djinn wars 01 - chosen (26 page)

Then I came around the corner and found the real reason why we’d come there: the Hispanic food section. I was sort of surprised to see that all the saint candles seemed undisturbed. Maybe people had been more interested in seeing to their physical needs than their spiritual ones, or possibly it was just that they hadn’t thought to use the candles for lighting after the power failed. Whatever. It didn’t matter now. What mattered was that I was able to scoop up a dozen of the things, packing them in and around the toilet paper and the boxes of Kleenex and all the other items I’d picked up.

“Got ’em!” I called out.

Jace’s voice came back to me from the other side of the store. “Great! Go on out to the Jeep — I’m almost done.”

I wasn’t sad to hear that at all. This grocery store wasn’t quite as creepy as the Walgreens had been, since the flashlight I held was far more effective than the one I’d had then. Besides, I knew Jace would come running the second I gave the alarm, should anything strange happen. All the same, I was glad to get out of there, out of the lingering stench and the mournful realization that nobody would be coming by to restock those shelves or pick up the items that had been knocked to the floor.

As I was beginning to load my haul into the cargo area of the Cherokee, Jace came out as well, his cart full to the brim with those big economy-size bags of rice, boxes of salt, pepper grinders, container after container of spices — you name it, he seemed to have nabbed it from the bakery aisle, including some much-needed tins of olive oil. We had some, but not nearly enough. This would definitely help to extend our supplies for a good many more months.

“Looks like you plan to keep me chained to the stove for a good while longer,” I joked.

He slanted me one of those dark-lashed looks I loved so much. “Oh, I might give you time off for good behavior.”

“That a fact?”

“Absolutely.”

A hint of a smile had been playing around the corners of his mouth, but as I watched, it faded. When I followed his gaze, I thought I understood why. I’d excavated my cart to the point where all that was left were the saints candles. He reached in and picked one up, turning it over in his hands. From her blue robe, I guessed the saint depicted on it was the Virgin Mary, but I didn’t know for sure. My family wasn’t Catholic.

Elena would have known, but she was long gone.

“I suppose we’re done here,” Jace said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” I told him. “Let’s go.”

Although we hadn’t discussed our plan in any detail, somehow we were both drawn to the monument at the center of the plaza. It seemed that here, in the heart of the city, was the best place to pay our respects.

Dead leaves had scattered over the walkways, but otherwise the place looked as if it hadn’t been touched since the last time I was here, when the voice had summoned the wind to sweep up the mess the looters had left behind. True, many of the stores had their windows broken in, but unlike at the Albertson’s, there was no glass scattered on the ground.

I had to wonder how much of that detail Jace took in as we walked from the Jeep to the center of the plaza. Some, it seemed, if the tight lines of his mouth and the puzzled furrow in his brow were any indication. But he didn’t ask any questions, only continued to the monument and the low wall that surrounded it.

The day had remained dark, the clouds threatening, although it hadn’t rained. It smelled like it might, though, heavy and damp. If it did, then these candles wouldn’t last very long. But at least we would have made the effort.

Still not speaking, we each took our burden of candles and placed them at regular intervals along the low wall surrounding the monument. Jace produced a box of strike-anywhere matches from the inner pocket of his jacket, then took one out and used the rough concrete of the wall to get it started. It flared up, and he cupped it in his hand, moving from candle to candle and lighting them one by one. They flickered in the chilly wind but didn’t go out.

We’d waited to go out on this expedition until late afternoon, and now it was almost dusk. It was the first time I’d ventured out into the city at anywhere close to dark, and I realized how very black it would soon become, especially with the cloud cover blocking out any possible moonlight or starlight. But we had our flashlights, and, for the moment at least, the candles themselves were giving off far more illumination than I had expected they would.

Jace glanced over at me, and I nodded. This had been his idea, after all, and so I thought he should be the one to make the speeches.

For a long moment, he didn’t speak, but only stood there in front of the candle with the Virgin Mary on it, the blue of her robe seeming to glow from within. Then he said, “We honor all those who walk in the paths of their ancestors. Those of us who are left here behind have so many questions, questions we know will never be answered. But our thoughts are with you, and we hope you have all found peace in the next world.”

The next words he uttered, I couldn’t understand, and I realized he must be speaking the language of the Pueblo. The sound of it was slow and sad, but strong and rich as well, and I found something inside me unclenching for the first time since I’d left Albuquerque. True, I had written something of the time before, in the little sketches I’d jotted down during my first days at the compound. After that, though, I had walled away my grief, thinking that the only way to survive and go on was not to think of everyone who was gone, of everyone I had lost. Now, hearing Jace speak, I knew that had been the wrong approach. I needed to celebrate who they were and what they had done, not pretend they had never existed. That was doing them no service, giving them no honor.

Jace fell silent, and I could see the way he looked over at me, clearly expecting me to say something. How I was supposed to follow that, I had no idea. But no, that was foolish. This wasn’t a competition.

“I miss you all,” I said simply, then turned and began to walk away from the monument. I didn’t bother to turn on my flashlight, even though the sun had gone down by then. The illumination from the candles was enough to light my path.

From behind me, I heard the sound of Jace’s footsteps, hurrying a little so he could catch up with me. And then I felt his hand slip into mine, his fingers warm and strong, even though it was cold enough that we really should have been wearing gloves. My own fingers felt as if they’d been dipped in ice water.

Neither of us said anything. It was enough then to walk hand in hand back to the Jeep, to take comfort in the feel of human flesh pressed against mine, reassuring in the dark and the cold. When it was time to pull the car key out of my pocket, I hesitated for a fraction of a second. I didn’t want to let go of him, to relinquish my grip on his fingers.

He seemed to detect my reluctance, because he stood there next to me for a moment, his grip tensing. But then he let go and said, “Let’s get home.”

I couldn’t argue with that. The night wind was drilling through the anorak I wore as if it were made of gauze rather than sturdy canvas, and right then the thought of being surrounded in the warmth of our house seemed even more attractive than usual.

So I nodded and unlocked the Cherokee, and we both climbed in. After I’d pulled away from where we were parked and was negotiating the narrow, car-choked streets — a task far more difficult after dark than it was during the day — I felt Jace’s hand cover mine where it rested on the gearshift.

“You okay?” he asked.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the road, but I nodded. “I think so. That was — ” The exact word seemed to elude me. Moving? Sad? Satisfying? All those, and more. “It helped,” I finally said, hoping he would understand what I meant.

It appeared he did, because his fingers tightened around mine. All he said, though, was, “Good.” And then he let go, seeming to realize that I needed to focus on driving. Although I’d gone back and forth along this route several times, it had always been during the day, and of course there were no streetlights to guide me along my way.

I flicked on the high-beams and slowed down. Good thing, too, because when I finally got to it, I almost missed the turn-off to Upper Canyon Road. Muttering a curse, I angled the Cherokee onto the street at almost the last minute. In the passenger seat, Jace shifted, but he remained silent, as if he knew any comments on my driving were the last thing I needed right then.

We bumped along, and then there was gravel under our wheels as we left the paved road and began to head up the winding dirt track that led to the compound. I slowed so I could shift into four-wheel drive, and when I looked up, I let out a little screech. Three pairs of eyes seemed to glow red as they stared straight into the Jeep’s headlights.

“Coyotes,” Jace murmured. “It’s okay — just drive forward slowly. They’ll get out of the way.”

Which they did, as I began to inch toward them. Somehow, though, their movements seemed almost leisurely, as if they weren’t too worried about me running them over. Almost at the last minute they got out of the way, but they only moved to the side of the road, where they stood and stared as we passed them by.

Something about their posture, about the way they were watching the Jeep, made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. It wasn’t the cold; I’d turned on the heater as soon as we got inside the SUV. No, their unblinking surveillance just felt…wrong. Unnatural. I’ll admit I wasn’t the world’s foremost authority on coyotes, but in general, wild animals tended to scatter when confronted by something as large and intimidating as a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

I shot a sideways glance at Jace. He wasn’t looking at me, though, and instead was staring out the passenger window. I didn’t know how much he could even see, since the high-beams were illuminating the road ahead of us, not either side.

“That was weird,” I said, once we were past the coyotes and they’d melted away into the darkness.

“A little,” he agreed. Then I saw his shoulders lift. “Maybe they’re getting bold now that they don’t have to worry about getting run over every time they come out of hiding.”

That sounded plausible. But still a note of wrongness seemed to echo inside me, and I couldn’t help thinking there had to be more to it than that. Then again, the world had ended in a way no one could have ever predicted. Things had been wrong for weeks now.

Well, mainly. I risked a sideways glance at Jace and saw that he was looking out the window again, his fine profile faintly illuminated by the glow from the dashboard lights.

Looking at him, I knew there was one thing right in my life.

Although I cast worried glances from side to side as we approached the compound and I pushed the remote to open the gate, I saw nothing in the darkness, no gleaming red or yellow eyes of various wildlife just waiting to pounce. We came onto the property without incident, although I activated the controls for the gate as soon as our rear bumper had cleared it. The motion-activated lights above the garage door turned on as we approached.

Off in the distance, I did see a shimmer of eyes glowing in the darkness, and I jumped.

“It’s okay,” Jace said softly. “It’s just the goats.”

I didn’t quite relax, but I did let out my breath. “Oh, right.”

Was that a chuckle? When I glanced over at him, his expression was sober enough, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Fine, if he wanted to laugh at me for jumping at shadows — or glowing eyeballs, in this case — I’d let him. I didn’t see anything wrong with staying on my guard.

But the unpacking of the Cherokee passed without incident, although it took longer than I’d expected to unload all that stuff and get it safely stowed. Dutchie kept wandering between us, trying to track all the new and interesting smells we were bringing in the house, until at last I bribed her with a chewy treat so she’d get out from underfoot.

By then it was moving on toward seven o’clock, and far past time for dinner. When I had all afternoon to figure out what to make and plenty of time to prepare it, I really didn’t mind cooking. Right now, though, I thought I might have sold my soul for pizza delivery. Or Chinese takeout.

Jace must have noticed my lack of enthusiasm for the task at hand, because he said, “It’s not that bad. Look what I brought back.” And I saw that he held a package of fettucini in one hand and a jar of vodka cream sauce in the other. “Add some of that rabbit sausage you made a few days ago, and we’re set.”