Unknown

“The child was a latent Warden,” I said. “Someone woke her powers, far too early for safety. Someone female. Someone like me.”

“A Dji

Pearl.

Pammy had been at the Ranch, where Pearl trained her captured Warden children—but trained them for what? To do what? “She was rejected,” I said. We had seen other examples of it—children who had been brought to Pearl for evaluation or training, but had failed whatever obscure standard she had applied. Many had been used as perimeter guards for the Ranch, where the group kept a stronghold.

Pammy had either escaped, or been returned because she had become uselessly sick. “Pearl had to change her location,” I said. “Perhaps she’s changed tactics as well.” We had found her stronghold in Colorado, and by the time we had assembled sufficient strength to try to take it, it had been destroyed, only her expendable human allies left behind. She’d taken the children with her.

We had spent weeks trying to find any sign of where she might have gone.

“Maybe,” Luis said, “and maybe this is her goal—maybe Pammy didn’t fail. Maybe she’s exactly what Pearl wants her to be: a child time bomb.”

I considered it, then slowly shook my head. “No. Pearl is not interested in random destruction. She has a purpose, though the purpose is not yet clear. But if she returned this child, Pammy fell short of her expectations.”

That put a bleak light in Luis’s eyes. “Christ,” he said. “The kid could probably blow up the hospital if she got angry enough. That’s not enough power?”

“Not for Pearl,” I said. “Not yet.”

He sighed. “I need three shots of whiskey and about a day and a half of sleep. We can’t keep going like this. Time to stand down for a while.”

I didn’t want to, but I also felt the drag of exhaustion, and the faint, fine trembling in my muscles. My flagging brain interpreted sights and sounds as too slow, too fast, too bright, too loud; I did need rest, and if I needed it, Luis desperately needed it.

“Home?” I asked.

“Home,” he said. “Now.”

Chapter 2

HOME FOR LUIS was his brother’s home, which he had decided to keep after Ma

I had an apartment, but it was not a home—merely a way station where I kept my few belongings, slept, and cleaned my body.

The Rocha home was . . . more.

“I should take you back to your place,” Luis said as he unlocked the front door of the small, neat house; that took a while, because he had installed new locks and an alarm system. His words lacked conviction, and I ignored them, moving through the opened doorway into the familiar living room. It was comfortably furnished, with things that did not quite match—the sign of people who had bought their possessions over time, and because of love, not fashion. Unlike his brother and sister- in-law, Luis kept it very neat, but there was a sense of peace in it. Order. Love. Some sadness.

It eased some anxious, tired knot in my soul.

I locked the door behind me and sat down on the couch. Luis glanced at me without speaking and went into the kitchen. He came out again with two glasses—both decorated with colorful cartoon characters—and a bottle of amber liquid, which he set on the coffee table before sinking down next to me with a sigh that spoke of utter weariness. “Drink?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Do I?”

He poured me a thin line of liquor and handed it to me. “Try.”

I sipped carefully and made a startled, strangled sound as the fiery, smoky flavor coated my tongue and throat. Luis leaned forward and tipped a much more generous portion into his own glass, lifted it vaguely in my direction, and said, “Salud,” before downing the liquid in two heavy gulps. I took a larger sip. It didn’t burn as much the second time, and had more flavor.

Luis refilled his glass. I drained mine in three more slow sips, feeling an odd calm begin to work through me. Distilled chemical sedation. I began to understand why people sometimes pursued this course of action.

Luis put his glass down empty, refilled mine, and poured himself a third helping. “Last call,” he said, and capped the bottle. “How is it?”

“Interesting,” I said. I wasn’t quite sure I approved of the changes in my metabolism, but somehow that disapproval remained theoretical, and far away from the warmth that coursed through my body. I felt looser now, less on guard.

Less constrained. It sparked dangerous memories of being free, powerful, utterly different than what I was now.

Luis watched me over the rim of his glass as he drank—this time, much slower, almost matching my careful sips. “You were good today,” he said. “We were good today.”

It wasn’t often the case. Luis and I didn’t know each other as well as Ma

Luis was . . . complicated. I responded to him more strongly, both in terms of the power passed between us, and in purely physical ways. Since becoming human, my flesh had surprised me more than once, and continued to act in mysterious ways that seemed divorced from the cold logic of my thoughts. I was not sure how humans combined these things. Or Dji

I wasn’t sure which more accurately described me; it seemed to be a shifting question.

I sighed and leaned my head back against the couch cushions. “Do you think she will recover?” I asked, cradling the glass between my long white fingers. Luis finished his last sip of whiskey.

“It’s not a matter of recovery,” he said. “She’ll learn to live with it, or she’ll become more and more unpredictable and unstable. If that happens, the Wardens will have to remove her powers. God help whoever gets that job. It’s risky enough with an adult.”

There was a small, elite force of Wardens devoted to tracking down those who were, or became, dangerous and bringing them back for that process, which was a kind of psychic surgery performed only by the most expert Earth Wardens. There was every chance of leaving someone scarred, psychically crippled, insane, or dead.

Yet some Wardens actually chose to take the risk, rather than continue as they were.

And some had to be treated by force.

“I hope that will not be necessary,” I said. I put the glass on the coffee table and felt my whole body relax as I curled in on the couch, knees up, body turned toward him. My head rested against the cushions.

“Yeah,” Luis agreed. He hesitated, then leaned over and put his own glass down. “You want another shot?”

I glanced at the bottle. “No,” I said. “Do you?”

“Can’t,” he said. “I set my limits, and I stick to them.”

Limits. That was a concept unfamiliar to most Dji

Some of the limits were even my own choice.

I realized that I hadn’t spoken, and Luis had fallen silent, and we were still looking at each other. I had noticed that humans did not typically gaze steadily at each other, unless they were seeking confrontation; glances were more common, polite and fleeting.