Awoken

Chapter 1-2

It was fine. She could make it to Los Alamos in less than a week. Even as crazy as the weather had gotten right before the Dying, it hadn’t snowed in early October.

She’d been hoping for a footbridge to cross the river but didn’t see any evidence of one, even though she could just make out the roof line of a house on the other side of the Rio Chama, maybe a quarter mile away. At least there was a house; she’d start her search there, and only move on if she couldn’t find anything of value.

After contemplating the depth of the water for a moment, and watching the flow of the river for another minute more, Jordan decided that she should be able to wade across. She found a large, smooth boulder and sat down so she could remove her hiking boots and socks, and then rolled up her jeans to her knees. The socks she shoved in her backpack, but there was no room for the boots; she knotted the laces together and hung them around her neck. Almost as an afterthought, she removed the gun and its holster from her belt and stuck them in her backpack near the top, leaving it unzipped. Just in case.

All right. Time to get moving.

The water was colder than she’d thought, and she had to grit her teeth at the shock of it against her bare skin. Under her feet, mossy rocks moved uneasily as she began to make her way across, but the footing was just stable enough that she managed to keep going, propelling herself from spot to spot as she forded the river. In the middle, she hit a deep patch and sank down to her waist, the icy current immediately striking a chill through her entire body.

Although she wanted nothing more than to let out a small shriek at the shock of the cold water engulfing half her frame, she bit her lip and kept going, telling herself that it was just water, and she’d dry off soon enough once she got to the other side and found some shelter.

Wishful thinking, since jeans weren’t exactly known for their ability to dry out quickly. But she was more than halfway across, and she certainly wasn’t about to stop now.

A minute or two later, the water grew shallower, and she struggled her way up to the rocky shore. When she reached around to check, it seemed that her backpack had escaped unscathed, and so had her hiking boots. It was just those damn jeans that were completely soaked, making it feel as though her legs were encased in lead.

Nothing for it. She paused long enough to put her socks and hiking boots back on. Then, mouth set, she kept moving, and wound her way through more cottonwoods and the occasional pine and aspen, until she came out into an open grassy area, clearly the backyard of the house whose roof line she’d glimpsed from the other side of the river. Seen up close like this, it was a much more impressive structure than she’d thought, two stories, with a steeply peaked dark green tin roof and a porch that appeared to wrap around most of the building. Set off to one side was an enormous solar panel, the kind powered by a motor so it could be angled toward the sun no matter the time of day. Right now it was tilted slightly toward the west, but that didn’t mean much. It could have been frozen in that position for the last two years.

Jordan looked around, attempting to see if there were any noticeable signs of habitation. The grass in the backyard looked fairly level, although weeds grew along the edges of the cultivated area. Still, its manicured state could simply be due to those wandering goats — they did tend to eat everything they came across, and for all she knew, the two goats she’d seen were part of a much larger herd. The dark beige paint on the house’s wooden siding appeared faded, but she didn’t detect any obvious flaking or cracks.

Inconclusive. But she was here, and she knew the odds of anyone surviving in this little out-of-the-way spot were less than one in a million, so she figured she might as well go inside.

The back door was closest. It opened on a utility room that looked as though it hadn’t been touched in years. Dust coated the tops of the washer and dryer, and also the plastic laundry basket that sat on the floor. Otherwise, the room was empty, although when Jordan opened the cupboard and looked inside, she saw detergent and a box of fabric softener sheets, along with a bottle of bleach. Clearly, someone had lived here once. You could never be certain when you came across big houses like this in places that didn’t seem able to support the kind of lifestyle their size suggested, since a lot of the time they were owned by people with enough money to maintain a second residence that they only used a few weeks out of the year, when they would come to remote towns like Chama to hunt or fish or just get away from it all.

She moved on from the utility room into the kitchen, which was up to date and spotless, with granite counters and stainless appliances, and a black-painted wooden island in the center of the room with a dazzling array of copper pots and pans hanging from the rack above it. To her surprise, the refrigerator was humming, clearly still working.

The solar panel, she told herself. It would just keep going, even without someone here to maintain it. Or at least, she assumed that was why the appliance appeared to be operating. All that electricity being generated, with no one around to use it.

When she opened the refrigerator door, she saw that the shelves inside were nearly empty. A few bottles of wine, white and rosé, all from New Mexico wineries. What appeared to be blocks of cheese, wrapped in plastic. The sight of them did make her frown, because she didn’t think cheese could possibly have survived for two years without going moldy, even if it was refrigerated.

Maybe someone really did live here. Someone who, against all odds, was another Immune, just like Jordan herself.

A quick peek inside the freezer revealed packages of what she thought were meat, all neatly wrapped in brown paper. It seemed that someone had been doing some hunting around here.

Although she wanted nothing more than to get out of there, she was also aware of how her wet jeans clung to her legs, how uncomfortable they were. If nothing else, she needed to change into the spare pair she had in her backpack.

And what then? she asked herself. Stick a pair of soaking-wet jeans in with the rest of your stuff? That’s a great way to ruin everything.

Well, hell. Maybe she could hang around for a little while, just long enough to spread the jeans out on the front porch so they could catch some afternoon sun before it set behind the hills to the west. She didn’t see much alternative.

Even so, she went out into the living room, a sturdy, “guy” sort of place, with its dark brown leather sofa and chairs, and heavy oak furniture and a stone fireplace and an enormous Navajo rug on the floor. At least the walls weren’t adorned with trophy animal heads, but rather oil landscapes of places that had to be located in New Mexico and Colorado — mountains and rivers, jagged cliffs topped with monsoon storm clouds.

“Hello?” she called out, feeling both scared to death and like a complete i***t.

Only silence answered her.

No one seemed to be home. Good. She slid off her backpack and set it on the floor next to the couch, and removed her boots once again, then awkwardly wriggled out of her wet jeans. They hit the wooden floor with a splat, and she winced. She had to get the gun out of the way — at least she’d kept her powder dry, so to speak — so she could reach her extra pair of jeans and a fresh set of underwear, but soon enough she was dressed again and feeling much better about life.

After picking up her discarded jeans, Jordan went to the front door and walked out onto the porch. The afternoon air was warm and friendly, playing with the damp ends of her long hair, which hadn’t completely survived the dunking. She brushed off a spot on the porch floor as best she could, and laid the jeans out flat. There. The sun was still high enough that it touched the damp fabric, and she hoped the jeans would dry out enough so she could pack them away. Maybe she should have tried the clothes dryer, but since she’d spotted a propane tank out back, she guessed that particular appliance wasn’t electric.

Instead of going back in the house, she lingered on the porch for a moment, letting her gaze sweep the backyard. Aspen and cottonwood leaves fluttered in the breeze, and the grass, now starting to turn yellow, shimmered in the sunlight, but that was the only movement she saw.

Satisfied, she headed inside, then paused long enough to pick up the Ruger and slip it back in its holster. There. That way she felt a little better about going upstairs to check things out. She hadn’t seen too many signs of habitation on the ground floor, except for the mysterious food in the fridge, but you often could tell a lot more about that sort of thing by checking out bedrooms and bathrooms.

At the top of the stairs was a landing that overlooked the combination living room/dining room. Branching off from that landing was a short hallway, with two doors to either side and one at the end of the hall. Jordan chose the door immediately to her left, which appeared to open on the master suite. Her eyes widened as she took in the decor, which wasn’t the sort of thing she’d been expecting in a house that, on first appearance, looked like a glorified hunting lodge.

At the center of the master suite was a large canopy bed of dark carved wood, maybe cherry or mahogany. From the canopy hung shimmery, gossamer-thin silks in jewel tones. Sari fabric? Maybe, or something similar. The same kind of fabric framed the windows, and moved slightly in the breeze.

Jordan took in the sight of the open window and frowned. Surely if that window had been open to the wind and the rain and the snow for the past two years, ever since the Dying, then the silk hanging there should have been tattered and stained, worn by exposure to the elements. And yet it looked fresh and brand new. The same with the large Persian rug that covered almost all of the wood floor.

Frowning, Jordan crossed over to the large wardrobe that dominated one wall and opened it. Inside were long robes of heavy silk, most in shades of blue and teal and green, some bordered in gold, some in silver.

Her heart seemed to stop in her chest. She recognized those robes.

Djinn wore those robes.

She had to get out of here.

She whirled away from the wardrobe…only to see a tall man blocking the door to the bedroom. His dark hair hung loose to his shoulders, and his deep blue eyes narrowed as his gaze met hers. He crossed his arms, and the dark turquoise silk robes he wore shimmered with the movement.

“What,” he said, voice calm but still edged with menace, “are you doing in my house, human?”