djinn wars 03 - fallen (26 page)

“But your thoughts need space to breathe,” Jace said, and her reddened eyes brightened a little.

“Yes, that. Exactly that. Thank you, Jace.”

He rose from the bed, and I followed a second later. “If you need anything — ” I began.

“I’ll let you know,” she broke in. “Thank you again. And if you see anyone heading down the hallway in this direction, could you please head them off at the pass for me?”

“Consider it done,” Jace said.

She offered us another smile, and we let ourselves out. By then it was almost five. Time for Dutchie’s walk. I was glad of that, because it would give Jace and me the chance to get out of the resort, breathe some fresh air.

We had it down to a ritual by then, so we were able to go back to the suite and get the dog saddled up — so to speak — while remaining in our own thoughts. I had to wonder what Jace thought about Lindsay’s reaction to Rafi’s death. Would he consider it disrespectful that she wasn’t openly mourning? I didn’t think so, but….

“Sometimes the strongest people suffer the worst,” he told me as we walked down Kit Carson Boulevard, Dutchie at the farthest end of her retractable leash while she sniffed happily at the sidewalk. What she was smelling, I wasn’t sure, as I hadn’t seen any sign of other dogs since coming here. Back when all this started, Jace had reassured me about all the ownerless pets, saying the animals would be taken care of, but what did that mean, exactly?

Just another question I’d have to ask when the world wasn’t constantly shifting around me.

I shot him an inquiring look, and he went on,

“Lindsay is a tough girl. I’ve seen that in her. But now she feels she can’t open herself up to any weakness.”

“Grieving isn’t weakness.”

“You know that. I know that as well, but what we don’t know is what might have happened in Lindsay’s past that’s informing her reactions now. All we can do is be there for her when she needs us.”

“
If
she needs us,” I pointed out in gloomy tones, tightening my grip on the leash when Dutchie spied a large crow sitting on a fence post and began to charge.

“She will.” At another time, he might have taken the leash from me, since the dog was clearly feeling her oats on this brisk March afternoon, but with his strength sapped the way it was, he knew I could probably handle Dutchie better. He added, watching as I hauled the dog back to a more manageable distance, “Or, at the very least, she’ll need someone.”

I nodded. At the same time, I couldn’t help wondering who that “someone” might be.

We went to fetch Julia at a little before seven. For some reason, I was feeling almost nervous, which I tried to tell myself was silly. I understood trying to distract myself and everything, but surely I had better things to do with my time and mental energy than create attractions where there were none.

When she came out to meet us, though, I felt my eyes widen. Yes, I’d brushed my hair, put on some lip gloss, changed into a nicer sweater, but I’d never done much more than that in the past to prepare for dinner. If I’d sent the primping into overdrive this evening, Jace might have asked what prompted the extra attention. “Because we’re on a double date” didn’t seem like a very good answer.

But Julia was wearing a long flowy skirt and a snug-fitting knit top, with some expensive-looking turquoise jewelry at her throat and on her wrists. Her warm honey-colored hair flowed over her shoulders, and although she wasn’t wearing any makeup besides mascara and gloss, she still looked polished in a way I wasn’t sure I ever had.

“Wow,” I said.

She brushed a hand over her skirt. “I hope it isn’t too much. Lauren came by this afternoon and asked me if I wanted to go down to the plaza with her so I could pick out a few more things. It was…fun.”

Well, I wouldn’t argue with that. Julia Innes was definitely a person who needed some more fun in her life. And if a few hours of going through the boutiques in downtown Taos and choosing things she probably wouldn’t have been able to afford in her old life was how she needed to get her fun, then bless her. And bless Lauren for thinking of it. I was a little surprised that Zahrias had let her go this afternoon.

Or maybe the whole thing had been Zahrias’ idea….

“No, it’s perfect,” I said hastily. “A lot of the djinn women have pretty fancy clothes, so I wouldn’t say it’s too much.”

“You look lovely, Julia,” Jace put in. A wicked glint entered his eyes, and he added, “Perhaps you could give Jessica a few hints. I don’t think I’ve seen her in a skirt since Thanksgiving.”

Which was only the truth. I teased, “Gee, honey, I’m sorry I wasn’t wearing a pencil skirt and four-inch stilettos when I went out to milk the goats.”

He laughed then and planted a kiss on my cheek. “My darling, you are perfect no matter what you wear. But now we should go, or we’ll be late.”

“Can’t have that,” I said lightly, but it was true enough. I didn’t want Zahrias to think we were running late because of something Julia had done.

Even so, he was already there when we got to the dining area. Because he was Zahrias, he’d taken one of the choice tables, the ones half-hidden by the trees growing in planters off to one side, giving the diners sitting there much more privacy.

He stood when we approached. “It’s very good to see you…Julia.”

From the way he’d tacked her first name on there at the end, I guessed that he’d almost slipped and called her “Ms. Innes.” She appeared not to notice, however, and smiled before saying, “This is a lovely dining area.”

“Well, if you have to hole up somewhere to ride out the apocalypse, best to choose a five-star resort,” I remarked as Jace pulled out a chair for me so I could sit down. I decided not to comment on the way Zahrias had barely greeted the two of us, his attention clearly on Julia instead.

Even though I’d thought I was being circumspect, Zahrias’ expression turned almost sour at my comment. Apparently noting how Jace had helped me into my seat, the djinn leader began to do the same for Julia. Almost at once she demurred, saying,

“Thank you, Zahrias, but I know what Miles’s device does to a djinn’s strength. Please, sit down.”

He didn’t protest, but instead said smoothly, “If you wish. I will confess that it’s something of a relief not to have to explain my…condition…to you.”

She didn’t seem to know how to respond to that, so she offered Zahrias a hesitant smile before seating herself. Jace and I busied ourselves getting settled, and while I was putting my napkin on my lap, Zahrias picked up the open bottle of wine from the table and poured some into Julia’s glass. It was a red; I hoped she wouldn’t mind that, since I’d only seen her drink white wine back in Los Alamos.

But she thanked him, and he handed the bottle to Jace so he could pour wine for himself and me. After that, we seemed to be more or less set. I wondered, as Zahrias picked up his own glass, whether he would offer some kind of toast, and what it would be. Apparently he’d decided that wouldn’t be appropriate, for whatever reason, so after a brief nod, he took a sip of wine, with the rest of us immediately following suit.

“Although this used to be a restaurant, it no longer truly functions like one,” he told Julia, who seemed to be enjoying the red wine just fine. Or maybe it was the company that had brought the faint curve to her lips. “We are lucky enough that one of our Chosen used to be a chef, so he creates a fixed meal each evening. Tonight it is a dish he called barbacoa.”

I felt a little pang when I heard what we were eating, then reassured myself that at least our own goats were safe in Los Alamos. Where Phillip, our resident chef, had gotten his hands on the ones that had become our dinner, I didn’t know. But it was surprising what you could scrounge within the half-mile radius allowed by the device’s field of effect.

“Sounds wonderful,” Julia said. Her eyes seemed to scan the former restaurant, taking in the Chosen and their djinn. Except for a few cases, they mostly sat together as couples. I did notice Lindsay sitting with Dani and Lauren, and a little stir of relief went through me. It seemed like a bit of progress for Lindsay to be out and about, and I was impressed that Lauren had coaxed her into it. Or maybe that had been Dani’s doing. In his own way, he was just as persuasive as she was. “You seem to have a smooth-running setup here.”

A shadow passed over Zahrias’ face. He was probably thinking it had been a lot smoother before some of his own kind went rogue and we had to use Miles’s device to protect ourselves. However, he only said, “We do what we can. And of course our community is much smaller than the one at Los Alamos. How many do you have there now?”

If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he was merely making polite dinner conversation. Jace and I had made our own reports after we returned to Taos, but of course Julia had access to far more detailed information than we did.

And of course she was far from stupid. She knew what he was asking. A brief hesitation, as if weighing her possible responses, and then she said calmly, “It was just over a thousand at our last census. I doubt it has grown any since then, with the way your people are hunting down the few survivors who are left.”

Zahrias’ brows drew together, but his voice was level enough as he replied, “I have no control over their actions, Ms. Innes.”

I doubted he had used that form of address by accident, and I shifted in my seat, wondering how she was going to react.

Her expression didn’t change, however. “I know you don’t,” she said. But even as she spoke, her words sounded tinged with disappointment, as if she’d halfway hoped he would have been able to do something to prevent the djinn from carrying out their own final solution.

I wished it were that easy. If Zahrias had been in charge of all the djinn, then things would have turned out very differently. Unfortunately, he held the same minority opinion as the rest of his people here in Taos. And now, without access to his powers…I supposed I should just be glad that most of the djinn in his community saw no reason to rebel against his decrees.

Beside me, Jace stirred. “Julia, every day we think of that tragedy, and hate that we can’t do anything to prevent it. But we have to think of our own survival now.”

She nodded, then sipped at her wine. “Yes, those other djinn have broken their pact, haven’t they? That is, it sounded to me, from what I heard, that the Chosen were supposed to be left alone.”

“They were,” Jace said. He drank as well, although I could tell he didn’t expect the wine to banish any of his memories of the djinn who had attacked us on the road back to Taos, who had killed Evony and Ethan. “And we still know nothing of our Chosen who volunteered to go to Los Alamos to see why it was suddenly blocked from our vision.”

“They never got there,” she told him. Her gaze flicked to Zahrias, who had been listening to them, brows knitted in a frown. He looked quite fearsome when he did that, but she didn’t seem to notice. “I’m sure I would have heard of it if Margolis had captured any human survivors. That was” — she stopped then, and I thought I saw a brief shiver go through her — “that was back when he still trusted me. I would have known.”

I glanced upward, although it wasn’t the ceiling of wood beams and skylights I was really looking at. “It had to have been
them
.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Jace began, but Zahrias interrupted,

“No, we don’t know, but I think it is the most likely possibility. And after what happened to Clay and Martine and Aidan….” He let the words die away. Most likely he didn’t see any need to go into detail. The memories were horrific enough.

But Julia didn’t have those memories. Head tilting to one side, she began, “Clay and Martine — ”

“And Aidan,” I finished for her. My eyes roved the crowd until I spotted Lilias and her consort, barely visible through the ficus trees that shielded us from the main part of the dining room. “Over there, to the left. The dark-haired djinn woman and the man with the scars on his face.”

Julia followed my gaze. I saw her eyes widen and guessed that she’d just spotted Aidan, had noted the wounds that would forever disfigure him. “They — the rogue djinn — did that?”

“And killed Clay, and took Martine,” Zahrias said. Right then he sounded very tired. Up to this point, he’d done a very good job of concealing the exhaustion that must haunt his every waking moment, but maybe having to revisit the horror of what had happened to three of his people had done its work in sapping his energy. “They were not here when the djinn attacked and Jessica triggered the device, so they were unprotected. You see what that bought them.”

“My God.”

At that inopportune moment, Phillip stepped out into the dining room to announce that the food was ready.

“We eat buffet-style here,” I explained. “Phillip has a few helpers in the kitchen, but no one really wants to wait tables all night. It’s easier this way.”

She nodded, even as her gaze drifted to Zahrias. “Would you — would you like me to get a plate for you? I know that exertion can be…difficult.”

A long pause, as he watched her carefully. I didn’t know about Jace, but I was almost holding my breath.