Rachel Caine - Undone

He was staring, and suddenly he barked out a sound it took me a moment to identify as laughter. “You do windows too, Cassie?”

“Cassiel.”

“Right, sorry.”

I sensed I might be in danger of becoming too accommodating. “No. I do not do windows.”

“Then we can go right to the Warden stuff, I guess.” He cleared his throat and reached for the computer keyboard off to the side, sliding it in front of himself. The machine was angled toward him from a corner of the desk. “Can’t believe I can actually see the damn screen without moving things around. Let me check e-mail.”

“You have forty-seven messages,” I said. “Six of them have to do with requests for support from other Wardens. Shall we focus first on those?”

“I never had a Djinn,” Manny admitted. “This how it was before? Working with a Djinn?”

I had no idea, but the idea of being compared to one of my kind enslaved to a bottle turned my too-human stomach, and I knew my expression hardened. “I doubt it.”

He knew dangerous ground when he stepped upon it. Manny nodded. “I guess you can read the e-mails?”

“Of course.”

“Which one is most urgent?”

I gave it a second’s thought. “The new instability Warden Garrity identified in Arizona is classified as a strike/slip fault.”

“Garrity, Garrity—” Manny clicked keys and pulled up the e-mail in question. He read it through, nodded, and said, “Yeah, that’s a place to start. Okay. Here’s what we do—we mark it on the aetheric; we tag it so it’s clearly visible. If there’s a stress buildup, we bleed that off through surrounding rock in smaller tremors. Otherwise, the spring keeps on coiling, and we get a big shake when it releases. Usually that’s no big deal, but it can cause a lot of damage if we don’t head it off.”

I nodded, familiar with the concepts. It was different as a Djinn, but still similar enough. “How do I assist you?”

He took his gaze from the screen to glance at me for a second. “Don’t know. Just follow me and see if you’ve got any ideas.”

I was anchored to human flesh. “I—need to touch you. To rise into the aetheric.”

“No biting,” he said, and held out his hand. I reached across the desk to take it. It was his left hand, and the metallic gold of his wedding ring felt an odd contrast to the skin and bones. “Ready?”

“Ready,” I said. I didn’t know if I was, but surely rising into the aetheric was as natural to me as breathing was to a human.

It wasn’t. Not anymore. It felt wrong, the way I had to fight free of the heavy, dragging anchor of my body. Only Manny’s sure touch kept me from falling back. Even after we had risen, and the spectrums shifted to show us auras and the mysteries of perceptions, I felt the continuing pull to return.

I had not known it was such hard work.

Manny couldn’t speak in the aetheric, but he didn’t need to. I was pulled along like a child’s doll as he arrowed up into the higher plane, leveled out, and looked down on the Earth. It was a dizzying view, all opalescent colors, sparks, whispers. In the aetheric Manny looked startling—younger than in his physical form, slimmer, and almost completely covered with the shifting ghosts of tattoos. I didn’t know what they symbolized, but clearly they were important to him.

His aura was a pale blue, tinged and sparked with yellow and gold. Not as powerful as others I had seen, but powerful enough for the work he was doing.

He pointed, and I nodded, bracing myself for the fall. When it came, it was shockingly fast. The ground rushed toward us, and the snap of energy whipped us to a hovering stop above a landscape alive with a twisting line of fire. Not real fire, but energy, stored deep beneath the planet’s skin. Building toward explosion.

Had I still been Djinn, I would have simply admired the violence of it, the beauty of the incredible forces at work. But Djinn weren’t at risk from such things, and so had nothing to fear. We did not build. We rarely died.

Humans were not so fortunate. For the first time, I found myself wondering about the fates of those milling thousands in their homes, towns, and cities, oblivious to the explosive danger under their feet.

I found myself caring.

I wasn’t sure whether I found that intriguing or annoying.

Bleeding off the energy through surrounding rock was a delicate, slow process, but gradually the fault’s energy faded from a throbbing, urgent red to a pale gold, stable and calm. It would present a constant threat, but with regular maintenance from the Earth Wardens, it would only threaten, not destroy.

When Manny released his grip on me, it was like a giant steel spring snapped tight, and I spun out of control away from him, hurtling through the aetheric, through the oil-slick layers of color. The descent was sickening. Terrifying. If I had been able to scream, I would have; how was it humans traveled this way, dragged down by their anchoring bodies?

I slammed back into flesh with a spasmodic jerk that nearly toppled the armchair. Across from me, Manny Rocha barely flinched as he settled into the human world again.

He opened his eyes to look at me, and there was a glow in his eyes that took me by surprise. Power, yes, and something else.

Rapture.

It faded quickly, as if he didn’t want me to see it in him. “You okay?” he asked. I shook my head. My mouth was dry, my stomach empty and growling. Worse than that, though, I felt . . . exhausted. Drained again. I felt a soul-deep stab of frustration. I can’t live this way, off of the scraps of others. I am Djinn!

Ashan had made me a beggar, and in that moment, I hated him for it so bitterly that I felt tears in my eyes. Now I would weep like a human, too. How much more humiliation could I bear?

Manny’s hands closed on my shoulders. I drew in a startled breath, and my pale fingers circled his wrists. I had intended it to be defense, to throw off his touch, but the sense of his skin on mine stilled my panic.

“I need—” I couldn’t speak. I’d taken so much this morning, and yet it was already spent. I felt on the verge of collapse, horribly exposed.

Manny understood. “Promise you won’t take more than I give?”

I nodded.

It was trust, simple and raw, and I did not deserve it.

It took a wrenching, painful effort, but I took what was offered, and nothing more.

Perhaps I could learn to deserve it.

WE HAD WORKEDonly a half day at reducing the stress in the fault, but Manny decreed that I needed rest.

“I’m fine,” I told him sharply, as he gathered up his keys on the way to the door.

“Yeah, you’re fine now,” he said, “but you’re going to need some sleep. Trust me on this, Cassiel. Wardens go through this when we first start out. It’s natural to have to build up your endurance.”

Not for a Djinn, I thought but did not say. None of this was natural for a Djinn, after all.

Manny had locked the office door behind us and we were on our way to the elevators when a stranger stepped out to block our path. Clearly one of my kind, to my eyes; he was wreathed in golden smoke, barely in his skin, and his eyes were the color of clear emeralds.

Not a stranger, after all. Gallan. He didn’t so much as glance at Manny; his stare stayed on me. I came to a halt and reflexively put a hand out for Manny to stay behind me.

“What do you want?” I asked. Gallan—tall in this form, long-legged, with long, dark hair worn loose—seemed to find me amusing in my fragile human form. He leaned against the wall, with his arms folded, still blocking our path.

“I came to see if it was true.” His eyebrows slowly lifted. “Apparently, it is. How did you anger him so, Cassiel?”