“He’s a Warden, too,” Manny said. “You’ll meet him later, maybe. He’s out in Florida right now.”
I put the photo down. “I would like to go now,” I said, which I thought was a polite way to request an end to this. Evidently not. Manny frowned at me.
“You want something to eat first? You do want to eat, right?”
Did I? I supposed I did. Djinn in human form seemed to emulate all human functions equally, and my stomach was growling in frustration. I hadn’t yet mastered the knack of anticipating its needs.
I nodded.
Angela, who’d said very little, patted her daughter on the head and sent her scampering off to play before turning to me. I was struck by her again—a quiet, controlled woman, strong. So closely guarded. “Manny tells me you’re not human,” she said. “Is that right?”
I cocked my head. “I was not born human. I seem to be human enough now.”
Human enough. A frightening statement.
“All right,” Angela said. “I’ve seen Djinn before. I know they’re dangerous. Let me make something clear to you—if you hurt my husband, if you even think about hurting my daughter, I’ll kill you. Understand?”
Manny looked taken aback. Angela’s dark eyes remained steady, fixed on mine, and I sensed nothing from her but sincerity.
“I understand,” I said, and searched for something else to say. Human words seemed clumsy to me. Ridiculously inappropriate to what I wanted to communicate. “I will make mistakes. I cannot help that.”
Her fierce stare softened a bit. “Mistakes are okay,” she said. “But don’t make them twice. And don’t you dare make them with my daughter.”
I inclined my head.
“Now,” she said. “How do you feel about enchiladas?”
“Neutral,” I said, “since I don’t know what they are.”
Angela gave me her first real smile. “Then you’re in for a treat.”
“Or not,” Manny said, “if you don’t like hot sauce.”
She hit him. It was, I realized, a playful blow, not an angry one, and I was surprised at my physical reaction, which was an impulse to reach out and stay her hand.
I had wanted to defend him. Why? Because he was my Conduit. My life source.
I hadn’t anticipated that at all.
I did not like hot sauce, which made Isabel laugh until tears rolled down her cheeks. She scooped up spoonfuls of the spice and ate them to show me how silly I was.
I could not be bested by a mere child. I continued to try, choking on the burn, until at last Angela took pity on me and removed it from the table. Isabel pouted until her father tickled her into laughter again.
It was a quiet meal—quieter than I suspected was their normal case. “When do we begin our duties?” I finally asked, after consuming several glasses of iced tea that Angela provided.
“Tomorrow,” Manny said. “Unless there’s an emergency, which I hope there isn’t.” He stood up, picked up his plate and mine, and carried them into the kitchen. “I’ll take you home now,” he called back.
Isabel ran around the table and—to my shock—crawled up into my lap. The warm, real weight of her was surprising. I looked down at her upturned face, at her smile, and frowned in puzzlement. “What do you want?” I asked her. Angela made a strangled sound of protest and rose from her chair, but I extended a hand to stop her. “Isabel?”
“A hug,” Isabel said. “You’re funny, lady.”
I thought that was quite likely true, from her miniature perspective.
I was unaccustomed to hugs, but she was an adequate instructor. She took my arms and fitted them around her small body. “Tighter!” she commanded. I dutifully squeezed, well aware of how fragile her bones were beneath the skin.
When she began to squirm, I let go. She almost toppled from my lap, and I grabbed her to steady her.
Isabel giggled, and it was as warm as sunlight.
This is a child. A young soul. A blank slate. I had never met one before, and it was oddly . . . freeing.
“That’s enough,” Angela said, and grabbed Isabel from my lap. “You need to learn some manners, mija.”
“She’s sad,” Isabel protested. “I wanted to make her smile!”
Manny came back from the kitchen. His eyes darted from Angela holding his daughter in a protective embrace, to me sitting quietly in my chair. I was not smiling. In truth, I could have, but I knew it would ring false to the child.
“Not yet, Isabel,” I told her. “Maybe later. But—thank you for the hug.”
I meant it. She had reached out to me, and although it should not have mattered to me . . . it did.
Manny broke the silence by picking up his car keys from the table and saying, in a carefully bland tone, “Let’s get you home.”
Home.
It was another box. It was filled with odors, of course—choking detergent where the carpets had been recently cleaned, paint reeking from the newly retouched walls. Aside from the odors, the room was empty save for a single small cot, made up with sheets, blanket, and pillow. A single small folding table. A single small lamp.
I liked the simplicity of it.
“Yeah,” Manny said, and juggled keys in his hand for a second before tossing them to me. I snatched them out of the air without looking. “Cozy, I know. Sorry, we didn’t have time to get things for you, and I figured you’d want to pick furniture and stuff yourself.”
He was apologizing. How odd.
“It’s fine,” I said. I threw open the nearest window and took in a breath of the air that rolled over the sill, redolent of sage and high mountain spaces.
“I guess—I’ll bring over some catalogs tomorrow. You can pick what you want. Clothes, too. You want Angela to go with you to find things?”
I looked down at myself. “What’s wrong with what I have?”
He blinked. “Nothing. Uh, you can’t wear the same thing all the time.”
I knew that. “I bought several copies of the same clothing. I know clothes must be changed and laundered.”
“But—everything you bought is the same?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “You are not a normal girl.”
I was not a girl. But I assumed he meant it in a figurative sense, and allowed it to pass.
Manny laid out the contents of a folder on the table. “Checkbook. Remember what I said about the ATM, and how you can only pull out what you have in the account? Same thing here. Just because you have checks left, that doesn’t mean you can keep on writing them. Here’s your phone number. Rings to this cell phone, so you should memorize it.” He pulled a small pink device from his pocket. “Sorry about the color; pink was all I could get. Last-minute.”
I liked pink. “It’s fine.” I took the machine in my hands and felt the energy coursing through it. My Djinn senses were blunted, but in close proximity, I could still feel the broad strokes of its engineering. “How does it work?”
He showed me. I called his home, explained to Angela that we were testing my cell phone, and hung up.
“We usually say good-bye,” Manny said dryly.
“Why?”
“Same reason we do most things. Because it’s polite.”
I was starting to see that. I slid the small pink phone into my pocket. “Manny.”
I had not said his name before, and it drew his attention, with a hint of anxiety. “Yes?”
“I—” My throat threatened to close around the words, but how could I survive if I could not acknowledge this? “I need—”
He understood without more being said, and extended his hand to me. I took it, cool fingers closing on warmer ones, and reached out for power.
It flowed through him in a thick golden stream, slow and sweet as honey. Not nearly as powerful as what Lewis had given me, and I sensed that it would not sustain me as long, but good nevertheless. I took in a deep breath as the warmth infused me, as the world flared into auras and a brief, tantalizing glimpse of the worlds beyond, and then steadied back into human terms.