djinn wars 03 - fallen (16 page)

“Now, what?” I demanded. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, isn’t it? If you were so sorry about killing her, then why cut her up afterward? Why not let her have some dignity in death?”

He winced, but I also noticed how he straightened, this time not looking away from me. The gray eyes were fixed on mine, pleading. “Because it was what Margolis wanted, and even I wasn’t in a position to gainsay him. Not really. Yes, he needed me to make the devices, but I also needed him to make sure I had the materials and equipment I required at the lab. I know that’s not a very good answer, Jessica. But that was my situation.”

It would have been easy to hate him. He’d as much as admitted to being bullied by Margolis, and because of his weakness, an innocent woman had died. Maybe even two, if you counted Evony. I sort of doubted she would have been quite as motivated to pull that final kamikaze move of hers if Natila had still been around.

But hate didn’t serve much of a purpose, did it? The rogue djinn who’d hurt Aidan and murdered Clay and kidnapped Martine were full of hate, and to what purpose? We hadn’t done anything to them, except have the impertinence to be born human…to have djinn who loved us.

“Okay,” I said, after a brief, awkward silence. “I’ll admit that Margolis is a scary son of a bitch, and maybe there wasn’t much you could do to challenge him. But now — right now, there’s a lot you can do to help us. We have to come up with some way to have your device repel the djinn who wish us harm, but not affect the ones who are part of our community. The ones we love.”

I said that last word deliberately, and with extra emphasis. Miles needed to know that none of us were here because we’d been coerced or frightened into being with our djinn. They were part of us now, and if anything happened to them, I feared we wouldn’t be long for this world, either.

He was silent for a long moment, clearly pondering what I’d just told him. How much could he even understand of the bond that connected the djinn and their Chosen?

But he’d loved a woman once, loved her enough to marry her and have a child with her, despite his obvious devotion to his work. Surely he could reach somewhere inside himself, move past his grief, and see that causing more hurt just because he had suffered wasn’t the solution.

Then he said, “I don’t know if I can do it. What you’re proposing — it would require a fundamental modification to how the device works, and even though I’m the one who created it, I still don’t completely understand everything about what it does.”

His words made my heart sink. Then again, he hadn’t said no. He’d only said he wasn’t sure. Those were two entirely separate things.

“But you’ll try,” I told him, my tone firm.

“Yes,” he replied. “I will try.”

Chapter Nine

I bumped into Lindsay as I was leaving the lab and told her that Miles had agreed to do what was necessary to modify his device. Her eyes widened, and she said,

“Seriously? When he’s been scowling in there for the past day and a half and telling me it isn’t possible?”

“Yes. I mean, he’s still not sure exactly what he’s going to do or how long it’s going to take, but — ”

“It’s still a start,” she cut in. “And better than anything I’ve been able to accomplish. You must be some kind of miracle worker.”

I gave an uneasy laugh. “I don’t know about that.”

“Well, I do. Too bad they didn’t have you working at the United Nations or something.”

After delivering that remark, she moved past me and headed down the stairs into the lab, chuckling slightly. Well, I was glad I could cheer her up, if nothing else. I’d have to see how long her good humor lasted, though. She and Miles didn’t exactly get along very well, although maybe now that he really did appear to be focusing on a real solution for us, the tension might ease itself slightly.

I decided that I’d better go see Zahrias and give him a status report. To my surprise, he wasn’t in his audience chamber cum conference room, although that was where he’d been last, listening to Jace and Dani and the others give their reports about the raid on the Los Alamos labs. Maybe they’d wrapped it up already; my own convo with Miles Odekirk had taken longer than I’d expected. I knew Zahrias must have his own suite somewhere in the resort, but I’d never been there, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to intrude in his private space.

Luckily, I was saved from having to seek him out. Just as I was turning to go back down the corridor, Lauren came around the corner.

“Looking for Zahrias?” she asked.

I nodded. “Is he in his suite?”

“No — since the sun came out, he’s been sitting down in the courtyard. He says the sunlight helps his energy levels a bit.”

That made sense. On some level, he was a being of fire, and so being exposed to the fires of the sun might help counteract some of the effects of Miles’s device.

“Is Jace with him?”

“No,” Lauren said. “I think he went to go see how Aidan and Lilias were doing.”

It was just like him to check on them once he was done speaking with Zahrias. Aidan still wasn’t up and around, since Miguel had apparently told him to take it easy until the antibiotics ran their course. And I had no idea whether many of the other djinn had stopped by, but somehow I doubted it. None of them liked being reminded that their Chosen were now as vulnerable as they were.

The sun seemed to have come out with a vengeance while I was talking to Miles. I blinked at the glare as I emerged into the courtyard. This was the first time I’d actually set foot out here, and my breath caught at the quiet beauty around me. Yes, many of the trees were bare, but their limbs were still graceful, while the evergreens kept the area from appearing too desolate. A small creek chattered through the clearing, burbling over smooth-worn stones. Despite the brightness, the air was still quite chilly, which was why Zahrias had a heavy cloak wrapped around him where he sat under a little pergola, its vines also winter-bare, even as he tilted his face upward to drink in the sun’s rays. Leaning up against the stone bench where he sat was a cane.

I tried not to look at that obvious sign of his weakness as I approached him with some diffidence, not sure whether I should be intruding during this time when he was clearly trying to bolster his sagging energy. But his eyes opened immediately as I approached, my hiking boots crunching on the gravel.

“You have spoken with Miles Odekirk.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. He’s going to help us…if he can.”

“He is uncertain?”

“He claims that even though he created the device, he’s still not entirely sure how it works.” This confession of Miles might have surprised me more, but after having my mother’s spaghetti sauce, which she created out of her head each time and was always amazing, I understood a little bit about putting something together without being entirely clear as to why it worked so well.

My remark earned me a raised eyebrow from Zahrias. On closer inspection, I thought he did look a bit better; some color had returned to his face, and his eyes didn’t appear quite as shadowed. “He made this thing, and yet he doesn’t know how it works?”

“Not completely. He told me that when he built it, he’d only intended it as something that could block djinn energy, keep it away. It wasn’t until he was using it in close proximity to Natila that he realized it had…side effects.”

“Hmm.” Zahrias pushed himself up from the bench where he’d been sitting and faced me, expression troubled. I noticed that he didn’t reach for the cane. “But if he does not fully understand why it does what it does, how can he begin to modify it?”

“He doesn’t know yet.” As Zahrias began to frown, I went on, “But that doesn’t mean much. He’s a brilliant man. He’ll figure it out eventually.”

“Eventually.”

What was I supposed to say to that? I could tell that the djinn leader wanted everything fixed yesterday, but you couldn’t rush innovation, or inspiration. I guessed now that some of what had occupied Miles at the lab wasn’t merely building more devices, but also attempting to learn precisely how the ones he already had actually worked. It had to have been frustrating, to have created a machine and yet not understand all its secrets.

“You can’t force these things,” I said.

That was clearly not what Zahrias wanted to hear. His lips pressed together, and he replied, “Even though we all must force ourselves to get up each day as our energies become more and more depleted, as we all lose a little more hope. You say we cannot force this Miles Odekirk, and yet we all continue to suffer because of something he created.”

The distaste in his voice was clear. If you’d told me even a few hours earlier that I’d be defending the scientist, I probably would have laughed out loud, but right then I found myself saying,

“He understands that. He knows what he’s done. And…he’s sorry.”

“Sorry?” Zahrias repeated, scorn clear in his tone. “I fear I’ve seen very little remorse from our scientist. But if that’s what you wish to believe — ”

“I do believe it.” Voice hardening, I went on, “Anyway, I’m not trying to say he’s blameless. Far from it. But at least he’s willing to try to fix things, if he can. Besides, we wouldn’t even be in this situation if some of your fellow djinn hadn’t reneged on their promise. You might want to keep that in mind.”

His shoulders slumped, and then he did turn back slightly toward the bench so he could grasp the cane. It was a plain black thing, obviously scrounged from the local Walgreens, and he grasped it with distaste. I couldn’t blame him; if he had to use some kind of support to get around these days, he should have had a cane with a fancy carved handle, something that would have suited the gaudy robes he wore. Unlike many of the other djinn, Zahrias had never stooped to wearing human clothing…or at least, I’d never yet seen him dress that way.

“I do keep that in mind, Jessica,” he said. “I keep it in mind every waking moment. But as there is very little I can do about their treachery, I must direct my energies where they will do us all some good. And that means making sure that Miles Odekirk does what we brought him here for.”

“He will,” I promised.

Zahrias gave me a grim nod, and I fled after that. The whole time, though, I couldn’t help thinking about that old saying…the one about making promises you couldn’t keep.

That night I ate alone with Jace in our rooms. Maybe it would have been better to go out and mingle with everyone, but I just couldn’t find the energy, and Jace made no protest when I told him that I just wanted to take a tray of food to our suite.

Short as it was, that interview with Zahrias had shaken me. I didn’t want to see him beaten down and weary, reduced to using a cane to prop himself up. He was the one the rest of us were supposed to look to for guidance, but I could tell he was at a loss as well. We were all trapped in a situation that had no precedent. None of his powers, his age or experience, would do any of us any good now.

At least Jace didn’t appear materially weakened. His hadn’t been a particularly strenuous day, and that was probably why he was able to smile at me and act more or less naturally. It was only when he thought I wasn’t looking that I saw the smile fade, and that taut, strained set I hated so much return to his mouth.

“You’re very quiet,” he said as I picked up a morsel of chicken and leaned down so I could feed it to Dutchie.

“Am I?” I shrugged, then wiped my fingers on the napkin in my lap. “It’s just — I keep thinking there’s something else I should be doing, but then when I try to figure out what that is, I keep coming up with nothing.”

His dark eyes watched me, careful and sad. “That’s because there is nothing you can do. We all have to play a waiting game now.”

Waiting for Miles Odekirk to produce a miracle. He’d done it once, so I supposed he could do it again. But this in-between time was positively excruciating.

“I don’t know how you can be so calm,” I said. “I feel like I’m climbing the walls.”