Undone (26 page)

“Yeah? What galaxy?” The detective tugged on my arm again. “Come on, ma'am. Let's go.”

“Detective. One moment.” Luis was still smiling, warm and wide, and he captured her flat stare with his. “Thank you for all that you're doing to help us.” He extended his hand. I knew what he was doing—it was an Earth Warden trick, one of making themselves seem likable and trustworthy—but I could see that it wouldn't work on this woman. She had a streak of distrust as dark as rust through her brittle, bitter aura.

“My job,” she said shortly, and added her other hand to push my shoulder. “Move it.”

I glanced down at her feet, and whispered into the ground. I was learning, from the carefully controlled way that Luis applied his skills, that for an Earth Warden subtlety was as effective as brute force.

Green grass looped up in ropy strands, lashing her ankles, burying her sensible shoes. When she tried to take a step, she overbalanced, and for a moment she clung closely to me before she let go to crouch down to see what was holding her. “What the
hell
—?”

Luis leaned over, too, placed his hand on her shoulder as if in concern, and I felt the strong pulse of power that slid through her. The grass fell away, but the woman didn't immediately move.

“You've cleared us,” he told her in a very quiet tone. “We didn't have anything to do with Ibby's disappearance. You know this to be true. We have somewhere important to go, and you're giving us permission to leave.”

I sensed her struggle against him. It was a very close thing, and Luis's strength was very low just now, both in power and in human terms.

I had little enough to add, but I stepped in and added my hand on top of his. He glanced up, acknowledging the infusion of power, and guided it to surgical precision, shaping the woman's response.

Again, it was illegal. The Wardens would have dismissed him for such a use, or taken his powers and left him a crippled shell. But the Wardens had taken their eyes from us, and this was now a fight for more than just survival.

Isabel's life was at stake.

Whatever he did was on too fine a level for me to sense the exact methods, but when he removed his hand, the detective blinked at him, nodded, said, “Fine, thanks for your cooperation. You two can go. I know you're in a hurry.”

We walked away together. As we approached the line, one of the officers turned from his post, frowned, and held out his hand to stop us. Luis looked over his shoulder at the detective, who was standing where he'd left her, arms folded. She made an impatient gesture to the perimeter policeman, and we ducked under the fluttering barrier and headed for the street.

We were lucky, I thought, that the news organizations were held back at the end of the street. I saw cameras focusing on us, felt the pressure of their excited attention. It was not pleasant.

I positioned Luis with his back to the cameras, so that he covered me, as well, and said, “You didn't make her trust us?”

“Couldn't,” he said. “It's like hypnotism; you can make people follow a path they would have normally gone down, but that detective doesn't trust anybody, and even if she did, she damn sure wouldn't trust me. It was easier to just skip her farther along a track she'd have taken. Anyway, let's get out of here. We don't have too long before she starts looking through her notes and realizes she didn't finish questioning us.”

“I could destroy the notes,” I offered.

“Cassiel, we
want
the police to help. Just not to put their sights on us. Destroying their notes doesn't get us anywhere.” We had arrived at the parked truck, but it was surrounded by forensic technicians who were taking samples. In case, I supposed, we were all lying, the witnesses were all lying, and Luis had abducted Isabel himself. “Crap,” Luis muttered. “Well, they're just doing their jobs. Too many to influence.”

“It's a foolish waste of time.”

“No, it's not,” he said soberly. “Statistically, kids get abducted by family members more than strangers. Makes sense. I got no problem with them following every possible lead.”

My motorcycle, I noted, was sitting neglected at the curb not far away. Luis noticed it at the same time, and we exchanged a silent look of inquiry, then moved toward it.

“No helmets,” I told him, as I straddled the bike.

“Least of my worries right now.”

I felt the shift of mass as he climbed on behind me, and then his hands closed on me, low, near my hips. I started the motorcycle. Something about the low growl of it soothed the gnawing fear and anger within me.

Luis shifted his weight to find the balance point, and I eased the bike out into the empty street.

One problem, I realized: we would have to pass through the gauntlet of press clogging both ends of the neighborhood. In the truck we would have had the advantage of height and sealed windows. On the Victory, we didn't even have the relative anonymity of helmets.

“Alley,” Luis said in my ear. “That way.”

I leaned the bike the way he directed, over a spray of gravel and behind a neighbor's house, and into a narrow paved street filled with overflowing trash cans and refuse.

“Go!” he shouted. “They'll follow us if they can!” I applied the throttle, and the bike shot forward. Luis's arms tightened around me to hold on, and I accelerated down the alley and into the next at right angles, which spilled into a street. I took the turn fast and accelerated yet again, narrowly beating the light and weaving around a slow-moving van.

“Left here!” Luis shouted, and I crossed three lanes of traffic with the throttle wide open, almost skidding through the turn. “Okay, good, ease off. I think we're okay”

The Victory seemed disappointed to return to its role as mere transportation, but at traffic speeds it glided smoothly, sleek as a shark. We attracted curious glances. I was almost growing used to it.

“Back to your motel,” he said. “You get your stuff. I can't guarantee the police won't want to ask us more questions, so it's better we move.”

“We need to go,” I said. I heard an echo of the Oracle's voice, back in Sedona.
You need to go.

“Yeah, but where?” he asked. I heard the frustration in him, sensed it in the harshness of his grip on my hips. “How are we going to find her?”

“I think I know a way,” I said, and guided the bike back to the motel.

 

I changed my clothing back from funeral black to pale white riding leathers over a pink long-sleeved shirt. I left the pants dark, though I roughened the fabric weave to denim. My shoes took on the solidity and toughness of riding boots.

I did it almost effortlessly this time, upon walking into the darkened, silent room. By the time I closed the door behind Luis, I'd changed completely. If it surprised him—if he even
noticed
—he said nothing. He sat down on the side of the neatly made bed and said, “What now?”

I opened a drawer near the bed and took out the maps that I had purchased along with the motorcycle. They were tough, encased in plastic, and I had New Mexico and one of several other states, including Colorado.

I unfolded both and flattened them out on the carpet, then took a cross-legged seat on one side. I indicated the other, and Luis folded himself down. “How does this help?” He was impatient and losing his temper. “We don't need maps, we need—”

I grabbed his hand, took a small silver knife from my jacket pocket, and cut his finger with one swift jerk.

“Hey!” he yelped, and tried to pull away. I squeezed the cut. Ruby drops formed and dripped, hitting one map. I moved his finger until the drops were poised over the second drawing. Two drops were sufficient. I released him.

“We need blood,” I said. “You and Isabel share a tie of consanguinity. It's not as strong as it would be if we had Manny or Angela's blood, but I think it will do.”

He sucked on his cut finger, thinking it over, then slowly nodded. “You're talking about finding similars on the aetheric.”

“The Wardens do this?”

“Not with the actual mutilation and bleeding,” he said. “Next time, ask before you cut me.”

I folded the knife and put it away. “Next time,” I said, “I doubt I'll have to ask.”

The blood drops were formless blotches on the maps, signifying nothing without the application of will and energy. I held out my hand, and Luis sighed and offered his unwounded one for me to hold.

We focused together on the maps.

What we were doing was, in fact, harder than it might seem; the maps were only a representation of the earth, not the aetheric spirit. If the maps themselves had actually been carried through the distance that was shown, they would appear more fully in the aetheric. In fact, the route I had taken from Albuquerque to Sedona was clearly glowing in Oversight, when I went up to survey our work. The rest of the maps, except for certain parts of the town of Albuquerque, was pale and ghostly—and then Luis touched the map, in the real world, and added all of his experience into its reality, as well.

The map took on depth, dimension, life. A miniature of this section of the world. Luis, like his brother, had traveled widely in this part of the country.

The drops of his blood glowed like fireballs in the aetheric, but their glow would quickly fade as natural decomposition set in. It was an odd thing that the very fuel that drove blood cells—oxygen—was also what corroded them. Already, the iron content was showing a chemical change.

Isabel's connection to Luis was, in mathematical terms, a small percentage. She had half of her father's DNA, half of her mother's; of Manny's DNA, half would be identical to Luis's. The best we could hope for would be a 25 percent connection between the two.

It was still a strong bond.
Like calls to like.
One of the founding principles of the world.

Luis's blood drops glowed brighter, as I bathed them with the essence of the Earth. They rolled very slowly across the plastic, tracing a path in wet trails, from Albuquerque. . . . . . . Heading north, straight north, winding along the highway that led up to Colorado.

The blood drops on the New Mexico map trembled and stopped moving just before the town of Counselor.

On the other map, the drops showed the same.

“Jicarilla Apache reservation,” Luis said. “That's where she is.”

The drops—only faintly glowing now on the aetheric—nudged forward another fraction of an inch.

“That's where she is now,” I agreed. “But she's moving.”

We dropped out of the aetheric, and I wiped the blood from the plastic-coated maps before folding them and placing them in the interior pocket of my jacket.

We studied each other for a long, silent moment, and then Luis said, “You going to be up for this?”

“To finding Isabel? Yes.” I was no longer holding his hand, and so had only the smallest access to the aetheric, but the darkness in his aura was very clear. “You aren't.”

He blinked. “What?”

“You need rest, Luis. You can't sleep on the motorcycle. I need for you to be awake and alert.”

He shook his head. “No time. Every minute counts, Cassiel. What if—what if they hurt her—” He did not want to think about all the terrible things that could happen to a child, and neither did I.

“If they hurt her,” I said, “we will know.” I felt that to be true. The bond we had formed was strong enough, and Luis's Earth Warden powers only amplified it. “Luis, you must rest. If you don't, you won't have any power to give me, and this trip will be wasted. We accomplish nothing.”

He didn't want to sleep. When I stretched him out on the bed and placed my hand on his forehead, he still fought against the descending darkness. Something in him was too weary to go on—I could sense it—but some other part refused to let go. He'd spent a massive amount of energy in the past twenty-four hours, and I didn't understand his resistance.

His fingers wrapped around my wrist, but he didn't pull my hand away from his forehead. Even at close range, in the dimness, his dark eyes looked like pools of shadow.

“Promise me,” he said. “You promise me that you'll get her back even if something happens to me.
Promise.
”

“I will,” I said.

“Again.”

“I will.”

His fingers tightened.
“Again.”

“I will,” I said. I bent forward to brush my fingers on his parted lips. “Sleep.”

His eyes drifted closed, and his grip loosened on my wrist, falling away.

I had meant to give him only the slightest contact, but his lips felt warm and soft beneath my fingers, and I lingered.

I stayed where I was until I was certain he was asleep, and then I moved to the small, stained armchair near the window. I watched the parking lot. There was little activity, and no one seemed to take an interest in our room.

A thief approached my motorcycle once, looking around to see if anyone was watching; when he tried to roll it away, I softened the asphalt beneath his feet, trapping him, and opened the door. He stared at me, struggling to free himself from what must have seemed to him a nightmare.

“Leave,” I told him, and restored the ground beneath his feet. “Don't come back.” It seemed I should say something more constructive, perhaps. “And don't steal.”

He looked down at his oil-stained athletic shoes and ran.

I went back to the chair, and before dawn came, I slid into a light, dreaming sleep.

I woke up to the smell of brewing coffee and running water. The shower. Luis was bathing. I felt stiff and uncomfortable, but warm enough; I looked down and saw that he had given me a blanket sometime during my rest. I rose, folded the cover, and walked to the coffeepot. I poured two cups and carried them into the bathroom.