Unseen

“You think I’m that simple?”

“No,” I said. “I think you’re that lonely, Esmeralda. How did she send for you?”

Es slowly unwound herself from around Luis’s body, and he staggered and backed away toward me. The two of us against the monster ... but I wasn’t seeing a monster anymore.

Es settled her coils comfortably, a glistening mound of sinuous flesh, and propped her chin on one hand. Her elbow rested on the top of a coil. “She called the shop and left a message to tell me where she was. She said she liked it here, but she figured things would go wrong. She thought I could help. She said it was the least I could do.”

“Can you help?”

“Yeah, probably.” Es shrugged. She studied her fingernails, and frowned at the dirt she found beneath them. She’d been traveling a long way, I realized; her shirt—the only clothing she wore—was dirty and torn, and her previously shiny, perfect hair was rough and tangled. No doubt she could manage to hide herself effectively with what remained of her Earth powers, because otherwise her travels would have been brief, and full of general panic. But even then, she hadn’t had an easy time of it.

I was willing to bet it was the first time she’d risked the outside world in quite some while.

“The girls,” I said. “Do you know where they are?”

“Ibby and the redhead? Yeah. I know where they were going.”

“And you just let them go?” Luis said. His fists balled up, and I saw the black tattoos on his arms glitter in the starlight and start to smolder. His use of fire was purely instinctual now, not directed with anything like precision. I laid a hand on his shoulder, and felt him deliberately reach for calm. “Where are they?”

“Doing something brave,” Esmeralda said. “They knew somebody would be coming for the convoy you have on the road. They split off. They’re going to intercept them.”

Luis spat out a curse. “We already had perimeter security,” he said. “The last thing we need is two of these kids out there handling power they shouldn’t be touching!”

“Listen, man-cake, I already slithered past your so-called perimeter security, like, fifteen times.” Es sighed. “You Wardens. Es stupido. You’d do better with third-rate rent-a-cops; at least they’d have guns. Ibby was right. If you want to keep your convoy from getting trashed, you’d better get your best on it. And the kids, they’re good. Better than you.”

“Es,” I said, “the more those girls use their powers, the more broken they become. They started too young. You understand that better than anyone.”

The Snake Girl looked away, and didn’t comment. Her coils shifted restlessly, and there was a slight, instinctive buzz from her tail rattle. “They’ll be okay,” she said. “Look, you can’t protect them. They’re going to do what they’re going to do.”

“It’s killing them,” Luis said.

Esmeralda’s dark gaze flashed up to lock with his. “And?” she asked. “What do you think making them not use it is going to do? Kill them slower? Some of them won’t make it. Some will adapt. That’s the way things go in this world. You can’t stop it, and you’d better not get in the way.”

“I’m not letting her do this,” he said. “Cass. Let’s go.”

“You won’t find them,” Es said. “One thing that kid knows how to do is hide. You won’t find them unless you trip over them by accident in the dark.”

“Can you find them?” I asked.

Es considered the question, and then tilted her head a little. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe I don’t want to, though.”

I had let this go on too long, I decided. I was a little fascinated with Esmeralda, the way a mongoose is fascinated with a snake, but enough was enough. Luis was right. We couldn’t allow a six-year-old child to fight a battle for us.

I had been sending tendrils of power out through the roots of trees around us, and now, with a snap of will, I triggered the trap. Branches slammed down, forming a thick, springy cage around her. Roots squirmed from the dirt and wrapped around the branches, weaving it together.

Esmeralda let out a hiss of surprise, and I heard the dry rattle of her alarm. She battered the cage with the coils of her body, but it was tightly woven, and impossible for her to get real force into her struggles. “Let me go, you cold bitch!” she screamed, and ripped at the wood with her hands—but those were merely human hands, without the strength necessary to shred the tough fibers. “Let me go!”

“Once you tell me where they are,” I said. “You know this is too dangerous for them. Don’t let them down, Esmeralda. They meant for you to tell us. They hoped you would.”

“That’s not what she said.” The snake’s coils pulsed against the cage, trying to push it apart, but the trees were firmly rooted deep in the earth. Esmeralda subsided, panting, glaring through the mesh at us. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the branches. “She said not to let anyone find her.”

“She’s a child,” Luis said. “And she’s too brave for her own good. She needs us. Tell us where she is or I swear to God I’ll rip off your rattle and feed it to you!”

Esmeralda was silent for so long I wondered if she would tell us, and then she finally said, “I’m not afraid of you. I’m telling you because I think the gringa bitch is right; the kids shouldn’t be doing this alone. I was going to go help them anyway.”

“Where. Is. She?” Luis almost snarled it, and I felt the burning aura of fire around him again, a kindling that raised the temperature by several degrees.

Esmeralda sensed it, too, and went very still. The dry buzz of her rattle grew louder as she reacted to his threat, but she had nowhere to run, and she couldn’t strike to defend herself. Luis wouldn’t burn her alive—at least I didn’t think he would—but his rage was clear.

“If you stand between me and Isabel, I’ll wipe you off the face of the earth,” he told her. “You take us to her. Do it now.”

He nodded to me, and I released the cage of branches, which sprang back into their normal positions with a creak and rustle of dry needles. The roots shriveled back into the ground.

Esmeralda was free, but she still didn’t move. The steady, u

“You keep it in mind,” she said. “I’m not your bitch. I’ll crush you and eat you if you mess with me.”

Luis brushed it aside with an angry swipe of his hand. “We can kill each other later. Ibby. Now!”

She relaxed a little, and the rattling slowed, then stopped. “All right,” she said. “Try to keep up, asshole.”

She could move with astonishing speed, and with a quick, sinuous flash, she was already disappearing through the trees. The pale white of her rattle was the only visible sign of her.

“Run,” I said, and took off in pursuit.

Chapter 14

IT WASN’T THAT I had forgotten Luis’s leg injury, but I’d known he wouldn’t allow it to slow him down too much. Even so, he labored very hard to keep the pace, gasping for air, and when he faltered I grabbed him and pulled him along. He dug deep for the strength to deny the pain, and I blocked it as much as I could. The patch to his torn artery was holding, and that was all I could hope for now. This pursuit might do irreparable harm to him, but he wouldn’t give it up. There was no point in asking.

Esmeralda’s snakelike form whipped around trees, threaded between boulders, slipped over shadow-protected drifts of snow that hadn’t yet melted. I expected her to slow, but if anything, she increased speed, and the starlight wasn’t enough to keep her in sight. I tracked her on the aetheric; her aura was eerie and weirdly wrong for the shape she held in the human world. It was more as she imagined herself ... but she wasn’t human at all. A feathered serpent, magnificently colored, gliding silently through the world above. The deadly sense of menace from her was even stronger in that realm of force and will, and I realized once again what a power had been leashed inside those snake’s coils.