Unknown

Waiting.

Luis.

Nothing came back to me, save that wordless static. He was still alive, but incapable of conscious thought. Drugs, most likely. Or they’d hurt him so badly that his body had, in self-defense, taken away his awareness of the damage. Either way, it was not good news.

Turner had betrayed us, and now there were much greater concerns. Not just Pearl; the government. I had no doubts that Agent Sanders thought he was in control of the situation, and the day; he had no idea just how out of his depth he—and all his merely human colleagues—really were.

“This isn’t useful,” Rashid observed, after at least fifteen minutes of total silence. I pulled myself back from the contemplation of my own, maddening lack of control. “I agreed to help you fight, not help you surrender.”

I bit back my first response, which came with another jolt of pain from the controlling handcuffs. “Can you leave?”

“If I wish.” He let a beat go by. “It wouldn’t negate our agreement. We made a bargain. The fact that it didn’t turn out well for you—”

“Is beside the point, I know. I wasn’t born human.” I tried to moderate the snarl in my voice. “Could you take me with you?”

“Of course,” Rashid said placidly. “The question would be whether or not you’d survive. The odds are not good on that point. I’m not one of those Dji

“Such as?”

“Ma’at,” he said. “One or two, not powerful enough to be Wardens, but powerful enough to interfere with you, slow you down. That would be enough to allow bullets to reach you. I believe if I try to take you with me, you’ll be dead.”

I considered that. My shoulders ached from the restraints, and I was thirsty. Exhausted. I needed sleep. But more than anything else, I needed to know that Luis was all right.

“I know we can’t alter the agreement,” I said, very carefully. “So I am not attempting to do so. I only say that should you wish to leave this place, no one will be able to stop you. And should you take the scroll from our friend Mr. Turner, I don’t suppose anyone can stop you from doing that, either.”

“Or destroying him like a small bug,” Rashid noted.

“Or that, of course.”

He didn’t move. I had supposed that a mere mention of the fact that he might lay his hands on the scroll would cause him to flicker out of existence and into Mr. Turner’s very nightmares, but instead Rashid sat, patient and silent.

I asked, “Are you waiting for something?”

“No,” he said. “But there’s no great hurry. I can take the scroll from him anytime I please. He is not the rightful owner. Therefore, it’s fair game to take it, so long as I return it to you.”

Was it? I didn’t know that; I supposed it made sense, by Dji

But, I realized, the scroll itself wasn’t just some mere piece of paper locked in a case. It was living.

It was capable of reacting, as it had when it sealed its case shut.

I smiled slowly. “And if you take it into your hands without me granting it to you, it won’t open for you, will it?” I asked him. “That’s why you wanted to bargain for it, not simply take it from me. I have to give it.”

Rashid didn’t bother to deny it. “So in liberating it from your friend Mr. Turner, I am only its temporary custodian. Not a thief.”

“Not a thief at all,” I agreed. “Well then.” I felt my smile fading. “While you have it, you’ll be a target. Whatever you do, you must not let it be taken by Pearl or those she commands.”

“And now you’re putting conditions on me,” Rashid said, and shook his head. “Cassiel. I’ll do as I please, when I please, and you will have to trust that these things will also please you.” He looked up at me, and his eyes were bright and direct, entirely inhuman. “Time to go.”

He’d sensed something, but I didn’t know what. I nodded. That was all the goodbye we said, or needed; Rashid simply melted away, a whisper on the wind, and his empty handcuffs thumped to the ground where he’d been.

That got a reaction from the agents watching us—quick steps in to tighten the cordon, and one small red-haired woman with a pretty, no- nonsense face snapped, “Where is he?”

For all that they’d been briefed on the nature of the Wardens, the nature of the Dji

I ignored her as I tried to locate what had triggered Rashid’s sudden decision to depart. Nothing obvious; the government agents had control of this side of the chasm, separated from Pearl’s area by a harsh divide that would be difficult to cross without attracting notice. Likewise, Pearl could send her child-soldiers here, but even Pearl had her limits. I didn’t imagine she would stage an all-out assault against an armed camp of the FBI. Her followers weren’t Dji

I sensed no power stirring in the aetheric toward us. When I directed my attention toward Pearl’s camp across the divide I got a sense of shielded, harnessed, focus energy, like the potential of a bomb, tightly contained. Was Pearl there? I wasn’t sure she was. I wasn’t sure she was anywhere, in a purely physical sense. Her followers, yes, but Pearl could manifest herself in ways I didn’t fully understand, and that meant she couldn’t be tied down to a single focus.

Not yet.

I was still searching for a sign as to what had driven Rashid on his way when Agent Sanders, looking harassed and angry, strode back into the clearing. He looked at the spot where Rashid had been sitting, glared at the agents, then at me. I shrugged.

“Dji

“Your friend really doesn’t value your life too highly, does he?” Sanders said.

“He isn’t my friend,” I said. “We had an agreement, not a relationship, and my life is my own to worry about.”

“Yeah, you got that right. Come on. Up and at ’em.”

I had been sitting cross-legged for a while, and since my hands were still cuffed behind me, it was difficult to rise. Sanders assisted me with a hand on my arm, and kept the hand there as he directed me away from the clearing, past the watching agents, and down a game trail that cut through the brush.

We emerged into an open area where tents had been erected—camouflage canvas, sturdy government issue that had probably been used for everything from disaster relief to combat. They were large structures. One held cots and a meal area; the other, where Sanders directed me, had long folding tables covered with paper, maps, computers, and equipment whose purpose I couldn’t guess. Communications, perhaps. There were at least ten other people in the tent as we arrived.

Agent Turner was not among them.

There were also folding chairs, and Sanders sat me down in one for a moment to look down into my eyes. “Must be uncomfortable,” he said. “Hands behind you like that. Tell you what, I’ll cuff you in front, but I need your promise not to try anything stupid. I’m not your enemy. Your enemy’s out there, other side of that gully.”

I didn’t like making any kind of deal with Sanders, but he was right; my shoulders were aching, my arms trembling from the strain of trying to relieve the constant pressure. Sitting was awkward, at best.