Ceremony. It was important to the Djinn, possibly even more important than it was to humans.
The warm weight of the scroll touched my palms, and I felt a flash of almost unbearable heat go through me, a wave of something like a compulsion, but formless in its intensity. My fingers closed around the scroll’s hard casing in a galvanic reaction, and I trembled.
Imara let go, and I heard her give a long, unsteady sigh. I looked up to see that she was staring down, eyes gone dim and almost human.
She touched my face with her fingers, a parting caress, and then . . . dissolved into dust, spiraling away.
Gone.
I was alone in the chapel.
I stayed on one knee, holding the scroll in my shaking hands, and then finally stood up. I opened the case and unrolled it, the first inch or so, and saw that there were dense lines of names written there, along with locations. I touched one. It glowed, and immediately, I understood how to find the child. It wasn’t that I thought about this process; it simply was.
When I took my finger away, the glow died, and the knowledge left me.
She’d warned me, but the reality of it was stunning. This was more than just a list. It was a connection to a level of reality that even as a Djinn, I had never touched.
A shortcut to the world of the Oracles. I wondered, very seriously, if what I had just done was a good thing, or if I had just introduced something new and extremely risky to the balance of the world.
I turned to leave the chapel. At the back of the church stood the priest, trim and neat in his black jacket, pants, and clerical collar.
He looked at me as if I was something unholy.
Which, to be fair, I most likely was.
“Thank you,” I said, and walked past him. “It’s a blessed place.”
He said nothing, but I had the distinct impression he felt it was more blessed in my absence.
Chapter 6
IMARA HADN’T STRESSED IT, but I clearly understood now that the scroll I carried was not merely the best intelligence we could hope for, but also the most dangerous. She had entrusted something to me that was far more precious than even the most valuable human treasure.
I wasn’t sure that I could protect it alone.
As I raced along the highway on my newly inherited Harley, I used a steady trickle of power to veil me from prying eyes. It wouldn’t be enough to stop a Djinn, but it would keep me hidden from any merely human agents Pearl chose to employ. I wasn’t certain about her Warden child acolytes, however. Their powers didn’t seem to be limited in the way I would have expected. It was entirely possible that they would be able to see and detect me, whatever measures I took to stop them.
It was also possible that the measures I would have to take against them would be . . . extreme. Not a prospect I faced with any sort of pleasure.
I took a less direct route away from Sedona than I had getting to it, traveling back roads and deserted, lonely stretches with only lizards and coyotes as rapidly passing company. I had no desire to run afoul of the law, even accidentally; last night’s events had taught me the value of anonymity, at least. The morning grew bright, edging toward noon, with the fierce amber bead of the sun the only flaw in a featureless sky. I breathed in the smell of the arid, perfect land, feeling freedom here in the emptiness.
And then my cell phone rang, vibrating against my skin. I had tucked it in the bodice of my vest, to ensure that I could detect it over the roar of the engine; even so, I only noticed because it was such a localized buzz, as opposed to the shaking my entire body received from the bike.
I pulled over to the side of the road, coasting to a gravel-crunching stop, and shut off the engine. In its absence, the day was heavy with heat, filled with birds calling and insects droning. I could almost hear the land baking beneath the sun.
I flipped open the phone and held it to my ear. “Yes,” I said.
“Try hello,” Luis said. “Would it kill you?”
“It might,” I replied. “I am trying to minimize risk.”
He sighed. “Did you get it?”
“Yes,” I said. “The girl?”
“I’m going to need you with me. It doesn’t look good.” He paused for a few seconds, then said, with a cautious note in his voice, “Everything okay? You have any trouble?”
With a pang, I thought of the death and destruction I’d left in my wake. Of the ruined Victory, too, although I felt that perhaps I shouldn’t rate a machine so highly as the lives that had been lost.
Then again, it had been a very nice motorcycle.
“A little,” I said.
“How little?”
“I have a Harley now.”
Luis knew me well enough, it seemed. “Holy crap,” he said. “What blew up?”
“Many things,” I said. “But I am alive.”
“I have got to stop letting you off on your own.”
His protectiveness made me smile, if a little bitterly. “If you hadn’t, you might be dead now.”
“Chica, you assume a whole lot of helplessness on my part. Check your program. I’m not the damsel in distress.”
I considered that. “Next time,” I said, “I will let you fight the battles.” Then, with a sudden shock, I remembered Isabel’s chubby, pretty face, and the unnatural focus in her eyes. “Luis.”
“Yeah, still me,” he said. “What?”
I didn’t want to tell him, but somehow I found the words. “I saw Isabel,” I said. “She was here. She was with one of Pearl’s agents who attacked me.”
For a freezing-cold second, Luis didn’t say anything at all. When he did, it was very soft. Deadly in its intensity. “Tell me you didn’t hit back at her.”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t hurt her. But—”
“Ah, God, what? What?”
It was my turn to pause, to search for words. “Pearl is using her,” I said finally. “She’s too young. It will harm her, whatever I do. I don’t wish this, Luis. Please believe me. I want to spare her all pain, but I’m not certain I can. Or that anyone can.”
“Fuck,” Luis spat, and then launched into a fluid course of Spanish curses, liquid fire in words. “You saw her. And you let her go? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I did not have a choice,” I said. “I’m sorry.” It was hard to not feel defensive. It was also very difficult not to feel guilty. “I did not hurt her.”
He was silent for so long I wondered if he had simply put down the phone and walked away. Then he said, flatly, “Did you get what you went for or not?”
“Yes.”
“Then get your ass here fast, you hear me? Fast.”
I kicked the Harley to growling, rumbling life. “I am coming,” I said, hung up, and shoved the phone back in the bodice of my vest. This time, when I opened the throttle, I backed it with bursts of power, pushing the machine to its limits.
By the time I reached Albuquerque, both I and the motorcycle were exhausted. I slowed, because even with the clouding veil I maintained, the simple mechanics of navigating through traffic required me to be more cautious, even though I had ceased to fear attracting the attention of the police.
I pulled out the phone and dialed one-handed to shout, “I’m here. Where are you?”
“Christ, what are you riding, a tank? Just come to the house.”
The house was far from safe, but he knew that. Maybe he was actively hoping for another attack. Spoiling for it. As angry as I sensed he was, that was not beyond the realm of possibility.
“On my way,” I said, and hung up. It was a relatively simple matter to guide the big bike through the night traffic, under the glare of sodium- yellow and tungsten-white streetlights, to the quiet street that held Manny and Angela’s—now Luis’s—home. I cut the engine and coasted to a stop at the curb, dismounted, and was halfway up the walk with the scroll before the kickstand actually hit the concrete.