Unseen (21 page)

The pause this time was longer, and his voice was weary as he said, “Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice. Make sure you were okay.”

That hit me hard, and I took the phone away from my ear for a few seconds, struggling to sort out my own torrent of feelings. I finally took a deep breath and said, “I am fine.”

“Fine. Really.”

“Yes.” I wasn’t, not now, not listening to his breathing, his voice, knowing how far separated we were by both distance and emotion. “Luis—”

“Yeah?”

I couldn’t bring myself to forgive him, or even to acknowledge that I understood the decisions he’d made. I admired his ruthless dedication, but the scars were still too bloody. “How is Isabel?”

“Better,” he said. He sounded relieved that it was a less controversial topic. “She’s settling in, and the seizures are coming under control; Marion thinks we’re making good progress. She helps out with Elijah; he likes her better than any of the others.”

“But she’s suffered more seizures.”

“Yeah, one more,” he said. “Not as bad as the first one.”

“Have you given any thought to what I said? About the possibility of someone acting against you inside the school?” I hadn’t discussed it with him, but that mudslide had not been any sort of natural occurrence, not at that time of year. It had been brought down on me by a Weather Warden, one subtle enough to do it without tipping his hand early.

“I’ve looked around, but there’s nobody I can put my finger on. Maybe it was just random, Cassiel.”

His use of my full name felt like a barb, even though his voice remained calm and neutral. I had grown used to his nickname for me,
Cass
. I hated it on anyone else’s lips, but from him it seemed ... honorable. And warm.

“I don’t think it was,” I said. “So please, watch yourself. And protect Isabel.”

“I’d be able to do that better if you’d stayed.”

“I couldn’t. You know that.”

His voice was sharp enough to draw blood. “You made your choice, Cass. We’ll both get by without you. Sorry, but that’s how it is. That’s how you wanted it.” He was silent for a moment, in which I fought the impulse to protest that I hadn’t chosen this, not
this
, not this separation and anger and loss. I’d chosen him, and Ibby, to love, and that had been an enormous risk for me; it was duty that pulled me in a different direction, and I responded to it only because of my burning desire to keep them safe.
He
was the one who’d made the irrevocable decision to betray my trust, and I was certain that part of that was spite.

“Just tell me that she’s all right,” I said, and closed my eyes. I felt suddenly very weary, and very alone. “Tell me that you’re all right, too.”

His voice, when it came again, was lower, softer. “I didn’t think you’d care whether I was or not.”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “But I told you: Djinn don’t fall out of love that easily. And I do care about you, even if I wish I didn’t.”

“Ouch.” He sighed. “Cassiel, please. Yeah, I should have told you about the guys waiting outside to pick up your trail. I was going to when you stopped by my room, but ... You ever have one of those moments where you wish you’d done something, wish it with everything you’ve got? That was mine. I should have warned you. I didn’t want you hurt.”

It was an apology, but not the one I was seeking. “And Rashid?” I asked. “Have you freed him?”

“Cass—”

“Then there’s nothing more to discuss. I can’t trust you if you keep a slave against his will.”

Luis cleared his throat uncomfortably and changed the subject. “Where are you?”

“Far away,” I said. His voice sounded thin and distant now, fading as the connection fluctuated. “But never far from you if you need me. I hope you believe that.”

“I do. Cass? I’m sorry for what I said before you left. Not that it wasn’t true, but it didn’t need to be that harsh. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I know,” I said. “And I’m sorry that my decisions have led us to this, but I couldn’t see another way. Something must be sacrificed for the greater good.”

“And that something’s us,” he said, recovering some of the cool distance to his tone. “Even if it puts Ibby at risk.”

“I’m trying to save Ibby. And all the others. But I can’t do it from there—you know that.” Now we were entering the downward spiral of arguing the finer points again, and I knew where that would end—in pain. “Please take care of her.”

“I will,” he said. If there was the slightest emphasis on the “I” part of that statement, I supposed he could be forgiven for it. “If you need power, take it. I’m out.”

And he was, ending the call without any further courtesies. He was learning bad habits, but probably from me.

I had learned so much from him, including how bitter a personal betrayal could be. It seemed only fair.

I closed my eyes, calmed my thoughts, and reached for the connection between us. It was a slender thing, but still strong, built of trust and experience; our recent discord had frayed that rope badly but not broken it. Over time, it would repair ... if we survived.

There was an oddness to doing this now, a kind of strange, tentative worry that rose in me as I began to draw power out of him. This felt less intimate and more like a clinical transaction. That should have been a good thing; it held far fewer complications, for both of us.

But as the power sank into me, heavy and golden as liquid sunlight, I found myself thinking about his face, his mouth, his body, his skin ... all the things that were now forbidden to me, by my own choice.

And it hurt, again.

I don’t know what Luis felt, or thought, but as soon as I could, I cut the flow of energy between us. The contact had left me feeling restless and wild at a very deep, almost cellular level. I craved ... something. And I didn’t dare define what it might be.

I glanced at the maps again, and at the network of black dots I was slowly forming. I’d marked all the places where the FBI had identified either locations or suspected groups of Pearl’s growing list of followers. I could visit each on the aetheric if I managed my power carefully enough. That would have been the smart, methodical way to approach it, but I believed Rashid. Right or wrong, I believed him. And if Pearl had planned to have those children brought to her in New Jersey, then it was possible that was where her training efforts were under way—and where she would be visible, flesh, and vulnerable.

I went straight to the camp location in New Jersey. As before, there was a thin, toxic shimmer to the aetheric mists over the location, but this was stronger than before—and it seemed to have a sense of me, as well. I stopped well short of the vague, twisting shapes that shrouded the area, but it seemed that I couldn’t stop drifting toward them. Troubling—and then I realized that I had stopped, after all.

The mists were reaching out for me.

I quickly propelled my aetheric body backward, but a whisper of dark shimmer brushed me as I did, and a black, cold pain shot through me. It shouldn’t have happened; nothing should have been able to affect me on the aetheric level, not in this form. But I felt it like a freezing electrical shock, and tumbled away from it, out of control, driven by a panic even I couldn’t fully understand.

There was something there. Something alive. Something hungry.

It wasn’t Pearl, but it was an aspect of her. An avatar, waiting for the unwary Djinn or Warden. The chill I’d felt had been her leech battening on me to drain away all of my aetheric energy ... all that I’d borrowed from Luis, and all that powered the cells of my human body as well. This was new, and deadly indeed, if it could attack Wardens, and not only the Djinn.

Pearl was growing stronger, and I’d allowed that to happen. It was as Ashan had told me in the beginning: She was drawing power from humans, and from Wardens, and if she wasn’t stopped, she’d soon have enough to destroy all of the Djinn as well—a ravening black hole consuming all that it touched.

I experimented a bit with the trembling black fog, seeing what triggered it to move closer and what it would ignore. That was a dangerous game, and it brought me into contact with the mist more than once. By the time I’d done my investigation, and gathered enough information, I was once again running dangerously thin on reserves—but it was worth it.

I knew enough to get a warning through.

My next call was to Luis, again, to give him the information, location, and findings; he would tell Marion, who would coordinate the Wardens and warn the Djinn, such as remained on speaking terms with us. Luis brought up the issue of power, for which I was thankful; I hadn’t wanted to ask a second time. This time, the flowing energy was stronger, and the images and desires it woke in me more pronounced.

Not something I could share with Luis, but I was relieved when he said, a little hesitantly, “Do you want me to stay on the phone? I’m on some downtime. I could go up with you to take a look, see what you’re up against.”

The idea of seeing him, even in aetheric form, was irresistible, and the tone of his voice seemed to indicate that he wanted at least some kind of reconciliation. I forced myself to hesitate before saying yes, hoping I didn’t sound as desperate as I felt; if he sensed it, he had the kindness not to say anything. Our good-byes were nonexistent again, but I left the phone on and the channel open, and rose into the aetheric. The cell phone would be a great help, since humans could not easily speak on the aetheric, and even Djinn sometimes found that their conversations took on confusing, unintended overtones in the realm of energy and intentions.

Finding each other was easy. The connection between us could be used as a guideline, and I flew toward him at dizzying speeds through the aetheric—native, to the Djinn, but confusing and wildly unreal to human senses. I felt the vibrations between us grow in intensity until I saw him hurtling toward me with equal urgency. I slowed, and so did he, until we were hovering just apart. His form glowed a soft gold now, with flickers of copper in the form of flames on his arms. Most Wardens chose other forms on the aetheric, but not Luis; he was himself, in all important aspects. I still wondered how he saw me here, in this place. It wasn’t a thing I could witness for myself.

Speaking was all but impossible between us, but the feelings that cascaded back and forth were not. His hand reached for mine, and as he touched me I saw that my fingers glowed moon-silver on the right, dull copper on the left, because half of my left arm had been replaced and reworked with Djinn power in metal on the physical plane. It made little difference to me; sensations still came through, even touch, though perhaps a bit muted. I actually forgot about it much of the time.

On the aetheric, though, the contrast was striking.

Intoxicating as being in his presence again was, I knew we couldn’t linger here; Luis’s time was limited, and he needed rest. There was an underlying flicker of gray around him that spoke of exhaustion.

But he’d come to me, despite everything. And I knew, because I could feel it, that his instinctive pleasure in my presence was as intense as mine in his.

I held his hand as we shot up in a parabolic arc through the mists and lights, dodging dimly seen figures of other Wardens on their own affairs and Djinn who registered in ghostly flickers. We came crashing down toward the flat representation of the world at the black spot on my map, near Trenton, New Jersey.

More of that black shimmering curtain, but this one rose higher and twisted with more power than before. It seemed to move like a silently blazing fire, reaching up to brush the roof of the aetheric world and stretching down into the physical world below—a burning black tree of power.

Of all the things that I had seen so far of Pearl’s influence, that was the most alarming. The power involved was staggering.

More than that—it felt
aware.

She’s here.
She might not have taken physical form yet, but it was a certainty that her energy was stored here, readying itself.

Something in me reacted to her presence with a kind of longing, and panic, and I dragged Luis to a halt, hovering well beyond any approach to the column of force. Shafts of multicolored light crackled within it, lightning without a storm’s logic, and on the real world I dimly heard Luis’s voice on the phone say, “We can’t handle this alone, Cass. This is way above our pay grade.”

He wasn’t wrong, but the fact was that there were no others to call on. Marion couldn’t leave the children; most of the other powerful Wardens had been called out to the emergency at sea. Pearl had timed her move to active strikes just perfectly; Ashan wouldn’t commit the Old Djinn to fighting her, and David couldn’t. He’d already tasked them to the Wardens and to combat existing threats.

We were very much on our own, and very vulnerable indeed.

“Go,” I said aloud, in the real world. “Break loose. I can’t risk you.”

“You can’t do this alone. If she’s that powerful, she’ll destroy you in ten seconds and you know it.”

“And your help will only add another ten seconds to our lives! I’d rather do this alone. Ibby needs you more than I do.”

“You think I’m just going to back off and leave you? That’s you who leaves, Cass. Not me.”

On the aetheric, his glowing form turned toward me, and both our hands joined. We turned in slow, dreamlike circles, eddied by the currents of power. Beyond us, the fire of Pearl’s black hatred danced, and the smoke it gave off in the aetheric was the ash of a thousand burning Djinn.

“I’m not going. Ibby needs us both,” Luis said, down in the real world. “You can’t fight her. Not alone, Cass. Not now. Please don’t do this.”

“It’s the best chance we have to stop her,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

I hung up the phone.

In that instant, the bonfire ceased to shimmer its toxic colors upward, toward the roof of the Djinn world; instead, the tendrils suddenly whipped outward, flowing with wicked speed toward the two of us. We’d been at a safe boundary distance, I’d thought, but no longer.