“No other choice,” I choked, and fell beside him. Even Janice had collapsed to her knees, though Elijah and Sanjay were still moving, still a threat. “Can’t compel him.”
He was our last hope, but Rashid didn’t appear. Seconds ticked by, brutal and hopeless. Isabel went down, and Shasa; I dropped the stone and crawled to her, pulling her into my weak arms. The power inside me boiled impotently. There was nothing it could do. I tried to soften the stone beneath us, provide an escape route, but our enemies had thought of that, too.
No way out.
Elijah began to claw at the walls with his power, fighting Marion for control. He had more power, and he was winning.
“Give up,” Janice said between coughs. Her eyes were bloodshot and strained from gasping for what little air was left. She no longer radiated warmth and comfort, only desperation and fury. “Why won’t you just give up? Do you really think you can win?”
I didn’t give up because I couldn’t. That, I thought was something Janice, a mercenary at heart, could never really understand ... that there were some battles too important to retreat from, at any cost.
I’d gambled on Rashid, but that might have been my own blindness. I trusted a Djinn because I’d once been a Djinn, and yet I knew all too well that he had no obligation, no reason to help us. Luis had been ruthless, but he might have been right to keep Rashid captive.
No. I had done right.
I would die doing right.
I would die beside Luis, holding Isabel, and at least we would be together. At least that.
A blast of fresh air swept through the room, sweet and cold, and I gasped it in with helpless hunger. Luis’s lungs heaved, too, and Isabel’s. It braced all of us, and gave us a precious few more moments.
Unfortunately, it also gave Sanjay the fuel he needed to ignite an intense, tightly compacted fireball in the palm of his small hand, and fling it directly at me.
I had no chance of avoiding it, or of turning it aside. I reached for Earth power to try to form a shield of stone, but he’d acted so quickly I was drastically unprepared.
Luis lunged across me and intercepted the strike. The incandescent ball of boiling plasma hit him in the chest, and threw him like a rag doll into the cracked, smoking wall. He screamed, and convulsed, and I tried to get to him. I tried, but Sanjay threw another bolt, and this time I was able to raise the stone in time to block it, but Luis ...
He was lying motionless, limp as an animal broken at the side of the road.
The scream that came from my throat left it bloody and raw, and instead of relying on power I rushed the boy, shocking him, and grabbed him in my arms in a tackle. He felt scalding-hot, as if in the grip of a killing fever. I put my hand flat on his forehead and managed to moderate the power that I poured into him, although my instincts were to kill, to punish. ... But it wasn’t the boy I needed to kill.
It was the old woman, with her fixed and mocking smile, who watched from behind Elijah, with her other sleeping hostages around her. I lunged for her.
Elijah simply batted me aside, as if I were an insect, and sliced his hand down at my neck. I sensed the force he was wielding, blunt and brutal; he’d have crushed my flesh and bones, destroyed me without a single moment of mercy.
Something caught his hand on the way down.
Rashid.
The Djinn’s perfect suit and tie were at odds with the feral twist of his lips and the fire in his eyes—silver and as hot as the blaze bursting the stones around us. He held Elijah by the arm and looked down at where I lay dazed on the floor. “Get up,” he said. “And don’t think this makes us even, Cassiel. Your human owes me debts that will take generations to repay.”
“I know,” I said, and rolled to my feet. “Is the air your gift?”
“I couldn’t have you dying before I reaped my rewards.” Rashid looked down at the boy, who was struggling to break free. “This one’s stronger than I’d expect.” And Rashid was controlling him without much apparent effort. Impressive.
“Don’t harm him,” I said.
“Really, do you think I am so cruel?” Rashid did a good job of seeming offended, but I knew he wasn’t; I knew him too well to think he would blink at any action, no matter how morally offensive to a human. “Hush, child. Enough.” He touched a fingertip to Elijah’s forehead, and the boy went limp. Rashid dropped him to the floor and extended his hand to me. I wasn’t too proud to accept the help.
“Luis,” I said, with dawning horror. “Luis was hit—”
“Yes.” Rashid didn’t move; he didn’t so much as glance at where Luis lay. I rushed past Rashid, but he caught me and dragged me to a sliding stop. “Wait.” He held up a sharp finger to silence me, more of a threat than a gesture. Then he tilted it toward Luis.
Who was sitting up, staring down at the charred hole in his shirt. It was a black-edged gap of more than ten inches across. Beneath it, his skin looked normal and undamaged.
I wasn’t imagining it this time. His flame tattoos moved, shifting like shadows in nervous flickers, and then went still again.
Luis touched the burned edges of the fabric and looked up at me, lips parted in wonder.
“What happened?” he asked. He still looked pale and ill, but he should have been dead. That plasma ball from Sanjay had hit him with full force, and as an Earth Warden he had no real defense against it.
As an Earth Warden.
Luis, whether he recognized it or not, was manifesting a critical second power. I’d seen it, from time to time; I’d felt it in those inked tattoos, but I hadn’t understood what it was. But I did know that this time it had saved his life, and mine as well.
“As you see,” Rashid said, “he’s in no immediate need of my help. Not that I would give it.”
“He’s still bleeding,” I said.
“Survivable. And also not my problem.”
I had half expected that. “Then can you help us out of here?”
Rashid’s handsome, inhumanly sharp face relaxed into an unexpectedly charming smile. “For a price, of course.”
There were too many lives at stake to play this game. “I freed you,” I said, and held his gaze. It wasn’t easy, with those hot silver eyes boring into mine. “I freed you, and that is price enough, Rashid. Don’t push your luck.”
“Don’t push yours, friend Cassiel. One day you’ll need me more than you need me today.”
I looked around at the collapsing shell of our safety. At Shasa, somehow holding back the fire, at the last edge of her strength. At Marion, doing the same with the crumbling stone barrier. At Luis, Isabel, the fallen children. “If I need you more than this,” I said, “then I don’t think even you will be enough.”
Rashid cocked his head, as if surprised by that, and nodded. “Await me,” he said, and walked out, through the barrier of flames. Fire didn’t bother Djinn. In fact, it strengthened them. Djinn were born of inferno, long ago; that was why we’d been named devils, from time to time. But we were simpler than that.
And much, much more.
The attack against us fell into confusion, and then died away. The fires, left undirected by someone with that affinity, snuffed themselves out; they’d long ago exhausted their natural fuel. A few guttered in the ashes, but most of it was smoke, and even that quickly thinned.
Rashid came back, dragging two bodies. I didn’t know either one, but he hadn’t left much to recognize, either. He dropped them at my feet, like a cat leaving kills for its owner, and turned toward Janice.
I’d almost forgotten her. She was moving quietly toward the back of the room, where the stones had broken. No doubt she’d planned to slip out while we were distracted.
She was carrying the two boys in her arms, one on each hip.
Rashid looked at me. “Yours?” he asked.