Unknown by Rachel Caine

I could still feel the tingle of ecstasy along my nerves.
    Luis sweated.
    We arrived at the hillside where I’d buried the boy, with its view of ocher and red gullies and a burning blue sky, and Rashid crouched down, drew thin, clever fingers through the dirt, and looked up at me in surprise. There was something that shone in his eyes, momentarily, like respect. Then it was gone.
    “How?” he asked. Luis looked at me, frowning.
    “How what?”
    “She knows.”
    I did. he was asking about how I had touched the spirit of the Earth here, in this place.
    I shrugged. “She came,” I said. “You can’t summon her. You know that.”
    Rashid did, in fact, know. He watched me for another moment, then nodded and raked fingers through the dirt again. “You didn’t kill the boy,” he said. “I stand corrected.”
    “I told you we didn’t,” Luis snapped. “Can you hurry up and track where he came from? Some of us need shade around here.”
    For answer, Rashid plunged his hand down into the dirt, all the way to his elbow, and then drew it back out with a sharp twist. He shook the dust from it and nodded, eyes gone bright, but somehow distant. “The trail is clear,” he said. “But fading. I will leave you and follow it. It will be faster.”
    “Rashid,” I said. “Don’t go too close.”
    He made an impatient gesture. “I’m not afraid of your phantom enemy.”
    “Neither was Gallan,” I interrupted. “Who is gone. Rashid. I don’t like you. But neither do I wish to see you destroyed. I am warning you: Don’t go too close. ”
    He heard the urgency of what I said, and finally, unwillingly, nodded. Still, I didn’t feel he had truly understood. I stepped forward, touched his hand, and said, while looking directly into his glowing eyes, “She was once one of us. A Djinn. She will kill you if she can.”
    He shook his head, rejecting the idea—mostly, of course, because it came from me. I controlled a flash of anger and continued. “I would ask another task of you.”
    That made his eyes widen. He cocked his head, a trace of a frown between his brows. “What?”
    “Find the boy’s people,” I said. “His family. Those who lost him. I would wish—I would wish to return him, if we can.”
    He stared at me, no expression on his face for a long moment, and then gave a sharp, dry nod.
    And then simply . . . faded. Gone. I saw a shimmer on the aetheric as he sped away.
    Luis sighed. “So, I’m taking bets. Did we just do something really smart, or really, dramatically stupid?”
    “I see nothing to say it can’t be both,” I said. “There is, after all, an endless supply of stupidity.”
    We silently gave our respects to the dead child whom we were, once again, abandoning, and returned to the van for the long drive back to Albuquerque.
     
    Before we got there, we ran into a roadblock of flashing lights.
    Standing in front of the angled police cars was FBI agent Ben Turner, part-time Fire Warden, looking very grim indeed, and very much as if he had not slept since we’d last seen him. When Luis slowed to a halt and rolled down his window, Turner leaned in, took a quick, comprehensive look around the van, and said, “You both need to come with me. Right now.”
    Luis and I exchanged a look which clearly said, This is not good news. “Why?” Luis asked.
    “Not here. Just get out and come with me. Do it now.”
    Around us, police were quietly drawing their weapons, although thus far, no one was pointing them in our direction. Luis noted it with lightning-fast shifts of his eyes, then focused back on Turner.
    “Please,” Turner said. His face was a blank mask, but there was tension around his eyes and mouth, and weariness in the slump of his shoulders. “I need your help.”
    As if that was a magic incantation, Luis nodded to me, and we both left the van to stand on the roadway, facing Turner. Dusk was falling, and so was the temperature, but the asphalt had trapped a great deal of heat during the