Unknown

When it finally came, Luis’s voice was rough and uneven. “What the hell, Cass. What the hell is happening?”

“He was expendable,” I said. “Pearl didn’t get ahead of us; she used him to attack us. When he became of no further use, she used him to power the ice on the roadway; she hoped that you would be unable to avoid a wreck, perhaps fatal. She ripped so much power from him that he couldn’t survive it. She killed him to try to get to us.”

“I get that,” he said raggedly. “But why kill him? Why now?”

I shrugged. “She doesn’t have the respect for young life that you do,” I said. “You are all insects to her, regardless of your circumstances. It means nothing to her to kill. Sometimes, she does it for her own amusement.” Or she did, once, in my distant memories.

I had, in thousands of years past, watched Pearl stand at the leading edge of a storm of destruction, tall and wild, only vaguely holding to a shifting human shape that glittered and flowed on the wind. Before her a wide, pleasant valley stretched out, covered in thick yellow flowers. There was a settlement there of creatures who were not humans, as we would later recognize them, but shared most of the same ancestry.

Pearl rode the wave of destruction down the hill, sweeping everything before her in a storm of ashes and death. She was terrible and beautiful, and insane.

It was the last settlement of its kind, and Pearl destroyed every last life in it, erasing the existence of that race of prehumans, erasing any trace that they had ever been. She unmade them, leaving behind the clean, green meadow, the nodding flowers, and an Earth that remained, for a time, the sole province and plaything of the Dji

I had watched. Watched, and done nothing. Only later had I acted, when we all realized just what Pearl had become. When her selfish desires no longer ran in concert with our own.

And I had made the fatal mistake of defeating her, but not fully destroying her.

“She isn’t at her full strength,” I said, almost to myself. The Pearl of that ancient memory was a primal force, a goddess, something that woke shivers in me even now. “If she were, she’d destroy us without a thought. Us, the entire city, the nation. She doesn’t understand restraint, and the losses mean nothing.”

“Great,” Luis said. “And this bitch has Isabel.”

“She wants Ibby alive. Ibby could not be in a safer place for now.” Far safer than she would be with us, at least until we worked out what it was Pearl was doing. “We should perhaps worry about ourselves.”

“Trust me, I’m worried.” Luis turned his gaze back, unwillingly, to the boy. “Why didn’t she just kill us the way she did him?”

“I don’t think she can,” I replied. “Yet. The boy must have trained at the Ranch, where she kept the children. It’s likely that she has access to those who’ve surrendered their will to her in ways that she doesn’t to others, like us, who resist. But she’s powerful, and growing more powerful with every passing day. The more who surrender their wills to her . . .” I shook my head. There was no point in taking it further; he understood my concerns fully.

“If she’s killed her only co

“Maybe,” I said slowly. Something did not seem right about that, however, and it dawned on me precisely what it would be. “Luis. We have to leave him.”

Silence in the van, deep and weighty. The wind outside rattled sand against the windows, and the metal frame rocked slightly from the pressure. Luis’s face was blank, his dark eyes hot.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Why?”

“Because if I seriously thought you would dump this poor kid like trash at the side of the road—”

“Luis,” I interrupted him. “Think. She did not have to kill him. Why would she? He was perfectly placed to destroy us, if we gave him time to recharge, and he is young enough that we would have hesitated to fight him with full strength. It would be a significant advantage. She sacrificed a pawn who was in position to destroy us. Why?”

He didn’t answer this time. I don’t think he understood my point, so I made it clear.

“When we tracked Isabel toward the Ranch where Pearl was keeping her, what did Pearl do?”

He opened his mouth, then shut it, thinking. Then squeezed his eyes shut as if he had a terrible headache.

“She whistled up the cops and accused us of kidnapping,” he said. “Nothing the cops will respond to faster than an endangered, abducted child.”

“And when they arrive,” I said softly, “they find a boy dead in the back of our van.”

He understood, then, and leaned forward to press both hands to his face. He had a record with the police, the kind of thing that predisposed them to suspicion. His own niece had disappeared.

This would not go well for him.

I continued, only because I felt I had to drive the point home. “She intended this to slow us down, confuse us, delay us. Separate us. As you pointed out before, the police can be defeated, but they are many, and we can’t fight them on fair terms. We must run. And we must leave the boy behind.”

“Wouldn’t do any good. Forensics and shit, don’t you watch any of those cop shows on television? They’ll link the kid to me sooner or later. Hell, the blanket around him is Isabel’s. And my DNA’s in the system.”

I shrugged. “Those things, I can fix. We leave him, and I remove all traces and links to us, both physical and aetheric. But we must do it now, quickly. She won’t be waiting to put her plans in motion. All my skill won’t help if the police search the van and find him here. I can’t credibly hide him from their sight. It’s too small an area.”

Luis waited a torturously long second, then wiped a palm over his hand and nodded. He looked ill. I didn’t hesitate; I picked up the boy, slid open the door of the van, and jumped down the embankment of the road in a shower of pale dirt, sliding out of sight of the road.

“Wait,” Luis said. He’d lunged to the opening in the van, and his knuckles were white where he gripped the door frame. “Don’t just—don’t just dump him. He meant something to somebody. Like Ibby means something to us. Please. I’m asking you. Treat him—treat him like you care.”

That said a great deal about what Luis presumed he knew about me.

I stared at him for a few seconds, saying nothing, and then walked away.

Desert stretched out on all sides, hot and sterile, dotted with the alien shapes of the only plants that could fight the harsh conditions. But the desert was far from empty; no, it throbbed with life, from the busy burrowing insects to the ru

It was a hard place to leave a child.

I let the sense of bruised hurt fade, and focused on my task. I balanced my burden—suddenly much heavier than its mere physical weight—and set off at a steady run, heading far from the road.

I didn’t look back, but I heard Luis say, very quietly, “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know if he meant it for the boy, or for me.

I made the boy a grave on a hillside, near an overhanging fragrant bush that offered a little shade. It overlooked a valley lush with the rainbow of the desert—russets, ochers, and tans, dotted with vivid greens and the occasional struggling flower. It had a kind of empty, wild beauty. It was all I could offer as apology, as acknowledgment of what Luis had said—that somewhere in the world, someone was missing this boy.

I stripped away the blanket and carefully, using bursts of Luis’s power, removed any traces that might link the boy back to us before wrapping it tightly around him again, in an obscure wish to give comfort. Conscious of the press of time, I knew I couldn’t hesitate, yet something made me do just that.