djinn wars 02 - taken (20 page)

I didn’t know what I’d been expecting — some crazy lab full of equipment I couldn’t identify, a whiteboard covered with symbols, like I’d seen in just about every show and movie that included a mad genius scientist — but that didn’t describe the room I was in now. No, it looked like an oversized conference room, with a rectangular table and a dozen chairs, and a blank wall where maybe they could have projected images for a presentation. Sitting at the end of that table was Miles Odekirk, an iPad lying in front of him.

He didn’t rise when I came in. He only said, “Sit there, please, Ms. Monroe,” and pointed at the chair to his right.

In silence, I traversed the space and then seated myself, placing my purse on the empty chair next to me. Once I’d done that, I forced myself to cross my hands on the tabletop and meet his watching gaze.

It was hard, being this close to him. The last time I’d seen Miles Odekirk, he’d been manipulating that device of his so it nearly choked the life out of the man I loved. For just the briefest second, I wondered what he would do if I lunged across the table and latched my fingers around his throat, squeezed until I got him to agree to free Jace and Natila.

But I knew I’d never do anything that crazy. He was a tall man, maybe right around six feet or a little over, but slender, with the pale, soft hands of someone who’d probably never done a day of manual labor in his life. Despite his lack of muscle tone, I didn’t know if I could successfully subdue him, and the consequences of trying and failing were too awful to contemplate.

Instead, I forced a casual note into my voice as I asked, “What did you want to talk to me about, Dr. Odekirk?”

He picked up the iPad; it looked as if it had been open to some sort of notepad program, but I wasn’t sure. An iPad had been on the list of things I’d wanted but couldn’t really afford, back in the day, and so I didn’t know much about how to use one.

“I wanted to talk to you about this djinn. Jasreel.”

My mouth went dry. “Um…what about him?”

“You spent some time with him, from what I understand.” Any other man would have probably injected a leer into his voice when making such a statement, but Miles Odekirk seemed curiously uninterested in that aspect of my relationship with Jace.

“Yes,” I said. If I stuck to “yes” or “no” answers, then possibly I could avoid giving Odekirk anything he could use against Jace…or me.

“What sort of powers did he exhibit around you?”

So much for the binary solution to answering his questions. I knotted my fingers together in my lap and replied, “I never saw him exhibit any powers.”

That seemed to surprise the scientist. At least, one of his eyebrows went up behind his glasses, and he started typing on the iPad’s screen, although I couldn’t see what he was writing down. “So to you he seemed like an ordinary human being?”

“Yes.”

“How long did you cohabit?”

My cheeks burned, but I said, as calmly as I could, “Around three months.”

“So you’re saying in that time you saw absolutely nothing that made you think he was anyone except who he told you he was?”

I reflected that Dr. Odekirk sounded as if he’d watched a few too many courtroom dramas. Then again, he didn’t seem much like the TV type. It was probably coincidence that his methods of questioning were so similar to those of a district attorney.

“I didn’t see anything at all.”

“But when we collected this Jasreel, it seemed obvious enough then that you knew he wasn’t an ordinary man. What changed?”

Well, hell. I wracked my brains, trying to remember exactly what I’d said to Captain Margolis and his men, but that scene was such a tumult of sound and fear and the echo of Jace’s voice inside my mind that I couldn’t recall what I might or might not have said. Coldly, I replied, “The night before you broke into my house, Jasreel had a visitor, another djinn. I overheard them talking.”

“What were they talking about?”

“The other djinn was telling Jace — Jasreel — that it wasn’t safe for us to stay in Santa Fe.”

Some more typing. Then Odekirk looked up at me, blue-gray eyes appraising behind the rimless glasses. “Why would he say that?”

I didn’t blink, but only stared back at him and said, “I think you know why.”

For a second, he didn’t react. Then he laid the iPad down on the tabletop and fastened me with a stare that made me feel like a virulent bacillus he was examining under a microscope. “Ms. Monroe, for someone who claims to have rejected her association with this djinn and wants only to be a member of this community, you don’t seem to be very cooperative.”

Shit.
Shit
. Thinking frantically, I said, “Sorry. I just figured you’d know Jasreel was being warned because the other djinn had found out about that — that box of yours. The one that controls them.”

“It doesn’t
control
them,” Odekirk corrected me. Then he seemed to stop himself. “Precisely how it works is neither here nor there. When the other djinn came to your home, how did he appear?”

“I don’t know how he got there. He was already in the living room, talking with Jasreel, when I woke up and heard them.”

Something that might have been a sigh emanated from the scientist’s throat. “No, that’s not what I asked. What did he look like? What was he doing?”

Oh. Feeling like an idiot, and hating Odekirk for making me feel that way, I replied, “He also looked like a man, maybe a little older than Jasreel. Dark hair and eyes. Both of them were wearing these baggy pants, and — ”

Odekirk held up a hand. “You can spare me the sartorial details. Was there anything unusual?”

“They were both floating a foot off the ground.”

That seemed to please the scientist, because he typed something else into his notes. “So…floating above the ground. Anything else?”

I really didn’t want to give any more details than that, but I also knew I was walking a fine line here, one that teetered between providing enough information so that Odekirk would think I was being a good little citizen and definitely wasn’t on the side of the djinn, and giving something away that could potentially hurt Jasreel and Natila in the long run.

Well, I figured Zahrias could probably take care of himself, so I offered, “The visiting djinn had what looked like flames dancing around his feet, and more around his head. But he didn’t burn. It was the weirdest thing.”

That got me an actual smile, or as close to one as Miles Odekirk could probably produce. “That is because this djinn you saw was an elemental who can control fire. Just as Jasreel can control the air — or at least he could if his powers weren’t being held in check.”

Jasreel can.
Odekirk had spoken of Jace in the present tense, which meant he really must still be alive. I hadn’t allowed myself to entertain the thought that he might be dead, but even so, the worry had been far, far back in my mind, buried so deep I could pretend it didn’t exist. Well, most of the time, anyway.

But I also didn’t know how best to respond to the scientist’s latest pronouncement, so I only managed a flat, “Oh,” and then waited to see what he would do.

Which was nothing. He didn’t type on his iPad, or fiddle with his tie — yeah, the guy was wearing a tie under his lab coat — or anything. Just sat there, looking at me with those pale eyes of his. All right, they weren’t
that
pale, not a Chris Bowman level of freaky or anything, but something about the way the light reflected off his glasses made Odekirk’s gaze feel not quite human.

At last he said, “Did you ever see Jasreel suffer any kind of an injury?”

Uh-oh. “No,” I replied, the word sounding way too strangled. I coughed.

“Nothing? Not a single scrape or bruise, even though he was performing some rough work around your homestead?”

How the hell Odekirk knew about that, I had no idea, but I figured that wasn’t really the thing I should be focusing on right now. In saying that I’d never seen Jace hurt by anything —except that infernal box the scientist had invented — I was telling the simple truth. Then I reflected maybe it would be a good idea to embellish that truth. Just a little, nothing too extreme, but enough to let Odekirk know that hurting or killing a djinn wouldn’t be all that easy.

“Nothing,” I said firmly. “At the time, I didn’t think that much about it, but I saw one of the goats kick him in the leg once, and he didn’t even have a bruise.”

The scientist didn’t look too thrilled by that particular piece of intelligence. Brows pulling together, he made some more notes on his iPad. “Any other incidents like that?”

“Um…he splashed some boiling water on his hand in the kitchen when he was straining pasta. His skin didn’t even turn red.”
There…I hope that keeps you from trying to torture him with burning cigarettes or red-hot pokers or whatever.

“And you still didn’t think that was strange?”

I shrugged. “He put some cold cloths on it right away, so I suppose I figured he’d treated the burn quickly enough that it didn’t have any lasting effects.”

Silence for a moment as Miles Odekirk kept typing away on his iPad’s screen. At last he set it down. However, he’d closed the notepad app before doing that, so I couldn’t see anything of what he’d written. Then he just sat there, staring at me, while I forced myself to remain still, to keep my gaze fixed on his, my expression neutral. Wasn’t that a sure sign someone was lying — to glance away, to look off to the side? At any rate, I had no intention of making things that easy for him.

Then he said, “What precisely are you doing here, Ms. Monroe?”

Don’t look away. Don’t swallow. Don’t blink.
Voice steady, I replied, “The same thing as all of you, Dr. Odekirk. Trying to survive.”

Another long pause. I could hear the clock on the wall behind him ticking away, but I wouldn’t let myself glance up at it. That would be a clear sign of unease, wouldn’t it?

He was actually the first to blink. “Yes, Ms. Monroe. That’s what we’re all trying to do.” His shoulders seemed to slump, and then he added, “That’s all for now.”

“I can go?” I asked, confused by his sudden offer of a reprieve.

“Yes.” The glint returned to his eyes. “Just don’t go too far.”

“Not planning on it,” I said. Then, seized by a sudden devilish impulse, I went on, “I was going for lunch at Pajarito’s. Would you like to come with me?”

The look of shock that passed over his thin features was so severe, you would’ve thought I’d just suggested skinny-dipping in the semi-frozen Rio Grande. After a second or so, he seemed to recover himself and said evenly, “Thank you, but no. I have work to do here.”

“Then I’ll leave you to it,” I told him in blithe tones, and reached over to retrieve my purse. As I stood up, I said, “Have a nice day, Dr. Odekirk.”

Now his gaze was steady enough, although I couldn’t begin to read his expression. “You as well, Ms. Monroe.”

I let myself out, but I couldn’t relax even then, because the guard was waiting outside. “This way,” he said, leading me back to the exit. It seemed clear enough that they weren’t about to allow me the opportunity to wander around the facility unescorted.

Just as well. By that point, I didn’t think I was up to it. I got into my Cherokee, backed out of the parking space, and headed toward the guard shack and the main road, the yellow Hummer leading me the whole way.

And then I finally remembered to breathe.

Chapter Eleven

The days passed quickly after that. Miles Odekirk didn’t ask to see me again, and I had to make myself focus on tutoring the children, while at the same time attempting to see or hear anything that might give me a hint as to where Jace and Natila were being held. But I wasn’t able to get any definite confirmation, and I knew I didn’t dare ask any questions. Evony and I were slowly being assimilated into the makeshift society in Los Alamos, and the last thing I wanted to do was attract any unnecessary attention. That meant I also couldn’t make any inquiries about the Chosen who’d been sent to spy on the community here. Again, I heard nothing about them. Certainly there was no evidence I could find that any of the people I met had once been Chosen. Possibly those four were being held in the same place as Jace and Natila. It seemed to be the only explanation that made any sense.

To my surprise, Evony seemed to have really hit it off with the two men she worked with in the motor pool. One, Shawn Gutierrez, had been a firefighter, and was still on call in case any emergencies arose around town, and the other man, Brent Sutherland, used to be an HVAC technician. They really took Evony under their wing, to the point where they’d actually faced down Butch and Mitch when they’d tried to get snarky one evening at Pajarito’s.

“Shawn is one hot tamale,” Evony told me wistfully. “Almost makes me wish I were straight.”

At that comment, I’d raised an eyebrow at her. We were in the kitchen, having coffee and toast before getting ready to start the day. “What, are you thinking of switching sides? What about Natila?”