Rachel Caine - Unknown

It occurred to me that she expected me to act against her as Ashan wished, destroying humanity to cut her off from her power. Reducing me to the same state that she had once been in.

Driving me mad, because assuredly, with so much death and agony coursing through me, I would destroy myself. I’d become like her.

Obsessed with the end of all things.

I wondered if Ashan had thought of that, too. Of what would happen if I turned toxic, like Pearl. Two of us, rending the world apart.

I could only imagine, old and clever as Ashan was, that he’d already seen that possibility.

That meant that should I execute his orders . . . execute humanity . . . there would be someone standing in the background, waiting to destroy me, as well.

It would be the only safe thing to do.

And suddenly, Rashid’s inexplicable attachment made sense. He was not Ashan’s creature, but he was Ashan’s hireling. Close to me not because he was interested, or concerned, but because he was waiting.

Waiting for what he, and Ashan, knew was inevitable.

My hands—flesh, and metal—clenched into fists. “No,” I murmured. “Not inevitable.”

The FBI agent next to me looked up, frowning. “Excuse me?”

“Nothing is inevitable,” I said. “Not even death.”

I left her wondering, and turned to walk outside of the tent, breathing in the fresh, crisp air. It was mostly untainted by the massive cities around us, although I could still catch the occasional stench of exhaust and oil. I leaned against the rough bark of a tree, breathing deeply, and then crouched down to place both hands flat against the ground. I could sense something here, something like I had felt back on the ridge where I’d buried the child. A presence, though distant and elusive. Her presence.

“Help me,” I whispered. “Help me understand what I should do.” Then I directed it upward, outward, to the greater power beyond the vast one of this world. “Help me save them.”

A cool breeze drifted across my face like a caress, and I turned into it and closed my eyes. This moment felt peaceful, almost worshipful in its intensity. As if I was alone, connected once more to the life I had once led. Connected to eternity.

Then I heard a snapping of twigs, and opened my eyes to see Agent Ben Turner shove aside underbrush and step out to face me.

The Warden was not his usual, nondescript self. He’d been in a fight, a hard one; there were bruises forming on his face, and one of his hands looked swollen into uselessness. Broken, perhaps. He was breathing hard. His FBI-issue Windbreaker was ripped—no, shredded—and I saw blood spotting his shirt. Minor wounds, it seemed, but the look in his eyes told me that he did not consider them so.

“You did that,” he said. “You set that bastard on me.”

Rashid. “No one commands Rashid,” I said, which was quite true, albeit misleading in this case. “You drew his attention yourself, by taking the scroll. You knew he wanted it for himself.” I raised my eyebrows. “Do you still have it?”

“What do you think?” he snapped, and held up his swollen hand. “He broke my fingers to get it!”

That did sound like Rashid. “He didn’t like you turning against us. Neither did I. Neither, I suspect, will the other Wardens.”

“You think I give a crap about what the Wardens think?” Turner snapped. “I did what I had to do. You people are out of control. Look at what they just did in Florida—Jesus Christ, they stole a fucking cruise ship. With innocent people on board. They kidnapped people, and you know some of those people are bound to get caught in the middle. That’s what I’m left with—loyalty to a bunch of assholes who think nothing of collateral damage? No. No more. The Wardens need somebody telling them where their limits are, if they can’t see it themselves.”

It was a long speech, and he was winded by the end of it. And emotionally exhausted from the passion he’d poured into it. I wondered what collateral damage he had seen, or experienced himself. I wondered if his own hands were entirely clean of the blood.

“I have never loved the Wardens,” I said, which was entirely true. As a Djinn, they’d been the enemy to me: enslavers of my own kind. Not only no better than human . . . worse than human. When the pact had shattered between the Djinn and the Wardens, freeing the captives from their forced servitude, no one had taken more satisfaction from that than I.

But I also knew that the Wardens were what they were for a reason. They were ruthless, self-centered and ferociously competitive, yes; they were also self-sacrificing and magnificent, when necessary. These things did not make for comfortable, easily categorizable analysis. The Wardens, like nature itself, were neither good nor bad. They simply were . And were required to be, for the sake of the fragile lives in their trust.

“You think the government can control them?” I asked. “You think you have enough will and power of your own to force the Wardens into it?”

“I’m not alone,” he said. “There are other Wardens who think things have gone too far.”

“Then take it back from within. But if you think that subjugating them to the will of political appointees is a good idea, then I suggest you are allowing your hatred to blind you to reality,” I said. “It doesn’t matter now. We will need your help.”

“My help?” He laughed, but it had a wild, dark sound. “Why the hell would I help any of you?”

“Because you’re not a bad man. Because you are sworn to help, to protect, and not to run from battle, yes, but mostly because you, Ben Turner, the man beneath all that, wants justice. And wishes to save children. I saw that in you when we first met, Ben. You want to save them. You need to save them.”

He blinked, but he didn’t disagree with that, at least. “There are children in that compound,” I said. “Isabel Rocha is one of them. You saw Brianna. You saw Gloria. You saw the others. You know we can’t let them be destroyed, not without losing our own honor.”

He leaned against another tree across the clearing, cradling his wounded arm in his good hand. He looked tired, and achy, and a little lost. “So what are you going to do?”

“Go get them,” I said. “And you will come with me.” He held up his hand. “Yeah, about that. I don’t really think I’ll be a whole lot of help.”

Luis stepped out of the tent, looked from me to Agent Turner, and said, “Hey. Are we going to beat the crap out of this guy?”

“I think Rashid’s already performed that service,” I said. “What’s left is healing him so that we can use him.”

“Dammit. I always miss out on the beat-down and end up doing the cleanup. Sucks being an Earth Warden sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” I agreed, straight-faced. “Will you do it?”

“Of course I will,” Luis said grumpily. “I’m not going to waste my energy on pain maintenance.”

I did not blame him. Turner, for his part, looked apprehensively relieved, if such a thing were possible. Luis glared at him, then went to him and took his wounded hand. He was true to his word; I heard the tiny snaps and pops of bones straightening, being forced back into their shapes and sockets, and Turner’s face went dirty-pale, and he leaned his head back against the tree, rigid and fighting to control his impulse to scream, faint, or vomit. Or some combination of those three. But I suspected Luis did, after all, put in some nerve blocks. He wasn’t unnecessarily cruel. Merely . . . proportional.

It took a few long moments of concentration, and then Luis let go and stepped back. Turner lowered his hand and stared at it in bemused wonder. Tried to move his fingers, and winced a little.