Unknown

And nothing else. No enemy. No face to put to my would-be killer.

Without the anchor of Luis’s presence, it was very hard for me to view things on the aetheric plane, where the reality of mere physics took on different aspects; it was like trying to fly while holding a concrete block. I managed it for only a few long seconds, overlaying the burning wreckage and bodies and serene moonlit desert with the floods and flows of intention, power, and truth.

Most of those lying on the road did not benefit from the illumination of their souls; their crimes had warped them into hideous shapes, disfigured their faces beyond recognition. I didn’t linger on their self- mutilations. Energy rose up from the destroyed motorcycles in shimmers of gauzy color, but there was something more.

The hot, glowing presence of two Wardens, drawing power.

I saw something lance at me across the aetheric, straight and intense as it cut through everything in its path. It was narrow, and it looked exactly like a laser beam, save that its lurid red color didn’t exist at all in the real, physical world.

I pulled broken metal up from the road in a rush, building a steel shield between me and the beam rushing toward me. It hit my improvised defense and blasted it to even smaller component pieces, but the shield had taken the energy and dissipated it into a splash that only melted and seared the remains into a ball of slag.

I snarled and throttled the borrowed Harley into a full scream of power. Tires dug sand, then gravel, and then I was airborne as momentum carried me forward over the ditch and onto the surface of the road. I avoided the worst of the wreckage and aimed the motorcycle for the spot where the beam of power had originated.

This time, the Warden was an adult—young, but fully a man, probably only a few years younger than Luis. He looked scared, but determined, and as I came for him, he readied his defenses.

I didn’t hold back. I slammed him backward, off his feet, and the ground opened beneath him. He dropped dozens of feet, and as he fell, the sides of the pit caved in over him. Burying him alive. Pi

Destroying him.

It took fully a minute for him to die, smothered beneath the sand, but I didn’t wait to watch. This was war, and the Dji

I went after the second glowing spot of power.

A figure dressed in dull brown started out of concealment behind a low jut of rock, illuminated by the fires glowing behind me. For a frozen moment, as I closed the distance, I felt recognition strike me. It was too far to see her face, but I felt the familiar aetheric sense of her, a warm co

That was Isabel. Ibby. Ma

My child, something in me whispered.

Ibby was no longer the sweet, smiling girl I remembered, or even the traumatized one who’d seen her parents die as she shivered and wept in my arms. She looked older than five now, although physically her body hadn’t matured u

But she still looked like Isabel.

Pearl. Pearl had done this to her. Rage swept through me, turning fear to ash, and in that moment I really would have destroyed the human world for what Pearl had done—except that it would have meant destroying Isabel, as well.

I let off the throttle of the motorcycle. Ibby was standing by the side of the road, watching me, body tensed. Ready to attack. Ready to run.

Why? Why was she here?

Pearl, again. Pearl was training Ibby as a weapon. How better to use her, than to use her against me?

Oh, Ibby. But she had not led the attack. She’d been here either as hostage, or apprentice, but she was not ready to fight someone like me. She was so young. Too young.

It reduced me to fury and grief.

“Ibby,” I said. I had no doubt she could hear me, even over the throbbing growl of the Harley. “Ibby, it’s me. It’s Cassiel.”

It was a ridiculous thing to say. She knew who I was. I could see that in her face, in the caution and tension, the fear. It shattered my heart to see her fear me; she had always been so accepting of me, so . . . loving.

I kicked the stand of the motorcycle and eased off the bike, walking toward her. I must have looked frightening—stained with smoke and blood, a memory of that terrible day when she’d lost her parents.

She didn’t react, other than to narrow her eyes.

“Ibby,” I murmured. I came closer, moving slowly. “Oh, my girl.”

Her dull brown clothing was a kind of camouflage, a soldier’s gear cut down to fit a child. It should have looked ridiculous, like some sort of costume; instead, she filled it with deadly confidence.

She is only five years old. I felt that strike me hard as a fist, and I ached to stop time, reverse the hurts that had been done to her, take her in my arms and rock away the anguish.

Even if the anguish was only my own.

“I can help you,” I told her softly. I took another step on the gravel, and I saw her tense, readying herself. I stopped and made sure my hands were loose and un-threatening at my sides. I attempted a smile. “I want to help you, Ibby. Don’t you believe that?”

I felt a slight whisper in the aetheric, a brush of power. She was reading me. That was . . . impossible. Isabel was a mere child, nowhere near old enough—even should she have the inborn ability—to wield those kinds of powers, never mind with such utter precision. Reading the truth was an Earth power, like healing.

I also sensed another power in her, jittering and familiar. Fire.

Five years old, and already burdened with two kinds of Warden powers. It would shatter her like glass, or worse, warp her into an unrecognizable, twisted mockery with no hope of returning to the person she was meant to become.

In that instant, I hated Pearl, with such a pure and burning passion, such an utterly impotent passion that it made me tremble and close my eyes to hold it inside. Please, I thought. Please let me find a way to destroy her, to wipe her from the Earth. She destroys everything she touches.

Ibby chose that moment to respond. “My mommy wants me to do this,” she said. She sounded utterly certain.

My eyes flew open, and I felt the breath congeal in my lungs. “What?” I whispered.

“Mommy says I have to be stronger now,” Isabel said. “Or the bad people will win. The bad people who hurt her, like you.” Something flashed in her dark, wide eyes, something awful. “I won’t let you hurt my mommy again, Cassie. I won’t.”

The realization almost drove me to my knees. Pearl, what have you done? Whether it was the strain of such u

I spread my arms wide to my sides and lowered myself to my knees on the filthy road. A warm burst of wind blew out of the desert, stinging my eyes with dirt, but I kept my gaze on hers.

“You can kill me,” I told her. “Ibby, if you really think I would ever hurt you, hurt your mother, hurt your father—then you should kill me. But I wouldn’t. I won’t ever do that.” Nor could I. Ma

She was still reading me. I felt the subtle, golden touch around me, and knew she could feel the truth of my words. The anguish behind them, and the righteous rage I couldn’t altogether control.