There were others that would engage at the proper time to fulfill his needs.
Humanity had more enemies than me.
Pearl had moved The Ranch, and she had destroyed everything she didn’t need . . . including her followers. She had taken the children but left behind dead adults, so many bodies strewn across the ground. There was no trace of the compound, the walls, the buildings. She had destroyed everything.
The casual power of it was stunning.
I stood on the dry, whispering grass as the Ma’at gathered up bodies, and knew that somewhere she was hiding herself. Gathering her forces. Building her fortress around her.
Waiting.
“I know you can hear me,” I said to the wind and the grass. “I know who you are, Pearl. And I won’t give up.”
I heard the laughter of a million mocking voices.
Will you kill the world to stop me, destroyer of the eternal? Will you commit the sin that cast me out, and destroy yourself, as well?
Luis had said, We’ll find another way. Luis was real to me now, flesh and bone, and I couldn’t simply destroy him. I had lost too much.
Cassiel, Pearl’s million voices of the dead whispered. You already have lost everything. You just don’t know it yet.
I swallowed. “I’m coming for you.”
Come ahead, she whispered. Come ahead, my sister, my murderer. I long for your touch.
I flinched when Luis’s hands landed on my shoulders. He pulled me back into his warmth. “There’s nothing here,” he said. “Is there?”
“She took the children with her.”
“Can you trace them?” Luis raised my chin to meet his eyes. “Cassiel. What do we do now?”
Die, Pearl’s voice whispered through the grass.
“We go on,” I said. “We find a way.”
Luis put his arm around me, and led me back to the jeep.
It was a long drive back to Albuquerque, and I had too much time to think.
Isabel.
The fate of six billion was at stake, but only two of them mattered to me in this moment: Luis and Isabel.
I will find a way.
TRACK LIST
As always, music is my muse. Here are the tracks that helped get me through Outcast Season: Undone.
"Life is Beautiful" Sixx:A.M.
"Three Wishes" The Pierces
"Mary Jane's Last Dance" Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
"Secret" The Pierces
"Give It Up" LCD Soundsystem
"Citizen Soldiers" 3 Doors Down
"Your Woman" White Tom
"Hey, Man Nice Shot" Filter
"Believe" The Bravery
"I Need to Know" Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
"Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" LCD Soundsystems
"Sloe Gin" Joe Bonamassa
"Tess Don't Tell" Ivy
"Mama" Genesis
"Don't Come Around Here No More" Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
"Box Full O' Honey" Duran Duran
"Last Man Standing" Duran Duran
"Hunting for Witches" Bloc Party
"Smalltown Boy" Bronski Beat
"How Does It Feel" Eskimo Joe
"The Good Ones" Finger Eleven
"Ride" The Vines
"In the Air Tonight" Phil Collins
"What If I Came Knocking" John Cougar Mellenkamp
"Ally" Truth in Fiction
"Electrotog" Le Charme
"Refugee" Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
"Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty
"On and On" Nikka Costa
"Everybody Got Their Something" Nikka Costa
"2Wicky" Hooverphonic
"Enjoy the Ride" (Feat. Judy Tzuke) Morcheeba
"Grace" Miss Kittin
"Saw Something" Dave Gahan
"Fever" Stereo MC's
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rachel Caine is the author of more than twenty novels, including the Weather Warden series. She was born at WhiteSandsMissileRange, which people who know her say explains a lot. She has been an accountant, a professional musician, and an insurance investigator, and carries on a full-time secret identity in the corporate world. She and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas with their iguanas, Popeye and Darwin; a mali uromastyx named (appropriately) O’Malley; and a leopard tortise named Shelley (for the poet, of course). Visit her Web site at www.rachelcaine.com.