Unseen

He was lying motionless, limp as an animal broken at the side of the road.

The scream that came from my throat left it bloody and raw, and instead of relying on power I rushed the boy, shocking him, and grabbed him in my arms in a tackle. He felt scalding-hot, as if in the grip of a killing fever. I put my hand flat on his forehead and managed to moderate the power that I poured into him, although my instincts were to kill, to punish. ... But it wasn’t the boy I needed to kill.

It was the old woman, with her fixed and mocking smile, who watched from behind Elijah, with her other sleeping hostages around her. I lunged for her.

Elijah simply batted me aside, as if I were an insect, and sliced his hand down at my neck. I sensed the force he was wielding, blunt and brutal; he’d have crushed my flesh and bones, destroyed me without a single moment of mercy.

Something caught his hand on the way down.

Rashid.

The Dji

“I know,” I said, and rolled to my feet. “Is the air your gift?”

“I couldn’t have you dying before I reaped my rewards.” Rashid looked down at the boy, who was struggling to break free. “This one’s stronger than I’d expect.” And Rashid was controlling him without much apparent effort. Impressive.

“Don’t harm him,” I said.

“Really, do you think I am so cruel?” Rashid did a good job of seeming offended, but I knew he wasn’t; I knew him too well to think he would blink at any action, no matter how morally offensive to a human. “Hush, child. Enough.” He touched a fingertip to Elijah’s forehead, and the boy went limp. Rashid dropped him to the floor and extended his hand to me. I wasn’t too proud to accept the help.

“Luis,” I said, with dawning horror. “Luis was hit—”

“Yes.” Rashid didn’t move; he didn’t so much as glance at where Luis lay. I rushed past Rashid, but he caught me and dragged me to a sliding stop. “Wait.” He held up a sharp finger to silence me, more of a threat than a gesture. Then he tilted it toward Luis.

Who was sitting up, staring down at the charred hole in his shirt. It was a black-edged gap of more than ten inches across. Beneath it, his skin looked normal and undamaged.

I wasn’t imagining it this time. His flame tattoos moved, shifting like shadows in nervous flickers, and then went still again.

Luis touched the burned edges of the fabric and looked up at me, lips parted in wonder.

“What happened?” he asked. He still looked pale and ill, but he should have been dead. That plasma ball from Sanjay had hit him with full force, and as an Earth Warden he had no real defense against it.

As an Earth Warden.

Luis, whether he recognized it or not, was manifesting a critical second power. I’d seen it, from time to time; I’d felt it in those inked tattoos, but I hadn’t understood what it was. But I did know that this time it had saved his life, and mine as well.

“As you see,” Rashid said, “he’s in no immediate need of my help. Not that I would give it.”

“He’s still bleeding,” I said.

“Survivable. And also not my problem.”

I had half expected that. “Then can you help us out of here?”

Rashid’s handsome, inhumanly sharp face relaxed into an unexpectedly charming smile. “For a price, of course.”

There were too many lives at stake to play this game. “I freed you,” I said, and held his gaze. It wasn’t easy, with those hot silver eyes boring into mine. “I freed you, and that is price enough, Rashid. Don’t push your luck.”

“Don’t push yours, friend Cassiel. One day you’ll need me more than you need me today.”

I looked around at the collapsing shell of our safety. At Shasa, somehow holding back the fire, at the last edge of her strength. At Marion, doing the same with the crumbling stone barrier. At Luis, Isabel, the fallen children. “If I need you more than this,” I said, “then I don’t think even you will be enough.”

Rashid cocked his head, as if surprised by that, and nodded. “Await me,” he said, and walked out, through the barrier of flames. Fire didn’t bother Dji

And much, much more.

The attack against us fell into confusion, and then died away. The fires, left undirected by someone with that affinity, snuffed themselves out; they’d long ago exhausted their natural fuel. A few guttered in the ashes, but most of it was smoke, and even that quickly thi

Rashid came back, dragging two bodies. I didn’t know either one, but he hadn’t left much to recognize, either. He dropped them at my feet, like a cat leaving kills for its owner, and turned toward Janice.

I’d almost forgotten her. She was moving quietly toward the back of the room, where the stones had broken. No doubt she’d pla

She was carrying the two boys in her arms, one on each hip.

Rashid looked at me. “Yours?” he asked.

“Mine,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Oh, there will be a charge. We’ll discuss that later. Privately.” He gri

Luis didn’t try to speak. He just shook his head. I glanced at him, tormented; he needed healing, and quickly. Rashid wasn’t about to do it; in fact, as I turned toward him, the Dji

Marion waved me on. “I’ll take care of him,” she said. “Go. Get her.”

I rolled the tension out of my shoulders and walked toward Janice. She tried to move toward the exit, but I easily outmaneuvered her. Anger made me quick, and feral.

“I can still kill them,” she warned me. “Doesn’t take much. You know that.”

“It wouldn’t take much to kill you, either,” I said. “And I’d do it before I let you go. I don’t want the boys harmed, but if you do it, it’s your choice. Mine is to stop you.”

“At any cost,” she said. “Really.”

“Yes.” I felt more like a Dji

Janice flinched. What she saw in me woke fear, and obedience. She bent and carefully laid Sanjay down, then Elijah. As she straightened, she held up her hands in surrender. “All right,” she said. “They’re down. Deal?”

“Deal,” I agreed. And on the aetheric level, I wrapped power around her rapidly beating heart. She tried to stop me, but in the end, without her glamour, she was far weaker than I’d expected. “I didn’t tell you I would let you leave alive. Only that you wouldn’t if you failed to do what I said. You bargain badly.”

And then I killed her.

It was a great deal more merciful than she deserved.

Marion was dangerously weak, but her power and mine sufficed to heal the ragged tear in Luis’s artery, at least well enough that he could move safely. The volume of blood he’d lost was another matter. We accelerated the production of it, but it would be days before he was himself again. Still, he was conscious, steady, and able to walk, if stiffly; that was a great deal better than either of us had expected.

There was a bruise forming on his chin. He rubbed it as I helped him to his feet. “Damn, girl, you didn’t have to make your point quite that hard.”

“There wasn’t time for polite argument,” I said. “And you deserved it.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I kinda did. But you’re not going to hear it again. I’m blaming it on the blood loss.”