Joanne and David had their own transportation, a solid-looking car that seemed capable of good speed when required. Oddly, there was already someone in the car that was parked a short distance away, covered with the inevitable blurring curtain of dust… and that was the car that Joanne and David entered, in the backseat. No sooner did the door close behind them than the car spun tires and headed for the road. “Who’s driving the car?” I asked Luis. He shrugged.
“Knowing her? Satan.”
I let out the clutch and followed. A few moments later, power shimmered the air, and I felt something passing over us like a hot gust of wind. “Veil!” Luis shouted in my ear. “We’re hidden, so don’t expect anybody to get out of the way for you from now on!”
I gunned the engine and passed the Mustang, slowing down to take a look at the driver, purely out of personal curiosity. He was a Djinn—or at least, that was my first and vivid impression, but then I had to wonder, because there was something not quite… right. The form of a Djinn, but when I checked in Oversight I saw no sign of a Djinn presence inhabiting that form. It was like a lifeless robot—the kind of hollowed-out shell that Mother Earth was using to deliver her plagues, but this one showed no such signs of infection.
Merely… emptiness.
As I was staring, the creature turned its head and met my gaze. Not vacant, after all. It was definitely being—piloted, I supposed, was the only word for it.
The Djinn’s lips moved, and I shouldn’t have been able to hear the words, but they came through clearly. “Don’t you worry about it,” said a clear, Southern-accented feminine voice. “He’s not connected to the Mother. He’s connected to me.”
“And who are you?”
“Whitney,” she said. “Djinn conduit for the younger side of the family. Pleased to meet you, Cassiel. I’ve 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.