Forgotten

Chapter 2-2

There was the device, true, but she had no way to test it. Otherwise, she would have packed what she could into Sean’s Toyota truck — definitely the best vehicle at the station for that kind of journey — and headed out for New Mexico as soon as she was sure it worked. The djinn might have spotted her, but with their powers neutralized, they wouldn’t have been able to do much about it, either. They couldn’t have stopped her.

But she hadn’t known whether it was really functioning the way it was supposed to. Lights that flashed on and off when she ran her hands over the surface of the little box were no guarantee of anything.

Except…she seemed to know now. This man — this person — lying on the ground in front of her, face pale and sweaty, had to be a djinn. No regular human being would be wearing clothes like that…and no human being would have been affected nearly to the point of fainting by the little black box that traveled with her in her backpack. Her gut clenched in dread, even though she could tell he was in no shape to offer any real threat.

“What works?” he asked, the strain clear in his words.

She didn’t bother to reply to his question, instead gave him another. If he was a djinn, he certainly didn’t deserve any courtesy from her. Voice rough, she made herself ask the question, even though she dreaded to hear the answer.

“You’re a djinn…aren’t you?”

As he stared up at the young woman, several possible lies flitted through Amaal’s mind. However, he guessed she would accept none of them, this creature who appeared both fragile as glass and yet strong as steel, like a rapier from a bygone age. Besides, he feared the bright silk robes he favored had already given him away. No mortal would dress like this — or rather, no mortal who still walked in these woods would wear anything so clearly not designed for stealth. “Yes,” he said simply.

Her fingers tightened even more, standing out white-knuckled as she gripped the gun. “Get up.”

If only he could oblige her. He certainly didn’t want her to shoot him, but on the other hand, his body was simply unwilling to obey her commands. “I don’t think I can.”

She made a sound of annoyance, then lowered the shotgun so she could hold it with one hand while she reached with the other to fish something out of the backpack she wore. After a moment’s struggle, she produced a small, glassy-looking black box, about four inches on a side, just big enough to rest in the palm of her hand. She leaned the gun against her leg for a moment so she could run a finger over one surface of the box.

Immediately, Amaal felt the sickness and weakness that had threatened to consume him retreat a bit. Not all the way — no, he still was ill and weak and tired. He knew he could not move quickly enough to seize the gun from the young woman, even though the thought did cross his mind. However, he did believe he might be able to stand.

“Better?” she asked, and he nodded.

“I think so.”

“Then get up.”

Legs shaking, he pushed himself to his feet. He looked at the box she held and asked, “What is that thing?”

“There’s no name for it,” she said. “But it works. That’s the important thing.”

As he stared at the device, a sudden shiver of understanding passed through him. There had been rumors that a mortal scientist had devised an instrument which effectively neutralized the djinns’ powers, rendering them weak, unable to use any of their inborn gifts, making them not much different from a human. Amaal had dismissed those rumors as fancy, especially since these fabled devices were supposedly being used a thousand miles away from where he now dwelled. He had not thought there was any need for concern, had not thought one of them would ever be used against him.

And yet here was a mortal holding one of those devices, a young woman who certainly should not have been able to get her hands on such a thing. If he had not been feeling so dreadful, he might have chuckled at the capricious nature of the universe, how it had brought him into her orbit. However, he saw no triumph in her delicate features for subduing him, only worry and fear.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“These are my lands.”

She returned the device to her backpack. “What do you mean, your lands?”

Every syllable was an effort, but he forced himself to reply. “A-all of us djinn were given lands here on Earth for our own. Th-these are mine for many miles around, mine to do with as I please.”

A short, humorless laugh emerged from her pretty lips. “You don’t exactly seem like the master of your destiny…Amaal.”

“I fear you are not seeing me at my best,” he replied. It even hurt to raise an eyebrow at her, but somehow he managed it.

She nodded. “No, I guess not. Well, Amaal, you may think these are your lands, but they’re mine, too.” A pause, as if she was thinking something over, and then she commanded him, “Start walking.”

“‘Walking’?” he repeated.

“Yes,” she replied. “You’re standing, so I suppose you can walk.” Once again she lifted the shotgun and pointed it at him. However, from the way her hands trembled slightly, he guessed she had no real notion of how to use it.

Her inexperience would have been amusing, except that he was worried she might do something to accidentally make the gun go off. Judging by how weak he felt at the moment, he feared any injury she caused him might not heal as quickly as it should have. If that proved to be the case, then a blast from that shotgun just might kill him. And even though he had lately found his life to be dull, he still had no wish to leave it.

“I can walk,” he said. “Although not quickly.”

“That’s all right.” Her chin jerked in a direction roughly northwest. “That way.”

Since there was little else he could do, thanks to his current weakness, he began to walk. Each step was excruciating — not because it actually pained him, but because it required so much effort, as though he dragged his limbs through the world’s thickest, stickiest mud. Even so, he found he had enough breath to ask, “Where are we going?”

“To the research station.”

That reply sent a jolt of alarm through him. What, was she some kind of scientist? Did she plan to vivisect him, see how a djinn differed from a human?

No, she seemed too young to be a scientist. Perhaps in her early twenties, although he’d be the first to admit that he wasn’t very good at guessing humans’ ages. Their lives were so short, the decades passing over them so quickly, that it was hard for him to have a frame of reference.

“Is it far?”

“A couple of miles.”

Miles. Well, Amaal supposed if he forced himself to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, and didn’t think of either how far he had come or how far he had to go, he might be able to survive the experience. It would be too humiliating to give up in front of this beautiful young woman, even though he doubted that she had any designs on his person, except perhaps of the scientific sort.

They walked in silence for some time. Amaal could feel his legs growing heavier and heavier, as though every step drained a little more from him. At the same time, he could sense how that terrible little device she carried not only weakened him physically, but seemed to have separated him from the source of his power. He could not have called down the fire — his element — or used his inborn djinn gift of instantaneously sending himself from one place to another. No, all he could do was struggle along, wondering what this girl would do if he collapsed in front of her and refused to go one step further.

Some stubbornness within him would not allow him to do such a thing, however. Perhaps it was his fate to die at her hands, but he would not allow her to see how weak he truly was. His people might have believed in the next world, in an existence after this one, true, and yet he had no real desire to learn whether such a place actually existed.

After they had walked in silence for some time, he said, “I have given you my name. It is only polite that you should give me yours.”

At first she didn’t reply. In fact, the stony silence which greeted this request went on for so long, he thought she would not answer at all. At last, though, she said, “Deirdre. Deirdre Graves.”

A mournful surname, although perhaps fitting for someone who had lived to see so many of her fellow humans dead. Not that any of them would require a grave — that was perhaps the cleverest part of the disease his kind had concocted, that it would not leave any messy corpses behind to pollute the world.

He doubted Deirdre would be cheered by this observation, however, and so he only said, “Thank you, Deirdre.”

Another silence fell. No, it was not completely silent out here, for he could hear the wind singing in the tall pines, the crunch of the dry grass under their feet. Even so, it was quite uncomfortable to know that another person walked so close and yet seemed so disinclined toward conversation. Perhaps that was for the best. He had to use every ounce of energy he possessed simply to go on walking; talking to Deirdre at the same time would have required strength he needed to conserve so he didn’t fall down where he stood.

At last, though, they came out into a small clearing. At the far end of the clearing was a low wooden structure painted white, with a modest little porch and several windows. To one side, a narrow dirt road snaked up to the building, and an extremely dusty pickup truck was parked there. In fact, the truck’s windows were so caked with filth that Amaal doubted Deirdre had driven it any time recently. Perhaps she was being prudent; it seemed that she had managed to escape detection up until now, but the sound of the truck’s engine would surely have drawn the attention of any djinn in the area.

Including him, possibly, although prior to a few weeks ago, when he had been banished from his downtown penthouse, he had not spent much time here. Still, he couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if he’d come across Deirdre before she had the terrible device operational. How she had managed such a feat, he wasn’t sure. Someone must have given her instructions on how to build it, because he couldn’t quite see how she could have come up with something so specific on her own.

“Inside,” she said, the first word she had spoken for at least a half hour.

Walking up the three steps to the porch was more torment, but somehow Amaal managed it, although he was perspiring and panting as though he had run a race before he reached the top stair. She came up beside him and used her free hand to open the door to the station so he could enter.

This front room had clearly been a kind of office, for there were several desks, each with its own computer and phone. Although he didn’t know much about human technology, he thought that the computers and the phones appeared to be older, certainly not anything that could be considered cutting edge or up to date. On one wall was a whiteboard with several names written on it, and tasks listed beneath them, such as taking out the trash, checking the animals’ water, and so forth. One of the names written there was Deirdre’s.

Clearly, this was the research station she’d spoken of. Had she been an employee here? Once again he thought her too young for such a post, but perhaps she had only been an assistant of some sort.

“Down the hall,” she said.

He gave a resigned shrug and continued to walk, doing his best to ignore the way his breaths didn’t quite seem to fill his lungs, or how it felt as though someone had tied heavy weights to his legs. It was still difficult for him to guess what Deirdre intended to do with him, but at least if his journey’s end was now in sight, he should be able to sit down and get some rest. Indeed, he was not quite sure how he had managed to walk this far while the device continued to draw away every ounce of energy he possessed.

They passed several open doors. One room looked like a small but efficient laboratory. Two more were clearly bedrooms, with narrow beds placed up against the walls and some meager furniture to store personal items. Another door opened into the bathroom, which was just as utilitarian as the rest of the place.

And then they came to a larger space that took up the entire width of the station, which Amaal guessed had been a house at some point. This room was lined with cages, all of which were now empty. Despite the absence of any animals, he could catch just the faintest lingering trace of their presence, a certain muskiness in the air.

Pushed up against one wall was a large cage, much bigger than the others. What had it once held? Coyotes, or mountain lions? It did not seem sturdy enough to contain a bear, but perhaps if it had been tranquilized….

“In there,” she said, inclining her head toward the cage.

He stared at her, aghast. Surely she didn’t intend to confine him in that terrible wire box? Clearing his throat to get rid of the awful thickness that had settled there, he protested, “There is no need for that. Your device renders me completely harmless. All you need to do is lock me in one of the rooms we just passed.”

The shotgun lifted again, pointed straight at his chest. “There aren’t any bars on the windows in those rooms. And since your people are responsible for killing billions of my people, I hope you’ll understand why I don’t trust you. At all. Get in the cage.”

He began to open his mouth to protest — then saw the way her finger tightened almost imperceptibly on the trigger of the shotgun. Just a bit more of a squeeze, and he knew that bits and pieces of himself would be splattered all over the walls of the room where he now stood.

Hands raised, he said, “I’m getting in the cage. There’s no need for that.”

His height forced him to crouch to climb in. Just bending in such a way made a rush of dizziness pass over him, and he collapsed onto the floor, feeling the wires that made up the cage press into the palms of his hands. Holding back a moan, he somehow managed to push himself into a corner, where he sat up and stared at Deirdre with weary resentment.

She closed the door of the cage and sealed it with a lock. Then she seemed to heave a breath as she backed away.

Despite his current misery, he saw how her hands shook. No doubt she had been petrified the whole time, worried that her device wouldn’t be enough to keep her captive djinn at bay.

And strangely, what he experienced then was not a wish to hurt her, to punish her for putting him in such an ignominious position. No, he could clearly see the fear in her eyes, and what he wanted more than anything was to tell her that he meant her no harm, that just because the djinn had forever changed her world, it didn’t mean he wished for her to follow all those who had already gone down into darkness and death.

He did not tell her these things, however, because he knew she would never believe him. Instead, he leaned his head against the wall of the cage and watched as she walked away.