“How could I?” Leona’s face was alive now, alight with utter fury. “ How could I?After what happened to me? My child isn’t going to be mutilated like that.My child isn’t going to be twisted by some group of superior bastards that thinks it knows what’s best for the world. No, Randy, dammit, I will notlet that happen to my son!”
“But—it doesn’t have to—Lee, he’s not even sixyet!”
“He’s already started showing signs. Soon enough, they’d come looking for him. They’d give us a choice, Randy: let them take him away and put him in their special schools, raise him up to be one of them, or cut away everything that makes him who he is!” Leona’s eyes were mad, I thought. Anguished and mad. “I’ve lived like that, with half of myself sliced off. It’s horrible. It’s worse than dying. I won’t let it happen to C.T.”
“You never said—”
“No, I never said! You never asked!” Leona made another grab at the sleeping child, which Randy fended off with his elbow. “This is better for him. I swear it! They’ll care for him. They’ll train him. He’ll serve a higher purpose.”
“Yeah,” Luis agreed soberly. “News flash, lady: They decided he wasn’t good enough for whatever little meritocracy they’re running inside that place, so he got to be King of the Rejects, which is like Oliver Twistmeets Lord of the Flies. They were going to kill him, amiga.Or at least, they didn’t care if he died. One thing about cults: It’s all about them, not you.”
That stopped Leona’s rush, but only for a minute. “You just don’t understand. I’ve seen the future. Sheshowed it to me. I know how things will be. Shouldbe.”
“You’re right,” I said, and stood up. I ached all over, and watching this travesty of a reunion had turned my heart black. “I don’t understand. And I don’t care. You took him there, Leona. Why? What did they promise you would happen?”
“They promised me that he’d get to kill Djinn,” she said. “Lots of Djinn. Allthe Djinn.” She smiled thinly. “That’s worth dying for.”
I looked at my partner, who seemed not only surprised by this, but more than a little alarmed.
It only confirmed for me what I had sensed within the compound.
I stood up, nodded to Luis, and we walked to the jeep. It had clearly been through a firefight, as had we, and Officer Styles began to realize that now that his son was safely in his arms. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“Things to do,” Luis said. He took the driver’s seat. “My niece is still in there.”
“You’re going alone?” Styles clearly thought we were crazy. As we probably were.
“No,” Luis said. He fired up the truck as I climbed in on the other side. “I’m going with her.”
The hour was just past noon, and the sunlight that filtered through trees struck the road in harsh, glittering lace.
Luis drove fast, but not recklessly. There was an expression on his face that I thought his enemies would not like to see coming in their direction.
“We don’t have any chance,” I said. “You know that. They are more than prepared for us now.”
“I know.”
“Then why—”
“You don’t think Leona’s going to be calling them to warn them?” he asked. “Let them spend all night looking for us. They’re good and paranoid about you right now, and we should keep it that way. Don’t worry—we’re not going back there on our own. You have any allies you can call right now? Anybody we can get on our side?”
I thought it over. “One,” I said. “Just one.”
“Is it a Djinn?”
I nodded.
“Then that’s probably all we’d need, I’d say.”
“I can’t promise he’ll help,” I said, “but I can ask.”
I had tried calling on Gallan when I’d been in the cell, but I’d been weak and exhausted then, and perhaps he hadn’t heard.
I closed my eyes and let the flickering light and steady vibration of road beneath tires lull me into a light trance.
Gallan.
Gallan.
Gallan!
The last call I sent with a burst of true power, and I felt it ripple like a shock wave through the aetheric.
Nothing. There was no response. It seemed eerily silent.
Luis glanced at me. “Well?”
I shook my head. “If he doesn’t respond to that, he doesn’t intend to respond at all.” That disappointed me more than I had expected. I had thought—I had hopedthat Gallan, of all the Djinn, might still hold a secret regard for me, and be willing to go against the wishes of our mutual lord and master.
But in the end, perhaps he was still Ashan’s creature.
A fingertip lightly brushed the curve of my ear. “I’m no one’s creature,” Gallan’s soft voice whispered. “And you should know that better than anyone, Cassiel.”
Luis became aware of Gallan’s sudden manifestation in the back of the jeep at the same time that I did, and involuntarily swerved. Gallan—crouching, holding to nothing for support—swayed gracefully with the motion of the vehicle. The wind whipped his long golden hair into a silk war banner. He was dressed in white, all in white, and his eyes were the color of a tropical sea at midnight.
I turned in the seat to look at him, and for just a moment, the full Djinn glory of him blinded me with tears. Thiswas what I had lost. What I had once been.
“You came,” I said. My voice sounded weak, far too human. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
Gallan shrugged. “Ashan has other things to concern him,” he said. “There are a few of us who have been left to keep watch. And I have been watching, Cassiel.”
“I need your help.” I glanced at Luis. “ Weneed your help. Please, Gallan.”
I got a brilliant, cutting smile in return from the Djinn. “ Please.How very human of you. It’s not like you to beg, my love.” The smile dimmed quickly. “I will deal with you for this boon.”
“We don’t need deals,” Luis said. “We need help.”
“Help comes at a cost. Tell him, Cassiel. Tell him how True Djinn exact their prices.”
“Gallan—”
“Tell him.”
I glanced at Luis. “True Djinn—you would call them Old Djinn—do nothing without compensation. No favors, no kindnesses. There is always a price, in the end.”
“And what’s his price?”
Gallan lost his smile altogether. “My price is Cassiel.”
“No,” Luis snapped, before I could reply. “Not happening. Feel free to fuck off now.”
“We need his help!” I said.
“Not if it means your life, we don’t.”
“I wouldn’t kill her,” Gallan said, as if the whole concept of killing was beneath him. I knew better. “I have many uses for Cassiel that don’t involve her gruesome death. Many pleasant uses, in fact. I think you have imagined them yourself.”
The look Luis sent him in the mirror was pure, hot contempt. “So you’re a rapist, not a murderer.”
Gallan’s smile didn’t waver. “Not if she consents,” he said, and turned his attention to me. “Do you consent, Cassiel? Do you submit yourself to me in exchange for my help in retrieving the child?”
This was a different Gallan than I had known—no, not different; only I was different. His cruelty and capriciousness had been alluring when I’d been a Djinn; I’d only understood the power, not the cost it exacted. I had always found Gallan attractive, always been drawn to him.
I looked into his face now and saw only a cold, calculating predator.
“No,” I said. “I don’t consent. But you will help us, anyway, Gallan.”