemy; he was clearly his own.

I made a note of which Wardens particularly Luis had differed with over the years. There were only two names that appeared more than twice, and both were Fire Wardens: Landry Dent and Molly Magruder.

Molly Magruder was the only female on the list, and the Djinn at the office blaze had clearly referred to the arsonist as her.

She was not in New Mexico, but in the adjoining state of Texas, in a town called El Paso. It had an airport.

I decided to go to her.

It was only as I was going through the degrading and tedious process of security checks that I realized that I had not spoken to Manny about this, or asked for his permission to go. I am not a slave, I told myself. I can come and go as I please.

At my own risk, perhaps. If this came to a fight, I was as ready as possible; Manny had given me an infusion of Earth power before I’d left his house for the evening, and I had used almost none of it.

But I had the very strong feeling that Manny would also not be pleased with me for taking this initiative, and also, that he would be right in some way.

I didn’t allow that to stop me.

The flight was short, thankfully, and uneventful; I could feel the energy coursing through the air and clouds, an ocean of power invisible to the humans seated with me in the aircraft. I found myself pressing my hand to the window, straining to touch what I knew I couldn’t, and wondering when—if ever—these longings would subside.

El Paso was a desert town, surrounded by ancient, low mountains and capped with an overturned bright bowl of a sky—a blue even clearer than that of Albuquerque. The air was dry and crisp, the city older than I had expected, and more noisy, dirty, and crowded. It sprawled out through the desert in a jumble, even crawling the sides of the mountains.

It came as a surprise to realize that I did not know the simple mechanics of finding an address. I would have asked Manny, of course, but Manny was hundreds of miles away now, and a phone call might not be well received.

At a desk labeled INFORMATION I consulted a man who provided me with a map and explained how to summon a car for hire outside that would take me to the address I wished.

It was all pleasingly simple. Perhaps human life was not as complex as I’d been led to believe. . . . But this was a fantasy, and one that ended as I struggled to understand the terms fare and tip, and why one was not included in the other.

I had not made a friend when I dismissed the cab, and the problem of how I would return to the airport was still to be solved, but I stood in front of the address of Warden Molly Magruder. The street was called Dungarvin, and the house was a simple affair, only a little larger than the one Manny Rocha called home. It was well kept, with neatly trimmed trees and an edge of dry grass surrounding a desert-appropriate cactus garden near the front door.

It looked exactly as normal as the houses around it.

I walked to the door and knocked.

The woman who opened the door was about Manny’s age, tall and heavy in her flesh. She had long blond hair twisted in a sloppy knot at the back of her head, and sharp blue eyes that took me in without much comprehension at first.

Awareness dawned quickly. I slapped a palm against the wooden facing of the door as she tried to slam it in my face.

“Molly Magruder,” I said, “I’ve come to ask you why you tried to kill Luis Rocha.”

She stepped back and stared at me as I crossed the threshold and quietly closed and locked the door. I leaned against the wood, arms folded.

“You’re Djinn,” she said.

“Perceptive,” I replied, “but wrong. I am not Djinn. I am human.”

She blinked. “Human.”

“I am now.”

“Well, it must just suck to be you.”

I could not have agreed with her more. Molly backed away from me, bumped into a chair behind her, and stopped. I looked around the room. It was clean, spare, and showed nothing of the person who lived in its walls. Molly’s furniture was square and serviceable. The artwork she had chosen to display was bland and uninspired. I found myself contrasting it with the vivid joy of Manny’s household, or even the feminine strength of Joanne Baldwin’s rooms.

Molly Magruder did not really exist here at all.

“Did Luis send you?” she asked.

“No. He doesn’t know I’ve come.”

“Then how—”

It was a confession, of a sort. “Quintus,” I said. “Although he did not give me your name. But he was your Djinn, was he not?” I moved a tan pillow from one end of the couch and sat, crossing my legs with a whispering creak of leather. “Why do you hate Luis Rocha so bitterly?”

Molly stared at me for a long moment, and then—to my surprise—collapsed in the chair behind her and began to weep in wrenching, frantic sobs, like a desperate child. I had no idea what to do or say to such flagrant emotion, so I simply watched her, unmoving. After long moments, she got control of herself and glared at me through red-rimmed eyes.

“You don’t know,” she said. “You don’t know anything.”

“Educate me,” I said, and folded my hands.

Molly Magruder, it seemed, had been as much of a pawn in this as a Djinn slave had once been to her. She owed favors to another Warden, and that Warden had wanted two things from her: the destruction of the records filed in Manny’s Albuquerque office, and—if possible—the death of Manny and Luis Rocha. Because she was safely removed from the area and had a history with Luis, she had been a logical choice for this task.

“You are willing to kill for a favor,” I said. She sent me another glare, but despite the aggressive anger she tried to project, her hands were trembling, even clasped together.

“I didn’t want to,” she snapped. “It’s political, okay? These things happen in the Wardens. People want other people out of the way sometimes. You wouldn’t understand.”

I understood all too well. Human ambition was a toxic thing, tainting everyone it touched. “Who?”

“I’m not telling you that.”

She would, but I understood it would take time to convince her. “Explain to me why, then. Why someone would wish them dead.”

She hadn’t expected me to move away from the question so easily, and, caught off balance, she answered. “There was something in the records he didn’t want found, I know that much.”

“And the death of the Rocha brothers?”

“Personal,” she said. “None of your business. None of mine, either.”

“You don’t care for Luis much, correct?” I got a bitter smile in response, and no other answer. “I met your Djinn. Quintus. It’s a pity you aren’t worthy of his trust. He seemed to care for you a great deal.”

That wiped away her smile. “Leave Quintus out of this.”

“I would like to leave you both out of it,” I said.

“All you need do is give me the name of the Warden who forced you to do this thing.” The Warden had likely not forced her, but it seemed a politic way to describe things. She seemed to respond, regardless of the truth of the description.

“I can’t do that.” Still, despite her words, I sensed the force behind them was lessened.

“Do I need to threaten you?” I asked. I was careful to keep my words steady, my voice soft. Menace, I had found, was more effective delivered in that manner.

“With what?” The flash of scorn was back in her eyes. “You said you weren’t a Djinn.”

“That’s true. I am worse than a Djinn by far.” I leaned forward, and saw her flinch backward . . . just a bit. “I am a Djinn with the powers of an Earth Warden. That means I can stop your heart, explode your fragile veins, crush your bones—I can do worse than kill you, Molly Magruder. I can leave you a helpless prisoner inside your own flesh if I wish it. Or I could suck every bit of power from you, and leave you a dying husk.”

I would not, of course; it would have meant breaking promises I had made to Lewis Orwell, and to Manny. But she could not know that, and I let no hint of it show in my steady, predatory stare.

Molly dropped her gaze to her trembling hands. “He can’t know it came from me.”

“He won’t.”

“How do I know—”

“You have my word.”

She glanced up at me, then down. Her hair hid her face, but I did not sense she was tempted to lie to me. “A Weather Warden. His name is Scott.”

“Scott,” I repeated. “Scott Sands. In Albquerque.”

She nodded. I stood up and walked to her side, crouched down, and looked into her face. It bled slowly white under the pressure of my stare.

“Listen to me,” I said. “If you lie to me, I will not forgive. Do you understand?”

She did. “I’m not lying. It’s Scott.”

“On your life.”

“On my life.”

I rose to my feet with a shadow of my old Djinn grace. “Then you may have your life back,” I said, and glanced around the gray, soulless house. “Such as it may be.”

The small pink phone Manny had given me rang as I was waiting for a cab to arrive. I had been waiting for some time, and despite the fierce and constant sun, I was considering walking to the airport.

I pulled out the tiny machine and studied it. The small screen on the front was lit with a blue-white glow, and it spelled out MANNY CALLING. I examined the individual buttons and found one that seemed to indicate talking.

I wished, in short order, that I had not.

“Cassiel!” I heard his voice from a great distance, and cautiously put the phone closer to my ear. “Dios mio, I’ve been trying to get you. Where the hell are you?”

“El Paso,” I said.

There was a long silence. Had I been born human, it might have seemed ominous.

“El Paso,” he repeated slowly, at long last. “Texas?”

“It is on the border of New Mexico, as well. And Mexico, which is another country.” I had been studying the maps. I was somewhat pleased with my ability to distinguish between New Mexico and the Mexico not designated as old.

“I know where it—look, what are—how did you—” He couldn’t decide which question was more important, but I understood both.

“I came because I found someone who knew about the fire,” I said. “I have spoken with her. I now know who set the fire, and why. As to how, I used an airplane. And a cab. Cabs are for hire.”

Manny let loose a torrent of Spanish, which I did not bother to translate because the meaning was clear enough: He was not pleased. In midstream, he switched back to English. “—solamente! You don’t go anywhere alone—you damn sure don’t ditch me and go flying off to Texas! What if something had happened, you think of that?”

I was briefly warmed by his concern. Briefly, because he went on to say, “What if we’d had some kind of emergency here, and I needed you?”

“I see.” My voice, well beyond my control, had taken on a flat, dark tone. I wondered if the small device was capable of relaying such subtleties. “Of course. I am at your disposal, Warden Rocha. Perhaps, instead of an apartment, you would prefer to furnish me with a bottle from which you could summon me at will.”

“I didn’t mean—” I heard an explosive rattle of air on the speaker from his end. “All right, maybe I did. You work for us, remember? That means you do what the Wardens tell you to do. And you get paid. If you want to break that agreement and go running off without support or notice—”

“I am sorry. I thought it was the correct course of action.”

“And you didn’t tell me because . . . ?”

Because Manny would have proceeded cautiously, and I didn’t think we could afford such slow progress. “It was an error in judgment,” I said. It was difficult to say the words, even if I knew them as false. “I am coming back now.”

“Damn straight you are. Look, you okay? Nothing happened, right?”

A yellow car turned the corner and slowed as it came toward me. “Nothing has happened,” I said. “I will see you in a few hours.”

I pressed the OFF button before he could ask more questions. I was not certain of the security of these devices, and speaking in the open seemed to me to be a risk we could not afford to take. Perhaps it would have been safe, but it was safer still to wait to talk in private, face-to-face.

The cabdriver was a quiet man, which suited me well. I watched the city roll by the car window during the short drive back to the airport, paid him in cash (adding in the tip this time without being instructed) and was getting out of the vehicle when he said, “Hope you’re flying out soon.”

I paused. “Why?”

He nodded at the eastern horizon. “Storm’s coming.”

The next flight back to Albuquerque was a three-hour wait, and I spent it watching passersby, looking for Djinn. I spotted two—a male and female traveling together, disguised as college-age humans, complete with backpacks. They gazed at me in turn, for long moments, and then went about their business without comment.

I had known them once, but their reaction only served to tell me again how far I had fallen, and how isolated I was from what had been my family.

I turned my attention outward to the storm. The cabdriver was correct; the city of El Paso had a hot, dry climate, but a few times a year—sometimes only once a year—a storm formed in the normally stable air. The amount of rain it would dump would be, by the standards of most areas, negligible—an inch or two, perhaps.

In El Paso, it would result in deaths, as those unaccustomed to driving on wet streets lost control, or the flood canals went from dry canyons to raging rivers.

The clouds had a velvety darkness to them, a solidity that I could almost feel as they swept across the sky, spreading like spilled ink. The sun flared brightly, then was swallowed and became a pale ghost, barely a bright circle through the clouds. . . . And then it was gone altogether.

The vicious growl of thunder shook the plate glass windows of the lounge where I sat.

An overhead speaker finally announced the boarding of my flight. Mindful of Manny’s lessons, I waited until my ticket group was called, walked the jetway with the rest, and then settled myself in the narrow, uncomfortable seat with care. Had I still been able to shift my form, I’d have shortened my legs; as it was, I twisted to one side to avoid having my knees deeply buried in the next row’s cushions.

My cell phone rang again. Manny, of course. I started to answer it, but the uniformed attendant told me it was not allowed. I switched the phone off instead, settled back as much as I could, and waited for takeoff.

The fine hairs on my arms began to prickle. I looked down, puzzled by this response from a body I had at least begun to understand, and the muted fragments of Djinn senses that I still possessed screamed a warning.

I had only an instant in which to act, and no real knowledge to guide me—instinct alone would save or damn me.

This was an attack by weather, and since my power flowed from Manny’s, I had little dominion over that aspect of things. What I could do, however, was insulate the aircraft by sinking the wheels themselves beneath the tarmac, all the way into raw dirt.

Lightning hit the fuselage of the plane with the force of an explosion, blowing out fuses and plunging the interior into muddled darkness. The fuel, I thought, and quickly shifted my focus to the massive tanks. It would take only a spark to set it off, and although the plane was now insulated, I could feel the lightning hunting for a vulnerability.

This was being directed. Directed by a Weather Warden, without any question.

Chemical reactions came under the aegis of the Fire Wardens, but the petrochemical fuel was, in large part, of the Earth, and I was able to keep it from exploding.

It was a very, very close thing.

When the assault finished, amid the screaming of humans around me, I leaned back in my chair and listened to the sound of the rain hitting the fragile skin of the aircraft. It pounded in fury, expressing the rage of the Warden who had driven it here.

Peace, I thought to it. I don’t want to be here, either.

I felt sick, weak, and empty, but the people around me were alive. So was I.

It was something, in a world of nothing.

After far too much fuss and bother, we were moved to another plane. By the time the flight finally departed, the brief, violent storm was breaking, and the sun burning away the black clouds.

Manny met me at the Albuquerque airport.

If I had expected a welcome, I would have been disappointed; no smiles for me, only the fiercest of frowns and a hard grip on my arm to march me toward the exit.

“We were delayed,” I said. “The first plane was struck by lightning.”

“Yeah, I know. Accidentally on purpose. Don’t say anything until we’re in the van.”

The van was idling at the passenger pickup location, and the driver was Luis Rocha. He gave me the smile that Manny had not, as I slid into the seat behind him. Manny climbed into the passenger’s side and slammed the door with vicious fury.

“Drive,” he told Luis. Luis cocked an eyebrow toward me as he shifted the van into drive and pulled into traffic.

“He’s been like this all day,” Luis said. “You owe me for putting up with him.”

I did not reply. I was watching Manny, trying to determine why he was so angry with me. Granted, I had not asked his permission to travel, but did he truly expect that I would? It seemed difficult to believe. I was not a slave, nor was I a child.

“Who is it?” Manny asked me. “You said you knew who started the fire. Who?”

“I spoke with a Warden in El Paso named Molly Magruder. She is directly responsible.”

Luis’s reaction was instructive; he flinched, and the van veered until he quickly corrected it. Behind us, someone honked a horn in annoyance. Luis made a rude gesture out the window.

“And?” Manny prodded. He’d noticed his brother’s reaction too, but he didn’t comment.

“She created the fire, but it was at the request of someone else. Your boss,” I said. “Scott. The same Weather Warden who just tried to silence me, and a plane full of innocent people, in El Paso.

That brought a long, thoughtful silence, during which the two brothers exchanged glances. Luis shrugged. Manny, I thought, went from angry to seeming a bit ill.

“You’re sure about this?”

“Sure? No. I have the word of Molly Magruder, and the attack on my aircraft. I cannot positively identify a Warden by his actions, unless I’m connected to him.”

Luis cleared his throat. “That might be a little tough, then, because we just got a bulletin come over the Warden network. Molly Magruder was killed.”

“Killed,” I repeated. It did not immediately hit me what this might mean. “Killed how?”

“Murdered,” Luis said. “She was found in her house, dead. Somebody had crushed her heart inside her chest.” He shifted his gaze from the road to the rearview mirror, and met my eyes. “Somebody like an Earth Warden.”

“Or a Djinn,” I said.

“Exactly. You got anybody that saw her alive after you left her house? Maybe saw her waving bye-bye to you from the door?”

“No. I did not see her again. The driver picked me up at the curb.” I began to understand exactly what he meant, and it was unpleasant. “You mean that they will believe that I killed her.”

“Did you?” Manny was looking out the window, not at me. Luis gave me another quick, almost involuntary glance in the mirror.

“No.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say about it?”

“I left her alive. I took a cab to the airport. I boarded a plane, which was attacked by a Weather Warden. What more is there to tell?”

“She’s got a point,” Luis offered. “She can’t just make up an alibi out of nothing.”

“I’m not asking her to! But there’s got to be some way to prove—”

“Find the killer,” I said. “It isn’t Scott, clearly; he was well capable of attacking me at the airport, but it takes an Earth Warden to crush a heart in the chest.”

“Or a Djinn,” Manny said.

“Or both.”

Manny looked directly at me. “I think you’d better explain why Ashan hates you so bad.”

I was wondering just when the subject would arise; I was surprised that it hadn’t already, as Manny felt more and more comfortable around me. “I can’t,” I said.

“Won’t,” Luis supplied. “That’s what she means.”

“Yes, won’t,” I said sharply. “It’s Djinn business, and none of yours.”

“It’s our business when we’re neck deep in it!”

“That has nothing to do with this! This is some petty Warden political—”

“We don’t know what this is, and neither do you! I’m sick of your damn secrets!” Manny’s shout overrode mine. I sank back against the upholstery and turned my attention out the window, shutting him and his brother out for the time being. I crossed my arms, then remembered that humans did that in arguments to indicate they were set in their opinions. I uncrossed them and put my hands in my lap instead—not because I wasn’t set in my opinion, but because I did not want to be seen as that human.

Ignoring them quieted things down considerably. The remainder of the conversation occurred between Luis and Manny, and it was in lower tones. I did not pay much attention, watching as the streets and houses of Albuquerque flashed by.

We pulled to a halt in front of Manny’s house. Angela and Ibby were in the front yard, and Ibby immediately bounded to the fence to wave as Manny and Luis descended from the van. Manny, in a fit of very human pique, did not open the back sliding door for me. It proved more difficult to manage than I’d thought, and so I was just exiting the vehicle as Manny and Luis crossed the street and entered the front yard gate.

A car started its engine down the block and pulled out into the road, heading toward us—a large black car, with heavily tinted windows. Older. More solidly built than newer models. I did not pay it much mind, save to wait for it to pass so that I could cross the street.

It slowed a little as it approached.

I saw Luis recognize the danger first—a widening of his eyes, a cold shock in his expression. He was closest to Ibby, and he grabbed her and hurled her violently to the ground. Her scream cut the morning like a silver knife, just an instant before the air shattered under the thunder of guns firing.

I saw Angela and Manny fall. Luis dived for the ground, covering Isabel.

Bullets pocked pale holes in the house behind them, shattered windows.

The black car applied speed and screeched around the nearest corner.

I screamed in rage, and the day went red. They dared. They dared attack those I protected!

I did not think about my actions. I simply threw myself into pursuit.

Human bodies are not meant for such excesses, but I poured energy recklessly into my tissues, forcing the muscles to extreme efforts, and although the car accelerated away, I began to catch up. I heard yelling inside the black sedan, and a gun appeared from the back right side and fired at me. I dodged and continued to gain on them.

The car took another corner on two wheels. More gunfire opened up, this time from the passenger’s side of the vehicle.

It missed.

I gained.

When I sensed my muscles were capable of no more effort without serious damage, I slowed. The sedan pulled away, and I heard whoops of victory from within it.

If they had seen the snarl that formed on my face, they would not have celebrated so quickly.

The paved street rose up to my command, twisting and cracking in an oncoming wave six feet tall. The car slammed into it at killing speed, and the sound of rending metal and shattering glass was louder than gunfire.

I quickly eased the ground back into place. The asphalt topping was broken and pitted, but that could not be helped. I saw the red glow at the edges of my vision sparkle into black, and knew that I was in danger of overextending myself, spending too much power. Not even rage could fuel me past that point.

I walked up to the shattered car. Inside were shattered humans. Some were even alive, though I did not think they would be for long. For a moment, I wondered if I should feel something for them—regret for ending their lives? They were young, but they had fired guns at a child younger still, and that I could not forgive.

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the emergency number Manny had shown me to report an accident, and began the walk back to the house. After a few moments, I realized how exhausted I was, how much that effort had drained from me. More than I’d expected.

More than I could afford.

Manny will help, I thought, and something flickered inside of me, a pale shadow of a connection. Manny?

The connection snapped, a physical sensation that brought with it a white-hot flash of pain. I stopped, panting, and braced myself with my hands on my knees.

Manny?

I forced myself to a jog. People were peering from their windows, looking at the steaming wreckage in the middle of the street; a few noticed me, but there was little to connect me to the event other than proximity. I kept moving. I heard sirens, but the emergency and police response was from behind me.

I turned the corner and slowed to a walk. Manny’s house was within view, eerily quiet now that the shooting was done. I could not see anyone. Likely they had all gone inside, which would be a sensible thing to do. . . .

No, I saw Isabel. She was huddled next to the fence, clearly terrified. Her small fists were balled up to cover her mouth.

And then I saw Luis Rocha, on his knees next to two prone human bodies. There was blood on his hands, splashed on his shirt. Thin threads of it on his face. As I watched, he put the palm of his right hand on the chest of the man lying on the ground. He braced it with the left, then pumped, hard, five times. Leaned forward to tilt the head back and breathe into the open mouth.

He was gasping and sweating with effort. Luis’s eyes fixed on me, and all the pieces flew together, took on weight and meaning. It all hit me with the force of a head-on collision.

Manny. Manny was lying on the ground. Manny was bleeding.

He was trying to save Manny’s life. Next to Manny, Angela was already dead, with a bullet lodged in her brain. I could sense the inert darkness in her. Her life, her energy, was gone, fled beyond where I could chase.

“Get over here!” Luis screamed at me. I vaulted the fence and ran to his side, knelt beside him, and took his hand. I had no power left, barely enough to continue to nourish my human body, but what I had, I gave.

It was not enough. Luis’s Earth powers were already depleted from his efforts, and although I tried to amplify what was left, it was too little, the damage too great.

Manny’s heart had been shredded by the force of the bullet. Another had broken his spine.

He was dead. The last wisps of energy faded out of him, left the body empty and dark in front of me.

Luis realized it at the same moment, and as I glanced up at him, I saw the overwhelming horror and loss dawn in his face.

“No,” he said. “No. No!”

I said nothing. There was too much inside of me, too much to understand, to feel, to process. Manny was gone. He would never laugh at me again, or be angry, or take my hand and give me some of his life. He had no life to give. He was no longer in the flesh stretched out before me.

Angela. Angela would never make her child another meal, touch her with love and kindness, wipe away her tears. Angela had made me food in her kitchen, and smiled at me.

They were my friends.

They were dead.

I was unprepared for the harsh burn of grief. It made the world unsteady around me, made me tremble deep within, and I could think of nothing, nothing to do. Tears stung in my eyes, and I felt them fall, cold as diamonds.

Luis’s dark eyes locked on mine, and they ignited not with tears, but with fury. “Where were you?” he screamed, and grabbed me by the shoulders to shake me with brutal force. “You bitch, where did you go? They were dying! They were dying!”

I understood then. Angela and Manny had fallen as I’d taken up the pursuit of the car. I had left Luis alone with them, with the overwhelming task of trying to save one or the other . . . or neither.

I had spent my energy in vengeance. Would it have made a difference if I had immediately linked with Luis and struggled to heal the damage done? No, something inside of me said, but I couldn’t be sure of that. If I’d acted for life, instead of death . . .

Luis shook me again, screaming at me in Spanish. I knocked his hands away with a sharp impact of my forearms against his and took in a steadying breath. My heart was racing, my tears falling in cold streams. I felt dead inside, not merely from the expense of power but from the loss of something I had not even known I could value.

“Isabel,” I said. Luis, face still contorted in fury and grief, rocked back on his heels, away from me, and looked at his niece. She was weeping, curled in a ball with a dirty-faced doll clutched to her chest.

“Oh, mija,” he whispered, and the anger melted from him. “Oh, no.”

He got to his feet, moving like a man twice his age, and picked the girl up in his arms. I put a hand on her back—partly to comfort, and partly to sense her physical condition.

She was unharmed, though Luis’s hands left streaks of her father’s blood on her clothes.

“Take her inside,” I said. “Call the police.”

He walked up the front steps to the door. Isabel’s eyes were open but seeing nothing. She was sucking her thumb.

Luis turned her face away from her parents and me, and sent me a glare that would have quailed even Ashan. “You should have stayed, you Djinn bitch,” he told me. “If you’d stayed, they’d be alive.”

I knew, as I knelt next to the dead body of the man who had been my Conduit, and my first real friend, that Luis was right.

I should have stayed.