Unbroken

heard all about you.”

I’d heard little to nothing of her, but there wasn’t time for chat. I just nodded, accelerated, and pulled smoothly into the lead.

We stood to make good time, I thought. It would not be too comfortable for Luis on the backseat of the bike, but he had a high padded back support, at least. He wasn’t holding on to me, because that would have put his face in range of my loose, whipping hair, and the backpack I wore prevented closer contact in any case; it would be tiring for him to keep adjusting his balance and keep his alertness up for any emergencies.

As for me, I knew I’d enjoy the ride, no matter how dangerous it might become.

I checked the gas. We had an almost full tank; the Mustang that Joanne and David used would burn through fuel much faster; but then again, with a Djinn driver they wouldn’t need to stop to refuel. Neither do I, I realized with a start. While as a Warden I could extend the life of the fuel, I couldn’t necessarily create it… but a Djinn could, and I now had one uncorked, and ready for my call.

Rahel wouldn’t be at all pleased with being put on such mundane duties, but that was hardly my concern now; I’d be dealing with the revenge of my fellows for a human lifetime, if I didn’t manage to recapture my Djinn status… or, of course, for much longer, if I did. Now didn’t seem to be the time to worry about it.

We negotiated roadblocks, both police and military, several times as sunset blazed red and faded to purple, then blue, then black. The desert night was chilly as we raced onward, following the Mustang… which seemed to be heading in the right direction, at least. The vibration of the engine beneath me soothed and invigorated me, although Luis seemed to doze behind me as he rested his head against the padding of my backpack.

Just when I’d begun to feel complacent, Rahel appeared in front of me, cross-legged, her back to the road. Floating mid-air, easily keeping pace three feet from the front tire of the Harley as it bit the asphalt in a blur. She was wearing a particularly objectionable color of lime green, something that made me think of the radiation we’d left behind us and cleared off our persons and equipment. Perhaps it had all been drawn to her clothing.

“Sistah,” she said. “Or should I call you mistress, Cassiel?”

“As you like,” I said. I didn’t raise my voice; I could whisper and she’d have no difficulty hearing me, despite the engine noise and wind. “You do enjoy showing off, don’t you?”

“Utterly,” Rahel said, and laughed. “You should try it sometime. Being Djinn doesn’t mean you have to lack a sense of drama. Or humor.” The wind blew her thin braids into a clacking, twisting, eerily snakelike mass around her head, and in perhaps conscious mockery of popular culture’s idea of a proper Djinn, she’d crossed her arms. I half expected her to give a nod and a wink, but the sharp amusement in her smile faded, leaving something more serious. “I have a message for you.”

“From whom?”

“From your big, bad boss man,” she said. “Ashan. He’s still a bastard.”

“Why would he speak to you?” I didn’t mean it in a dismissive way, but it sounded so as I spoke it; I meant only that Ashan was a True Djinn, a conduit, and the True Djinn had little interest in, or interaction with, the New Djinn unless forced. The idea that he would seek out Rahel, speak to her, seemed… highly unusual.

“Perhaps because with the end of us all imminent, our family squabbles mean little these days,” Rahel said coolly. “It cost him a great deal to regain enough control, even for a moment, to summon me and speak. You might at least have the courtesy to listen to what he felt was so important.”

I nodded stiffly. It wasn’t that I was unwilling to hear her, more that I was dreading what the words would be—and the trouble that they’d bring with them.

I expected her to simply recite the message, but as Rahel had pointed out, she did not lack a sense of drama. Her eyes flashed through with a sudden gleam of color… a faded teal blue, then a moonlit steel. Ashan’s colors. And Ashan’s voice issuing from her mouth, in an eerie puppetry. “The time is coming for you, Cassiel,” he said, and that was Ashan, looking out from the shell of Rahel’s form. Ashan’s cold, certain voice, speaking to me from beyond time, from another place altogether. “Your little vacation from duty is almost over. Face your fears now. Face yourself. See what I know to be true about you… that you are not one of them, and never will be. If you value the continued existence of the Djinn, you will act. Soon. Unless you’ve grown too weak with your love of humanity.”

He smiled, and it was not a pleasant expression, or a kind one. It woke rage in me, and fear, and a desire to throttle him blue, not that in his case it would make much impression on him at all.

And then, with just as much speed as he’d appeared, Ashan was gone, and Rahel was back in her own form, cocking an eyebrow at my expression. “I see you didn’t care for what he had to say,” she said. “How surprising. And you’re usually so good-natured.”

“Silence,” I snapped. “Go do something useful.”

“Not unless you have a highly specific order for me.” She stretched herself out sinuously on thin air, propped up on one elbow, and yawned, showing pointed catlike teeth. Her eyes slitted vertically, and the pupils glowed an unnatural green in the Harley’s headlights. Her skin had a warm matte glow to it, and in her own way she was as beautiful as anything I’d ever seen.

I wanted to rip her to pieces, and she knew it, and it amused her deeply. Anything I ordered her to do, she’d pick it apart, pull it to pieces, bend it all out of meaning and to her own benefit—and she’d waste my time, endlessly, in definitions.

“Please yourself, then,” I said, and gritted my teeth as she rolled over to float on her back.

Then she began to sing obnoxiously cheerful popular songs to the burning stars and rising, orange-stained moon.

It was a very long ride.

Chapter 11

DAWN WAS STILL A HINT on the horizon when we began to pass signs that led not to Sedona, but Las Vegas; a course correction that mattered little to me, since there were also Wardens in that city, and people to defend from attacks. It surprised me that the Djinn had failed to discover us during the night, until Luis woke up with a raw, startled cry and surprised me into a wobble that I quickly got back under control. Losing control of a motorcycle at this speed was a very poor idea.

Rahel had stopped singing some time back, and vanished. I hadn’t thought much of it, except that her boredom had finally outweighed my torment, but now Luis leaned forward and said in a raw voice, “The Fire Oracle’s been turned loose. He’s burning cities. I saw it. I can feel it.”

He said it quickly, but with utter certainty, and I twisted to look over my shoulder. His face was set, his eyes shadowed, and I had no doubt he meant what he’d just said. “How is that possible?” I asked. “Oracles don’t leave their positions, except the Air Oracle, who isn’t confined.…”

“I’m telling you that he’s walking, and burning. The destruction—” Luis looked ill and shaken. “I saw it. I was dreaming, but it was real. I know it was real. I saw—people—Cass, it’s happening. It’s really happening. She’s going to kill us all.”

He’d known that from the beginning, but something—some instinct for self-preservation and sanity—had withheld that knowledge from him on a gut level. Now he knew, with all the certainty that I’d always carried.

There were tears in his eyes, I could see them in the reflected light of the dashboard in front of me. “We’re not going to win,” he said. “We can’t win, Cassie. We can fight all we want, but—”

I don’t know if he would have gone on, or could have, but there was a sound from the Mustang behind us—a harsh metallic grinding sound as its engine seized and suddenly died. We were topping a hill, and below us the city of Las Vegas shimmered in a sea of light. The area seemed eerily normal, oddly quiet. I wondered if people were still gambling in the casinos. It seemed likely. People sought comfort in the oddest things.

I let off the throttle to fall back to the now-coasting car… and then the same thing happened to the bike’s motor. A rattle, a cough, and then nothing.

I coasted it to a stop at the side of the road.