Undone (6 page)

Ah. So it was true; even the Wardens could not identify a Djinn in human form, if the Djinn wished to remain concealed. That meant that the humans around me, even those who had some bit of Warden ability, saw nothing when they looked at me but a tall, awkward, pale woman with untidy white hair.

No. I
was
nothing but a tall, awkward, pale woman with untidy white hair. No longer a Djinn. I had to remember that.

I shifted uncomfortably in the hard seat, and tried not to breathe too deeply. Public spaces were filthy with odors, soaked with emotions. It put me on edge.

I pointed to the first Djinn I saw. “There.” He was a plain young man in a red T-shirt and jeans, carrying a backpack, but I caught the flare of his aura. When he turned my direction, I saw a flash of opal in his eyes.

Then he disappeared into the crowd.

Manny was looking at me oddly. “Who?”

There was no point in trying. He wouldn't recognize a Djinn, not the way I would. I shook my head and shifted again restlessly. I wanted to move, to walk. To feel less caged.

The thought that I would be trapped inside of a small metal box, surrounded by humans and all their odors and noises and emotions, made me feel a little sick.
Perhaps we should have driven.
I could have opened a window. I understood—Manny had emphasized it to me in forceful language—that I could not do so on the aircraft.

“We got you an apartment,” he was saying. “It's your home. You'll stay there when you're not working. It's not far from my place, a couple of blocks. Got you a phone, too. You're on your own for furniture. I'll give you some catalogs; we get a ton of them.”

He said
we.
He had said that before. “You don't live alone.”

Manny glanced at me, then down at the magazine open in his hands. “No. I've got a wife, Angela, and a daughter. Isabel. Ibby, for short.”

“Angela,” I repeated. “Isabel. Ibby.”

“They've got nothing to do with you.” He said it aggressively, as if I had trespassed on something private. “They're not Wardens. They're my family.”

Merely humans, then. I would have no interaction with them. “I have no interest in them,” I said, which I meant to be reassuring. Manny frowned again. “What?”

“I think I need to send you to school or something. You always this unpleasant?”

I gazed at him for a long moment without blinking. “You don't enjoy flying.”

I had surprised him. “What makes you say—”

“It's obvious.” I felt my lips curl into a smile. “You strike out at me, but it's not me you fear.”

“Doesn't mean you're not a bitch, Cassie.”

Cassie?
“My name is Cassiel.” I glowered at him. That made him smile, and the longer I glared, the wider the smile.

“Okay,” he finally said. “No nicknames. Got it.”

Our staring match was interrupted by a tinny, crackling voice from overhead. Our flight, it seemed, was ready for boarding. I rose gratefully, clutching my ticket, and began to move toward the uniformed attendant.

“Whoa,” Manny said, and grabbed me by the arm. “We're not—”

I turned on him, snarling. “Take your hand off of me!” I couldn't abide being touched so suddenly, with such disrespect.

Manny didn't let go. “Hey. Easy!” His voice was soft, but sharp as a knife. “I told you, no freaking, and I wasn't kidding. You cause a scene in here, and we both end up in trouble. Relax. I was saying that we're not first class, so we have to wait our turn.”

There were classes among humans. I'd known there were, of course; I was not totally ignorant of power and structure. But America prided itself on being a free and equal society. I wondered who became first class, and how.

“Money,” Manny said, when I asked. He loosened his grip on me. “Sorry about grabbing, but you're going to have to remember not to take my head off, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. It wasn't, but I would have to find a way to make allowances for his impulsive actions.

And my own. This body seemed to have its own set of rules and behaviors, and I was not entirely comfortable in controlling its responses.

I waited in silence while the
first class
section boarded—I could see no differences, in truth, between Manny and those others, so perhaps it really was a question of money—and then moved forward when he prompted me.

The hallway was narrow, chilly, and reeked of oil and metal. I coughed and tried not to breathe, but that was not possible.

When I reached the rounded door of the aircraft, I had a curious wave of anxiety.
It's so small.
And so it was, not only the entrance, but the plane itself—smaller than I'd expected, tremendously fragile in its construction.
I am entrusting myself to the care of humans.

“Hey,” Manny said, and put a hand on my shoulder. “Go. You're holding up the line.”

I didn't want to do it, but I stepped into the plane. I'd like to say it wasn't as bad as I expected, but that would be a lie.

 

I survived the flight in much the same way I'd survived my fall from Djinn grace: by sheer endurance. It was not a pleasant experience. My body was prone to fits of anxiety whenever the plane shuddered in the sky, which was often. My body also constantly complained of aches, pains, discomforts, annoyances, and a persistent need to rid itself of the liquids I compulsively consumed.

When we escaped from the confinement some five hours later, I was unsteady and weak with relief. The air in the jetway seemed clean and refreshing, after breathing the filthy recycled stuff, and the spring of metal and rubber under my feet felt almost joyous.

Leaving the airport was easier by far than I'd expected—we simply walked out, into the hot, dry air. The sun was low on the horizon, and the sky . . .

... Oh, the
sky
.

I stopped and stared. I had seen more beautiful things as a Djinn, but never as a human, through human eyes, and the colors of the sunset woke feelings in me I had never known were possible. It made me feel small and yet, somehow, part of something vast and astonishing.

“Home sweet home,” Manny said, and grabbed my arm again. It was a credit to the beautiful display of the sunset that I did not even care. “Let's go, Cassiel.”

We were only a few steps out of the building when a small human form ran headlong into Manny and clasped him around the knees. “Papa, Papa, Papa!”

I had not known Manny could smile that way—so full of tenderness. “Hey, Ib,” he said, and peeled the child away from his knees to lift her up. She promptly circled his neck with chubby arms, legs wrapping around his waist. A perfectly miniature person, dressed in miniature adult fashion in small blue jeans, an offensively bright shirt, and . . .

Isabel turned her face toward me and smiled, and it was as if the sun had risen new and clean, full of warmth and impartial welcome. She was a lovely child, with skin the color of caramel and eyes of a dark, warm brown. A round little face, surrounded by glossy black curls. “Who's that, Papa?”

“That's Cassiel,” he told her. “She's my new friend. Say hello to her.”

Isabel studied me for a few seconds, still smiling, and then said, “Hello. My papa's taking me for pizza.”

“Oh, your papa is, is he?” Manny shifted her weight to one hip and gave me a look that invited me to share his amusement. “Tell you what: Let me get Cassiel settled, and then we'll see. Where's your mom?”

The child pointed, and there, a few paces away next to a large dark red van, was an older, taller version of Isabel. She had the same long, curling hair, the same smile, but there was a distance to her. She was much more guarded.

She waved. Manny waved back. So did Isabel. “That's Angela,” Manny said. “Guess she got off work after all.” He stopped for a moment, staring at his wife, and without looking at me, he said, “You understand, I don't want you putting them at risk. I wasn't planning for you to meet them on day one, but I guess that's where we are now.”

I didn't understand, but I knew he wanted reassurance. “I will not harm your family,” I said stiffly. In truth, they were not Wardens. Their lives meant little to me.

Manny sent me a glance, finally. “All right. Then let's go.”

Manny had gone only a few feet when he realized I was not following, and turned back with a frown.

“Well?” he asked. “You coming or not?”

I had no choice. Manny was my Conduit, my only survival. I felt like an imposter, but it was better than being alone.

 

Manny and his family lived in
Albuquerque
, a town of hills and mountains. Humans had tamed the land, but not subdued it; there was wildness here, and power. I felt the vibration of it in the ancient mountains, in the clear blue sky above.

The structure of their house, on the other hand, was so new as to have no aetheric presence at all. “We just got it about six months ago,” Manny told me as he unlocked the door and held it open for his wife and child. Isabel skipped inside, shoes thundering on the wooden floor. “It's small, but we like it.” He seemed strangely anxious that I like it, too.

I nodded, unsure what to say. It was a box. Walls, floors, ceilings. Cluttered with bright furniture and toys. Angela picked up some and moved them aside, but not as if she were worried about my opinion; she simply did it automatically. Isabel, seeing her mother's actions, imitated her, picking up a doll and carrying it by one arm to drop it into a primary-colored box in the corner of the room.

I wondered if I would be expected to do that, as well.

I did not know the protocols, so I stood, watching, as Manny put down his bag and turned on a light next to the sofa. “Living room,” he said. Which I thought was a curious way to refer to it—did they not live in all the rooms? Was there a dying room? “Bedrooms through there. Kitchen. There's a sunroom on the back, which is nice.”

Manny was nervous. Perhaps it was my stare. I looked away and wandered the room, idly trailing my fingertips over the cold, still pictures in frames. Family. Human family.

“That's my brother,” he said. “Luis.”

He thought I was looking at the picture that my fingers were touching. I picked up the frame and saw that it held the image of a man, handsome, a little younger than Manny. A stronger jaw, but kind eyes.

“He's a Warden, too,” Manny said. “You'll meet him later, maybe. He's out in Florida right now.”

I put the photo down. “I would like to go now,” I said, which I thought was a polite way to request an end to this. Evidently not. Manny frowned at me.

“You want something to eat first? You do want to eat, right?”

Did I? I supposed I did. Djinn in human form seemed to emulate all human functions equally, and my stomach was growling in frustration. I hadn't yet mastered the knack of anticipating its needs.

I nodded.

Angela, who'd said very little, patted her daughter on the head and sent her scampering off to play before turning to me. I was struck by her again—a quiet, controlled woman, strong. So closely guarded. “Manny tells me you're not human,” she said. “Is that right?”

I cocked my head. “I was not born human. I seem to be human enough now.”

Human enough.
A frightening statement.

“All right,” Angela said. “I've seen Djinn before. I know they're dangerous. Let me make something clear to you—if you hurt my husband, if you even
think
about hurting my daughter, I'll kill you. Understand?”

Manny looked taken aback. Angela's dark eyes remained steady, fixed on mine, and I sensed nothing from her but sincerity.

“I understand,” I said, and searched for something else to say. Human words seemed clumsy to me. Ridiculously inappropriate to what I wanted to communicate. “I will make mistakes. I cannot help that.”

Her fierce stare softened a bit. “Mistakes are okay,” she said. “But don't make them twice. And don't you dare make them with my daughter.”

I inclined my head.

“Now,” she said. “How do you feel about enchiladas?”

“Neutral,” I said, “since I don't know what they are.”

Angela gave me her first real smile. “Then you're in for a treat.”

“Or not,” Manny said, “if you don't like hot sauce.”

She hit him. It was, I realized, a playful blow, not an angry one, and I was surprised at my physical reaction, which was an impulse to reach out and stay her hand.

I had wanted to defend him. Why? Because he was my Conduit. My life source.

I hadn't anticipated that at all.

 

I did not like hot sauce, which made Isabel laugh until tears rolled down her cheeks. She scooped up spoonfuls of the spice and ate them to show me how silly I was.

I could not be bested by a mere child. I continued to try, choking on the burn, until at last Angela took pity on me and removed it from the table. Isabel pouted until her father tickled her into laughter again.

It was a quiet meal—quieter than I suspected was their normal case. “When do we begin our duties?” I finally asked, after consuming several glasses of iced tea that Angela provided.

“Tomorrow,” Manny said. “Unless there's an emergency, which I hope there isn't.” He stood up, picked up his plate and mine, and carried them into the kitchen. “I'll take you home now,” he called back.

Isabel ran around the table and—to my shock—crawled up into my lap. The warm, real weight of her was surprising. I looked down at her upturned face, at her smile, and frowned in puzzlement. “What do you want?” I asked her. Angela made a strangled sound of protest and rose from her chair, but I extended a hand to stop her. “Isabel?”