I backed through the swinging doors, not daring to take my eyes off them. “Get in the truck,” I called over my shoulder. “Take her with you. Start driving.”
“Cass—”
“Do it!” I heard the front bell ring as they left, and the normality of that sound was made all the more wrenching by the three Djinn who simply misted right through the walls, walking toward me. I knew that I couldn’t take on three Djinn; even with Luis, there was no possibility of surviving the experience.
Instead, I took in a deep breath and set myself on fire.
The effect was, indeed, spectacular; the flames bloomed along my sleeve, and I screamed in panic and made a show of trying to slap them out. In fact, I was spreading them over my jacket, then down my pants, until my whole body was coated in a writhing fury of orange fire. I screamed again, ran into a table, and fell to the floor, still burning. The floor around me began to sizzle and melt. Flames climbed up the wooden legs of the chair against which I lay.
I thrashed a bit, and then went still. The hiss of the burning floor and table was helpful in selling the illusion that my flesh was blackening and sizzling like meat on a grill, and after a few more seconds, the Djinn lost interest in me and misted away.
I let the fire go on for a few more seconds. It was as well I did, because the last Djinn to leave—the one I’d burned, who did in fact still trail smoke behind him—came back to watch for a moment. Not mistrust, I thought, so much as satisfaction.
When he was finally gone, I doused the flames, rolled up to my feet, and ran for my motorcycle. Luis’s truck was long gone; I had done my best to focus the Djinn on me, not on him, so I was hopeful that he wouldn’t be their target if he was fleeing. All I needed to do was fire up the Victory, and…
The Victory was a steaming, melted pile of scrap metal.
I stared at it, grim and quite disappointed, and with a muttered curse, moved down the street to another building, then another. It seemed that every vehicle in town had been destroyed, and I was still searching for something, anything, that could take me on the road when I heard, very distinctly, the blatting sounds of motorcycle engines, more than one, approaching down the deserted main street.
I ducked outside. A biker gang, at least twenty strong, was cruising through, checking out the prospects for food, fuel, or looting; they had the hard, grubby look of men and women who’d been on the road for days, and the hunted expressions of those who’d seen too much.
I stepped out into their way, and the first wave of bikes coasted to a stop just inches from my body.
Even idling, the Harleys were loud beasts. The one I immediately pegged as the leader was looking me over, frowning, and he finally said, “So, are you stupid, or just crazy?”
“Neither,” I said. “I need a motorcycle.”
Under normal circumstances that would have gotten a derisive laugh, but not this time. They had no more humor left, it seemed. I saw guns being drawn, including a sawed-off shotgun, which would have worried me if I hadn’t already had considerable experience with firearms. I didn’t blink, or look away from the leader’s face.
“You need to get out of here and keep moving,” I told him. “Stay away from towns. Try to live off the land, and conserve your fuel. Once it goes dry, there may not be more for a while. Things are going to get worse, not better.”
“I’m still listening for a reason not to shoot you and get you out of our way,” he said. “Got anything, blondie?”
In response, I deflated both tires on his bike. He yelped in surprise as the weight shifted, struggling to hold it upright. “I could destroy some of your bikes,” I said quietly. “I could do that quite spectacularly, if I wished. They blow up so well. Or I could fuse the parts together. Or even fuse you into the metal, which I assure you would be very unpleasant, until you died of the experience. But I’m trying to be hospitable.” I called a fireball and balanced it in a blazing hand-sized bonfire on my palm. “I need a vehicle. I’m sorry I have nothing to give you for it, but let’s call it the spoils of war. If I’m still alive later, I’ll buy a new one for the leader of the”—I checked the logo on the back of his weathered denim jacket—“Devil’s Traitors.”
To his credit, he didn’t immediately back off, though his eyes had narrowed at the sight of the flame held so casually in my hand. “We’re out of Albuquerque,” he said. “You’d better make it a fucking awesome bike, lady.” He looked toward the back of the pack, and pointed. “Take Pointer’s ride. Pointer, double up with Gar, and don’t bitch about it. We’ll steal you another one down the road.”
The tough-looking one-eyed man he indicated didn’t seem pleased, but he did as instructed, leaving the Harley idling and leaning on its kickstand as he took his place on the other bike. I nodded thanks, and mounted up.
“Blondie,” the biker said from the front of the pack. I released the kickstand. “If I see you again and you aren’t wheeling in a brand-new shiny ride for Pointer, this ain’t going to go well for you. Got me?”
I nodded. “Seems fair,” I said. “I live in Albuquerque. I’ll find you.”
“Not if I find you first,” he said, and let out the clutch. They picked up speed and left the streets in a swirl of dust and trash.
I hit the throttle, and went in pursuit of Luis.
He’d stopped on the side of the road twenty miles away, at another roadhouse; this one was deserted and locked, but he’d opened it up, and Betty was inspecting the establishment with enthusiasm. He eyed my new Harley with raised eyebrows. “Bike trouble?” he asked.
“Don’t ask.” I was annoyed at the way the Harley rode; the bars were too far forward and low, and it would take time to customize it properly. I missed the Victory. “She’ll be all right here. We have to go. I’m not entirely sure the Djinn will leave us be, although I did a good imitation of gruesomely dying for their benefit.”
“Would have paid to see that one,” he said, and then shook his head, all humor falling away. “No, actually, I wouldn’t. Let’s never put on that particular show, okay?”
“I agree,” I said. “Let’s not.”
Tracking Joanne was exhausting, and we dodged trouble over and over again; there were more Djinn now, and more active. The few humans we ran into seemed more interested in fleeing than fighting, which was lucky; it meant less destruction left in our wake.
But it took too long to match our course to Joanne’s finally stationary position.
I released the throttle on the roaring Harley and coasted to a halt as we topped the last rise. We’d gotten an update from Lewis Orwell to meet Joanne Baldwin at a government contractor’s secured installation in the Texas panhandle near Amarillo, and it was close, very close—though the smoke rising up into the clear blue sky didn’t bode well for the installation’s fate. Luis’s truck stopped next to me, and he rolled down the window.
“Madre,” Luis murmured, as we looked down at the true scale of the destruction in front of us. The buildings that had—presumably—once existed had been leveled into rubble. The secure fencing at the perimeter of the facility lay in twists and tatters, and near the center of the large debris field lay an enormous pit from which black smoke and dust still drifted. “What the hell was this place?”
There was a sign—damaged and ripped partway down the center, but still readable. “Some kind of research and construction facility,” I said. “Nuclear weapons.”
“Perfect,” Luis said grimly. “My day wasn’t sucking hard enough; I get to fry my balls off, too. Feel that? Radiation’s off the scale.”
“It can be dealt with,” I said. “She’s down there. In the pit. Buried, I think.”
“Sure, because that’ll be easy, given our great history with that kind of thing. Plus radiation.”
“And there are Djinn down there, as well,” I said, concentrating harder. The residual boiling energies of the fight made a confusing smear of livid color on the aetheric, but I could still see the flitting, telltale motions that betrayed the presence of my former brothers and sisters. “She’s battling them.”