Undone

Wardens, I realized with a startled flash, were food.

It required some kind of statement. Some promise. “I will not prey on you,” I said, and somehow it sounded, to my ears, as if I found the whole concept distasteful. “You need not fear me.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Joa

I felt my whole body stiffen, and power tingled in my fingertips. I wondered if my eyes had taken on that metallic shine, like David’s. “How will you stop me?” I asked, very softly. “I will not be caged. Nor bottled, Warden. My kind has seen quite enough of that.”

I had never in my life been a slave to the humans. Unlike many of my fellows, who had been tricked or suborned into service by the Wardens over many thousands of years, I had never been captured, never made their property. I had no love of mortals, and no fear of them, either. And I would not ever be owned.

We stood there, the three of us, in a peculiar triangle, in such a human-seeming, normal home. David, fierce and powerful, but with little hold over me because I was a different kind of Dji

But . . . what was I?

I didn’t know. I was neither human, nor was I Dji

Even to my ears, it sounded strangely empty and weak. Joa

“She’s got a point,” he said.

Joa

Chapter 2

THE REST OF the day passed. I learned more of my human body, and the more I learned, the less I liked. Its machinery was too fragile and required too much maintenance. Food. Breathing. Finally, sleeping. The humiliating process of waste elimination was enough to make me wish fondly for oblivion.

Joa

Ice cream was a revelation. For the first time in human form, I experienced a warm rush of something that I identified as real pleasure. It must have shown plainly in my expression, because Joa

“Ben and Jerry’s,” she said. “I figured if anything could teach you to smile, it’d be New York Super Fudge Chunk.”

Had I smiled? Surely not. I gazed at her, feeling my brows pull together in what I’d learned was a forbidding expression, and took another spoonful of the frozen chocolate dessert.

“It’s not bad,” I said, trying my best to sound indifferent. I spoiled it by closing my eyes to savor the creamy goodness as the ice cream melted in my mouth.

“This is a good sign,” Joa

I opened my eyes to gaze at her. “Would you?”

She licked the spoon. “For real?”

“Would you consider me a lost cause? Do you?” It was an important question, and I felt I deserved the answer.

Joa

“Or you will,” I said.

She tilted her head slightly to the side. It might have been an acknowledgment. It might have simply been an attempt to get to the last bit of chocolate on the spoon.

“We need to get you out of here,” she said finally, and I sensed the subject was closed. “There are things going on here in the mortal world. David and me, we’re—” She looked for a moment completely blank. “Okay, I have no idea how to explain to you what’s going on around here, except that people are out to get us.”

I took a spoonful of ice cream. “Is that not usual?” I had heard it from Ashan many times.

“Well, yeah, kinda. But this time—” She shook her head, eyes gone distant and a little dark. “This time David’s in real danger. Tell me, do you know anything about antimatter?”

I didn’t know the word. I frowned at her. “The anti of matter? Is that not—nothing?”

“You’d think,” she said. “But no. It’s the opposite of matter. It destroys it.”

“Such a thing ca

“Well, it can, so long as it’s contained in something else. But yeah, I get your point.” Joa

“I know nothing,” I said. That was all too true. “You think this antimatter could harm David?” Such a thing seemed impossible. It took another Dji

“I think it could destroy him,” Joa

I felt a surge of energy like a close strike of lightning, and came instantly to my feet, spi

But I sensed that under the calm, she was tense and watchful.

“Visitors usually knock,” she said. “Cassiel? This a friend of yours? Because if he is, we’re really going to have to talk about boundaries.”

The Dji

Even though we had rarely been allied, seeing the cold contempt in his human-form eyes was a shock.

He gave me only that single, searing glance, and then he angled toward Joa

“Where is David?” Bordan asked. It was clear he wanted nothing to do with Joa

I could tell from her smile she read the subtext just as well. “He’s out,” she said. “Want a cup of coffee while you wait? Some ice cream? Mmmm, Ben and Jerry’s? C’mon. Even Dji

He didn’t dignify that with an answer. He simply stood, silent and motionless, staring at her. No human could outstare a Dji