Rachel Caine - Unseen

With that, she pressed a control on her wheelchair and sped off to talk to Luis, meet Isabel, and generally do her duty. It said a great deal about her, I thought, that she turned her back on me so readily. Either she had underestimated me badly, or she had taken my measure exactly.

I wondered which it was.

When no one seemed to be watching me, I strolled around the side of the school, allowing the impressions to roll in. First, it appeared that the fence, though imposing, did not much reflect the quality of accommodations inside. The building itself was large, built of an outer facing of wood but, I sensed, with a core of cement and steel worthy of a military bunker. There were no bars on the windows, and the side doors I passed seemed unguarded. They also proved to be unlocked, I found, because as I was passing the north side one opened and a girl of about ten came running out, almost barreling directly into me. She backpedaled to a swift, scrambling halt, and ran into the boy who was chasing her. He was about her age, but taller, and he wrapped his hands protectively around her shoulders and moved her behind him as he demanded, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

He was a Fire Warden; that much seemed obvious. I could both see and sense the energy forming around his fingers. He was ready to stand and fight. I honored that.

“My name is Cassiel,” I said. “I am a guest. And you?”

My polite tone must have reassured him, because he hesitated, then shook the fire off his fingers and nodded to me. Like Ibby, he was adult beyond his years. “Mike,” he said. “Mike Holloway. We heard about you already.”

Everyone had, it seemed. I wondered exactly what they had heard.

The girl, irritated, shoved Mike’s protective grip away and said, “I’m Gillian.” She raised her chin, almost daring me to do ... what? Declare myself the villain, attack, froth at the mouth like a rabid vole?

I smiled. “Gillian,” I said, and bowed slightly. “I am sorry I alarmed you.”

“You don’t scare me,” Gillian shot back. “I don’t scare that easy. Right, Mike?”

“Right,” he said. I could tell he really wanted to put his arm around her, but had good enough sense to know that she wouldn’t welcome it. “Gillian is badass. It’s the hair. Redheads are always badass.”

Gillian did, indeed, have fiery red hair, of a brilliance that put me in mind of bright new bronze. She had it pulled back in a small queue at the back of her neck, tied up with some complicated arrangement of rubber bands that looked as if they’d be impossible to untangle without yanking out entire hanks. Gillian was a Weather Warden, and I could tell that beneath the surface bravado she was terrified of me.

Whether she was terrified because I was simply a stranger or because she knew that I’d once been a Djinn, it was obvious to me, as it must have been to Mike. She could raise her chin and pretend, but there was no doubt that I held some kind of very real terror for her.

I liked her for nevertheless standing her ground and glaring defiance.

“You a new teacher?” Mike asked me.

“Perhaps,” I said. “For a short time. I don’t know yet. I’ll be speaking with Warden Bearheart in a moment.”

“Well ...” He eyed me doubtfully. “We need teachers who aren’t afraid of us. You know—of what we can do.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Mike grinned suddenly. “But you haven’t seen what we can do yet.”

“ We haven’t seen what she can do, either,” Gillian put in. She punched Mike in the shoulder, hard enough that he winced. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”

With that, they escaped back inside through the still-open door and banged it shut between us. I eyed it thoughtfully. There were no handles to enter, but obviously it was unlocked from the inside. A fire exit.

Interesting.

I completed my perambulation, and arrived back at the front to find Marion Bearheart and Luis standing in the shade of the porch, talking. She waved to me impatiently, and wheeled herself inside.

I paused next to Luis, who said, “Do I sound paranoid if I say I don’t like all this?”

“Yes,” I said. “But I don’t like it, either.”

“Excellent. Glad I’m not the only one.” He gave me a quick, furtive kiss as I moved around him toward the door, for which I rewarded him with a wide-eyed look of surprise and then, considering, backed him up against the wall and kissed him long and thoroughly. Which I felt was highly appropriate, given that it had been a very long drive and I could see no conceivable way that we would have a night of unfettered passion within the confines of this school.

After going still with utter shock, he finally joined in with a will, his lips warm and soft and sweet around mine, his hands moving slowly up my back as we kissed. It soothed some wild need in me that I hadn’t actually known was present until it howled for release. Luis finally sighed into my open mouth, ran his tongue around my lips (which made me flare even hotter inside), and drew back to whisper, “We’re keeping the boss lady waiting.”

“No,” Marion said, from the doorway. She had glided up unheard in her chair and was watching us with eyes that I was fairly sure seemed amused, and perhaps a little envious. “You’re reminding the boss lady of what it is we’re supposed to be fighting for. I’m all in favor of kissing breaks. But now you’re keeping me waiting, so move your asses.”

She zipped off, and with a shake of his head and a muttered imprecation in Spanish that I didn’t bother to try to understand, Luis followed.

The interior door slid shut behind me as I stepped in, and I saw our friendly Weather Warden Ben standing off to the side, in a booth that was likely bulletproof as well as fireproof; he touched a series of controls, putting in motion security measures that I was fairly sure would come as a nasty surprise to any intruders. Which, I was also sure, applied to us, since we were not recognized as being part of the group as yet.

“Don’t worry,” Marion called back over her shoulder as she disappeared through another doorway. “You’ll get DNA-keyed when we’re done talking. All the doors will open for you, unless I override it.”

The fact that someone still held the final power of life and death did not reassure me, even if it was someone so theoretically benign as Marion. “Explain the security, please.”

“No,” she said, very calmly but just as firmly. “I don’t discuss the security arrangements with anyone but those on duty. Only I know all of the safeguards, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“And if something happens to you?” Luis asked.

“My friend, if something happens to me, you’ve got much bigger issues than how many gunports there are in the walls.” She cast a quick look back at us. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve made provisions for information to be available if you need it, but my goal is that you never do. Clear?”

“Clear,” Luis said. “But I don’t like it.”

“Nobody said you had to. This is why I’d rather you’d handed the girl over at the rendezvous and stepped aside; everybody involved wants to overrule everyone else for the good of the kids. We have a chain of command here, and you’re going to obey it or leave.”

That was blunt, and it had the ring of absolute authority. I exchanged looks with Luis, shrugged, and followed Marion.

I spared a quick look for the entry hall, which was warmly furnished in wood paneling and comfortable chairs and sofas, but with a faintly new feel to it. This building hadn’t been standing for long, or if it had, it had been repurposed and redecorated.

I noticed there were no windows in the entry hall, and a quick check on the aetheric told me that it was less a room than a fortress. Anyone entering this far could be sealed here, in a room thick with concrete and reinforced with steel, and safely dispatched from a distance.