Undone (13 page)

“You want to save Manny, don't you? He's your meal ticket. Seems like it might be a good idea to keep on asking around.” Luis's full lips quirked into something that resembled a smile, but somehow was not. “Even if you don't care if
I
get barbecued.”

“I do,” I said, and then wished I had not spoken at all, because his eyes widened and he
looked
at me. Saw me as something other than his brother's annoying, impaired partner.

I felt something inside me respond, a stirring I had not known, except in the dream. It was primal and dark and deep, and it felt . . .
good.

I looked away, studying the ground, willing the feeling to subside. I felt warm, and too much in my skin.

“Good to know,” Luis said, his voice carefully neutral. “Looks like my brother's done getting his ass chewed.
Vamanos.
”

Luis opened the passenger's-side door of Manny's car for me, and offered me a hand. I looked at it in confusion, then put my fingers in his palm, very lightly. He guided me into the car, and before he let go, Luis's thumb moved very lightly across my knuckles. It was an impersonal touch, or it should have been, but it traveled through me like a wave of light.

“See you later,” he said, and shut the car door.

When I finally did raise my head, he was walking away, hands in his pockets. Another uncontrollable wave of heat flamed through me, and subsided to a banked glow deep inside.

I have no need of this,
I told myself.
I need no complications. All I want to do is survive.

My body, it seemed, thought differently of the matter.

I was so intent on watching Luis that I flinched when Manny opened his driver's-side door, thumped into the seat, and slammed the door with so much violence the car rocked. I looked at him, and his expression was still blank. His hands were rigid as they gripped the steering wheel, and his knuckles turned white from pressure.

“Bastard,” he finally said, and turned the key to start the engine. “Let's get the hell out of here.”

“Are you all right?” I asked.

The glance he threw me was bitter, black, and wild. “Sure. I'm just perfect. Why the hell wouldn't I be?”

I did not ask again, and we sat in silence as he drove too fast, too recklessly, all the way to his home.

Chapter 6

ANGELA WAS WAITING
outside for our arrival—I didn't think Manny had called, but I supposed that Luis might have done so. She looked tense but carefully composed, and rose to her feet to embrace Manny as he came up the front steps. She framed his face between her hands, gave him a long, loving look, and said, “Go get cleaned up; you smell like an ashtray.”

He kissed her quickly and went inside, which left the two of us standing together.

“Do I smell like an ashtray?” I asked.

Her lips curled unwillingly into a smile. “I'd guess you do, but I'm not getting close enough to sniff you.” She cocked her head slightly, studying me. “You do look more like a scarecrow than usual,
es verdad.
After Manny gets through, maybe you can shower. I can find you something to wear.”

“No,” I said. “I'll wear what I have.” The thought of wearing someone else's clothes made my skin crawl with horror. “But I would be glad of the shower.”

“No problem.” Angela opened the screen door for me as we entered the house. “Keep it down; Ibby's taking a nap.”

Ibby, in fact, was not. The child bounced up from the couch and jumped in place, face alight with pleasure. “Cassie, Cassie, Cassie!”

I sighed. “
Cassiel
, please.” For all the good I sensed it would do. Angela stifled a laugh.

I had no idea of the human protocol for such things, but I knelt down, and the child rushed my arms. Warm, chubby arms around my neck. A moist kiss on my cheek. “Ewwww, you smell like burning things,” Ibby said.

“I'm about to wash it away,” I said soberly. “Will that be better?”

She nodded vigorously, curls bouncing. “Were you at a fire?”

“Yes, Ibby.”

“Were there firemen?”

“Yes, quite a few.”

“Was it a big fire?”

“Big enough.”

Ibby's dark eyes widened, and she looked around the room. I didn't understand at first, until her eyes filled with tears and she wailed, “Where's Papa?”

I had no experience of crying children, but luckily, Angela quickly encircled her daughter in her arms and patted her on the back. “Hush,
mija
, Papa's fine. Hear that? He's taking a shower right now.”

“Was he in the fire?” Her small voice trembled.

“He was there with Cassiel,” Angela said, and her gaze touched mine for a moment. “But look, they're both fine. She's fine, and Papa's fine. So what are you crying about, Ibby?”

Ibby's sobs became sniffles. “Nothing. I'm not crying.”

“Good girl.” Angela kissed her cheek and let her slip back to the floor. “Go play,
mija.
”

Ibby wandered down the hall toward her room, pausing at the bathroom door to listen to the fall of water. She looked back at me doubtfully, and I nodded. I was trying to convey that her father was, in fact, fine; I couldn't tell if she believed that, but she went to her room at the end of the hall, and after a few moments I heard music playing.

Angela let out a slow breath. “She gets so anxious when she thinks something's happened. She knows Manny's got a hazardous job. We try to keep it away from her, but she's a smart girl. She knows.”

I wanted to tell her that Manny was in no danger, but in truth, I couldn't be sure of that. Luis's words had robbed me of my confidence, made me doubt all my certainties. “I told you, I will watch over him,” I offered. It felt awkward, but still, it also felt . . . right. I saw relief spread through her.
She trusts me to keep my word.
That felt oddly important—and also a weight on my shoulders.

“That'll make Ibby feel better,” Angela said. She didn't say,
and me
, but I understood that to be true. “You probably need something cold to drink.”

I was, in fact, thirsty, and I followed her to the kitchen, where she chatted about meaningless details of the day, as if we were friends. I supposed we were, in a way. I sipped the iced tea she prepared and nibbled at a cookie from a plate on the table.

Manny came in, hair damp and curling from the shower, dressed in fresh clothing. He grabbed a cookie and ate it in two bites. Angela kissed him on the cheek and gave him a glass of iced tea, and the two of them talked in Spanish for a moment. I was content to let the sounds wash over me. There was something oddly calming about such normality, even if it was so very human.

Ibby crawled up into the chair next to me and reached out for a cookie.

“Ibby!” her mother said sharply. The child pulled back and looked abashed. “Ask.”

“May I please have a cookie, Mama?”

“Yes, you may have
one
.”

Ibby surveyed the plate and took the largest. I approved of her strategic approach.

“What did Scott say to you, Manny?” I asked. I reached for a second cookie. After all, I was both older and larger than the child. It seemed fair.

“That I should have sent the files off for archiving months ago,” he said. “Some kind of regulations. Like we didn't have other things to worry about.”

“He blames you?”

“Let's just say it won't come out in my favor in the report.”

“Do you think—” I paused, because I realized that this might not be the best moment to pose the question. Still, it needed to be asked. “Do you think someone was aiming for you or Luis, rather than the destruction of the office?”

Manny looked tired. The fine lines around his eyes were etched more deeply than before, and his skin seemed more sallow. “Maybe,” he said. “I don't know. I don't know why anybody would come after me.”

“And Luis?”

He didn't answer. Angela did. “Lots of people got problems with Luis,” she said. “He's the kind of guy who makes enemies, you know? A lot more than Manny.”

I understood that, on some instinctive level; Manny was more concerned with his family, and while he had courage and determination, his goals were centered on his wife and child.

Luis was different. I couldn't tell what Luis desired, or what drove him, and that made him dangerous to me.

“Mama, may I have another cookie?”

“No.”

“Cassie had two.”

I broke my cookie in half and offered it to Isabel. “Cassiel,” I said.

She giggled.

 

The laptop that Manny had provided me with was at my apartment. Upon arrival, I logged in, as Manny had shown me, to the Warden computer system and began to research Luis Rocha.

His personnel file was impressive and extensive. The most recent entry was by someone I knew—Joanne Baldwin, who commended Luis for his quick action during a Florida emergency, an earthquake, shortly before he had left the state to return here to New Mexico. It must have happened before I had fallen, though I'd had no hint of it, far above in the aetheric.

Luis was more powerful than I had thought, and better regarded among the Wardens. This was not necessarily a badge of honor; many Wardens were corrupt, and no few of them had used their power for their own enrichment. Power tempts humans in ways that it does not seem to warp Djinn.

Then again, Djinn seemed to have many shortcomings, as well, now that I was in human flesh.

In the earliest entries, notes were made of Luis's gang affiliation. It had been a difficult decision, it seemed, whether or not to bring Luis into the Wardens organization. They had almost decided to go the opposite direction—use an Earth Warden to remove his powers permanently. I knew something of that process. It was painful, and it had a significant failure rate, both in terms of how often it worked and how often the patients died.

Luis was lucky the Wardens had been too selfish to give up a strong talent. But they had kept eyes on him, and still did, from all indications.

Luis Rocha might be well thought-of by his peers, but he was still not trusted by the administration. Interesting. I wondered if he knew.

I learned nothing more from the files, save what I already knew: The Wardens regarded Luis as a much stronger talent than his brother.

When I turned to Manny's personnel records, I began to understand why. Manny was, without any question, loyal and honest, but he had failings, and they had been ruthlessly documented. Late paperwork. Failure to follow Warden regulations regarding office procedures. Sloppy documentation. These were not major infractions, only a long-standing pattern of behavior that had contributed to Manny being regarded as less than excellent at his job. Coupled with his low level of power, it meant that he would never rise much higher than his current position.

But nothing pointed to a reason anyone might wish him dead. There were no references of enemies, conflicts,
nothing.

Manny did not make enemies.

Luis, on the other hand, did. He had exceptional successes, but his path was littered with conflict. I began to see a pattern to it, although it was not obvious; Djinn, after all, were students of patterns.

Those Luis had clashed with, both inside and outside of the Wardens, had been dishonest in some way. Like his brother, Luis cared fiercely about such things; unlike Manny, he often took on—and defeated—those who did not. Surprisingly, this had not harmed him as much as I would have expected. His records showed that every investigation of his conduct had been decided in his favor.

Unlike Manny's. No one was likely to be Manny's enemy; he was clearly his own.

I made a note of which Wardens particularly Luis had differed with over the years. There were only two names that appeared more than twice, and both were Fire Wardens: Landry Dent and Molly Magruder.

Molly Magruder was the only female on the list, and the Djinn at the office blaze had clearly referred to the arsonist as
her.

She was not in New Mexico, but in the adjoining state of Texas, in a town called El Paso. It had an airport.

I decided to go to her.

It was only as I was going through the degrading and tedious process of security checks that I realized that I had not spoken to Manny about this, or asked for his permission to go.
I am not a slave,
I told myself.
I can come and go as I please.

At my own risk, perhaps. If this came to a fight, I was as ready as possible; Manny had given me an infusion of Earth power before I'd left his house for the evening, and I had used almost none of it.

But I had the very strong feeling that Manny would also not be pleased with me for taking this initiative, and also, that he would be right in some way.

I didn't allow that to stop me.

 

The flight was short, thankfully, and uneventful; I could feel the energy coursing through the air and clouds, an ocean of power invisible to the humans seated with me in the aircraft. I found myself pressing my hand to the window, straining to touch what I knew I couldn't, and wondering when—if ever—these longings would subside.

El Paso was a desert town, surrounded by ancient, low mountains and capped with an overturned bright bowl of a sky—a blue even clearer than that of Albuquerque. The air was dry and crisp, the city older than I had expected, and more noisy, dirty, and crowded. It sprawled out through the desert in a jumble, even crawling the sides of the mountains.

It came as a surprise to realize that I did not know the simple mechanics of finding an address. I would have asked Manny, of course, but Manny was hundreds of miles away now, and a phone call might not be well received.