djinn wars 03 - fallen (14 page)

That didn’t happen, though. It seemed we must have delivered, if not a killing blow, at least a wounding one. All we needed was enough breathing space to get within the device’s field of effect, and then we’d be able to regroup.

We got that breathing space, although it was certainly a very solemn caravan that pulled into the parking lot of the El Monte Sagrado. There at last we did see some lights, burning on either side of the front entrance to the resort, and even though it was now past midnight, those doors opened, and Lauren and Zahrias emerged just as Jace and I were getting out of the Jeep.

“Thank God,” she began, then apparently saw the stricken look on my face, the way Jace ever so subtly shook his head.

“What happened?” Zahrias asked, dark eyes flickering from Jace to me, and then to Dani as he slid out of the back seat. A second or two later, Miles extricated himself with some difficulty. I saw why at once; he hadn’t left Evony behind, but carried her in his arms. It was as if he knew that none of the djinn now had the strength to carry her.

“They attacked your party,” Miles said. His face was very pale in the moonlight and the reflected glow from the lights that guarded the front entrance to the resort. In his tone I heard a sort of wonder, as if he still didn’t quite know what to make of it all.

Not a muscle moved in Zahrias’ face. He stared at Evony, who looked like a broken doll in the scientist’s arms. Then he said, “Of course they did. They would have been waiting for an opening.”

“But…they were djinn.”

“Yes.” A grim smile touched the corner of the djinn leader’s mouth. “You may find yourself surprised by us, Dr. Odekirk. In the meantime….”

Two Chosen came out of the door then, young men. I recognized David, Aidan’s erstwhile partner in guard duty, and I thought the other one’s name was Remy, but I couldn’t recall for sure. My thoughts kept chasing around one another, unable to settle down. We had succeeded…but we had also failed. We hadn’t been able to keep all our people safe.

David moved past Zahrias and Lauren so he could approach Miles Odekirk. “I’ll take her,” he said quietly, and the scientist startled, then nodded, surrendering Evony’s body to one of her own people.

But were we? Some of us were Chosen, as she had been, but I knew she hadn’t really felt at home here. Maybe if she had been able to come here with Natila, but….

Now they were both gone.

Tears began to run down my cheeks then, scalding in the cold night air. I felt Jace’s touch on my arm.

“Beloved, let us go inside.”

“I want to stay with Evony,” I said.

No protest. Only a nod, and he replied, “Of course. Let us hold a vigil for her.”

I headed over to where David stood with her in his arms, ignoring Miles. Jace came with me, a faithful shadow at my side.

“I know where we can take her,” Lauren said, gesturing for us to follow her inside.

As we went, I saw Zahrias approach Miles. “This is not quite the homecoming we had expected, but let me show you the rooms we’ve prepared for you.”

And it seemed Miles could only nod. For myself, I wasn’t paying attention after that. I trailed along behind David and Lauren, until at last we came to a large room hung with oil paintings, some abstract, some of what appeared to be local landscapes. In the center of that room were red-upholstered chairs and couches. David went to one of these and laid Evony gently down on it. Her hair slipped over the edge of the cushions, making her look like a sort of latter-day Snow White. Only I knew that no one would be coming along to kiss her awake.

Jace led me to one of the chairs so I could sit down next to her. I took her cold hand in mine and murmured, “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”

No response, of course. No, I was alone with my grief and my guilt, even though Jace and Lauren and David occupied the room as well.

Beloved, you did nothing wrong.

I shook my head without looking up.
I should have stopped her.

How? By getting out of the vehicle and endangering yourself as well? We were tasked with retrieving Miles Odekirk, and if you had gone after Evony, you would have left him unprotected. If anything had happened to him, all hope of helping everyone here in Taos would have been lost.

They were sensible words. I even understood them at some level. At the same time, though, I raged at the capriciousness of fate, that Evony should have to endure so much pain and not even have the opportunity to somehow come out on the other side, whole again, if not precisely healed.

Take heart in this, beloved,
Jace went on.
Her bullets did hit their target. Khalim was wounded, along with several of his followers. That is why they fled in the end. We were keeping them at bay, but were not strong enough to overcome them all. When Evony and then Ethan fired at them, they gave us the small advantage we needed.

Hearing this, I felt — well, not exactly cheered, but maybe satisfied. Evony had gone down, but she’d gone down swinging. Since I didn’t trust myself to speak, I reached out and took Jace’s hand, clinging to it. I didn’t even care that his skin was cool against mine, a sure sign that Miles’s device was working on him once again.

As I clung to him, I dimly noted that Lauren and David had slipped out of the room. That was all right. I was here with Jace, and that was the important thing.

We would stay here together, and mourn our dead.

Chapter Eight

There actually was a cemetery in Taos within the mile radius of the protective field the device cast, but, as I’d feared, the ground was too hard for a proper burial. I wondered how they’d done it in the time before. With jackhammers and backhoes, I supposed, both of which were in short supply these days. Putting people in the ground was not the djinn way, not all the time, at any rate. Their customs were much more like those of the Vikings — those born of fire went out that way, and those of the air were sent to the afterlife in the same manner. The water elementals were set adrift on the sea, while only the earth elementals took their long sleep in the ground. Since, according to the driver’s license I found in the abandoned backpack in Evony’s room, she’d been an Aries, a fire sign, it seemed a fitting way to send her off as well. Besides, I had a feeling she would have enjoyed the spectacle.

A group of the Chosen built two pyres in a vacant lot not far from the resort, and the entire colony went to pay their respects. Even Miles Odekirk, who stood off to one side, Lindsay and her djinn not too far away. She’d sort of been assigned to him, since she was the closest thing to a scientist we had. I got the impression neither she nor her partner was too thrilled about the situation. Then again, I doubted Miles was, either.

“I’m surprised a race that can’t die has funeral customs,” I’d remarked to Jace just the day before the ceremony. We had sat down at a secluded table in the dining room, since our suite had begun to feel like a prison cell. Even taking Dutchie on walks three times a day wasn’t enough to throw off that sensation of being trapped.

“No one ever said a djinn cannot die,” he said. “It is a much rarer event for us, but it does happen. So the mechanisms must be in place to handle it, one way or another.”

Handle it.
That was one way to phrase things, I supposed. I didn’t think I was handling things all that well, when you got right down to it.

In a way, it was hard for me to even define what my relationship with Evony had been. Friends? Unlikely allies thrown together because of a common goal? And in the end, neither of those things, because Natila had been lost, and Evony had blamed me for her death.

“At any rate,” Jace had continued, “we must celebrate your friend’s life. She sacrificed herself, and died a warrior. We will all remember her strength and thank her for it.”

As for that, I wasn’t completely sure. Of course Jace and I would remember, but Evony hadn’t really been a member of this community. She hadn’t been given the chance. I didn’t bother to protest, though. One of the things I loved about Jace was his ability to see the good in people. Whether that made him blind to some of their lesser qualities, well…it was a fault I found easy enough to forgive.

Only a day and a half had passed since our party had returned to Taos. Now the small warm snap seemed to be over, the skies gray and dull, once again threatening snow. I’d heard they could get snow here all the way into June, although that certainly wasn’t common. A snowstorm in February, on the other hand, was ordinary enough, but I wanted to scowl up at the leaden heavens. Evony should have had a day as bright and fierce as she was. Also, skies like this now only served to remind me of that first attack by the rogue djinn, and the skin on the back of my neck couldn’t help prickling. Never mind that we were safe enough for the moment, surrounded by our invisible shield.

The djinn in attendance looked listless and dull, however, and I noted that not all of them were present. Those who had come, I guessed, were there more for Ethan than Evony. He actually had been a part of the group here. Off to one side, a petite djinn woman with lustrous brown hair leaned against a pale, grim Zahrias and wept. She must have been Ethan’s partner.

I wept for Evony, because I knew no one else would.

The flames licked up into the sullen skies. No one spoke, and I wondered, behind my tears, whether I should say something. It felt odd and unnatural to stand there in silence, but perhaps that was how the djinn sent the ones they had lost into the afterlife. Did they believe in such things?

Of course they must. I’d heard Jace speak of God and angels and hell.

Did that mean there was no heaven?

At last it was over, the roaring fires beginning to die down. One by one, the djinn in attendance began to slip away, their Chosen helping them make their way over the uneven ground, since all of the elementals were laboring under the draining effects of Miles’s device. And he — well, he stood where he was for a long time, watching the scene with a speculative little frown on his face, as if attempting to reconcile everything he thought he knew about the djinn with what he had just witnessed. At last Lindsay murmured something to him, and they headed back to the resort along with everyone else.

It didn’t look as if Miles intended to try to escape anytime soon.

Then again, where would he go?

The next day, Zahrias actually asked me to go check on the progress in the lab. His request startled me somewhat, since I assumed he would have spoken directly with Lindsay if he wanted to know what was going on. Something about the way he phrased that request, however, made me think that he wasn’t entirely sure whether he would get an accurate report from her. I liked Lindsay, but I couldn’t exactly fault Zahrias for thinking that way; she did have a tendency to inflate her progress, although whether to make herself look good or because she didn’t want anyone to give up hope too soon, I didn’t know. For obvious reasons, I hoped it was the latter.

Jace didn’t accompany me, as Zahrias was having him and Dani and several of the other djinn who’d been on the mission to kidnap Miles Odekirk give a detailed report as to what precisely had happened. I reflected it was just as well that the djinn leader wasn’t asking for my input, because even after a day and a half, it was hard for me to remember any exact details. Only a maelstrom of fire and wind and water and dust. Just Evony and Ethan falling to the ground. All that, and nothing else.

So I headed down into the basement room Lindsay had been using as the lab, not sure exactly what I would find. Miles had appeared subdued enough at Evony’s and Ethan’s…leave-taking, for want of a better word. It didn’t really feel like a funeral — no speeches, no flowers, no girl from the church singing “Ave Maria.” But it had been our way of saying goodbye.

But just because the scientist didn’t appear to be contemplating a jail break didn’t mean he would necessarily cooperate with us. Maybe he was thinking a little civil disobedience was the best way to get back at the people who’d stolen him from Los Alamos.