The connection snapped tight between us, stronger for the touch, and I took in a deep breath.
"Keep your head down," I told him. "I don't know what else might come out of the dark."
I pressed the throttle and threw sand on the still air, achieved the solid surface of the road, and the Victory dug into the asphalt, growling its challenge. I edged the speed faster and faster. It reminded me of old days, of horses thundering toward the enemy lines, of knights jousting, of a pure, clean purpose. Kill or die.
The red line on the horizon boiled up and out, like ink dropped in water. I felt the forces driving it--not Earth but Weather, the interaction of cold and warm air creating this deadly and explosive windstorm. In wetter climates, it would have brought thunder and rain, but here it only lashed the land, picked up abrasive grit and rubbed it together, building its own energy within the sandstorm.
The first gust of wind danced across the prairie, heading for us at a right angle. Tornado, my mind named it at first, but I knew that was not right. Gustnado. It didn't matter what it was called, only that it hit us broadside in a stinging, powerful rush, and I felt the back tire of the Victory skid a bit, then grab traction again. The oncoming wall of sand grew darker as it came on--still red, but shading now toward brown as more and more light was blocked. It would blot out the sun altogether.
"We can't do it!" Luis yelled behind me. I didn't have the time to answer. It was true: we couldn't possibly affect the entire sandstorm, but I wasn't trying to. All I wanted was a tunnel through it, a lessening of the intensity. We could do that. I was certain we could.
I was certain until the moment I realized how huge the storm truly was. It had looked large from a distance, but it was monstrous now, and still growing larger. It covered the horizon in red-brown waves, rippling like silk, stretching to the heavens.
A dusty, rattling pickup truck roared up from a side road, took the turn, and sped past us going the other direction. I heard the driver shout a warning to us. He was running.
That was sensible. But on the other side of that wall lay the child we'd come to find, and I wasn't willing to admit defeat. Not yet.
"Stop!" Luis yelled. I barely heard him through the contact of our two helmets, as if we were in the vacuum of outer space instead of safe on the ground. "We can't do it!"
"Hold!" I ordered him. I bent my head, firmed my grip on the Victory, and kept rocketing forward.
We hit the sand, or the sand hit us, with the force of a net stretched across the road. If I had not clung viciously to the motorcycle, we'd have been thrown headlong, likely killed. The Victory skidded, and I tried to right her, but the darkness and screaming sand had no direction, no dimensions. Which way was forward? Even my instincts flailed helplessly. The storm had reached an intensity that crackled with its own energy and power, a half-sentient monster whose only mission was to expand, consume, grow. Life, at its most basic.
Oversight helped a little. I drew power through the grip of Luis's hands on my waist and poured it in a laser-straight line through the darkness in the direction I thought was north. Even with his power and my ability to amplify and control, I achieved no more than a narrow window in which the sand was merely thick instead of smothering.
I accelerated again, following the line. Around us, the walls of darkness swirled and lashed. The faceplate on my helmet was scratched first, then scoured into fog by the unrelenting blast. I felt a sharp pain in my leg, then another in my shoulder. Rocks. There would be more debris mixed in as the sandstorm's power grew. It could pick up metal, barbwire, wooden posts.
A strand of barbwire could decapitate me as easily as a sword, and for a moment, my courage wavered. I am going to kill us both. What would happen to Isabel then?
Ahead, something flickered in the gloom. Oversight was a confusing boil of color, half-recognized patterns, nothing I could identify. . . .
And then, with shocking suddenness, the patterns resolved into gray lines, snapping into angles.
It was a car, and it was heading straight for us.
Chapter 12
I DIDN'T HAVE time to warn Luis, but from the strength with which he was holding on, he was in no danger of slipping from the bike.
I veered sharply, out of our small tunnel of clearer air, into the heart of the storm. I had no choice, and even so it almost made no difference, as I felt the sucking rush of the car's passage, and felt a hiss along the side of my boot where it bumped a passing tire.
I couldn't see it, because here in this lightless hell, there was nothing but screaming wind, burning sand, and false midnight. I had lost directions again, though there was still road beneath my wheels. I had to slow down, uncertain of where the road might end, and I coughed as sand began to filter in around my faceplate, coating my face in acrid dust. Choking me.
Luis was right. We would not survive this.
You're afraid, the Djinn ghost of me whispered. Like a human.
And once, I might have found that ridiculous or a matter for contempt. Now I found it a matter of survival. Every nerve in my body screamed in anguish. I wanted to hide, to curl up in a protective ball and wait for this terrible thing to pass me by.
That's your flesh thinking, the Djinn ghost of me said. That's what they want you to do. And she was right about that. If this was a Warden-driven storm, it could hover in place, flaying the leather from my back, the skin from my body, like being caught in a sandblaster.
I picked a direction based purely on instinct, and hit the throttle full speed. If I ran off the road into the sand, we'd crash and die in the storm. I won't, I told the screaming panic inside me. I am in control.
The tires chewed loose gravel in the dark. I took in a gasp, choked, coughed. My mouth was coated with dust.
The handlebars of the Victory danced with hot blue sparks.
I veered left again, off of the shoulder, found the edge by trial and error, and concentrated on short, shallow breaths as we sped into the boiling, punishing darkness.
Something hard and hot slammed into my thigh and dragged loose. Metal, I thought. Wire, most likely.
Faster.
The storm could not last forever. Not even the most powerful Warden, the greatest Djinn, could keep this focus for long. Weather was the most unstable of forces, spinning apart under its own weight.
Oversight showed me nothing, a chaos, an unending sea of flashes and smoke and fog.
And then, dimly, a light.
My scoured, abraded faceplate cracked with a sound like thunder, and the drift of dust behind it became a rushing torrent into my face. I squeezed my aching eyes shut. I was driving blind in any case.
There was no way to draw breath, so I held it, struggling against the impulse to cough.
Almost there. Almost . . .
We burst out of the back side of the sandstorm, into stillness and drifting, smokelike dust. Overhead, the sky was a dull orange, the sun a shriveled dot.
There was no road, only a flatter area of sand.
I skidded the motorcycle to a stop and clawed at my helmet. The buckles seemed frozen in place, but it finally popped free, and as I removed it, the faceplate fell off in two pieces. The plastic was as gray and foggy as the eyes of a corpse.
My helmet, on the front side, had been stripped of paint, reduced to dull gray. A fountain of dirt cascaded out as I dropped it to the road. More dust spilled as I bent my head. I coughed uncontrollably, spitting up dirty mouthfuls, and I finally felt Luis's hands let go of me. I'd have bruises where he'd gripped, I thought, with every finger clearly imprinted.
Luis got off the motorcycle and staggered a few steps as he tried to wrestle off his own helmet. He'd been protected by my body, but even so, when he turned, his face was a muddy mask of sweat and dirt. He coughed and spat, bracing himself with both hands on his knees, and shook his head.
"Can't believe we made it," he croaked. I couldn't speak at all, I discovered. My throat wouldn't cooperate. "You okay?"
I gave him a thumbs
-up gesture. Running through my abused body was a rush of warmth, of ecstatic satisfaction.
I had survived. I had forced myself through, and I had survived.
As a Djinn, I had never understood how it felt to win against such odds. It's only adrenaline, that old part of me scoffed. Illusion and hormones.
Behind us, the sandstorm rolled on, howling, black as night. There was nothing we could do to stop its progress, nor was I inclined to try.
I set my face forward, toward Colorado, where Isabel's track still led.
Neither of us could go on for long without some kind of relief. It appeared in the form of a dilapidated, barely operating roadside motel just shy of the state line. If it had a name, I didn't see it, only the rusting, flapping sign that said MOTEL, and below that COLOR TV AND AIR-CONDITIONING.
The Victory was coughing as much as I was, and I hoped that it had not been badly damaged by the sandstorm. It had blasted edges, pitted and smoothed, but seemed to have come through relatively unscathed. The same could not be said for me.
I rented a room using gestures and the Warden credit card that bore the name of Leslie Raine. The attendant behind the ancient, cracked counter looked young and far too excited to see a customer. "Y'all were in that sandstorm?" he asked as he hand-cranked a machine to get an imprint of the card. I nodded. "Y'all are lucky to be alive," he said. "Here ya go. Sign here."
I signed where he told me, using the name on the card. The boy was fascinated with my pink hair--still visible, though coated with dirt. "Not from around here," he decided. "Dallas? LA? Las Vegas?"
"Albuquerque," Luis said, and coughed. "Water?"
"Machine out front," the boy said. "Cost you a dollar and a quarter, though. Water fountain right there for free. Well water; no city water." He said it proudly. I raised an eyebrow at Luis, who gave me a mud-caked thin smile in return. As Wardens, we both understood well that natural did not equal safe. I mutely handed Luis several dollars, and he left to patronize the less risky choice.
The boy looked disappointed in our lack of moral courage. "Okay, then," he said, and handed me a grimy key on an even grimier orange plastic dangle, which was marked with the number 2. "Here you go. A/C's working, clean sheets, adult channel no charge."
I gave him a long stare for that last, and walked out into the brilliant sunlight. Luis was retrieving the last of four cold bottles of water from a sun-faded vending machine. I walked past him to the door that matched the key, opened it, and surveyed our temporary refuge. It wasn't even as much as the motel in which I'd stayed in Albuquerque, but the desk clerk had not lied--there was a bed, neatly made, and once I'd switched the air conditioner on, the blasting breeze was cool. I dropped the key on a table and started shedding layers of clothing on my way to the bathroom, sending cascades of gritty sand down to the carpet. Beneath the layers my skin was filthy and abraded, in places down to the muscle.
I stood under the water for a long time, until what swirled down the drain was clear instead of sandy, and as soon as I stepped out Luis was moving past me, naked, heading in. We said nothing to each other. He averted his eyes from me, and after my first glance, I did him the same. I shook out my clothing and cleaned it with a small burst of power, then did the same for his as the shower continued to run in the bathroom. Fully dressed again, I drank two bottles of water and stared out the motel room's window at the sandstorm, which was proceeding toward the horizon.
I heard the shower shut off, and in a few minutes the rustle of cloth behind me as Luis began to dress. We had said nothing, but there seemed to be communication between us nevertheless. I was acutely aware of him, every movement, and I wondered if he had the same sensation of me.
I handed him a bottle of water, which he thirstily guzzled, and then the second. It was only as he neared the end of that one that Luis said, "You still have the trace?"
I nodded and sipped.
"I've been thinking," he said. "Maybe this isn't about us at all. Maybe it's about Isabel."
That surprised me, and I turned toward him. "How can it be? She's a child." My voice had returned, but it was thin and scratchy. I cleared my throat and drank more water.
"Yeah, I know, but hear me out. It seems like they're not in the kidnap-for-ransom business--they haven't called in any kind of demand, not even to get us to back off. They had to have been watching the house to find an opportunity to grab her. So what if all of this has been to grab Ibby, not to kill Manny or Angela or me or you? We're just--"
"Obstacles," I finished softly. "But what value can a five-year-old child hold? Is she even displaying any talents as a Warden?"
"Not yet. Most kids don't until they hit puberty. But it does run in our family." He shrugged. "I started using mine pretty early. Around nine, I think."
I thought back and wondered. It seemed impossible that the attacks would have been designed solely to eliminate potential guardians for the child, but he was right: Taking Isabel seemed to be a primary goal, not a secondary one.
"Then they won't let her go easily," I said. "If they did all this to ensure they could get her."
Luis was watching me, and his expression was tense and grave. "You think they'll kill her?"
"I don't know," I said softly. "I don't know what they want from her."
I turned in the key to the desk clerk ten minutes later, which led to his anxious worry that we had found something wrong with the accommodations, and Luis and I mounted the Victory and resumed the journey.
The trace, on the aetheric, was still there, and still definite. Isabel was ahead of us, but only by an hour. Whatever method of travel they were using to transport her, it was slower than our motorcycle, even double loaded. I opened the throttle, and we began to close the distance.
We rode for almost an hour, and my hunting instincts--inherited from the Djinn I had been as well as the flesh I wore--bayed for blood. We were maddeningly close, so close that a single fold of the horizon hid her from us.
Careful, the cautious part of me warned. They'll fight to keep her.
"Colorado!" Luis shouted as we flashed past a large sign. I didn't care about the boundaries. Isabel's track was only a few miles ahead of us, and I intended to catch them. "Dammit! Cassiel, slow down--cops!"
I saw the cruiser as we flew past it, sitting nose out in a dirt road at the side of the highway. I glanced in my rearview mirror to see if he'd take up the pursuit.
He did.
"Pull over!" Luis was shouting to me now. "You can't outrun them on a straight road; just pull over!"
I slowed. It was hard. My instincts howled to keep on chasing, and although I knew he was right, it seemed wrong to give up so easily.
The cruiser pulled up behind us, and two men got out. One approached us while the other hung back.
"Off the bike, please," the policeman said. He was a large man, solid, with an expression that seemed blankly polite. His eyes were covered by dark sunglasses and shaded by a brimmed hat. My impression of him was one of starch and angles.
I swung my leg over the seat, as did Luis, and once we were off the motorcycle, the policeman drew his weapon and shoved it hard against my chest, right over my fragile human heart.
"Don't move," he said. Luis had frozen, not daring to protest, and that cost us, as well; the other policeman came around the car, grabbed Luis by the collar, and threw him facedown on the hot metal hood of the car.
He put the muzzle of his gun on the back of Luis's neck.
"On the ground," the man who had me said. "Facedown. Do it!"
The asphalt was hot and sticky, but I had little choice. I could resist, but I doubted I could save Luis as well as myself. Too many variables, and I didn't understand this reaction. It seemed out of proportion for a speeding violation.
"Hands!" he demanded. I felt a hard knee in the center of my back, and moved my arms within his reach behind me. He snapped cold metal over my wrists and jerked me up to my knees with a hard pull on the restraints. Pain lanced up my strained shoulder
s, and I bit down on a wince. "All right, bitch, you've got about one minute to tell me what I want to know. Understand?" He jammed the gun hard at the back of my head. "Understand?"
"Yes," I said. A Fire Warden might have been able to disable the guns. Perhaps it might be possible for an Earth Warden, as well, to warp the metal, but undoing the chemical reaction that fired the bullet was a skill that Luis did not have, and remained elusive to me.
I don't know what question I expected the policeman to ask, but it surprised me when he said, with cold intensity, "Tell me what happened to my son."
I had no idea what he was talking about, and my gaze touched Luis's, where he'd been thrown facedown against the car. His dark hair was damp and clinging to his face. He looked desperate and angry.
Dangerously so.
"What are you talking about?" Luis snapped. "Let her go, man!"
The policeman holding him down pushed harder. "Shut up."
"Yeah, I don't think so! Colorado State Police have cameras in the cars, right? Smile, you jackass, you're busted for brutality!"
"Luis! Enough!" I said, and twisted enough that I could see the edge of the policeman's face, the one holding the gun to my head. "I don't know what you are talking about. Who is your son?"
It was a very dangerous question. I sensed the sick fury building in him, and he was mere seconds from pulling the trigger that would kill me.
"Who's my son?" he repeated. He grabbed a fistful of my pink hair and yanked my head painfully back. "Who's my son? You've got to be kidding me."
"Randy," the other cop said. "This guy's got a point. We're exposed out here. You want to get straight answers, we can't do it right here on the side of the road, man."
"Cameras can be smashed," Randy said.
"Maybe so, but passing cars can't."
Randy hesitated, then grabbed the handcuffs and hauled me up to my feet. He shoved me in the direction of the police car as his partner opened the back door and put Luis inside. Luis didn't fight, but as we approached the vehicle the stench of it rolled over me--hot metal, vomit, despair, sweat, blood, stale air, and the reek of plastic--and it was hard not to dig in my feet and resist.