Undone

“I can’t do that.” Still, despite her words, I sensed the force behind them was lessened.

“Do I need to threaten you?” I asked. I was careful to keep my words steady, my voice soft. Menace, I had found, was more effective delivered in that ma

“With what?” The flash of scorn was back in her eyes. “You said you weren’t a Dji

“That’s true. I am worse than a Dji

I would not, of course; it would have meant breaking promises I had made to Lewis Orwell, and to Ma

Molly dropped her gaze to her trembling hands. “He can’t know it came from me.”

“He won’t.”

“How do I know—”

“You have my word.”

She glanced up at me, then down. Her hair hid her face, but I did not sense she was tempted to lie to me. “A Weather Warden. His name is Scott.”

“Scott,” I repeated. “Scott Sands. In Albquerque.”

She nodded. I stood up and walked to her side, crouched down, and looked into her face. It bled slowly white under the pressure of my stare.

“Listen to me,” I said. “If you lie to me, I will not forgive. Do you understand?”

She did. “I’m not lying. It’s Scott.”

“On your life.”

“On my life.”

I rose to my feet with a shadow of my old Dji

The small pink phone Ma

I pulled out the tiny machine and studied it. The small screen on the front was lit with a blue-white glow, and it spelled out MANNY CALLING. I examined the individual buttons and found one that seemed to indicate talking.

I wished, in short order, that I had not.

“Cassiel!” I heard his voice from a great distance, and cautiously put the phone closer to my ear. “Dios mio, I’ve been trying to get you. Where the hell are you?”

“El Paso,” I said.

There was a long silence. Had I been born human, it might have seemed ominous.

“El Paso,” he repeated slowly, at long last. “Texas?”

“It is on the border of New Mexico, as well. And Mexico, which is another country.” I had been studying the maps. I was somewhat pleased with my ability to distinguish between New Mexico and the Mexico not designated as old.

“I know where it—look, what are—how did you—” He couldn’t decide which question was more important, but I understood both.

“I came because I found someone who knew about the fire,” I said. “I have spoken with her. I now know who set the fire, and why. As to how, I used an airplane. And a cab. Cabs are for hire.”

Ma

I was briefly warmed by his concern. Briefly, because he went on to say, “What if we’d had some kind of emergency here, and I needed you?”

“I see.” My voice, well beyond my control, had taken on a flat, dark tone. I wondered if the small device was capable of relaying such subtleties. “Of course. I am at your disposal, Warden Rocha. Perhaps, instead of an apartment, you would prefer to furnish me with a bottle from which you could summon me at will.”

“I didn’t mean—” I heard an explosive rattle of air on the speaker from his end. “All right, maybe I did. You work for us, remember? That means you do what the Wardens tell you to do. And you get paid. If you want to break that agreement and go ru

“I am sorry. I thought it was the correct course of action.”

“And you didn’t tell me because . . . ?”

Because Ma

“Damn straight you are. Look, you okay? Nothing happened, right?”

A yellow car turned the corner and slowed as it came toward me. “Nothing has happened,” I said. “I will see you in a few hours.”

I pressed the OFF button before he could ask more questions. I was not certain of the security of these devices, and speaking in the open seemed to me to be a risk we could not afford to take. Perhaps it would have been safe, but it was safer still to wait to talk in private, face-to-face.

The cabdriver was a quiet man, which suited me well. I watched the city roll by the car window during the short drive back to the airport, paid him in cash (adding in the tip this time without being instructed) and was getting out of the vehicle when he said, “Hope you’re flying out soon.”

I paused. “Why?”

He nodded at the eastern horizon. “Storm’s coming.”

The next flight back to Albuquerque was a three-hour wait, and I spent it watching passersby, looking for Dji

I had known them once, but their reaction only served to tell me again how far I had fallen, and how isolated I was from what had been my family.

I turned my attention outward to the storm. The cabdriver was correct; the city of El Paso had a hot, dry climate, but a few times a year—sometimes only once a year—a storm formed in the normally stable air. The amount of rain it would dump would be, by the standards of most areas, negligible—an inch or two, perhaps.

In El Paso, it would result in deaths, as those unaccustomed to driving on wet streets lost control, or the flood canals went from dry canyons to raging rivers.

The clouds had a velvety darkness to them, a solidity that I could almost feel as they swept across the sky, spreading like spilled ink. The sun flared brightly, then was swallowed and became a pale ghost, barely a bright circle through the clouds. . . . And then it was gone altogether.

The vicious growl of thunder shook the plate glass windows of the lounge where I sat.

An overhead speaker finally a

My cell phone rang again. Ma

The fine hairs on my arms began to prickle. I looked down, puzzled by this response from a body I had at least begun to understand, and the muted fragments of Dji

I had only an instant in which to act, and no real knowledge to guide me—instinct alone would save or damn me.

This was an attack by weather, and since my power flowed from Ma