It was unsettling.
I realized, with a prickle of alarm, that Luis Rocha was watching me over Isabel's head. I wondered what was in my face, and how much it betrayed my feelings.
He said nothing, only nodded and turned his attention back to Angela, who was asking if he wanted more tamales. With his gaze off of me, I could look at him without feeling intrusive, and I found myself admiring the clean lines of his face, the way the light caught on his dark copper skin. The blue-black shine of his hair.
He was beautiful. Not as beautiful as a Djinn--no human could be--but there was something wild and fiercely lovely about him. I was reminded of eagles, soaring high as they hunted. He had something of the eagle in him.
When Angela began to gather the dishes, I rose to help her. It seemed to be expected, and it gave me a chance to follow her into the kitchen, away from the men and Isabel.
Angela accepted the dishes with a smile of thanks and began running hot water in the sink. "So, what do you think of him?" she asked. "Luis?"
"Interesting," I said. I leaned against the counter, watching as she rinsed dishes in soapy water. "There is tension between him and his brother."
Angela laughed softly. "Little bit, yeah." She glanced at me, eyes veiled under her lashes. "You want to know why?"
I didn't answer. I gathered up pots and pans from the stove and moved them to the area where Angela was rinsing and scrubbing.
"Luis got in trouble a few years ago," Angela said. She pitched her voice low, hardly loud enough to reach my ears. "Gang trouble. He used to be a Norteno when he was young and stupid, until he found out he had the gift and the Wardens came calling. Saved his life, probably. But the gang didn't want to let him go." She shook her head, mouth set in a grim line. "Still don't."
I cocked my head and asked, "Gang?"
Angela spent a long moment marveling at my ignorance before she shrugged and said, "Like a tribe, only they're not related by blood. They protect each other against other gangs, go to war together, that kind of thing. And they make money, usually selling drugs or stealing. But it's a hard life. People die all the time, and they die real young."
"Were you in a gang?" I asked her. That surprised her, and I got a wide-eyed shake of her head. "Yet you seem--sympathetic."
She sighed. "Not so much sympathetic as understanding. I knew so many of them. Most of them are dead now, but there are always kids, young kids, waiting to step up. I worry, that's all. I worry that no matter what we do, the gangs grow, because we don't make a place for these young ones. We give them good reason to be angry."
I didn't understand. I hardly understood anything of human culture, but it seemed to me that gangs were no different than any other cultural grouping--humans banded together for defense and profit. They always had. Sometimes it was by family, sometimes by nation, sometimes by religion, but always they divided and combined themselves.
War was a fact of their lives.
I realized with a chill that the Djinn had done the same, fractured themselves into factions. Were we becoming like the humans? No better than?
Surely not.
"Is Luis in danger?" I asked Angela, handing her a collection of spoons and forks.
"We're all in danger," she said. "As long as Luis is in Nortenos territory."
"I'll keep you safe," I said.
Angela sent me a look I could not read. "Will you?"
We finished the dishes in silence.
The next day our small office saw a visit from the Warden local officials--two senior Wardens, one Fire and one Weather. Neither was as impressive in their power signature as Luis Rocha, but they seemed competent enough, and both wielded more ability than Manny.
They wanted a report of the attack we had experienced. Manny had written it in detail, but they ignored the paper and instead asked us to describe the incident, over and over, until I simply saw no reason to answer the questions and stopped responding.
"You're certain you didn't recognize the power signature of the person conducting this attack?" the woman asked. Greta, her name was, and her aura clearly identified her as a Fire Warden. Physically, she was a small woman with reddish, close-cropped hair and large blue eyes. Her skin was a cool, pale beige, marked here and there with spots that looked like burns. She hadn't bothered to have them healed or the scars removed. "You saw nothing on the aetheric?"
"Nothing I could identify," Manny said. "Like I said, it was odd. It really didn't feel like a trained Warden, but there was a lot of power behind it."
"But not a Djinn." Greta's gaze moved to me. "You're sure."
I shrugged. I'd stated it several times; there was no need to continue to speak. They were making me angry. They seemed to doubt not only Manny's word, but my own. I could not truly imagine why they thought we would lie.
"Look, if you made a mistake, if you tried something and it got out of hand, you can admit it," said the man--Scott, the Weather Warden. He was very tall, with bushy black hair and a hangdog, heavily lined face. His voice was sharp and nasal, and accented to match. "Better to do it now than after we find out for ourselves."
Manny's face took on a darker hue, and I felt a pulse of anger from him. "We're not lying."
Greta sent her fellow Warden a quick glance. "We don't think you are," she said. "I think what Scott is trying to say is that if there's something you haven't told us, now is the time to come clean about it. Okay?"
Manny nodded tightly. "I've told you everything."
"And you, Cassiel?"
"I have told the truth, as well," I said. "Don't call me a liar again." I was aware of the dangerous edge to my words, and I found I didn't much care.
It was Scott's turn to turn red with anger. "You're here because we let you be here--don't you forget it!" he barked. "I didn't want you in our territory. If you give me cause, I'll ship you back to Florida so fast you'll get whiplash. I don't like having a rogue Djinn in the mix, and if I had to bet, I'd bet that whatever went wrong here, it was your fault. Get me?"
"I could," I said evenly. I let it ring in the silence.
Manny took in a breath, then let it slowly out. "Yeah," he finally said. "Cassiel, let's all just calm down. We didn't do anything wrong. Somebody attacked us; we don't know who it was or even if it was a Warden or a Djinn. But we're on the lookout for anything like it. Okay?"
Scott's gaze was locked on mine. I allowed a slow, cool smile across my lips, and saw him flinch from whatever he saw naked in my eyes. There were virtues to the Djinn having gone to war with the Wardens, however briefly. It had taught them to respect us.
"Fine," Greta said. She sounded subdued and a little nervous. "Let's move along. I don't want you out in the field for a couple of days, so stay here and do whatever you can remotely. Watch your backs. If you see anything odd, call for help immediately."
"I hear your brother's in town," Scott said to Manny. "That right?"
"He's staying with us for a few days, yeah."
"I heard he applied for a transfer. I tried to get him, but they tell me we're already fully staffed in this region. He'll probably go to Colorado." Scott's muddy gaze narrowed. "Too bad. He's got real skills. We could use him."
"So could Colorado," Greta said sharply. "Enough. Manny, Cassiel, thank you for your patience. We'll leave you to it."
"Oh," Scott said, and snapped his fingers. "Did you get a report in the mail? Something that should have gone to the Colorado office, maybe?"
There was something odd about the way he broached the subject--too quick, with too ingratiating a smile. Before Manny could answer, I said, "I have filed the papers. I saw nothing like that."
Manny cut a sharp glance at me, but he followed my lead and stayed quiet.
"Okay," Scott said. He stared at me for a few seconds. "Well. If it arrives, just let me know."
Greta rose. Scott seemed reluctant to leave, but he had little choice; she was clearly the senior in the team, and once her course was set, she did not seem the type to be balked. Sh
e shook Manny's hand, then--after a slight hesitation--mine. I wondered what she had been told.
Perhaps she'd been told the truth. In that case, no wonder she had hesitated. I was careful to keep the brief contact impersonal, merely surface, and saw a flash of relief in her eyes.
I wasn't so careful with Scott. He pulled free quickly, wiping his hand against his trousers. I had not made a friend.
I hadn't intended to.
"Manny Rocha is a good Warden," I said. "Don't try to imply otherwise."
I kept my stare on Scott until the door closed between us with a final, soft click.
"You shouldn't antagonize him," Manny said.
"You shouldn't placate him." I turned back to reach for the folders on the desk.
"What was all that about? Why'd you lie to him? We've got a folder of stuff for Colorado, right?"
"I don't know," I said softly. I transferred my gaze back to the closed door and frowned. "I don't know."
Manny yawned. "Screw it. We'll look at it tomorrow. It's probably nothing we need to worry about, anyway. I don't know about you, but getting interrogated by the boss makes me tired."
It made me tired, too, and I allowed him to draw me out of the office and deliver me home.
Djinn do not sleep, unless they take human form. Perhaps that's one of the lures for us, that brief period of oblivion . . . and dreams. Dreams of things beyond our control.
I had never dreamed before, but that night, alone in darkness, I dreamed of Luis Rocha. In my dream he was both the same and different; more and less. A Djinn, not a Warden. His core was bright, burning power, and the tattoos licking his arms were real flames barely contained by their ink outlines. He was a beautiful, wild thing, and in the dream--in the dream--I was drawn to him, like water to the sky. His heat melted the ice within me. I knew nothing of bodies, but the dream was of flesh and need and fire, and when I woke I was trembling, aching, and echoing with the aftershocks of pleasure.
I had not dreamed of Manny. I had dreamed of his brother.
This seemed oddly significant to me.
I said nothing of the dream to Manny when he came to get me the next morning, to take me to the office. I felt uncomfortable in my skin, acutely aware of the flesh enclosing me. I had always considered it to be a tool, a shell, but the dream had given me new understanding. Human souls were partnered with bodies, and at times, it seemed, sensation drove reason.
I was not sure I liked it.
Seeing Luis waiting in the office hallway was a not unpleasant shock, a throwback to the dream that sent hot waves of sensation from the soles of my feet through the top of my head. I averted my eyes from him, eager to keep any hint of what was in my mind from him.
"Something wrong?" Manny asked me as he unlocked the door. I shook my head, pale hair lashing my face. "Yeah, obviously not. Poker face, Cassiel, look it up. . . . Hey, bro. What's up? Isn't this a little bit early for you?"
There was a brief pause, and I saw Luis shift his weight from a casual posture to something more--cautious. "You didn't leave a message?"
"Leave what message?"
"To meet you here at the office."
Manny turned the knob and opened the door. "Like I'd want to see your ugly face first thing in the morning. No, man, I--"
I felt it first, a fraction of a second before either of the Wardens. I shoved Manny into his brother, to one side of the door, and spun in the opposite direction.
Fire exploded out of the open office door in a white-hot jet, rolling like lava to boil against the opposite wall, which immediately blistered, cooked, and began to burn. On the other side of the wall of flame, I saw Manny and Luis scrambling backward. Safe, for the moment.
I was not. By turning the other direction I had saved my flesh, but now I was trapped in an alcove at the end of the hallway, a shallow box with no way out. The air rippled with heat, and smoke began pouring from the flaming walls and ceiling--black and thick in my mouth and nose. My eyes stung and watered, and I found myself pressed back against the farthest wall, gasping in shallow, choking breaths.
I needed to get control of it, but the fire--fire terrified me in ways I had never imagined. It was an instinct erupting from the roots of my body, an atavistic need to retreat from the flames.
I am Djinn. I am born of fire. It can't hurt me.
But it could now, and my flesh knew that all too well. I struggled to control my reactions. I had power; all I needed to do was apply it.
But the power was rooted in Earth, and fire responded little to my feeble attempts.
A shape emerged from the flames--human-formed but made of fire, and that cooled into the dull red of molten metal.
A Djinn.
It looked at me for a long moment, then reached out to me. When I hesitated, it cocked its head to one side, plainly impatient.
I reached out, and my fragile human hand grasped his.
There was no sense of burning.
He pulled me into the fire, and I was surrounded by the flames, enveloped and caressed by them. It was like being a Djinn again, for a brief and euphoric second.
Then I felt a shove and I stumbled on, into air that felt ice-cold after the heat of the blaze. The air was thick with toxic smoke. I reached out and felt the solid surface of a wall. I followed it, coughing and choking, until I ran into a warm body and human hands gripped my shoulders.
"I've got her!" I recognized the voice, even smoke roughened. Luis Rocha. "Cassiel. Come on!"
A shadow charged toward us--Manny. He took my other arm and together the brothers towed me out of the smoke, to clearer air.
The office building was a chaos of people running, yelling, talking on cell phones. People carried computers, purses, files. One man had an equipment dolly with a file cabinet, though how he imagined he would get it down the stairs was a mystery.
"Fire Wardens are responding," Manny said, and coughed. His mouth and nose were black with soot, and his eyes were bloodshot. I imagined I looked no better. Luis bent over, hacking and choking, and spat out black.
"There they go," Luis said, and sank down against a wall to a crouch as we felt the power of the Wardens sweep past us in a cool wave. The smoke lessened, and I heard the roar of the fire subside to a dull mutter. "Fuck. What the hell was that? Who the fuck did you piss off, Manny?"
"Me? Somebody told you to be here, remember? Maybe they're not after me!"
They glared at each other, red-eyed and belligerent. I had never seen the blood relationship between them so clearly.
I cleared my throat and tasted ash. "You're angry because you're afraid," I said. "So you should be. Someone wanted to kill us, or at least cared nothing of killing all of us so long as they achieved their goal. Someone capable of igniting fire on a massive scale, which means a Warden--"
"Or a Djinn," Luis finished for me, and both brothers stared in my direction. "No use asking if you've made any enemies lately."
I hadn't told them that there had been a Djinn onsite . . . who'd pulled me out of the fire. It didn't seem the prudent time to do it now. I held my silence. I had recognized the Djinn himself as a New Djinn, one of David's followers, but I didn't know him well, and I didn't think that the New Djinn had any reason to pursue me at the cost of human lives.
Ashan, on the other hand . . . Ashan was one to hold a grudge for generations, and human damage was nothing to him.
The crush at the stairs eased, and firefighters in yellow slickers urgently beckoned us to proceed down and out of the building, as the sirens howled their alarm.
Luis had enemies. So did I. So did Manny.
There was no way to be sure who had been the intended target of the attack, except one: ask the one individual I knew had witnessed it.
I slipped away from Manny and Luis in the confusion downstairs, climbed up on the bed of a flatbed truck in the parking lot, and surveyed the scene. It seemed chaos, but there was purpose at its core--the firefighters seemed to know their business, as did the police and ambulanc
e attendants helping those who needed it.
The Djinn were plain to me, even in human disguise. There were two in the crowd, but neither was the Djinn who'd pulled me from the fire. Still, they would carry a message.
I jumped off the truck, landed heavily--gravity and flesh were an uncomfortable combination--and felt a flash of pain like a knife through my right leg. No broken bones, only a pulled muscle. I forced myself to ignore it as I pushed through the crowd of babbling humans talking excitedly.
When I reached the spot where the first Djinn had been, he was no longer there. No longer in sight at all. I extended my senses cautiously, as limited as they were, but found nothing.
He had seen me coming, and retreated to where I couldn't follow.
The other Djinn was more accommodating. She was in the form of a small human child, with long, silky blond hair and fair skin. Eyes so blue they seemed made of sky. She sat perched on a decorative stone block at the edge of the parking lot, swinging her feet and watching the building belch black smoke toward the sky.
"How are you enjoying your exile?" she asked me, as I crouched down next to her. Like me, she was Old Djinn, and a particular favorite of Ashan's; unlike me, she enjoyed a certain freedom to act as she pleased, because of her age and power.
"I'm not," I said shortly. "Venna, there was a Djinn inside the building, in the fire. Can you tell me who it was?"
"Certainly," she said, and her lips curved into a faint, annoying smile. "I can."
"Will you?"
"No."
I held my temper with difficulty. "Then will you convey a message to him, and tell him that I need to ask him what happened?"
Venna continued to drum her patent-leather heels on the stone, and she never looked away from the building. "Ashan's still very angry with you," she said.
"Did he do this?"
"Do what?"
"Set this fire."
That earned me a glance, a dismissive one. "Why would he?"
A fair question, but I couldn't predict what Ashan might or might not do. "Did he order it done?"