Another second, and his knees went out from under him to dump him to a kneeling position. He fumbled for the rifle, but even if he’d been able to grab it, he couldn’t have fired it with the wound I’d put in his chest. I stood and walked over, weapon still held in a position from which it would be easy to fire. I stood over him.
Like Rick Harley, he was of middle age, but that was where the resemblance ended. He was a smooth-skinned man, with skin that spoke of clean, indoor living, a fattening diet, and the gentle ministrations of facial cleansers and massage therapists. He looked well-off, in other words. His rifle was clean and expensive; his clothing was designer-made, and the boots he wore seemed almost new. He radiated a kind of bland superiority that made me want to put another bullet into him, in a more painful spot.
“Name,” I said, and put the barrel of the rifle against his throat. “Please.”
He swallowed, and I felt the vibration through the metal and wood. “Errol Williams,” he said. “You’re one of them. The demons.”
“You could say that,” I said, and smiled over the warm barrel of the weapon’s long, blued steel. “You could say I’m worse. Why are you here?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he said. “You can’t touch my soul.”
“No? Are you very sure of that?” I cocked my head quizzically. Errol proved to be sensible. He stopped talking. “You were sent by the Church,” I said. “The Church of the New World. Who told you where we’d be?”
He said a name that meant nothing to me, but I hadn’t expected to have an easy solution. Ultimately, however the information had gotten to him, it was Rashid who had performed the simple, vital task of putting me in the same valley with them, at the right time.
And they’d known that I was leaving the school. Somehow, impossibly, they’d known.
That meant they also knew about the school, and Luis, and Ibby.
It meant they had someone inside, or on perimeter guard. Certainly, it had to be someone who was known to the Wardens, and trusted by them.
I didn’t kill my would-be assassin. I left him there, naked and alone, without weapons or any protection from the elements. I left him tied by his wrists to a tree, with a rope I’d found in his backpack. He’d had a neatly packed restraint-and-murder kit in it—coiled rope, wide tape, plastic strips of handcuffs, knives, and guns. Meant for me, I assumed.
Foolish.
I hefted the pack on my shoulder, considering him—naked, he had lost any sense of menace or competence he’d had clothed—and said, “You understand that I could have killed you, as I did your friends?”
He nodded, watching me very closely. He couldn’t speak. I’d used some of the tape across his mouth. He would work it loose, but for the present, I would not have to listen to his lies and protestations.
“Soon,” I said, “you may well wish that I had.”
I slung the rifle across my body and walked away, passing the clearing with Harley’s bullet-ripped tent, past his gradually cooling corpse, and stopped to completely douse the embers of his fire before moving on.
I paused at the edge of the clearing to put out a call to the area’s predatory wildlife. Most of them were smaller things—foxes, a few lynxes—but deep in the trees lived some bears, and a pack of wolves.
They might come to investigate an easy meal. They might not. It was still a better chance than he’d given Harley. Or me.
I reached my motorcycle and considered the rifle. It was a fine weapon, but I suspected that traveling with it slung across my body wouldn’t win me any thanks from the highway patrols. With a certain regret, I stripped it of bullets and tossed it into the underbrush. A quick burst of power encouraged the bushes to grow up and around it. It wouldn’t be found for some time, if ever.
I kept the bullets, which might come in handy. I sealed them in an inner pocket of the backpack, which I settled comfortably on my shoulders before I reached into my leather jacket and took out my cell phone.
Luis was on speed dial. I called, but it rang five times and then his recorded voice—still warm and friendly in this virtual contact, at least—invited me to leave a message. “Watch your back,” I said. “Someone either inside or close to the school has a Djinn, and may be working for Pearl. I was trapped coming out.” I considered reassuring him that I was all right, but that seemed obvious, considering that I was summing up events for him. “Find the traitor. It’s the only way to protect the children. Look for someone with a bottle—” My phone exploded in a scream of static as the electronics inside it fried.
“That won’t do you any good,” said a voice from behind me. I dropped the useless corpse of the phone and rolled off the bike, then up to my feet facing the Djinn. Rashid was still as I’d last seen him—elegant and exotic, clothed in opaque, shifting shadows. But he no longer smiled. “Your warnings will do no good.”
“You lied,” I said. “On the Mother, you lied.”
“No, I didn’t. Every word I said to you was true. The Warden was guilty. And I wanted him dead.”
“But you sent me into a trap. You knew Pearl’s men would be there.”
“That was the plan, to draw them out,” he said. “And I trusted that you would escape without assistance.”
“Trusted?”
“ Hopedperhaps is a better word. Yes, I hoped you would escape. As you have.” He studied me for a few silent seconds. “You’ve killed those who came against you. Without much regret.”
“I never feel much regret,” I said. “That’s the legacy of being a Djinn. I wouldn’t feel much regret in destroying you, either, under these circumstances.”
“I’m not your enemy. I was put in a position that made it impossible for me to refuse to send you to that place, or to help you once you were there. You understand?”
I did. Djinn were, after their own fashion, consistent and predictable; under a strict obligation, we would do exactly what we’d been told to do. He would have helped me if he’d been able to find a way to do so.
“I didn’t fulfill my part of the bargain,” I said. “I didn’t kill Harley.”
“He’s still dead.” Rashid shrugged. “I consider that you achieved the objective as it was worded. And I’m prepared to fulfill my obligation to you. You still want the children saved, I assume.”
“I do,” I said. “But I’ll want something more, to right the balance between us.” He bowed a little in silent agreement. “I want the name of the person within the school compound who passed word of when I would be leaving. This couldn’t have been done without advance warning. Your part, certainly; you can go anywhere you wish. But Pearl’s men had to be put in my path, and that takes timing.”
“Clever Cassiel,” Rashid said, and sighed. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Can’t,” I repeated. “Not won’t?”
He didn’t affirm or deny, simply looked at me with those fiercely glowing eyes, as expressionless as an owl. A bad feeling grew within me.
“Does this person,” I said, “possess a bottle within which you’re bound?”
No response, which was in itself a response. Someone in the Warden compound had a bottle, and had found a way to bind a True Djinn into it. I hadn’t thought that was possible anymore, not since the death of Jonathan and the breaking of the vows that had made us vulnerable in the dim mists of time, but it seemed things had changed, again. The Djinn were vulnerable—which, curiously, might serve us in the struggle against Pearl. It might be harder to destroy Djinn who had masters to protect them; a Djinn inside a bottle was almost indestructible, unless his master ordered him to extreme measures. As compensation for slavery, it was weak tea, but I couldn’t deny that it had saved Djinn lives from time to time.
“Were you bound by your own consent?” I asked. It was an important question; some Djinn allowed themselves to be so bound, for their own reasons. I could not understand it, but I did respect the legality of it.