“You,” Luis said. “Let go of her. Now.”
Rashid did, still smiling, and stepped back. Luis took my arm in both his hands, and his touch was extraordinarily gentle and warm. I felt the warmth cascade into me, power twining in intimate circles around the damage. I swayed closer to him as my strength left me, and he caught me with one arm around my body, holding the injury clear as the healing continued.
“Point made,” Rashid said, sounding bored and waspish. “She’s no better than a human, is she? Hardly of much use at all. You do need a Djinn. But why, I wonder?”
“I need one who thinks he’s invulnerable,” Luis said through gritted teeth. “You’ll do fine.”
Rashid frowned, and a little of his overwhelming arrogance flickered away. Not enough to matter, however. I found some strength left after all, and pushed away from Luis to stand on my own. My arm felt fragile and barely knitted together, and I knew I shouldn’t test it, though the healing was vastly accelerated. Rage had subsided to a low, hot burn deep within me, but I was less pleased with what had replaced it: fear. Was this how humans lived, so afraid of pain, so aware of their fragile and temporary bodies?
I didn’t like it. Not at all. “What are you doing?” I asked. Luis sent me a dark, urgent look that almost demanded my silence. He went back to a silent war of stares with Rashid, who, finally, crossed his arms across his chest, lowered his chin, and gave a wolfish smile. “You think you can challenge me with threats of danger? Little man, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, sure, you’re a big man, breaking the arms of women without giving them chances to fight back,” Luis said. “Big talker. I get that. But what I’m asking is for something that’s going to take some balls and some brains. Maybe you should go get somebody, you know, better. I’ll wait, man.”
Rashid’s eyes grew molten, and I thought for a dull, terrible second that he would simply burn Luis down to the ground for that. He was fully capable.
Instead, Ashworth snapped, “Enough, you two. We don’t have time or luxury for this. Rocha, tell me what you want, and don’t be coy about it. Now.”
It must have taken a sincere and awesome act of will to turn his back on Rashid, but somehow Luis managed it. For security, I kept an eye on the Djinn. I didn’t for even an instant trust him. He was a jackal, sniffing for opportunity, and I had a sudden and sickening experience—for perhaps the first time in my long existence—of being the wounded prey.
“I need a Djinn who can verify where this boy came from,” Luis said.
“The dead boy?”
“Yes. Time’s critical. Traces fade. I need somebody who’s not full of bullshit and bluster.” That, of course, was specifically thrown at Rashid, and I watched the Djinn consider, again, whether or not to kill us. If he decided to act, there would be little Ashworth could do to stop him, and while Luis and I would put up a fight, it was a foregone conclusion how it would end.
Wasn’t it?
I don’t know what expression must have crossed Ashworth’s face, as he assessed all these things, plus of course the potentially lethal damage a fight could do inside his dark-paneled sanctum. Finally, he said, with absolutely no emphasis, “I think we could work something out. However, it would have to be done as a strictly voluntary effort on the part of the Djinn. That’s our code.”
“Of course,” Luis said, and hesitated before continuing. “Thing is, from everything we know about this situation, tracing this dead boy back to the ones behind him could be dangerous. Even for a Djinn. I wouldn’t want anybody to misunderstand the risks involved.”
Rashid was still giving us that unsettling predator’s smile. Now he said, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Ashworth sighed.
“Then I pronounce you all friends and allies. Mazel tov,” he said, in a tone that was weary with disgust. “Now all of you, get the hell out of my office, out of the hotel, and go kill each other someplace where I don’t have to worry about cleaning it up.”
Chapter 4
I KNEW LITTLE about Rashid. My kind looked on our younger, upstart cousins with little respect, and we’d rarely taken the time to know or acknowledge them individually.
Except, of course, for Jonathan.
Even now, thinking of him, I felt a knot in my chest. Jonathan had come on us like a black storm of power, unlooked-for. He had lived as a mortal man, and he had been the first of all those we now called Wardens; his bond to the Earth was something even those of us who remembered formless voids could not explain, or imagine. His death had woken her to fury and grief, and she had preserved Jonathan’s soul by creating a new form around him. A new kind of life.
She had made him a Djinn, by gathering in the dying life force of thousands near him. Not only him—another had been created that day. Jonathan’s friend David, who had died with him. The first of many, after them.
But it was Jonathan who had been given the heart of the Mother, and it was Jonathan who, regardless of his human origins, had wielded more power over the Djinn—all the Djinn, old and new—than any other, before or since.
We had never accepted him, but all of us, however unwillingly, had obeyed him. For thousands of years, the True Djinn had bent our necks to one we should have, by rights, despised; and some had, though quietly. But there was also respect in even the most militant of us. And yes, love. Jonathan had shone with a kind of purity that I could never understand, nor hope to imitate.
I had even grieved for him when he was lost to us. But there will not be another Jonathan, another New Djinn who can charm and bully us into becoming one people. The True Djinn will always stand apart. We are too arrogant to do anything else.
And that was the gulf that lay between me and Rashid, and always would.
We walked out of Ashworth’s office into the chiming dimness of the casino, none of us speaking. Rashid was on one side of me, Luis on the other. People avoided our path, though whether consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know. I caught sight of us striding together on a security monitor; Luis looked utterly focused, tall, and dangerous; Rashid had moderated the alien nature of his coloring just enough to keep himself from drawing stares, although in this strange place that probably wasn’t necessary.
My pale, severe face, white hair, and pale leathers seemed to glow like a ghost between the two of them.
We looked . . . like nothing any sane human would want to challenge. Heads turned to follow us as we moved through the crowds, and I felt eyes assessing me, measuring, coveting.
It was oddly interesting.
Outside, the hot wind dried a faint trace of sweat from my face, and Rashid’s skin darkened, just a touch, to better absorb the sun’s harsh rays. Luis slipped on a pair of sunglasses. We stood in the shadow of the false pyramid, not far from the false Sphinx, and faced each other without speaking.
Then Rashid said, “Take me to where you left the boy.”
Luis nodded and led the way to where we had parked the van. He slid open the back and gestured for Rashid to get in, but the Djinn simply stood there, frowning, head cocked.
“You came in this?”
“Yeah, obviously, not up to your standards, I get that. Just get in.” Rashid curled his lip and stepped into the van, dropping into the seat with obvious distaste. Luis looked at me and rolled his eyes. “I thought you were bad. I see it runs in the Djinn family.”
I said—and Rashid said, from within the van—“We are not family!”
Luis burst out with a short bark of laughter. “Sounds to me like you are.” Before sliding the door shut, though, he fixed Rashid with a long look, and leaned in to say,