In a certain way, the Ma'at were the maintenance workers of the supernatural world around us. I had always had a small amount of respect for their efforts--as much as I had ever harbored for any human endeavor, in any case.
"They're our next stop," Luis said. "We're paying a visit to their top guys, seeing if we can get an organized effort around this thing."
Turner shrugged. "Good luck with that. Okay, here's what I'll do: I'll take your list, start digging, and see if I can make any more connections with missing kids. If you're right, though, there may be a whole lot of this that's off the FBI radar right now. How much do you want me to wave the flag?"
"Hard and fast," Luis said, and stood up to offer his hand for a farewell shake. "We're going to need every damn advantage we can get if we're going to make this end well."
Turner's eyes flicked to me again, and I knew what he was thinking--not because I could read his thoughts, but because I understood his fears. "No," I said, in answer to his unvoiced question. "Luis cannot stop me, if I choose to accept Ashan's assignment and destroy your people. No one can stop me. Agreement is all I need to regain my powers as a Djinn."
No one could stop me except, possibly, the enemy we all feared.
Pearl.
Turner didn't offer any kind of commentary about that. He just said, "I'll make your niece my top priority," and ushered us out of his office. I followed Luis down the hallway, past all those silent, haunting pictures, to the elevators. He pushed the button, but I kept going, to the sign that marked access to stairs. With a sigh, he fell in behind me.
"You know, we need to talk about your claustrophobia," he said.
"I am not claustrophobic," I said. "I do not care for small spaces that operate at the mercy of thin cables and human engineering, and are easily manipulated by my enemies." The door slammed and locked behind him, sealing us in the silent cool stairwell, and I turned to him on the broad concrete landing.
He looked little different than he had the first moment I had met him--strong and lean, with skin the color of caramel and dark, secretive eyes. Hair worn a bit long around his sharply angled face. On his muscled arms, the flame tattoos caught the light in shadowy flickers.
"You think he'll help?" I asked. Luis shrugged.
"No idea. But we've got to pull every string we can reach."
"And if he is working for Pearl and her people?"
"Then they know we're serious. Can't think that's a bad thing. They already know we're not going to quit. I want her to know we're prepared to take drastic measures if we have to, to stop her."
Except Luis didn't believe it. He still, deep down, did not believe that I would shed my human form, rise up as a Djinn, and destroy humanity.
Luis did not know me at all.
"So we go to the Ma'at," I said, and took the first flight of steps, heading down six floors. "By plane, yes?"
"It's faster," he said. "Hopefully, nobody will try to kill us today."
"That would be a different kind of day."
In fact, I suspected that someone would try to kill us, possibly even in the narrow confines of the concrete and metal stairs, but we reached the bottom-floor exit without incident, and walked out into the open lobby. We turned in our visitor badges at the security desk and exited through a heavily armored door, out into the Albuquerque afternoon sun. The dry air held the scent of fragrant mesquite wood burning in fireplaces, the sharp bite of pine, the greasy and ever-present stench of car exhaust. Overhead, a jet painted orange and blue climbed the clear sky and left a contrail behind.
Luis and I walked to the distant parking lot where we had left his large pickup truck--black, with dramatic bursts of colorful flames on both sides. He'd recently had it washed and polished, and it shone like ebony in the sun. I thought longingly of my motorcycle, which I'd reluctantly left behind; I preferred the simplicity and freedom of that transportation, not the enclosed space of the narrow metal box. But the windows did roll down, and although the day had grown cool, it was not yet cold.
It would be soon, though.
Before we reached the car, two people stepped into our path--a tall, wide man and a shorter, darker one. They held out black leather cases with gold-washed badges of identification.
Police.
I glanced at Luis as we both came to a stop, and he knew what I was asking: comply, or fight and run? I was unimpressed by human authority figures, except that I understood they could complicate my ability to operate in the already complex maze of human existence. Prison would be inconvenient.
Luis held out one hand to me, a clear wait gesture. I held myself ready to follow his cues.
"Detectives," he said, and nodded to the two men.
"How can we help you?"
"You can get your ass up against the truck," the shorter one said. "Hands on the hood. Feet apart. You two, Pink."
He was referring, I assumed, to the fading shade of pink that still clung to my pale hair. I had not yet decided whether or not to scrub the last of it away, or renew it into a hot blaze of magenta. The contempt in the way he addressed me made me want to turn his hair into a burning pink bonfire.
Perhaps literally.
I smiled, instead, and as Luis moved to obey the orders, I did as well, placing my hands on the cool, slick finish and spreading my feet to a distance of about a shoulder's width. When the shorter detective stepped up behind me, I said, very quietly, "I don't enjoy being touched."
"She's not kidding," Luis said. "You really don't want to test her on that."
"Got to pat you down for weapons," the detective said. "And if you resist, I'll Taser your fine albino ass and haul you to the county jail. Is that clear?"
"Oh man," Luis sighed. "Just roll with it, okay?"
I supposed he meant that for me. I wasn't quite certain what he wanted me to do, but I gathered, from the way he caught and held my eyes, that he wanted me to do nothing.
So, with a great deal of distaste, I allowed the stranger to put his hands on me, moving up my sides, across my back, down my legs and back up between them. Calm, I told myself. Remain calm. That was a great deal harder than I'd expected, but by continuing to stare hard into Luis's wide, dark eyes, I found a certain measure of balance.
The detective stepped back. "She's clean. Okay, your turn, Rocha."
Luis smiled, very much as if he was used to this sort of treatment. "No problem. I know you enjoy this kind of thing."
That drove whatever good humor there had been in the stranger completely away, and he slammed Luis forward with the bar of his forearm against Luis's back, crushing him against the hood of the pickup truck.
I leaned back, taking my weight off the balls of my feet, and said, "I wouldn't do that."
"Shut up, punk," the older, broader man said. "Hands on the hood. Hands on the hood!"
"Why?" I didn't comply. As much as I hated being touched and treated with contempt, my fury was well and truly ignited now not for myself, but for Luis. The shorter man was slapping his hand down Luis's sides and legs with more violence than he'd shown me. "What have we done?"
"You think I need a reason to roust a Norteno asshole?" he shot back. "Think again."
"I'm not Norteno," Luis gritted out, face still smashed against the truck. "Haven't been for years. Better get a new playbook, detective."
"If you're not Norteno, then why did the gang shoot up your brother and sister-in-law? Just for the fun of it?"
"I left. They didn't like it. I just got back in town. You can check it out."
The older man nodded to the younger, who let Luis go and stepped back. Luis got himself upright again and stepped back from the truck turning to face the two men. "What's this about?" he asked.
"You." The older man pointed at me. "Name."
"Leslie Raine," I said. It was as good as any, and I had Warden-produced identification to prove it was mine.
"Where you from?"
"Here."
"Yeah, you look like a fucking native." He dismisse
d me and turned back to Luis. "What are you doing hanging around the Federal Building?"
"I'm not hanging around," Luis said. "We just came from seeing the FBI. Special Agent Turner. He'll verify that."
The two men exchanged a fast, unreadable look. "How's an asshole like you rate time with a fed?"
"It's not your business," I said, with all the cold hauteur an eternity of being immortal had taught me.
That got me a longer appraisal from both men. "So what are you, some kind of a fed? Rocha's some kind of informant?"
I smiled, slowly. "Do you really want to talk about this here? In the open?"
On the street, people were slowing down in cars to stare at us; in a storefront opposite, someone stood still, taking a photograph with his cell phone. I sent a pulse of power over the distance between us, squeezing metal and glass, and the phone gave a sad little electronic pop and died. The man frowned at his dead device and shook it impotently, as if he could shake life back into it. Then, seeing my expression, he quickly moved on.
I don't like it when people stare.
Whether the two policemen believed me or not, they opted for caution. The older one nodded, and the younger one walked to an anonymous gray sedan nearby and opened the back door. "Inside," he said.
"Are we under arrest?"
"Why? You got something we ought to arrest you for?"
I shrugged and got into the car. Luis took the opposite side, and the two doors thumped closed as the policemen moved to the front. Immediately, I began to feel constricted. This car was not as fragrant as most, but it was still deeply unpleasant, redolent of plastic, hot metal, unwashed flesh, and old food. I studied the interior door. There were no release handles; however, I comforted myself that this would hardly slow either of us down, should we choose to leave. Earth Wardens are not easily caged; Djinn, no matter how humiliated and cast out, even less so. But there are disadvantages to having such powers; for one thing, one cannot always find a useful way to apply them.
As now.
The policemen entered the car. It was warm inside, though not oppressively so; still, I felt stifled, and panic rose inside me. I closed my eyes tightly and concentrated on breathing, pushing air in and out of my fragile lungs, trying not to imagine what it might be like to be robbed of air, of breath.
"Hey, what's wrong with your friend?" the smaller detective asked. I didn't open my eyes. "You ain't gonna puke, are you? If you do, you're cleaning it up."
"She doesn't like cars," Luis said. "Especially ones that stink like last night's drunk tank. Now that we're away from prying ears, what the hell do you want?"
The larger detective turned around, arm over the back of the seat, and said, "You're an Earth Warden, right?"
I opened my eyes for that. Luis didn't react in the slightest, not even by a change in his heart rate or respiration. "No idea what you're talking about," he said.
"I do environmental work. Big business these days, you know? Thinking green and all that."
"Don't bullshit me. You're a Warden."
Luis didn't say anything, just watched him. The big man finally sighed and ran a square hand over his face.
"I know all about it," he said. "Shit, you people made a big freaking splash all over the television, remember? Besides, my sister-in-law's one of them Weather Wardens. Beatrice Halley. Works out of Chicago, does stuff with the lakes up there."
Luis sat back a little. "I know Bea Halley," he said.
"You must be Frank Halley. She said her brother-in-law was a cop."
"Yeah, well, she don't like me much, and the feeling's mutual, but whatever. This ain't about that."
"So what is it about?"
"I got a job for you," Halley said. "Sick kid."
A shadow passed over Luis's face. I knew he hated saying no to people, but at the same time, Earth Wardens didn't normally agree to healing for the general public. It was harsh, but necessary; if word got out about what they could do, it would bring an endless stream of sufferers to their doorsteps, and it would prevent them from carrying out their larger duties.
"I know it's not normal," Halley said, "but this kid's kind of special. She showed up half starved, dehydrated, with a nasty case of infection; no family, no missing kid bulletin out on her. She's about five years old."
Hope flared hot in Luis's eyes, and I know it must have registered in my expression as well. "No name?"
"She's too sick to talk."
Halley was, I believed, deliberately vague as to details. He was allowing Luis's desperation to fill in information.
I thought I understood why. "This girl," I said. "She is not Isabel Rocha. You wish us to think she could be, to bring Luis face-to-face with her. You believe he could not refuse once he saw her, even if she isn't his niece."
Halley and his partner stared at me. I didn't blink.
"Yeah," Halley finally said. "That's true. Look, the kid's in bad shape. They've tried all the treatments, even the IV antibiotics. She's dying. I figure you're about the only shot she's got left, unless Saint Joseph works a miracle." He paused, studying Luis. "You a religious man?"
"I been to mass a time or two." He was, in fact, much more religious than that; I'd heard him praying, from time to time, that we would find Isabel. Or avenge her. "Why?"
Halley shrugged. "Always wondered is all. You Wardens, you're practically gods, what with all the slinging lightning bolts and healing the sick. Bea ain't religious. So I just wondered."
"We're not any kind of gods, big G or small," Luis said. "Ain't even angels, man. We're just people. Smart Wardens know that better than anybody. You play God, people die."
Halley looked like he wanted to keep on talking, but I broke in to say, "If the girl is as sick as you say, we shouldn't waste time."
Both policemen looked startled, although they covered it quickly. "So you'll go?" Halley asked, and started the car's engine.
"Of course he'll go," I said, without so much as a glance at Luis. The bond between us was strong enough that I had no doubts of it; I wouldn't have doubted it in any case, because it was exactly the sort of thing Luis would do, whether or not it was wise. "You should have just asked."
Halley rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Shoulda thought of that."
The girl was in the hospital. I had never visited one before, although of course I knew the theory; there had been no need, when Manny and Angela were shot, because their wounds had been immediately fatal. If they had been taken to the hospital--and I supposed that they might have been--they would not have been placed in one of these complicated beds, hooked to machines, reduced to a limp, suffering sack of dying meat.
I did not like the hospital.
The child was so small. Smaller than Isabel, and nothing at all like her in coloring: blond, rosy pink skin, a delicate rosebud mouth. I could not see the color of her eyes; she was deeply unconscious.
Parts of her body were deeply discolored and bruised. The infection Detective Halley had mentioned, but not a violent attack. This child was thin, ill-looked-after, but her fight was against a much more ruthless enemy.
The room stank of death. I paused at the door, swallowing convulsively, and Halley came to a stop with me.
"Sad," he said. "Right?"
I didn't answer. I watched Luis. He entered the sterile room in slow, deliberate steps, as if he was afraid he might frighten the child, who surely could not have known he was there. He was, by contrast to her tiny body, a large man, well muscled, heavily tattooed, and it struck me as I watched that a human chancing on this scene would have assumed Luis to be a criminal, intent on harming the child.
Until they saw his face, his eyes, the heartbreakingly gentle way he laid the back of his hand on the girl's forehead and settled his weight on the bed beside her. He had large hands, but his fingers stroked gently through her hair, as if she might feel the comfort he offered.
"Cass," he said. "I need you."
He looked up into my eyes, and I felt it like a physical shock--a demand,
but a kind one, with good intention behind it.
And more. More than that. A complicated mixture of need and desire, dread and worry. For a disorienting moment, I saw myself through his eyes: tall, pale, expressionless, and apparently free of all connection to the human world.
Apparently.
I was abruptly conscious of my body, all the complex and fascinating parts of it; I felt the chilled air of the room moving over my skin, and felt gooseflesh gather. My heart pounded harder, altering its rhythm. My mouth felt dry, and without conscious decision, I stepped forward, first one foot, then another, until I was standing across the child's bed from Luis Rocha.
He held out his right hand, keeping his left in gentle contact with the girl's forehead. My fingers closed over his, and the raw tactile pleasure of it took my breath away. I felt a tingle of power pulse through the link between us, and then through him. I touched the wellspring of power hidden deep in the Earth herself--slow, silent, strong power. The feel of it coursing through my nerves, through Luis's, was enough to send my memories sparking to other times, other places, other lives. I had never been human, but I had been Djinn a very, very long time, and this, this feeling of touching the eternal . . .
I let out a shaky sigh, almost a moan, and began to refine the power, shape it, form it into a golden flood that Luis used his human expertise to direct into the child's fragile body. This was a thing some Djinn could do, and others could not; I had never been very interested in healing, but I found myself fascinated with the gentle precision with which he worked. It was all out of proportion to his physical appearance, his intimidating aspect.
I found that pleasing.
Luis worked with great concentration, and it took a very long time--hours, in fact. The policemen left, returned, and left again. Doctors and nurses came and went, but no one bothered us; I wondered why, until I realized that there must have been some common consent that this last effort would be tolerated. There was no harm in it.
The mottled stains beneath her skin gradually began to fade. Luis stopped for a few moments then, gasping for breath, and I poured him a glass of water from the carafe standing next to the bed. He drank it in two convulsive gulps, and I realized that his shirt was dark with sweat, and his hair was dripping with it. His muscles trembled with the strain.