“You must be Frank Halley. She said her brother- in-law was a cop.”
“Yeah, well, she don’t like me much, and the feeling’s mutual, but whatever. This ain’t about that.”
“So what is it about?”
“I got a job for you,” Halley said. “Sick kid.”
A shadow passed over Luis’s face. I knew he hated saying no to people, but at the same time, Earth Wardens didn’t normally agree to healing for the general public. It was harsh, but necessary; if word got out about what they could do, it would bring an endless stream of sufferers to their doorsteps, and it would prevent them from carrying out their larger duties.
“I know it’s not normal,” Halley said, “but this kid’s kind of special. She showed up half starved, dehydrated, with a nasty case of infection; no family, no missing kid bulletin out on her. She’s about five years old.”
Hope flared hot in Luis’s eyes, and I know it must have registered in my expression as well. “No name?”
“She’s too sick to talk.”
Halley was, I believed, deliberately vague as to details. He was allowing Luis’s desperation to fill in information.
I thought I understood why. “This girl,” I said. “She is not Isabel Rocha. You wish us to think she could be, to bring Luis face-to-face with her. You believe he could not refuse once he saw her, even if she isn’t his niece.”
Halley and his partner stared at me. I didn’t blink.
“Yeah,” Halley finally said. “That’s true. Look, the kid’s in bad shape. They’ve tried all the treatments, even the IV antibiotics. She’s dying. I figure you’re about the only shot she’s got left, unless Saint Joseph works a miracle.” He paused, studying Luis. “You a religious man?”
“I been to mass a time or two.” He was, in fact, much more religious than that; I’d heard him praying, from time to time, that we would find Isabel. Or avenge her. “Why?”
Halley shrugged. “Always wondered is all. You Wardens, you’re practically gods, what with all the slinging lightning bolts and healing the sick. Bea ain’t religious. So I just wondered.”
“We’re not any kind of gods, big Gor small,” Luis said. “Ain’t even angels, man. We’re just people. Smart Wardens know that better than anybody. You play God, people die.”
Halley looked like he wanted to keep on talking, but I broke in to say, “If the girl is as sick as you say, we shouldn’t waste time.”
Both policemen looked startled, although they covered it quickly. “So you’ll go?” Halley asked, and started the car’s engine.
“Of course he’ll go,” I said, without so much as a glance at Luis. The bond between us was strong enough that I had no doubts of it; I wouldn’t have doubted it in any case, because it was exactly the sort of thing Luis would do, whether or not it was wise. “You should have just asked.”
Halley rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Shoulda thought of that.”
The girl was in the hospital. I had never visited one before, although of course I knew the theory; there had been no need, when Manny and Angela were shot, because their wounds had been immediately fatal. If they had been taken to the hospital—and I supposed that they might have been—they would not have been placed in one of these complicated beds, hooked to machines, reduced to a limp, suffering sack of dying meat.
I did not like the hospital.
The child was so small.Smaller than Isabel, and nothing at all like her in coloring: blond, rosy pink skin, a delicate rosebud mouth. I could not see the color of her eyes; she was deeply unconscious.
Parts of her body were deeply discolored and bruised. The infection Detective Halley had mentioned, but not a violent attack. This child was thin, ill-looked-after, but her fight was against a much more ruthless enemy.
The room stank of death. I paused at the door, swallowing convulsively, and Halley came to a stop with me.
“Sad,” he said. “Right?”
I didn’t answer. I watched Luis. He entered the sterile room in slow, deliberate steps, as if he was afraid he might frighten the child, who surely could not have known he was there. He was, by contrast to her tiny body, a large man, well muscled, heavily tattooed, and it struck me as I watched that a human chancing on this scene would have assumed Luis to be a criminal, intent on harming the child.
Until they saw his face, his eyes, the heartbreakingly gentle way he laid the back of his hand on the girl’s forehead and settled his weight on the bed beside her. He had large hands, but his fingers stroked gently through her hair, as if she might feel the comfort he offered.
“Cass,” he said. “I need you.”
He looked up into my eyes, and I felt it like a physical shock—a demand, but a kind one, with good intention behind it.
And more. More than that. A complicated mixture of need and desire, dread and worry. For a disorienting moment, I saw myself through his eyes: tall, pale, expressionless, and apparently free of all connection to the human world.
Apparently.
I was abruptly conscious of my body, all the complex and fascinating parts of it; I felt the chilled air of the room moving over my skin, and felt gooseflesh gather. My heart pounded harder, altering its rhythm. My mouth felt dry, and without conscious decision, I stepped forward, first one foot, then another, until I was standing across the child’s bed from Luis Rocha.
He held out his right hand, keeping his left in gentle contact with the girl’s forehead. My fingers closed over his, and the raw tactile pleasure of it took my breath away. I felt a tingle of power pulse through the link between us, and then through him. I touched the wellspring of power hidden deep in the Earth herself—slow, silent, strong power. The feel of it coursing through my nerves, through Luis’s, was enough to send my memories sparking to other times, other places, other lives. I had never been human, but I had been Djinn a very, very long time, and this, this feeling of touching the eternal . . .
I let out a shaky sigh, almost a moan, and began to refine the power, shape it, form it into a golden flood that Luis used his human expertise to direct into the child’s fragile body. This was a thing some Djinn could do, and others could not; I had never been very interested in healing, but I found myself fascinated with the gentle precision with which he worked. It was all out of proportion to his physical appearance, his intimidating aspect.
I found that pleasing.
Luis worked with great concentration, and it took a very long time—hours, in fact. The policemen left, returned, and left again. Doctors and nurses came and went, but no one bothered us; I wondered why, until I realized that there must have been some common consent that this last effort would be tolerated. There was no harm in it.
The mottled stains beneath her skin gradually began to fade. Luis stopped for a few moments then, gasping for breath, and I poured him a glass of water from the carafe standing next to the bed. He drank it in two convulsive gulps, and I realized that his shirt was dark with sweat, and his hair was dripping with it. His muscles trembled with the strain.
I put a pale, dry hand on his moist arm, over the flame-shaped tattoo, and said, “It’s enough.”
“No,” Luis said, and held out his glass for another pour from the carafe. “It’s still in her blood. Tough little buggers, but I’m getting them. I’ve got her major organs cleaned, but if I don’t kill it in her bloodstream, she’ll re-infect.” He paused to drink again—three gulps, this time. “You got enough to keep going?”
Did I? The question surprised me, and I quickly turned my appraisal back on myself. I was unused, still, to human limits, but he was right; my body was trembling, robbed of energy, and I was burningly thirsty.
I took the glass from him, refilled it, and downed it in two convulsive swallows. “I’m fine,” I said.
He took the carafe, shook it, and then shrugged and upended it to drink the last few mouthfuls, depositing it back on the table, empty. “Then let’s do it.”