Forsaken (The Djinn Wars Book 5) (21 page)

“Well, it’s better than Death Valley,” she replied, nettled on behalf of her hometown. The anger felt good, actually. If she was angry, then she couldn’t be quite as frightened. Anyway, she’d be the first to admit there were parts of Albuquerque that were less than scenic, but the Sandia Mountains were beautiful, and the Rio Grande valley was beautiful, and not anything close to a “wasteland.”

Hasan’s mouth compressed. “Do not bother to argue with me, mortal, for you have little idea of which you speak.”

It was Madison’s turn to press her lips together. She had to, or otherwise she feared she might say something she regretted. Yes, she’d survived trading a few barbs with the djinn, but she didn’t know how long that might go on before he lost his temper. That was the last thing she wanted. She knew what he was capable of.

Apparently he saw the shift in her expression, because he smiled at her in triumph. “Ah, you are beginning to see the wisdom of silence. So you are capable of learning something.”

This time it was almost impossible not to reply, but she kept her mouth shut. The best thing to do, she realized, was to avoid provoking him and hope that Qadim would be able to figure out where she was and come to rescue her. As much as she wished for that outcome, though, she worried about what would happen if the two djinn had an open confrontation. How did djinn even fight? If it were purely a physical match, then she’d say that Qadim would have the upper hand, since he was several inches taller than Hasan and had proportionally more muscle mass. But these were djinn, and so they probably had ways of fighting that involved a lot more than brute strength.

If anything happened to Qadim….

Hasan gave a satisfied nod, as if pleased by her silence. In the next instant, his hand was on her arm, and they blinked out of the living room and into another space. Judging by the wooden ceilings and trim around the window, it had to be in the same house.

A bedroom, Madison realized, looking at the queen-sized bed, the knotty pine furniture. The view through the windows here was even more spectacular, if possible.

Then it sank in. A bedroom.

She gulped in some air, hoping Hasan hadn’t noticed. Apparently he didn’t, because he said, “You will stay in here.”

As prison cells went, it wasn’t too bad. At least she could see trees and the sky, and there was an
en suite
bathroom. And the action of being blinked here had freed her from being tied to the chair, had given her aching arms and wrists a break.

Judging by the fairly modest scale of the room, she figured it must be one of the secondary bedrooms. No doubt Hasan had taken the master suite for himself.

Which was fine by her, because if he was staying there, it probably meant he didn’t have any intention of sharing this room with her.

Despite her resolution to remain quiet, she couldn’t help asking, “How long are you planning on keeping me here?”

A thin smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes. “As long as it takes.”

And then he was gone, blinking out of existence — or at least to another room in the house. It was definitely strange to watch. Now you see him, now you don’t.

The important thing, though, was that Hasan was gone. At once she went to the door and tested it. Locked. She really hadn’t been expecting anything else, but a girl had to try. Same thing with the windows. She should have been able to unlatch them and swing them open, but those latches felt as if they’d been permanently sealed shut.

Break the glass? There was a chair sitting up against the wall on the other side of the room that might do nicely.

And Hasan will hear it and be here in a flash…literally. Besides, maybe a djinn could fly out that window, but to a mere human, a twenty-foot drop is still a long way down.

She went to the window and looked out. Yes, because of the way the house was constructed, it probably was at least twenty feet to the ground. If she held on to the window frame and then dropped from there, she’d be cutting out some of the distance, but it would still probably be a hell of a jolt.

And that was doing a best-case scenario where a rampaging djinn didn’t show up to bust her.

No, she knew the smart thing to do was wait for Qadim. He had to have missed her by now, so she knew he would have gone to the shelter to find her. And if he saw the overnight bag and the sketchbook she’d dropped, then he’d know something was wrong. It wouldn’t take him very long to put the pieces together. She just had to pray he’d come up with a plan that didn’t put him too much at risk. The thought of losing him now hurt almost more than the idea that she might meet her death at Hasan’s hands.

Instead of hurling the chair out the window, she went and sat down on it, then stared at the sky and the trees without really seeing them.

Please help me, Qadim,
she thought.
Because I don’t know what Hasan is planning.

She only knew that it couldn’t be anything good.

T
o his relief
, Qadim was able to find a New Mexico state map in the hotel’s library. It was crinkled and somewhat worn, but still readable. As far as he could tell, the little town of Chama lay almost due north from Albuquerque, a little more than one hundred and fifty miles as the crow flies. Getting to Chama would only be the first of his problems, however. The real difficulty would be finding Hasan and — hopefully — Madison once he got there. Even a small town could have many houses, and from Madison he’d gotten the impression that the area was quite rural, with ranches and compounds on large plots of land. A search could take some time, and would be complicated by the need to avoid detection. It would never do to allow Hasan to see him coming.

For a moment, Qadim contemplated approaching the Council and telling them what Hasan had done, so he might face their justice. But almost as immediately he discarded the idea, because he knew the djinn elders would never help him. For one thing, he was far from being in their good graces, thanks to his involvement in his sister’s ridiculous schemes. The real problem, though, was that they would see no reason to intercede. If Madison had been his Chosen, then she would have been protected. As things stood now, though, she was merely another human, one whom Hasan had every right to track down and kill.

Not that the situation was necessarily that dire. Hasan must have had something else in mind when he took Madison, because otherwise there was no reason for him not to have killed her the second he laid eyes on her.

The mere thought of losing her in such a fashion made Qadim’s blood run cold, and he pushed the unwelcome image away. He couldn’t waste his energy on imagining scenarios like that. What he needed to do now was focus on finding the woman he loved.

Loved?

He scowled. This wasn’t love. He desired Madison, enjoyed her company, wanted her around him at all times, but that couldn’t be called love…

…or could it?

Damn. He’d spent months or even years with women and had realized at the end that he didn’t love them, but a few days with Madison Reynolds was enough for him to lose his heart?

Well, he could analyze his feelings for her later. In the meantime, he had work to do.

Although the djinn means of traveling instantly from one place to another was very useful, it wasn’t infallible, especially when it involved going someplace where they’d never been before. Sometimes all that was required was a connection between two djinn, but Qadim had begun to distance himself from his old friend some time ago, as soon as it became apparent that Hasan was far too obsessed with hunting down humans for Qadim’s comfort.

If he had possessed even a single picture of Chama or its environs as a reference, that would be useful and would provide him the context he needed, but Qadim had nothing. He searched the library and the offices at the hotel, hoping he might be able to find some sort of clue, even a brochure advertising that sightseeing train Madison had once mentioned, but his search proved fruitless, and he had no other resources to fall back on. Before the Heat, the world had been connected by a linked system of computers, and Qadim had heard that one could look up photographs and all sorts of other information on that system, but it was all gone now, dead as the men and women who had created it.

Which meant he would have to do this the old-fashioned way. The farthest north he had traveled in New Mexico was the little of village of Pojoaque, where he had once hidden Julia Innes at an abandoned estate in an attempt to lure Zahrias there. From Pojoaque to Chama was less than a hundred miles. In his inspection of the area while looking for a suitable place to serve as his base of operations, he had seen many horses left behind after their masters had died of the djinn-caused plague. Those horses had been skittish, but he thought he could still call one to him. Djinn naturally had a way with animals. So he would ride from Pojoaque to Chama, and then….

Well, then he would have the pleasure of squeezing Hasan’s life from his throat.

* * *

I
f there was
any pastime more excruciating than sitting around and wondering which horrible fate you were going to suffer, Madison couldn’t think of one. Going by the time on her watch, she calculated that Hasan had dumped her in here a little more than two hours ago, and she hadn’t heard anything from him since. She’d loitered by the window in the hope that she might see him coming or going, but apparently he was occupied indoors, or if he had gone somewhere else, he’d done so using the djinn method, and not any of the doors.

About an hour into her forced isolation, her stomach had begun growling, telling her that she hadn’t gotten any lunch and that it had better get a damn good dinner. Not that Madison expected Hasan to take much care of her in that department. Maybe he planned to slowly starve her to death. It wasn’t as spectacular a demise as being ripped to shreds in the middle of Menaul Boulevard, but maybe he didn’t care, as long as she was dead and he’d rid the world of yet another useless human.

In usual magical djinn fashion, the indoor plumbing seemed to be working just fine. The water out of the tap was cool and sweet, and there’d been a tumbler sitting next to the sink in the
en suite
bathroom, so at least she didn’t have to worry about dying of thirst any time soon. She’d filled the tumbler and brought it with her when she resumed her watch at the window, but there was nothing to see.

Well, almost nothing. She watched a few rabbits scamper across the yard, and an hour or so after that, a doe and a yearling wandered through the property, pausing to delicately nibble on the dry grass before moving on to greener pastures. A city girl, Madison couldn’t help being a bit enchanted by the sight. But the deer and the rabbits certainly weren’t going to help bust her out of there, so they were nothing more than a momentary distraction.

“I did say it was quite a view.”

Madison whirled, almost dropping her tumbler of water in fright. Hasan stood just inside the locked door, a tray in his hands.

“There’s something called knocking,” she remarked caustically.

“Do jailers knock on their prisoners’ cell doors?”

“So you admit I’m a prisoner.”

“Of course you are. But I am not entirely without feeling. I’ve brought you something to eat.”

Her gaze shifted to the tray he held. There was part of a loaf of bread, and some cheese. Not exactly the kind of gourmet food Qadim had prepared for her, but the meager meal at least promised that she wouldn’t go hungry.

“Thanks,” she said, although she knew her tone sounded anything but grateful.

Hasan affected not to notice, or perhaps he simply didn’t care what she thought. He moved farther into the room so he could set the tray down on the bed. Well, that was something. If he was using the bed as a makeshift table, that meant he didn’t plan to use it for anything else.

“There is spare clothing in the dresser,” he said. “You should find something to sleep in. Unless you prefer to wear nothing at all?”

In answer, she just stared back at him. She could tell he wasn’t being truly suggestive, but only saying what he hoped would get a rise out of her.

Since she didn’t respond, he said, “Pleasant dreams,” then shut the door. He must have headed back downstairs in the normal way, not djinn style, because she could hear the floor creak slightly before utter silence descended.

Madison looked at her watch. Not quite six. A little early for dinner, but she wasn’t going to argue, not as hungry as she was. For the briefest second, she hesitated, wondering whether he’d tampered with the food somehow. But he was a djinn, possessing the kind of powers she couldn’t possibly withstand. He didn’t need to resort to something as sneaky as poisoning her. After all, she’d seen him in action on the streets of Albuquerque. Poison didn’t seem to be his style.

So she picked up the partial loaf of bread and tore off a piece, then ate it slowly. Even though she’d tried to reassure herself that the food had to be fine, some part of her remained tense, waiting for the first sign of poisoning — stomach cramps? Heart palpitations? She didn’t know for sure, since she didn’t read murder mysteries and certainly never had any reason to investigate ways to poison people. Anyway, she kept waiting for something unpleasant to hit her, to make her realize she’d been foolish to trust Hasan even this much.

Her stomach didn’t cramp. Her throat didn’t seize up. She alternated the bread with some cheese, eating slowly to make the small meal seem as if it was more food than it really was. In between bites, she drank water from the tap. And when she was done, she thought she still felt fine…if one could use the word “fine” to apply to a situation where she was trapped by a murderous djinn who wanted her dead.

After she was finished eating, she went to the window and looked out into the gathering dusk. There wasn’t much to see; the room faced east, and so didn’t reveal much of what the sunset was doing, although the low mountains had begun to take on a faint reddish hue. Madison knew it was foolish to expect to see Qadim approaching like some sort of avenging angel, and yet that was exactly what she hoped for. She wanted him to show up and…what? Rip Hasan to shreds? Lord knows he was guilty of murder probably a hundred or even a thousand-fold. But she knew she really didn’t want Qadim to be Hasan’s judge, jury, and executioner. Right then she’d be happy enough if he would just take her away from here, give her some assurance that this would never happen again.

Problem was, she had a feeling that Hasan wouldn’t give up until she was dead.

* * *

T
he house
in Pojoaque looked much the same as it had when he’d left it. A little dustier, perhaps, but since barely a month had passed since he was last here, Qadim wasn’t sure why he’d thought he should find it so altered.

Perhaps the alteration had been within him.

He didn’t even know for sure why he’d come back here, except that it was familiar, and he needed some sort of starting point in his search for a suitable horse. If he’d been an air elemental like Hasan, he could have let the wind itself be his mount, but such an option was not allowed him. From time to time in the past he’d been aggravated by this strange limitation of his people, but never so much as he was now.

Standing here and bemoaning his inability to go directly to Madison wouldn’t help him, however. He might as well get out there and see what kind of horse he could catch.

Because he had been in this area and canvassed its properties before, he did not have to walk laboriously from one spot to another, but could blink himself first to one abandoned homestead or ranch to another. He found houses with their paint beginning to peel, and rail fences starting to fall down altogether. Once he had to drive off a pack of feral dogs, although that was mainly a matter of raising his arms, as if he intended to strike out at them. That was all the situation required, for the dogs knew who was the master here.

However, if there had been horses in this area once — and Qadim knew there had, for he’d seen them for himself — they did not seem to be around anymore. Perhaps they had been rounded up by Zahrias and his people. Qadim was just attempting to decide if it was worth the risk of going closer in to Santa Fe to look for horses there when he heard someone call out to him.

“Qadim al-Syan. This is not your territory.”

He turned and saw Danilar al-Harith, Zahrias’ younger brother, floating in the air on the other side of the pasture. This vision was made all the more incongruous by the jeans and work shirt the other djinn wore. Air elementals did appear far more impressive when they arrayed themselves in the flowing djinn robes, which could billow nicely in the breeze they generated.

“I was not aware Pojoaque was part of your grant,” Qadim said calmly.

“It is not part of yours, either,” Dani returned with a frown. “We were told that you were sent to Albuquerque. What are you doing here?”

Qadim wondered where the younger djinn had acquired that particular piece of information. Perhaps the elders had passed it on as a courtesy, since the land where the Santa Fe group of djinn and their Chosen had settled was not so very far from the grant which had been given to him.