Rachel Caine - Unseen

“It’s killing them,” Luis said.

Esmeralda’s dark gaze flashed up to lock with his. “And?” she asked. “What do you think making them not use it is going to do? Kill them slower? Some of them won’t make it. Some will adapt. That’s the way things go in this world. You can’t stop it, and you’d better not get in the way.”

“I’m not letting her do this,” he said. “Cass. Let’s go.”

“You won’t find them,” Es said. “One thing that kid knows how to do is hide. You won’t find them unless you trip over them by accident in the dark.”

“Can you find them?” I asked.

Es considered the question, and then tilted her head a little. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe I don’t want to, though.”

I had let this go on too long, I decided. I was a little fascinated with Esmeralda, the way a mongoose is fascinated with a snake, but enough was enough. Luis was right. We couldn’t allow a six-year-old child to fight a battle for us.

I had been sending tendrils of power out through the roots of trees around us, and now, with a snap of will, I triggered the trap. Branches slammed down, forming a thick, springy cage around her. Roots squirmed from the dirt and wrapped around the branches, weaving it together.

Esmeralda let out a hiss of surprise, and I heard the dry rattle of her alarm. She battered the cage with the coils of her body, but it was tightly woven, and impossible for her to get real force into her struggles. “Let me go, you cold bitch!” she screamed, and ripped at the wood with her hands—but those were merely human hands, without the strength necessary to shred the tough fibers. “Let me go !”

“Once you tell me where they are,” I said. “You know this is too dangerous for them. Don’t let them down, Esmeralda. They meant for you to tell us. They hoped you would.”

“That’s not what she said.” The snake’s coils pulsed against the cage, trying to push it apart, but the trees were firmly rooted deep in the earth. Esmeralda subsided, panting, glaring through the mesh at us. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the branches. “She said not to let anyone find her.”

“She’s a child,” Luis said. “And she’s too brave for her own good. She needs us. Tell us where she is or I swear to God I’ll rip off your rattle and feed it to you!”

Esmeralda was silent for so long I wondered if she would tell us, and then she finally said, “I’m not afraid of you. I’m telling you because I think the gringa bitch is right; the kids shouldn’t be doing this alone. I was going to go help them anyway.”

“Where. Is. She?” Luis almost snarled it, and I felt the burning aura of fire around him again, a kindling that raised the temperature by several degrees.

Esmeralda sensed it, too, and went very still. The dry buzz of her rattle grew louder as she reacted to his threat, but she had nowhere to run, and she couldn’t strike to defend herself. Luis wouldn’t burn her alive—at least I didn’t think he would—but his rage was clear.

“If you stand between me and Isabel, I’ll wipe you off the face of the earth,” he told her. “You take us to her. Do it now. ”

He nodded to me, and I released the cage of branches, which sprang back into their normal positions with a creak and rustle of dry needles. The roots shriveled back into the ground.

Esmeralda was free, but she still didn’t move. The steady, unnerving buzzing continued, like bones in a bottle.

“You keep it in mind,” she said. “I’m not your bitch. I’ll crush you and eat you if you mess with me.”

Luis brushed it aside with an angry swipe of his hand. “We can kill each other later. Ibby. Now!”

She relaxed a little, and the rattling slowed, then stopped. “All right,” she said. “Try to keep up, asshole.”

She could move with astonishing speed, and with a quick, sinuous flash, she was already disappearing through the trees. The pale white of her rattle was the only visible sign of her.

“Run,” I said, and took off in pursuit.

IT WASN’T THAT Ihad forgotten Luis’s leg injury, but I’d known he wouldn’t allow it to slow him down too much. Even so, he labored very hard to keep the pace, gasping for air, and when he faltered I grabbed him and pulled him along. He dug deep for the strength to deny the pain, and I blocked it as much as I could. The patch to his torn artery was holding, and that was all I could hope for now. This pursuit might do irreparable harm to him, but he wouldn’t give it up. There was no point in asking.

Esmeralda’s snakelike form whipped around trees, threaded between boulders, slipped over shadow-protected drifts of snow that hadn’t yet melted. I expected her to slow, but if anything, she increased speed, and the starlight wasn’t enough to keep her in sight. I tracked her on the aetheric; her aura was eerie and weirdly wrong for the shape she held in the human world. It was more as she imagined herself ... but she wasn’t human at all. A feathered serpent, magnificently colored, gliding silently through the world above. The deadly sense of menace from her was even stronger in that realm of force and will, and I realized once again what a power had been leashed inside those snake’s coils.

Whoever the Djinn who’d defeated her was, he must have been astonishing. And remarkably selfless.

It took a quarter of an hour, but Esmeralda’s progress abruptly ceased, and I dragged Luis to a panting, trembling stop a few feet behind her. Her rattlesnake-patterned coils pulled themselves together in a tense pattern, bracing her for a strike, but the rattle remained silent.

Luis collapsed to one knee, and I heard a soft moan out of him, something he tried to muffle but couldn’t. The pain was intense; I felt it burning between us, and touched his damp shoulder to try to numb the screaming nerves. He shook me off. His long, dark hair was soaked with sweat and clung to his face in sharp, sticky points. “Is she here?” he whispered. I shook my head. I didn’t sense her, but there was something gathering on the aetheric around us, dark as a coming storm.

There was a flash of blue-white light to the east, and in its glow I saw Isabel standing back-to-back with Gillian. They were surrounded by what looked like half a dozen wolves—big, rangy ones, circling and charging in to nip at them. It wasn’t natural hunting behavior, although wolves could certainly hunt humans if they chose. I felt the pressure on the animals in the aetheric, heavy enough to make my head ache even at this distance. The wolves were letting out soft yips—not excitement, but pain.

They wanted to run, but couldn’t. Instead, one darted forward, lunging for Gillian, but the young Weather Warden was ready; a blast of air met it and slammed it backward, tumbling through the air to land splay-legged ten feet away. It trembled with the urge to flee, but inched forward again, dragged against its will.

“Es,” I said. Her human face turned toward me. “You handle the wolves. We’ll handle the real enemies.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded, and in a flash she was heading for where we’d seen Isabel and Gillian fighting for their lives. There was another flash of light—Isabel, throwing fire—and in its glow I saw that one of the wolves had grabbed Ibby by the front of her shirt and was dragging her like a cub across the ground as she fought. The fire sent it yelping away, and Ibby scrambled back to where Gillian was batting another wolf away. There was a tornado forming above them, and I felt the whipping, ferocious winds from where I stood. Gillian planned to bring it down around them, leaving them in the protected eye, but it required control and great precision. It was a good plan, if she could make it work.