And now I was alone here, in this world, with nothing to bind me to it but necessity.
So cold, necessity.
Eventually, even that faded, but the anguish wasn’t any less; I was simply too tired, too numb to give it voice. I had to keep moving, I knew that, but it still took a real effort of will to roll up to my feet, dust myself off, and walk back to where I’d left the motorcycle leaning by the roadside. On the seat was the helmet, and black fury twisted inside me as I contemplated putting it back on. I was no humanto need that frail protection. I dropped the helmet and kicked it, hard; it skidded away into the trees.
I mounted the Victory and was about to bring it to life when a voice said, “I never thought you had the capacity to cry, Cassiel. Much less the impulse.” It came from behind me, and I twisted around to see a Djinn sitting—reclining, actually—on the branch of a tree above me. He was a beautiful creature, and human only in form; his skin was storm-gray, and his hair seemed to flow like liquid gold down his bare shoulders. All of him was bare, in fact, and as perfect as a Greek sculpture—every muscular line of him drawn with a master’s eye.
His eyes glowed a vivid, warm violet, casting their own light in the shadows.
His name was Rashid, and he had been useful to me before. I would not go so far as to classify him as an ally, because I could predict the actions of an ally with reasonable certainty; Rashid was fascinated with me, but it was a magpie’s fascination with a shiny object. He might aid me, and he might peck at me simply for the amusement value. Still, he had definitely helped me before, which was why I didn’t reach out and snap the branch he was sitting on with a bad-tempered burst of Earth powers for surprising me. He’d seen me cry. That was reason enough to dislike him, for all his naked glory.
And it was ... quite glorious.
“Has clothing gone so far out of style?” I asked him. “I’ve not been paying attention to fashion.”
He smirked. “I heard you’d begun to ... appreciate the male figure,” he said. “I hoped you might appreciate mine.”
“I don’t,” I said. “Anything else?”
He rolled sideways, falling from the branch, twisting, and landing lithely on bare, perfectly formed feet. He still wasn’t bothering to cover himself, and I had to admit, the manhood on display as he walked toward me was ... impressive. Though only in a technical sense, of course.
“Well,” he said, “I thought you might like to know that Pearl’s taken a new group of children. Her followers struck in Denver, and they’re moving their captives in a van toward a nexus of power.”
All my theoretical appreciation of his form evaporated as I fixed my attention completely on his face. There was no human sense of outrage there, only a distant and odd amusement. “Where?”
“Where are they now? Or where are they going?”
“Going,” I said, and started the engine.
“Oh, you won’t get there in time,” he said. “They’re driving fast, and they’ll arrive at their destination in less than six hours. It would take you, oh, twenty to reach them, even if you pushed your machine and yourself to the limit. Once they’re in the nexus, Pearl can transport them anywhere she wishes. You’ll never find them again.”
I bit back a growl of frustration. “Then why tell me?”
He grinned, and his teeth seemed sharper than before. “I thought you might be grateful for my help.”
“And how do you propose to be of help, you useless naked fool?”
“Temper, Cassiel,” he chided me, and kept his grin. “I can slow them down, of course. I could even try to free the children. For a price.”
Bargaining was a way of life among the Djinn, but that didn’t make it any more welcome at this moment. I needed a friend, not a mercenary. But I’d left my friends behind, and Rashid was what I had left.
“Don’t look at me that way,” he said, and leaned on the handlebars of my bike, propping his chin on his palm. “Don’t you want to save those children? Isn’t that the heroic Cassiel I’ve been hearing so much about?”
“Price,” I growled.
“Simple,” he said. “I want you to perform a service for me. It won’t stretch your abilities in the least, and best of all, it fits your personality very nicely. In fact, I should think you’ll find my request a definite pleasure.”
I gritted my teeth. “I won’t couple with you, like some animal in the forest. Don’t disgrace us both by making the suggestion.”
He managed to appear both shocked and delighted. “Would I ask that? Well, I might now; so kind of you to put it on the menu of options available. But no, I promise you, my request has nothing whatsoever to do with reproduction, human or otherwise. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
That cast a shadow over the conversation, a deliberate one. I frowned as I stared at him, reading nothing in his expression or his inhuman violet eyes. “Meaning?”
“Meaning that I’d like you to kill a man for me,” Rashid said, and dropped all his playacting. In this, at least, he was deadly serious. “I trust that’s not beyond your abilities. In fact, I think you positively enjoy it.”
He was not completely wrong in that, but I’d not give him the satisfaction of saying so. “Whom do you wish me to kill?” I asked.
“No one you know. It has nothing to do with you.”
“And why can’t you kill him yourself?”
“Because I made another bargain elsewhere, and now I find myself ... restrained,” Rashid said. “But it doesn’t mean I can’t ask someone to do it on my behalf. It’s a moment’s work for you, Cassiel, and if you do it, I will save your innocent children from the clutches of the evil Djinn. What say you? I think the advantages are all to you.”
As bargains went, it wasn’t bad, but there were unknowns in it, things that made me feel uneasy. I can’t claim that my conscience would prevent it; my conscience was not human, though there were moments when I liked to pretend. I had contemplated murder in the past, and still did think about it on a regular basis. The reason I didn’t act on it—or at least, not usually—was that it so often came with complications.
So might this, as simple as it seemed.
“How far away is this unfortunate person?” I asked.
“Luckily for you, only about an hour’s ride, if you don’t spare the horsepower. He has a tent struck out in the woods. You don’t even have to look into his eyes as you end him; a simple accident would suffice for my needs. Maybe something in a nice rockfall, or a tree flattening him. I’d prefer something that painful and lingering, but your pleasure.”
“His name.”
Rashid flipped his hand dismissively. “You hardly need that.”
“I may not need it, but I want it.”
His eyebrows rose, then drew together. “I have said, you don’t know him.”
“Is he a Warden?” Silence. I matched him frown for frown. “You want a Wardendestroyed. At such a dangerous time, when the humans need all the help they can get?”
Rashid lost all his playfulness, and his beauty, as he glared at me. Anger sharpened the angles of his face, and the bones seemed to take on edges beneath the skin. “This one needs to be killed,” he said, quite softly. “This one killed a Djinn.”
There were ways to kill a Djinn, but not many, and few were within the reach of a human, even a Warden. Where it had happened, the end for the Djinn had been slow, agonizing, and appalling. “How?”
“Does it matter? A Djinn no longer exists, one who lived thousands of human lifetimes and was worth more than a river of human blood and a mountain of human bones. A Djinn who was my child.” That last was a hiss, like steam escaping from a vent deep in the earth’s core. “This Warden had him in a bottle, once. Then when he let him go, he ordered him to fight an Ifrit, to the death. For profit. My son died for money. Tell me I should show mercy, Cassiel. Tell me.”