Rachel Caine - Unseen

Isabel squirmed out from beneath me, staggered to her feet, and got in his way.

“No!” Marion shouted, but it was too late; Isabel channeled a raw amount of force that shocked even my Djinn senses and sent Sanjay flying against Janice before he could pull enough power to strike. “No, Cassiel, stop her! She’s not ready—this will kill her!” She choked and coughed, retching as the almost unbreathable air finally became too much.

We were all in danger of death, I thought, but didn’t have the breath left to speak. The air was thick and fetid, and it was an effort to even try to draw it in, as shimmering and hot as it was. Around us, the school was crumbling under the attack, and our circle of safety felt now like a slower, crueler way to die.

I looked down at the bottle in my hand and scrambled up to my knees. Luis struggled to get up, wiping blood from his mouth, but he was done. There was little strength left in him now. Certainly not enough to manage a Djinn imprisoned against his will, like Rashid.

Rashid would help us. Perhaps. But like all Djinn, he hated being compelled to do anything. Even his regard for me, even his distant appreciation for the humans around me, might not be enough.

He might find a way to allow us to die, simply out of a basic, inhuman need for revenge. It would be easy for him, so easy.

I couldn’t give him a reason.

I dropped the bottle to the floor, unopened, and grabbed a fallen slab of rock. Luis, guessing what I was about to do, flailed a weakened hand toward me, but he was too late.

I smashed the bottle with the stone, and felt a gust of something that was not quite wind, not quite power blow through us like a shock wave. It felt like a sigh.

“No,” Luis whispered. There were tears in his eyes as he collapsed with his cheek against the stone. “No, Cass, why ? Why did you—”

“No other choice,” I choked, and fell beside him. Even Janice had collapsed to her knees, though Elijah and Sanjay were still moving, still a threat. “Can’t compel him.”

He was our last hope, but Rashid didn’t appear. Seconds ticked by, brutal and hopeless. Isabel went down, and Shasa; I dropped the stone and crawled to her, pulling her into my weak arms. The power inside me boiled impotently. There was nothing it could do. I tried to soften the stone beneath us, provide an escape route, but our enemies had thought of that, too.

No way out.

Elijah began to claw at the walls with his power, fighting Marion for control. He had more power, and he was winning.

“Give up,” Janice said between coughs. Her eyes were bloodshot and strained from gasping for what little air was left. She no longer radiated warmth and comfort, only desperation and fury. “Why won’t you just give up ? Do you really think you can win ?”

I didn’t give up because I couldn’t. That, I thought was something Janice, a mercenary at heart, could never really understand ... that there were some battles too important to retreat from, at any cost.

I’d gambled on Rashid, but that might have been my own blindness. I trusted a Djinn because I’d once been a Djinn, and yet I knew all too well that he had no obligation, no reason to help us. Luis had been ruthless, but he might have been right to keep Rashid captive.

No. I had done right.

I would die doing right.

I would die beside Luis, holding Isabel, and at least we would be together. At least that.

A blast of fresh air swept through the room, sweet and cold, and I gasped it in with helpless hunger. Luis’s lungs heaved, too, and Isabel’s. It braced all of us, and gave us a precious few more moments.

Unfortunately, it also gave Sanjay the fuel he needed to ignite an intense, tightly compacted fireball in the palm of his small hand, and fling it directly at me.

I had no chance of avoiding it, or of turning it aside. I reached for Earth power to try to form a shield of stone, but he’d acted so quickly I was drastically unprepared.

Luis lunged across me and intercepted the strike. The incandescent ball of boiling plasma hit him in the chest, and threw him like a rag doll into the cracked, smoking wall. He screamed, and convulsed, and I tried to get to him. I tried, but Sanjay threw another bolt, and this time I was able to raise the stone in time to block it, but Luis ...

He was lying motionless, limp as an animal broken at the side of the road.

The scream that came from my throat left it bloody and raw, and instead of relying on power I rushed the boy, shocking him, and grabbed him in my arms in a tackle. He felt scalding-hot, as if in the grip of a killing fever. I put my hand flat on his forehead and managed to moderate the power that I poured into him, although my instincts were to kill, to punish. ... But it wasn’t the boy I needed to kill.

It was the old woman, with her fixed and mocking smile, who watched from behind Elijah, with her other sleeping hostages around her. I lunged for her.

Elijah simply batted me aside, as if I were an insect, and sliced his hand down at my neck. I sensed the force he was wielding, blunt and brutal; he’d have crushed my flesh and bones, destroyed me without a single moment of mercy.

Something caught his hand on the way down.

Rashid.

The Djinn’s perfect suit and tie were at odds with the feral twist of his lips and the fire in his eyes—silver and as hot as the blaze bursting the stones around us. He held Elijah by the arm and looked down at where I lay dazed on the floor. “Get up,” he said. “And don’t think this makes us even, Cassiel. Your human owes me debts that will take generations to repay.”

“I know,” I said, and rolled to my feet. “Is the air your gift?”

“I couldn’t have you dying before I reaped my rewards.” Rashid looked down at the boy, who was struggling to break free. “This one’s stronger than I’d expect.” And Rashid was controlling him without much apparent effort. Impressive.

“Don’t harm him,” I said.

“Really, do you think I am so cruel?” Rashid did a good job of seeming offended, but I knew he wasn’t; I knew him too well to think he would blink at any action, no matter how morally offensive to a human. “Hush, child. Enough.” He touched a fingertip to Elijah’s forehead, and the boy went limp. Rashid dropped him to the floor and extended his hand to me. I wasn’t too proud to accept the help.

“Luis,” I said, with dawning horror. “Luis was hit—”

“Yes.” Rashid didn’t move; he didn’t so much as glance at where Luis lay. I rushed past Rashid, but he caught me and dragged me to a sliding stop. “Wait.” He held up a sharp finger to silence me, more of a threat than a gesture. Then he tilted it toward Luis.

Who was sitting up, staring down at the charred hole in his shirt. It was a black-edged gap of more than ten inches across. Beneath it, his skin looked normal and undamaged.

I wasn’t imagining it this time. His flame tattoos moved , shifting like shadows in nervous flickers, and then went still again.

Luis touched the burned edges of the fabric and looked up at me, lips parted in wonder.

“What happened?” he asked. He still looked pale and ill, but he should have been dead. That plasma ball from Sanjay had hit him with full force, and as an Earth Warden he had no real defense against it.

As an Earth Warden.

Luis, whether he recognized it or not, was manifesting a critical second power. I’d seen it, from time to time; I’d felt it in those inked tattoos, but I hadn’t understood what it was. But I did know that this time it had saved his life, and mine as well.

“As you see,” Rashid said, “he’s in no immediate need of my help. Not that I would give it.”