djinn wars 02 - taken (31 page)

“I thought we might study the device,” Jace said. “Evony’s idea that we should bring it here was a good one. If we can learn its secrets, then we can also learn how to keep it from being used against us.”

“Hmm.” Zahrias crossed to the table that held the mulled wine and picked up his glass. His gaze flickered to me for a second. “I will admit, Ms. Monroe, that I did not expect to see you again…especially with Jasreel at your side.”

Thanks for the vote of confidence,
I thought. Actually, though, I really couldn’t blame Zahrias for thinking that way. If someone had asked me to lay odds on my chances of success, I wouldn’t have given myself anything over fifty to one. “We had help,” I told him. “Some very brave people put their lives on the line for us.”

From the surprised expression that flitted across his swarthy features, I guessed Zahrias hadn’t expected that any mortal who wasn’t Chosen would have lifted a finger to help a djinn. “Is this true, Jasreel?”

“Yes,” Jace responded. “They follow a man named Margolis, and although most in the town do his bidding, there are some who don’t believe his actions are just, who didn’t think Natila and I should have been hunted down and imprisoned. Two of them — Julia Innes and Dan Lowery — helped us to get away. I might have suffered a fate similar to Natila’s if they hadn’t engineered our escape.”

For a second or two, Zahrias didn’t respond, only stood there with his hands wrapped around his glass, as if to re-warm the mulled wine it contained. “So it was at this Margolis man’s orders that you were imprisoned in the first place?”

Jace nodded.

“And what of the Chosen who were missing?” Zahrias asked then. “Did you have any word of them?”

“No,” I said, wondering yet again what could have possibly happened to those four men and women. “I couldn’t ask outright, but it was fairly obvious that Margolis’ people hadn’t captured anyone like that, or had anyone matching their descriptions come to Los Alamos at all. It’s as if they vanished into thin air.”

The djinn leader didn’t like my reply, I could tell; his dark eyes narrowed, and angry orange-red flames flickered into existence around his head before disappearing again. “How can you be sure this Julia woman wasn’t concealing the fact that the missing Chosen were there all along?”

“Because I would trust Julia with my life,” I said simply. “I already have, really. She had no reason to risk herself to save us, but she did, just because she knew it was the right thing to do. I suppose there’s a very remote chance that Margolis somehow slipped the Chosen in under her nose, but I doubt it. She’s his — well, I suppose she’s like Lauren here. She keeps everything running.”

“And yet this Margolis doesn’t realize that she’s betraying him?” Zahrias didn’t quite sniff, but it was obvious that he wasn’t too impressed with what he’d heard about the commander of Los Alamos.

“I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss him,” Jace put in, finally going over and retrieving his own glass of mulled wine so he could take a drink from it. “Yes, so far Julia has been able to fool him, but that is only because she is a formidable person in her own right. But Margolis’ word appears to be law, and he has a sizable group of men who follow him without question. Their numbers are far greater than ours.”

“Normally, I would say that is of no account, but for these things.” Zahrias shot a disgusted glance at the box before looking back over at me. “While I suppose I can see the logic in wanting to know how they work, I don’t see what you think we can do about it. We are djinn, not scientists or engineers. The things of this world bend to our will, and so we have no need of gadgets in the way that you mortals do.”

His dismissive tone made my hackles go up. All right, so some of our science hadn’t ended up doing a lot for our planet. But we’d also achieved great things, and I wasn’t about to let it go that easily. “Fine, so the djinn don’t need to know how to change the timing belt on a Subaru. But what about the Chosen here? Isn’t there one of them with any kind of scientific knowledge? Anyone who could at least try to take a look at this device?”

A shrug, the shining fabric of his robe glinting in the warm reflected firelight. “Perhaps. I will admit that I have not familiarized myself with the particular talents and skills of most of them. That is their partners’ concern, save where they can be useful to the group here — like Lauren, or Aidan and David, who enjoy watching the roads for us. But I will have Lauren make inquiries.”

That was a start at least, although I could tell that Zahrias didn’t think it particularly important to know how the boxes worked, as long as they weren’t being used directly against anyone in his group here. “Did you know that the other djinn have been hunting the rest of the survivors?” I asked.

He didn’t reply immediately, but instead looked over at Jace, who nodded and said,

“Yes, it seems the final purge has begun. You’ve heard nothing of this?”

“I have not been in communication with them lately, no. But we knew this was inevitable. It’s the entire reason why you have Chosen, is it not?”

The indifference in his tone chilled me. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever be able to figure out this man…this djinn. He didn’t seem to care at all what happened to the rest of humanity’s survivors, and yet he did appear to be concerned about the Chosen in his community, especially when it came to the four who had disappeared so mysteriously. Was that only because their disappearance affected djinn he knew?

I had no idea. Again I puzzled at his role of leader here, when he himself was with no one, whether Chosen or djinn. Had he somehow been given this assignment, or had he volunteered for it?

Jace said, voice tight, “True, this is what was agreed upon. But you know my feelings on this matter…and the feelings of the rest of us here.”

A pause as Zahrias drank the rest of his mulled wine, then set the glass down on the table. When he turned back toward us, his eyes were hooded, revealing little, but something in the set of his mouth seemed to indicate that this was an argument he had had before, and didn’t want to have again.

When he spoke, however, he sounded more weary than angry. “Yes, I know those feelings very well, as you’ve made them abundantly clear on more than one occasion. I have not had speech with the others, and see no reason to. They are set on their course, and we are protected here, and that is all we need to concern ourselves with. For now, I would advise you to enjoy this reunion with your beloved, and to let the rest of this go. I should think you would be eager to be together, rather than belaboring the same point over and over again.”

Well, that was one thing Zahrias and I could agree on. While I understood the need for this debriefing, for lack of a better term, what I wanted most was to be with Jace, to hide ourselves away in our suite for a while so we could rediscover one another. Or, in my case, discover him for the first time. We had made love many times, but that was when I’d thought he was Jason Little River. I needed to be with him now, in his true form, so I could fall in love with him all over again.

Something of these thoughts seemed to have communicated themselves to Jace, because he nodded at Zahrias and said, “That is true enough. I suppose we can discuss the device more tomorrow.”

“I will have Lauren see if there is anyone in the group who can contribute to that conversation.”

Those words had the tone of a dismissal. Jace said, “Until tomorrow, then,” and I chimed in,

“Thank you, Zahrias.”

He seemed somewhat surprised that I’d thanked him, but recovered enough to incline his head and say gravely, “You are very welcome, Jessica Monroe.”

That seemed as good a time as any to make our escape.

We didn’t go immediately to our suite, however, but to the dining hall to see what we could scrounge up. By then it was almost noon, and so Phillip, the former chef turned cook for the djinn/Chosen colony, was in the kitchens overseeing lunch preparations. Although he startled upon seeing us — it seemed as if word hadn’t yet begun to spread regarding Jace’s and my return — when Phillip heard we hadn’t had a proper meal for some time, he put together a wonderful lunch together for us and set it all on one of the resort’s room service carts.

“Just leave it outside your door when you’re done, and someone will come along to get it,” he told us, blue eyes glinting slightly. That glint seemed to indicate he understood that we probably wouldn’t be all that eager to leave our suite anytime soon.

Both Jace and I thanked him and headed off to our room. We’d left a fire burning in the hearth, and the pleasant scent of wood smoke greeted us as we opened the door. I trundled the room service cart in while Jace shut the door. To my surprise, he didn’t follow me as I went over to the little table for two by the window, but remained standing where he was, surveying the space.

“Is something wrong?” I asked. Maybe he didn’t like the room, for some reason. It was done in a vaguely Native American motif, with a kiva fireplace and neutral tones. I thought it was beautiful, but….

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said at once. “It’s just…this. Being here with you. Those weeks I was being held captive, I didn’t think I would ever see you again, let alone have the chance to be with you like this. I think I’m trying to tell myself that this is real, and not a dream I conjured to comfort myself while enduring Margolis’ torments.”

Something about his words brought home to me more than anything else everything he’d gone through. I let go of the cart’s handles and crossed the room to him, took his hands in mine. At least his fingers were warm, which meant he had recovered…physically, if nothing else. I pulled him closer, whispering, “I’m so sorry. I should have tried to get you out sooner. I was trying to blend in, get them to trust me. I knew if I got caught, I’d never be able to get you away from there. But I got caught anyway, so I shouldn’t have wasted all that time.”

He brought my fingers to his lips, kissing them, and a tremulous sort of warmth went over me. I wanted him so badly, and yet this still felt so strange. This was Jace — I recognized the intonation of his voice, even if it was slightly deeper than the voice he’d used as Jason Little River. And those dark eyes were the same shape, more or less, although they now showed more laugh lines when he smiled. The lines of the mouth, so close, but subtly different, enough that when I kissed him, I had to remind myself that this was Jace, but also Jasreel, and that they were one and the same, even if my eyes weren’t still entirely convinced of that fact.

“Beloved,” he said, the word making my heart turn over. I didn’t think I would ever get tired of hearing him call me that. “Please, if you love me, do not berate yourself. You did what you thought best. I truly believe it was the best strategy, because you’re right — if you had simply shown up and immediately tried to go where you were not allowed, I have no doubt that Margolis would have apprehended you at once. It was bad luck that you were caught when you finally did have the opportunity to find me. We were very close to getting away, after all.”

Not close enough,
I thought, but I knew better than to utter those words out loud. Jace and I had already been over this, and I knew he wanted me to let the matter go. Sometimes that was hard for me; I wanted to work at a problem until it was resolved to my satisfaction. Some things couldn’t be fixed, however. I didn’t have a time machine; I couldn’t turn back the clock and head another direction down that corridor at the labs, and possibly elude capture that way. Besides, even if the two of us had gotten safely off that floor, we still would have had to attempt to rescue Natila, and we could have gotten caught just as easily doing that.

“I suppose so,” I said reluctantly, and he pulled me to him then, brought his mouth against mine. I could taste the sweet-spice of the mulled wine on his tongue, and in that moment regret was forgotten, worry cast aside. There was only Jace…Jasreel…this amazing man whose lips seemed to fit so perfectly with mine, even if they were a slightly different shape from the lips of the Jace I had first kissed.

We held the kiss for a long moment. At length he pulled away, though, sending me an apologetic look. “Beloved, I want you…more than you can possibly know. But I also know I won’t be able to love you properly without eating something first.”

I wanted to laugh, just because he seemed so worried that I would be offended. How could I be, though? For all I knew, he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in weeks. Smiling, I replied, “Jace, I think I can manage to wait another fifteen minutes or so. Besides, I’m hungry, too.”

He seemed to relax then, going over to the cart and picking up one of the smoked turkey and provolone sandwiches Phillip had made for us. One bite, and Jace’s eyes widened. I had to fight back a smile, since I’d had roughly the same reaction when I first tasted Phillip’s cooking.

Although he must have been ravenous, and probably could have devoured the whole thing in just a minute or so, Jace stopped and set down the sandwich. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Yes,” I said. I hadn’t been lying when I’d told him I was hungry, but there was something oddly satisfying about standing there and watching him eat, knowing it had been a very long while since he’d had any real food. But since it appeared he intended to wait until I began to eat as well, I went to the room service cart and retrieved my own sandwich. As I’d thought, that widening of the eyes hadn’t merely been from satisfying what must have been a raging hunger — those sandwiches would have been amazing even to someone who didn’t feel like eating. Smoked turkey, and thick slices of provolone, and roasted red pepper and fresh-baked ciabatta rolls…I wasn’t sure how Phillip managed it all, except that Taos was apparently like Los Alamos in that it had never suffered a loss of power, and so all the food in the various restaurant freezers and so forth had survived more or less unscathed.