I stepped out in front of Manny, taking the focus of his angry eyes, and Scott halted his advance.
“Are you threatening me?” he barked. I didn’t respond or move, except for the wind lashing my soft white hair around my face. Somehow I knew that my very stillness would be more intimidating than an answer. “Manny! Call her off!”
“I don’t own her,” Manny said. “She’s a person. Talk to her like one.”
Scott clearly didn’t want to stoop so low, but he nodded stiffly. “Please step aside, Cassiel.”
I held my place for long enough to make him uneasy, then moved back, beside Manny.
Once again, I had acted to protect humans. It’s self-interest,I told myself. Nothing but that.
Some part of me still wondered.
“What the hell happened here?” Scott asked.
Manny was nervous; I could feel it coming from him in waves. He managed to keep his face expressionless.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It looks to me like either a Djinn or Warden attack, but we’ll need a Fire Warden to get to the bottom of it. Could have been plain old human arson or some kind of electrical problem, even. Hard to tell.”
Whatever Scott thought about that, he let it go. “Greta’s out of town, handling a fire around Santa Fe. She’ll be back in the morning. She’ll do the investigation.” He paused for a few seconds, then jerked his head to the side. “Talk to you alone for a minute?”
Manny joined him—again, not eagerly—and the two of them walked a few feet away. In the chaos of the parking lot, that was enough to shield them from human senses, and my own were so blunted that I could only pick out a few words here and there. It was sufficient to tell me that Scott was determined to paint this attack as some kind of shortcoming of Manny’s.
“Hey,” Luis said, and his hand touched my arm lightly.
“What?” I frowned at him.
“You look like you want to rip Scott’s colon out through his nose. Thought I should mention it, in case you didn’t want it to be quite that obvious.”
It took a moment for his meaning to sink in. I had not been guarding myself as well as I’d thought, and that was cause for concern. How did humans manage all these complicated feelings, so easily betrayed by their faces and bodies? I’d thought I was learning, but obviously, I had far to go.
Luis was watching his brother and Scott with a cool light in his eyes. “That guy’s a bureaucratic asshole,” he said, “but the biggest danger Manny has from him is a busted performance review. Considering how few Wardens there are walking around these days, that’s not exactly a mortal danger.” His gaze shifted to me, and once again, I had an unwelcome flash of that vivid, unsettling dream, of the way his dream-skin had felt against mine. “Unless you know something I don’t.”
“Know something,” I repeated.
“About the fire?”
“I know it was caused by a Warden,” I said, “but I don’t know the Warden’s name. I’ve been assured that it won’t happen again.”
Whatever Luis had been expecting, it had not been that. “ What?How do you know that?”
I shrugged. “Djinn.”
He opened and closed his mouth, plainly searching for words and finding nothing. It was a satisfying display, which I watched with interest. He finally managed to gather his thoughts. “Listen, I don’t care what the Djinn told you—and since when do they talk to you? I thought they threw you out—”
“They did.”
He shook that off. “Whatever the Djinn said, somebody wanted both me and Manny standing in front of that door when it opened, and that means they were out to kill us. Call me crazy, but I think that they may not stop at just the one try!”
Quintus had seemed very sure about his former master, but it was possible that he was not in possession of all the facts . . . or that he had lied to me. Djinn did not usually lie to each other, but I was no longer one of them, no longer connected. . . .
I did not like the sick feeling in my stomach that came with these thoughts. If he lied to me, I couldn’t tell.That was worse than unsettling. That was devastating.
“I don’t know,” I said, and my voice sounded soft and fragile. “I don’t know if I can find out, Luis.”
“You want to save Manny, don’t you? He’s your meal ticket. Seems like it might be a good idea to keep on asking around.” Luis’s full lips quirked into something that resembled a smile, but somehow was not. “Even if you don’t care if Iget barbecued.”
“I do,” I said, and then wished I had not spoken at all, because his eyes widened and he lookedat me. Saw me as something other than his brother’s annoying, impaired partner.
I felt something inside me respond, a stirring I had not known, except in the dream. It was primal and dark and deep, and it felt . . . good.
I looked away, studying the ground, willing the feeling to subside. I felt warm, and too much in my skin.
“Good to know,” Luis said, his voice carefully neutral. “Looks like my brother’s done getting his ass chewed. Vamanos.”
Luis opened the passenger’s-side door of Manny’s car for me, and offered me a hand. I looked at it in confusion, then put my fingers in his palm, very lightly. He guided me into the car, and before he let go, Luis’s thumb moved very lightly across my knuckles. It was an impersonal touch, or it should have been, but it traveled through me like a wave of light.
“See you later,” he said, and shut the car door.
When I finally did raise my head, he was walking away, hands in his pockets. Another uncontrollable wave of heat flamed through me, and subsided to a banked glow deep inside.
I have no need of this,I told myself. I need no complications. All I want to do is survive.
My body, it seemed, thought differently of the matter.
I was so intent on watching Luis that I flinched when Manny opened his driver’s-side door, thumped into the seat, and slammed the door with so much violence the car rocked. I looked at him, and his expression was still blank. His hands were rigid as they gripped the steering wheel, and his knuckles turned white from pressure.
“Bastard,” he finally said, and turned the key to start the engine. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Are you all right?” I asked.
The glance he threw me was bitter, black, and wild. “Sure. I’m just perfect. Why the hell wouldn’t I be?”
I did not ask again, and we sat in silence as he drove too fast, too recklessly, all the way to his home.
Chapter 6
ANGELA WAS WAITINGoutside for our arrival—I didn’t think Manny had called, but I supposed that Luis might have done so. She looked tense but carefully composed, and rose to her feet to embrace Manny as he came up the front steps. She framed his face between her hands, gave him a long, loving look, and said, “Go get cleaned up; you smell like an ashtray.”
He kissed her quickly and went inside, which left the two of us standing together.
“Do I smell like an ashtray?” I asked.
Her lips curled unwillingly into a smile. “I’d guess you do, but I’m not getting close enough to sniff you.” She cocked her head slightly, studying me. “You do look more like a scarecrow than usual, es verdad.After Manny gets through, maybe you can shower. I can find you something to wear.”
“No,” I said. “I’ll wear what I have.” The thought of wearing someone else’s clothes made my skin crawl with horror. “But I would be glad of the shower.”
“No problem.” Angela opened the screen door for me as we entered the house. “Keep it down; Ibby’s taking a nap.”
Ibby, in fact, was not. The child bounced up from the couch and jumped in place, face alight with pleasure. “Cassie, Cassie, Cassie!”
I sighed. “ Cassiel, please.” For all the good I sensed it would do. Angela stifled a laugh.