Rachel Caine - Unknown

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.

Luis had already opened the door. He looked me swiftly up and down, and I was warmed by the flash of concern in his eyes, however brief. Then he nodded and stepped aside to let me in, locking the door behind me.

On the worn, comfortable couch sat Agent Ben Turner, looking very tired. He was holding a mug that steamed with what must have been coffee, from the smell of it spicing the air. Luis likewise had a mug sitting on the coffee table, and a third had been poured already for me. I took it and sat on the opposite end of the couch, and gratefully drank. The caffeine would help mask my physical needs, if not those of the languishing Djinn within.

“You said you saw Ibby,” Luis said, and his dark eyes were fixed and intent on my face. “What happened? Tell me everything.”

I glanced at Agent Turner. “Everything?”

Turner sighed. “Don’t hold back on my account. I’m in the shit now, sure as death and taxes.”

“You can refuse to pay taxes,” I said. “Death rarely asks.”

Luis made an impatient sound, and I raised a hand to slow him down. “I know,” I said. “I will tell you.” It wasn’t comforting to either of us, but I told the story, and he heard it. Turner choked on his coffee when he heard of the carnage among the bikers, but said nothing.

Luis pushed the issue. “You got a problem?” he asked.

“You mean, do I have to do anything about it? No,” Turner said. “It’s local business, not federal. Until it becomes federal, I’m just . . . an interested bystander.”

“Even if it’s criminal behavior?”

“Criminal like what? Like getting out alive, after being jumped by a gang and threatened with a gun?” He shook his head. “Not my business. I’m fine with it.”

I hadn’t been particularly worried, either way, but Luis clearly had been, and now he sat back in the threadbare armchair and relaxed, sipping coffee. “But she seemed okay,” he said to me. “Ibby. Physically?” He was searching for any hope to cling to, and I gave it freely.

“She looked healthy,” I said. “She wasn’t injured.”

I couldn’t tell him, I realized, about Isabel’s words about her mother. That would hurt him far more than necessary; there was nothing he could do, at this moment, to relieve Ibby of that burden. Or himself.

So I would carry it for him, a little longer.

“You said you’ve got this thing you went out there for,” Turner said, and sat his coffee cup down on the table to lean forward, elbows on the wrinkled knees of his suit pants. “The list?”