I spotted the outline of a tire track deep in the brush, and forced a way for myself and the Victory through the tangle. It was at least twenty feet deep, long enough to make me wonder if they had closed the entire trail. I pressed on, ducking to avoid the worst of the stiff branches and needlelike leaves.
The growth suddenly ended, and a dirt road carved itself out of the thin and shadowy moonlight. There were tread marks still fresh in the dust.
My enemies knew I was coming. Even if Luis hadn't warned them, despite his best intentions, they would simply know. I had no doubt of that. I would press on as far as they'd allow before it came to conflict.
It didn't take long at all.
I accelerated as the road twisted around a darkly shadowed curve, then another, and as I came out on a straighter section, the trail was blocked by a single, small figure--a boy of Isabel's age, with ragged dark hair and huge eyes. He was wearing a grimy cotton shirt with a garish blue and red design, and small, loose cotton pants. No shoes. His face was smeared with tears, his nose was running, and he looked blank and terrified in the glare of my headlight.
I stopped in a cloud of dust, staring at him. My first impulse was to leave the bike and go to him, but my Djinn instincts tempered my human ones, infused the moment with an ice-cold clarity.
There was no reason for this child to be here, so far from his home, in the middle of the night.
"Is your name C.T.?" I asked. "Calvin Theodore Styles?"
His eyes filled with tears that glittered in my headlight. "Mama?" He sounded lost and very uncertain. He shuffled forward a step. "I want to go home! I want to go home!"
His voice rose to a chilling wail, and this time not even my cautious, cold Djinn side could keep me from turning off the motorcycle and dismounting. I approached the child carefully, not wishing to frighten him more than necessary. He was sucking on his thumb, and his eyes seemed the size of the moon that loomed overhead. Silver tears washed clean trails through the grime on his face.
I was halfway to him when the next child appeared. And the next. And the next. All moving silently out of the brush.
Ten, at least, all below the age of ten. Most looked thin and ill-kept, their clothing filthy. Some lacked shoes.
All seemed far too feral for comfort, and they were all armed. Knives, for the most part, but a few had clubs. No projectile weapons, for which I was grateful.
I paused, assessing. They were all around me, coming out of the underbrush in soft, stealthy whispers of leaves and twigs.
"I'm here to help you," I said, in what I hoped was a soothing tone. "Please. My name is Cassiel. Let me help you find your homes."
None of them made a sound, not even the boy who'd wailed so pitifully. The wind through the trees made a hissing sound as the pine needles rubbed together, and I became aware how vast and empty this area was . . . and how alone I had become.
"I am looking for a girl called Isabel," I said. She wasn't here, wasn't among the feral ones. "Ibby. Do you know her?" I focused on the closest child, a girl with short blond hair. "Do you know Isabel?"
She didn't answer. None of them moved, and none blinked. It was odd and--even for a Djinn--unsettling.
C.T.--if he was C.T.--was no longer weeping, though tears still trailed down his cheeks. He had assumed the same cold, empty aspect as the other children.
I took a step forward toward him, and they all rushed at me in silence. I jumped, grabbing hold of a low-hanging branch, and pulled my legs up as they slashed at me with silver flashes of blades. A few made grunts of effort, jumping to try to reach me, but they didn't speak, not even to each other.
By some unspoken coordination, two of them bent over to boost up others, who caught hold of lower branches and began to climb toward me. It was a ridiculous situation, hemmed in by infants--and yet there was a certain cold logic to it. I would be hesitant to harm these defenseless children, while the enemy--and I knew it was our enemy--would not hesitate to spend every small life to hurt me.
They were the perfect shock troops.
As the first child crawled along a branch toward me, mad eyes shining, I shifted my weight and grabbed for her wrist, twisting it. The knife fell like steel leaf.
She raked my arm with her fingernails and bared her teeth.
I had no choice but to sweep her off the branch, stunning her into unconsciousness as I did so. I cushioned her fall on the dirt with a burst of power.
Another was already coming. And another behind him.
These are annoyances, my Djinn side complained. Deal with them and move on. And had they been adult humans, I would have done so, but the reluctance to hurt a child was encoded in my helix DNA, and not even Djinn wisdom could counter it. You'll waste your power fighting this battle. It's what they want.
I knew that, but I also remembered Officer Styles on the road, the desperation and trauma in his face. The promise I'd made to him.
There were ten children here. Ten families searching for answers and praying for miracles. I couldn't take that hope from them.
I dropped out of the tree, crouched, and began touching the children on the head, one after another. I forced myself to be methodical about it, ignoring their weapons. It worked for the first two. The third scored a long cut along my arm that burned like drips of fire before I sent him unconscious.
The fourth and fifth of the remaining nine went down without injury to themselves or me, but as I turned to the sixth, I felt a blinding cold pain in my side, and looked down to see that C.T. had buried a knife to the hilt in my body.
I slapped my palm down on his forehead, triggering sleep, and he collapsed to the dirt.
That left three still standing. They were two girls and another boy, and they clearly recognized the danger I represented. They stayed farther than arm's length, waiting to see what I would do.
Sink them in the ground.
No. That was my Djinn ghost talking, and I would not do it--first, because it would hurt and terrify them, and second, because I could not afford the burst of power. Not injured.
I eased my weight down to my knees, trying not to gasp as pain arced through my nerves, and reached for the knife in my side. I touched it lightly, diagnosing the wound as best I could. I did not think it had cut any significant blood vessels, but there was damage--intestines cut, a cut to my liver that could be dire if untreated.
I pulled the knife out and somehow did not cry out. Blood dripped from the steel. I held it for a moment, staring at the children who circled me, and then rammed it point first into the ground in front of me.
They rushed me all at once.
Concentrate. My vision blurred, and I blinked away the haze. My hands flashed out, right and left, and brushed sleep into the minds of two of the children. Their falling bodies caused the third to stumble, and his club, aimed for my head, struck my shoulder instead with bruising force. I grabbed it, yanked it away, and pulled him toward me. He struggled in my arms, but I held him still, staring into his empty, wide eyes.
"You," I said softly. "The one who hides behind children. I am coming for you."
The boy's mouth opened and he laughed softly. That was no child's laughter. There was too much malice in it, too much knowledge.
Too much madness.
"Come, sister," he said, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he fell to the ground.
He wasn't breathing.
No.
I put my hand over his chest and felt no sign of heartbeat.
My enemy had just killed him casually, from a distance.
"No," I said aloud, and pulled the boy into my lap. "No." There was still a feeble flutter of life inside of him, struggling like a bird in a net. "You won't do this."
I put my hand over his heart and closed my eyes. Luis's warnings came back to haunt me--I wasn't trained in this; I could so easily damage the child--but I had no choice. There was no one better qualified to take my place.
I put my fingertips above his heart and forced his heart t
o pump. Once. Twice. Three times. Each time, I sought for the return of a rhythm, but his system seemed paralyzed, unable to function on its own.
His bloodstream, though sluggishly moving through my efforts, carried little oxygen. None was coming through his lungs. I would have to breathe for him, as well. I pulled in as deep a breath as I could, bent over him, and filled his lungs; the cut on my side stretched and widened, and tears blurred my vision.
My pain didn't matter.
I forced his heart to beat again and again and again. Breathed.
His open eyes stared at me, and there was no shadow of self in them. No hope.
I felt the flutter of life weaken in him, and continued to stimulate his heart in slow, thick beats, an imitation of life, nothing more. . . .
The child's heart suddenly jumped out of rhythm with my prompting, vibrated, and gave a strong beat.
Another.
Another.
He sucked in a breath and let it out in a scream.
I held him against me as he screamed and cried. All around me, the fallen children lay silent. I watched their chests rise and fall, alert for any changes, but my enemy did not bother with their deaths. He--or she--rightly concluded that they presented me with more of a dilemma alive.
I took out my cell phone and checked for a signal. None, of course. This was deep country, off the human track in many ways. I would get no help from the police, not until I could locate a working telephone.
The child put his chubby arms around my neck. I stroked his dirty hair. "What's your name?"
He sniffled wetly. "Will."
"All right, Will, everything is fine now. I'll keep you safe." I would need to bandage my wound. I was losing blood, and it was sapping my strength. The internal damage would have to wait until I could reconnect with Luis or find some other source of aid. "Will, I need you to help me, all right?"
He nodded, but he didn't let go of me.
"I'm going to have to wake up the other children. I will need you to be my helper. When the others wake up, they might be scared, and I need you to be their friend. Can you do that?"
He nodded stoutly, and climbed out of my arms and stood with his shoulder pressed against mine. Trembling, but upright.
I made certain he was steady enough, and then trailed my fingertips lightly over the forehead of another child, a girl with dark hair and darker skin. She sat up, startled, and began to cry.
"Will," I said. He gave me a doubtful look, but went to the girl and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder.
"It's okay," he said solemnly. "You're okay, Christy."
He knew their names. "Will, is there a girl named Isabel? Do you know her?"
Will continued to pat the weeping Christy on the shoulder. "There are a lot of kids."
That sent a cold ripple through me. "How many?"
"Lots." He likely couldn't count very high, so that was hardly definitive proof, but I had the strong feeling he meant hundreds. "I don't know some of the new ones. They just came."
"Came where, Will?"
He and Christy both looked at me as if I was utterly stupid. "The Ranch," they said together.
"And where is The Ranch?"
I heard a click of metal, and an adult voice from the trees said, "You're standing on it, bitch."
It is a custom of human villains, at least in song and story, to take their prisoners back to their secret lair, where the prisoners outwit and destroy the villains.
My enemies were far from fairy tales, and I knew they did not intend to allow me one step farther toward the answers I sought.
The children were loaded into a large four-wheel vehicle and taken away, even Christy and Will, who looked resigned to it all. I felt a pang at seeing C.T. taken yet again, but at least he slept on.
I will keep my promise, I told him. I will find a way to return you to your family.
The SUV drove off down the dirt road, leaving me on my knees, my blood dampening the dust around me. I was too weak to resist unnecessarily, so I sat still, hands loosely folded in my lap, as four armed paramilitary guards formed a square around me. The rifles they carried looked lethal indeed. So did the handguns at their hips.
"You're trespassing," one of them said. They all looked oddly interchangeable in the moonlight, thanks to their camouflage jackets and pants and matching caps. One was female, the others male. The speaker was one of the men, tall, with a pleasant tenor voice. I put him on the far side of middle age, from the glints of silver in the close-cropped hair that showed under the cap. "Didn't you see the signs? Trespassers will be shot. That wasn't some kind of bluff."
There had been no signs, but I didn't bother to argue the point. "Who are you?"
"Private citizens defending our land. I think the real question is, who are you? You don't exactly fit in around here. Who sent you? FBI? CIA?"
"With pink hair?" one of his fellows snorted. "I'm thinking some kind of private security, private investigator, something like that." He shoved the muzzle of his gun close to my face. "Right? Somebody hire you? You should have taken the money and run."
I didn't answer. All my focus was on keeping the wound in my side from pouring out more of my strength on the thirsty ground.
"Doesn't matter," a third one of them said--the woman, who sounded as practical and cold as all the rest. "She's seen the kids. We have to get rid of her."
"We should ask if they want her as a recruit."
"Come on, you've got to be kidding! She's some kind of Warden; that's the last thing we need. We have to kill her, and do it fast, before more of them show up looking around."
"She followed the first one." That made my drifting attention snap back into focus, and I lifted my head to look at the speaker, who was the older man. The leader of this small group. "She's his backup. So I don't think we have to worry too much about more Wardens calling, especially right now. They're a little busy."
General laughter between the four of them. The first one. That had to be Luis. They had Luis here.
If you plan to avoid dying, the Djinn part of me commented coolly, you should likely do something now. Because the man standing to my right, the one with the graying hair, was preparing to fire a bullet through my head and put an end to it.
I let go of control of my wound, which responded in a fresh gout of blood, and reached out to the trees with power.
The pine tree branches were firm and springy, perfectly suited to pulling back and releasing. One hit my would-be executioner in the back of the head as his finger tightened on the trigger, and his shot went wild, digging a hole in the ground next to my feet.
I softened the ground beneath their feet, and watched the shock hit as their own weight dragged them down. They flailed as they sank, and two tried to shoot me, but I was already moving, rolling to my feet and limping into the trees. I heard more gunfire behind me, and shouts, and then frantic screams.
Then the ground closed over their heads, and I heard nothing.
I couldn't go far. Black waves of weakness continued to wash over me, until it felt that the ground was softening beneath me, just as it had beneath my enemies. I fell and placed a palm flat on the surface. No, the fault didn't lie in the ground, but in myself.
Human weakness.
I wouldn't get far enough afoot. I needed to leave this place, find help, bring rescue to these children.
I made my stumbling way back to the Victory, only to find that one of the gunshots had exploded a tire and mangled part of the engine. I could have repaired it, if I'd had enough power.
I was using what I had left to keep myself alive.
All that remained of the four who'd tried to kill me were disturbed patches of earth, and a single pale hand breaking the surface. I hardly gave it a glance. My paramilitary friends hadn't appeared from nowhere; they'd likely come in a vehicle, as humans seemed wont to do even for short trips.
I saw a flash of movement in the trees, then a pale, dirty face.
C. T. Styles. He had gotten
away.
"Calvin Theodore," I said, and braced myself against the trunk of a nearby pine. I kept my other hand firmly pressed against the wound in my side. "Don't be afraid."
He moved out from behind his concealment but didn't come any closer. There was little expression on his face, and a flatness in his eyes that concerned me.
I said, "Your father sent me, C.T.," and the numbness in him broke, replaced by a flare of hope so bright it was like sunrise. "I need you to help me. Did these people come in a car?"
He shook his head emphatically. My own hopes dimmed as his rose, until he said, "They came in a truck. It's a jeep. It's black."
I almost laughed. It wasn't often a human was more precise than a Djinn. "Can you take me there?"
"Sure," C.T. said. He darted forward and held out his hand. I took it. His skin felt fever-warm against mine, but that was only because I was chilled from shock and blood loss. He tugged at my arm to get me started, and we headed in the direction of the cold, rising moon.
"They took everybody in the truck, but I got out the back," he said proudly. "I stayed. I knew you'd help."
I had no breath to spare to praise him. It seemed a long way to this mythical black jeep, and every step poked red-hot knives through my side. My body was sloughing off its shock, and I did not much care for the results. "Wait," I murmured, and pulled C.T. to a stop to lean against a handy boulder. I left black smears against the rock. "How much farther?"
"Not very much. It's right up there," the child said, and tugged my hand. "Right there!"
I allowed him to pull me on. At each rise, he promised me only one more, until my feet were no longer certain of their steps.
At last, I fell, and although I tried to rise, I couldn't.
I collapsed on my back, panting, and saw C.T. lean over me, no expression on his small face.
"I thought you'd never fall down," he said. "Goodbye, lady."
He turned away and left me. I tried to rise again.
The dark rolled in and swept me away.
When I woke, I was being carried--no, dragged. Dragged by the heels, like a carcass, through the dirt. I opened my eyes and made a protest that sounded more like a moan than words--and then I realized that I had spoken in Djinn, not English.