Undone (23 page)

“Cassie!” she said. I walked toward them, and she held out her arms. I took her, not sure if it was a natural thing to do. Her weight felt awkward in my arms, but after a moment, it began to feel right as my body found its gravitational center again. She smelled of sweet things—flowers, from the shampoo that had cleaned her hair; syrup, from the pancakes she had been eating. It made her mouth sticky where she kissed me on the cheek. “I'm glad you're back.”

“I'm glad to be back also,” I said. I didn't correct her about my name, not this time. I studied her at close distance. “How do you feel, Isabel?”

She didn't answer, but her eyes did—they swam with sadness and a child's sudden tears.

“Grandma Sylvia's been making me pancakes,” she said. “You want pancakes?”

“Little late for pancakes, kiddo,” Luis said, and reclaimed the child from my arms to toss her over his shoulder and head for the door. “Sylvia?” He knocked on the door, and a shadow moved inside. A graying older woman opened the screen and smiled at him—a trembling sort of welcome, and there was a terrible distance in her eyes. She looked like Angela, and she had to stand on tiptoe to kiss Luis's cheek. Her gaze went past him, to me, and her eyes widened.

“That's Cassie,” Ibby said proudly, and pointed at me. “Grandma Sylvia, that's Cassie! She's my friend. I told you about her.”

“Cassiel,” I said, to be sure there was no mistake. “I prefer to be called Cassiel.”

Sylvia hesitated, then stepped aside to let me enter. She made sure to give me plenty of space to pass, as if she didn't want to take the risk of brushing against me.

Did I look as forbidding as all that? Or only different?

The front room was a small, dusty parlor filled with old furniture and black-and-white photographs. One had been set out alone on the lace-draped table—Angela, only a few years older than Isabel, wearing a white dress and carrying flowers. There were fresh white roses in a vase on the table next to the photograph, and an ornate religious symbol—a crucifix.

“My daughter,” Sylvia said, and nodded at the table. “Angela.”

“I know. I knew her,” I said.

“Did you.” She studied me, and there was a deep mistrust in her expression. “I never saw you around before. I'd remember.”

I wondered how much she knew about the Wardens, about what Manny and Luis did. I wondered if she knew about the Djinn, and if so, if she knew about the dangers we represented.

Whatever the case, she clearly wasn't prepared to trust me.

“She was Manny's business partner, Sylvia,” Luis said. He let Isabel slide down to her feet. She clung to his leg for a few seconds, then ran off into the kitchen. It seemed impossible that something so small could have such heavy footsteps. “Cassiel's a friend.”

Sylvia nodded, but it didn't seem to me to be any sort of agreement.

He gave up, as well. “How's Ibby doing?”

“She slept through the night,” Sylvia said. “But I don't know. She's manic like this, and then she cries for hours and calls for you, or her mother and father. Or for
her.
” She sent me a look that I could only interpret as a glare. I couldn't think of a reason I should apologize, so I didn't.

Luis cleared his throat. “Sylvia, I made the funeral arrangements. The mass will be on Thursday at eleven. The viewing starts at six tonight.” His voice took on a rough edge, and he stopped just for a second to smooth it again. “Do you think Ibby should go?”

“Not to the viewing, no,” Sylvia said. “She's too young. Someone should stay here with her.” She didn't look at me as she said it, but Luis did, raising his eyebrows.

I raised mine in return.

“Would you?” he asked. “Watch her for a couple of hours?”

“Of course.”

Sylvia's back stiffened into a hard line. “Luis, may I speak to you in private?”

He rolled his eyes and followed her into another room. She shut the door, closing me out.

I wandered into the kitchen, where Isabel was dragging her fork through the remaining syrup on her plate. She looked up at me as she licked the fork clean. “Can you make pancakes?” she asked me.

“I don't know,” I said. “I've never made them.”

“It's easy. I'll show you.”

“You already ate pancakes,” I reminded her. “I don't think you should eat more. Do you?”

Her shoulders fell into dejected curves. “You're no fun.”

As a former Djinn, I felt a bit of satisfaction at that, but it faded quickly. The child was in pain, though she was trying to hide it from me.

“I'm sorry we were gone,” I told her. She didn't raise her head. “I know you missed your uncle.”

“You, too.”

“I know.”

“Grandma Sylvia doesn't like you,” Ibby said. “She doesn't like you because you're a
gringa
and she thinks you're going to steal me away.”

“Steal you? Why would I steal you?”

“Because I'm not safe with
Tío
Luis. She says he's why it happened.”
It
being the tragedy that had shattered her life.

The girl's logic was unassailable. “So she thinks I would try to take you away. Why?”

Ibby shrugged. “You're white. The police will like you better. So they'll give me to you. That's what Grandma Sylvia says. She says I'd be better off here, with her.”

I had no idea what that had to do with the issue, but I considered carefully before I said, “I wouldn't steal you away, Isabel. You do know that, don't you? I know you love your uncle and your grandmother. I wouldn't take you away.”

“Promise?” Ibby looked up, and there were tears shimmering in her eyes.

“I promise.”

“Cross your heart.”

I looked involuntarily at the crucifix hung on the wall near the door.
Cross your heart
seemed a violent thing to do.

“No, silly, like this.” Isabel slid out of her chair, clattered around the table, and guided my hand to touch four compass points around where my mortal heart beat. “There. Now you promised.”

She climbed up in my lap, and I stroked her hair slowly as she relaxed against me. She was almost asleep when she said, “Cassie?” It was a slow, dreamy whisper, and I touched my finger to her lips. “I'm scared sometimes.”

“So am I. Sometimes,” I whispered, very softly. “I won't let anything harm you.”

“Cross your heart?”

I did.

 

When Luis and Sylvia returned, Luis clearly was running short on patience, and Sylvia's expression was as hard as flint. A smile would have struck sparks on her.

“Luis agrees that we'll get my sister Veronica to come and sit with Isabel tonight,” Sylvia announced. “You'll want to see Manny and Angela.”

She was instructing me, it seemed. I gave her a long, level Djinn stare, and she paled a bit.

“Thank you for your consideration,” I said. Isabel had fallen asleep in my arms, a limp, hot weight, and I adjusted her position so that her head rested against my neck. “I will put her to bed.”

“I'll come with you,” Luis immediately volunteered. Sylvia's lips pursed, but she said nothing as she cleared the syrup-smeared plate, fork, and empty glass from the table.

Isabel didn't wake as I put her down on her child-sized bed—I wondered if it had once been Angela's, as the furnishings seemed faded and used—and Luis showed me how to tuck her in. He kissed the child's forehead gently, and I followed suit. Her skin was as soft as silk under my lips, and I felt a wave of emotion that surprised me.

Tenderness.

“Sylvia doesn't like me because I am a
gringa
,” I said to Luis as I straightened, “and because she's afraid I will take Isabel from you.”

He seemed surprised by this. I didn't tell him Isabel had been the insightful one and not me. “Yeah, well, with my record the court might not be so thrilled, and it's not like the Wardens are around right now to be character witnesses. Sylvia's saying she wants to be her legal guardian, but that means Ibby has to live here, not come with me when I go off to a new assignment.”

“Sylvia wishes to keep her.” Luis, I recalled, had been afraid of that. It seemed he was right.

“Not going to happen.” Luis brushed the girl's hair back from her face, and I saw the shadow of his brother in him, gentle and devoted. “Sylvia's okay, but she doesn't love the kid like I do. Ibby needs love.”

“And Sylvia can't protect her,” I said. “You can.”

He straightened, looking at me directly, and I looked back. For a moment, neither of us moved or spoke, and then Luis pointed vaguely down the hall. “I should get ready. For the viewing. Listen, if you don't want to go—”

“I'll go,” I said. “But we should find someone to watch over Isabel, at least from a distance. Are there any Wardens at all available?”

“Yeah, I can do that. Probably will have to be one of those other guys, the Ma'at. There are three or four of them still in town.” He made an
after you
motion, and we closed Isabel's door behind us.

 

The Muñoz Funeral Home was a long structure, with muted lights and deep carpets and quiet music. We were met at the door by an older man, balding, with small round spectacles perched on his nose. He wore a black suit, like the one Luis had on, and he seemed professionally sad. His doleful expression never changed as he shook Sylvia's hand, then Luis's, then mine.

I had, at Luis's prompting, changed my clothes from pale to dark—a pair of black slacks, a shimmering black shirt, and a fitted jacket. It seemed a fruitless use of power, but I was cautiously pleased with the results of my transformation. I still couldn't willingly alter the structure of my own form, but clothing seemed easier than it had been.

Perhaps—just perhaps—I was learning to use my powers more effectively. My appearance seemed to raise no alarms with the funeral director, at any rate, and I followed Sylvia and Luis down a long hallway, past open and closed doorways. The air smelled strongly of flowers and burning candles.

The funeral director opened a set of doors and preceded us into the room. It was smaller than I had expected, unpleasantly so, and I found myself slowing as I approached the threshold.

Six rows of plain black folding chairs, a cluster of padded armchairs near the back, a table, a book, a pen. Flowers.

The long, sleek forms of open coffins.

I stopped.

Luis and Sylvia kept walking, right to the front, and Luis stayed near Angela's mother as she sobbed, leaning over the casket in which I knew her daughter must lie.

I could not go forward.
There is no need,
the Djinn part of me said.
Their essences are gone from the shells. This is human ritual. You have no part of it.

The human part of me didn't want to grieve again, and I knew that it would, once I took that last step.

I turned away, walking quickly. Other tragedies were unfolding here, families shattered, bonds broken, promises unkept.
I am not human. I have no part of this. No part.

I was almost running when I reached the front door.

I stood in the stillness of the evening, watching the last rays of the sun fade behind mountains, and breathing in convulsive gasps.

“Hurts, doesn't it?” someone said from behind me. I turned. I'd heard—sensed—no approach, neither human nor Djinn, and for a moment I saw nothing except shadows.

Then he stepped forward into the fading light. I had not known him in human form, but I recognized the Djinn essence of him immediately. He was a brilliant flame on the aetheric, a burst that exploded out in all directions and immediately hushed itself into utter stillness.

His name was Jonathan, and he was
dead.

I fell to my knees. I didn't mean to do so, but surprise and awe made it inevitable.
I'm imagining this,
I thought.
Jonathan is dead and gone.

“Yeah, you keep on telling yourself that, Cassie. Can I call you Cassie? Ah, hell, I'm going to, so get used to it,” he said. He looked very, very human at the moment—tall, lean, comfortable in the skin he wore. His hair glinted silver, and his eyes—his eyes were as dark as the hidden moon. “Guys like me don't exactly die. We sort of—get promoted.”

Jonathan had held the reins to power for all the Djinn for thousands of years. I had not loved him, but I
had
respected him—if nothing else, because he had commanded respect from Ashan, and Ashan had never been stupid enough to directly challenge him. There was comfort in Jonathan, and there was also dangerous intensity, cleverly concealed by his all-too-human manner.

But he was dead.
He had to be dead. We had all felt it. His passing had shattered the entire Djinn world into pieces.

“I don't—” My voice sounded very odd. “I don't understand. You can't be here—”

He flipped that away with a casual gesture. “Yeah, not staying, just passing through. Got things to do. So. How's the world? Never mind, I know the answer. Always teetering on the verge of disaster, right?” He studied me for a second, and extended his hand. “Get up, I don't like people on their knees.”

When I accepted the touch of his hand, it felt real. Warm and human. I held it for a moment too long before I dropped it. “Everyone believes you dead.”

“Good. Meant that, actually. It was time for me to move on, and there was no way to do it without giving up my spot in the great organizational tree of life. Like I said, I'm just passing through, so I've got no stake in things anymore. But I thought I'd drop in to say hello.”