Chapter 15

Was this desire? This aching need to be with her, to see her, to hear her sweet voice, whether she was speaking or singing?

Abdul found it difficult to say, for he had never experienced such emotions before. He only knew that every moment he spent with Sarah, he felt simultaneously more alive…and yet more frustrated…than he ever had in his very long life.

She knew nothing of him. Only the public face — well, the public hood — that he allowed her to see. She did not know what he had done, how he was an utter walking horror, both inside and out.

Very much like the Phantom from her beloved musical, except that tormented genius had not borne a burden even one-thousandth of what Abdul carried from day to day.

Sarah had not guessed any of that, of course. No, although she had been reluctant to practice at first, now…after she'd drunk some lemon water to clear the dregs of hot chocolate from her throat…she seemed eager to return to the music room to use the rest of the afternoon in more vocal exercises. Some time to warm up, and now she moved on from the first Italian song they'd practiced to an aria from an actual opera.

Listening to her sing was like watching a long-caged bird finally take flight and fly free on the wind. At the same time, he thought he understood what she had meant when she'd said earlier that hers was not a voice for opera. It was lighter, sweeter, possibly not designed to carry to the farthest reaches of a concert hall with no need for artificial amplification.

And that, he thought, was why he loved it all the more. Her voice was like her, clear and brilliant and pure, and while he was gladder than he could have ever believed that she had somehow stumbled into his life, at the same time, he could not help wondering how a creature of such shimmering loveliness would react if she ever she learned of all the darkness he hid in his soul.

She must never find out, of course. So far, she had not seemed inclined to pry when he steered their conversations away from subjects he thought might be troublesome, and he must do whatever he could to ensure their situation remained much the same. It seemed to him that she was happy here, happy to practice when the mood took her or to ramble through the countryside when she desired some fresh air.

Or to sit next to him on the couch and not even flinch when he reached for his cocoa…or when he'd taken hold of her arms to rescue her from the storm.

It had been harder than he'd thought to release her once they were safely inside the house, for an impulse had taken hold of him, one that told him to draw her closer, to press his mouth against hers.

Such a thing could never happen, of course. It was one thing for the djinn to take their human lovers, their Chosen, and quite another for a being such as he to even dream of kissing a mortal.

And yet, he could not quite dismiss the notion from his mind.

That night, they shared a quiet meal; the rain still came down — which Sarah told him was unusual, as these storms usually did their work and moved on — although the thunder had mostly died away except for a distant rumble from time to time. They spoke of riding again if the ground wasn't too muddy, and more vocal practice. Commonplaces, of course, but that was fine with him. It was enough simply to have Sarah there, to hear her speak and to watch the candlelight gleam in her unusual blue-green eyes.

Or at least, it was almost enough.

Now more than ever he wished he could truly sleep, that instead of lying here with his gaze fixed on the ceiling, he might lose himself in even an hour or two of blessed oblivion, leaving aside all the burdens and worries of a very long life. Instead, though, something tugged at the outer edges of his consciousness, something that told him all was not as it seemed.

He frowned into the darkness, searching for the source of the wrongness.

That was it. A pair of intruders, wandering around the perimeter of the lake some five miles distant.

Surely they must have come in search of Sarah.

At once, he sat up in bed, angry blood racing through his veins. He could not help being angered by their temerity, for he had no doubt that if they had gone to the elders for counsel, they would have known that Ghost Ranch and its environs were strictly forbidden to mortals.

And yet, there they were. Abdul could not get any real sense of the intruders, except that they were two in number and male, but that was enough.

He pushed back the covers and got out of bed, summoning his hooded robe to ensure he was properly concealed. On the other side of the house, Sarah slept soundly.

She would never know that he had left for a moment to handle some necessary business.

An eye blink brought him to Abiquiu Lake, where he paused to take his bearings. The landscape here was just as sodden as the one he had left behind, and he guessed the pair of interlopers were not passing a very comfortable night.

And yes, there they were, in a tent set up in one of the lake's former campgrounds. This close, he could sense the repelling field emanating outward from the device they must have hidden somewhere in their tent, but while its presence was an annoyance, it could not cripple his powers the way it might block those of a regular djinn.

A large truck was parked nearby, and yet Abdul could tell the two men slept in the tent rather than taking shelter in the truck's cab. It would perhaps have been drier in there, although he doubted they would have had enough room to stretch out.

The truck gave him pause, but only for a moment. While he had no idea where the men lived in Los Alamos — and he could not have sent the vehicle there even if he wanted to, thanks to the devices that protected the human settlement — he could at least blink it back to the border of the protected lands, well away from here.

A snap of his fingers and the bloated vehicle was gone. Unfortunately, he could not deal with humans in quite the same way, although he thought what he had in store for them was not anything they would soon forget.

Wind surged, sending his black robe fluttering…and wrapping the tent around the two men who had sheltered within, forming a sort of cocoon they could not easily escape. That same gale caught the tent and sent it into the air, whisking them away from the campground and following the course of the Rio Chama until Abdul knew it would deposit them close to the truck he had disposed of just a moment earlier.

There. If that did not send a message to stay far, far away, then he would just have to come up with something much more forceful the next time.

The walkie-talkie crackled to life. As usual, Lindsay had it with her at the lab, since it was the only way anyone could easily get in touch with her unless they wanted to drop everything and come see her in person. A few feet away, Miles lifted his head from the piece of Millerite he had placed under a microscope. As far as they'd been able to tell, the odd mineral discovered on the Miller farm in Cedar Crest would never provide enough long-lasting protection from the djinn to become a viable alternative to the devices he'd invented, but that didn't mean he didn't intend to keep working with it.

"Lindsay?"

Shawn Gutierrez's voice, cracked and hoarse and barely sounding like him.

At once, she set down the touchscreen she'd been holding and hurried to pick up the walkie. "Lindsay here. Are you all right?"

"Well, we're alive," Shawn said dryly. "So I guess that's better than the alternative. But I can tell you for sure that someone — or something — doesn't want us anywhere near Ghost Ranch. It grabbed my truck and then José and me, and dumped us just outside the protected zone. José has a broken ankle, and I've got a dislocated shoulder. And the truck won't start, so we need someone to come and get us."

Lindsay stared down at the walkie-talkie she held. What the hell had just happened?

What happened is that you ignored what Zahrias was trying to tell you, and now two of your men are hurt, she scolded herself.

But she would have plenty of time for self-recriminations later. Right now, the important thing was to get Shawn and José back to Los Alamos.

"Where are you?" she asked. "We'll get someone out there right away to pick you up."

"About a half mile north of La Chuachia, just past mile marker 143."

"Got it," she said. "Hang tight — we'll be there as fast as we can."

She set down the walkie-talkie, only to see Miles regarding her with grim gray eyes.

"You're not going."

"I am," she said. "It's my fault they're in this situation in the first place."

Although she knew her husband was not one for public displays of affection — or even not-so-public ones, since they were currently alone in the lab — he came over and took her hand, then pressed a kiss against her cheek.

"We're not going to talk about ‘fault,'" he said. "What we're going to talk about is that this is still a potentially dangerous situation, and you're ten weeks pregnant. Brent and I will go."

Lindsay wanted to argue, but she knew Miles was right. Shawn and José were near the edge of the protected territory, not in it.

And that meant whatever had deposited them — and Shawn's truck — in that spot might still be lurking somewhere near, just waiting to pounce when the rescue party showed up.

"You'll take a device with you," she said, and Miles smiled.

He knew as well as she did that her comment was her way of saying she wouldn't protest…but she'd make damn sure her husband was as safe as possible.

"Of course," he replied, as though that was a given.

And it was. No one left the protected zone without one of the glassy little cubes in their possession.

He squeezed her hand, then reached for the walkie-talkie and shifted the channel.

"Brent?" he said a moment later. "Miles here. It looks like we have to go on a little rescue operation. Meet me at the lab with one of your trucks."

Abdul seemed in an unusually good mood this morning, although Sarah couldn't say exactly why. Maybe it was only that the storms of the day before were now well and gone, and the day outside was bright and fresh, the grass and the trees looking greener and lusher after their soaking.

And while the ground had to be muddy, they'd already planned to practice first and go riding later, so there was no reason to believe the trails wouldn't have recovered by the time they set out on their horses, especially with how rocky much of the soil was around here.

He offered her an omelet, and although she didn't usually eat something that heavy for breakfast, she decided to go with it today. Singing expended a lot of calories, and riding would use up some more, so she thought maybe Abdul knew what he was talking about.

Also, it wasn't something heavy with sausage and cheese, but a frittata lush with roasted bell peppers and onions and just a kiss of parmesan, so she thought that was all right.

In fact, it was so glorious outside that they had their breakfast on the patio. A few puddles remained from the previous night's storm, but because the table had been placed under an enormous sun sail, that part of the courtyard was dry.

"What did you want to work on today?" Abdul asked as she reached for the bowl of sliced strawberries he'd placed next to her plate.

Sarah had been thinking about that very topic as she washed her hair this morning. It had been good to dive back into the songs and arias that had been the bread and butter of her vocal training, but she knew her voice was better suited for musical theater than opera. And while she at first thought that maybe she'd play it safe and choose something from Beauty and the Beast, since she'd also performed in that musical…even though she knew Belle's story was fraught as well…she decided it was probably better to really face the music, so to speak, and return to the work that she'd never been able to sing in public.

"Oh, something from Phantom, " she said casually. "Since I heard you playing ‘Think of Me' the other day, it's not like you'd have to learn something new. Does that work?"

"Very much," Abdul replied. "I'm glad to hear you're ready to sing those pieces."

He didn't say anything more than that, but it was enough. In a way, Sarah was relieved to see that he didn't seem inclined to ask her to elaborate, to explain why she had decided now was the time to go back to the musical that had meant so much to her.

To be fair, she wasn't sure if she could have adequately explained the change of heart even to herself. Maybe it was that she felt oddly safe here with Abdul, and if she crashed and burned, or began to sing and then decided she couldn't go on, she somehow knew he wouldn't press the issue or try to convince her to work through her mental blocks.

No, at most he would probably ask if she wanted to switch to a different piece, or maybe suggest that she should take a break and go outside for a walk or something. After all, he wasn't her coach, a person who knew he needed to press and challenge her, only someone happy to see her doing anything at all with her voice.

"It's a plan, then," she said, glad that she sounded so steady.

The real trick would be seeing if she remained that steady once she began to sing.

Abdul still found himself somewhat surprised that Sarah had decided to practice a piece from The Phantom of the Opera, but he hadn't asked any questions. Perhaps he was being overly fearful, but he couldn't help thinking that if he'd been too inquisitive, she would have shut down and decided to go back to something safer.

And it was true that he'd already played the song she had chosen, so it wasn't as though they would have to waste any time while he quickly taught himself something new.

When she walked over to the piano, she had her chin up, as if she was inwardly schooling herself to maintain control no matter what happened. He had heard the song — had listened to the original recording, which he'd summoned to his audio library, as well as a piano solo as part of his preparations — and yet he still found himself growing tense as she positioned herself in the curve of the instrument and took a breath. Today she wore the white dress he had provided for her, and he thought she had never looked so lovely as she did right then, with her dark hair providing a contrast to the pale garment, her posture proud and oddly vulnerable at the same time.

" Think of me ," she began, and her voice was breathy, hesitant.

Abdul frowned inside his hood…even as he reminded himself that the original song had begun in that very same way. Christine Daaé, unsure of herself, being thrust into the spotlight before she thought she was ready, despite her tutelage by the Phantom.

And then her voice swelling as she gained confidence, just as Sarah got her wind now, the sound carrying clear and pure to every corner of the room, hair falling like a skein of dusky silk down her back, color flaring along her high cheekbones. Abdul's fingers paused on the keyboard so she could sing the final cadenza on her own, rippling up and down the scale until ascending to the double high A, a note that could have come out in a screech but instead was clear as a bell, reverberating throughout the space, until she ended with that final triumphant "me," just as he hit the final chord at the same time.

The sound died away, and for a moment, she only stood there, breasts rising and falling as she seemed to absorb what she had just done.

Bravi…bravi…bravissimi.

Abdul thought of the Phantom's praise for his pupil following her bravura performance, but he knew better than to utter those words aloud. The last thing he wanted was for Sarah to think there was anything remotely parallel about their circumstances.

Even if he knew there were far more resonances than he cared to admit.

"I can see why you were cast in the role," he said, and Sarah turned toward him, eyes shining, cheeks still flushed.

"Thank you. I — "She broke off there, as though she wasn't quite sure what she'd intended to say next. "I guess I needed to know whether I could still do it."

"Clearly, you can." He paused for a moment, wondering whether he should elaborate, then decided against it. If he pointed out that it was a tragedy the world had been deprived of hearing her sing, then she would only revisit the circumstances that had prevented her from doing such a thing, and he did not want her thoughts to linger on the Dying…or the reason why it had happened. Doing his best to sound neutral, he added, "Would you like to run through it again?"

Because while he thought her performance had been perfect, he also did not doubt that she would find something to nitpick about it.

As he'd expected, she nodded. "I think it's a good idea. Let's start with the part where I begin with, ‘think of August.' I'm pretty sure I can do a better job with my breath control in that passage."

So they returned to the section of the song she'd indicated and ran through it several times. From there, they moved on to the cadenza. He had thought it perfect, but she wanted to cover it two, three, five times until she judged every note to be exactly where she wanted it to be.

At last, though, she stepped up to the bench where he sat and said, "Okay, that should do it for today. Thanks for being so patient with me."

He hadn't thought of it as being patient, but more being able to drink in every second he spent with her, every moment she sang and he could listen to the power and purity of her voice. Although he'd never been intoxicated — his body would not allow him to be affected by alcohol — he had to believe this was something like being drunk, to have the world feel as though it was somehow lighter and brighter, that all the weight of his grief and anger and guilt had been lifted, simply because she was there.

Of course, he could not allow her to know anything of what he had been thinking. No, she must only believe that he was pleased with the work she had done this morning but was now perfectly content to stop and have lunch, and then go for an afternoon ride.

If he could continue to make her think she was of very little consequence to him, then perhaps she would never be frightened away by the force of his desire.

Both men looked bruised and haggard, José Padilla with his ankle in a cast and Shawn Gutierrez with his left arm in a sling. Miles and Brent had picked them up at the mile marker they'd indicated, then brought them back to Los Alamos. Despite his injuries, Shawn had been upset about having to leave his truck behind; Brent had taken a look under the hood, determined the cause of the problem was a blown fuel injection system, and promised to get it fixed once he was able to find the parts and have the truck towed to a garage in Espa?ola that they'd been using as a satellite motor pool location.

Now they were all sitting in the conference room at City Hall, where they'd been joined by Nora Almeida. With the entire town council in the room, Lindsay hoped they'd be able to get some answers as to what exactly had happened to the two men.

"We're not sure what it was," Shawn said. "We didn't really see anything."

"Nothing at all?" Miles replied, voice sharp. "How could you be dropped some fifteen miles from where you started without being able to see a single bit of what was happening to you?"

José made an impatient gesture. "There was this crazy wind that came out of nowhere. I mean, the weather had been rough that afternoon, lots of thunder and rain, but things kind of died down after sunset. But then we heard some kind of weird popping sound — "

"That we think was probably the truck getting zapped out of there," Shawn cut in, and the other man gave him an annoyed look.

"Yeah, maybe it was the truck. Anyway, the next thing we knew, this wind came along and blew down the tent, and then somehow it got wrapped around us and we were flying through the air — "

"You were flying? " Lindsay asked. Maybe it had been rude to interrupt José like that, but she was having a hard time believing any of this.

Shawn started to shrug, then winced, remembering too late the arm that had just recently been popped back into its socket, thanks to the first aid delivered by Ellen O'Dell, Los Alamos' resident nurse practitioner. "Well, maybe ‘hurtling' is a better word. It's not like we were controlling any of it. But something wrapped that tent around us and then basically threw us fifteen miles."

For a moment, no one spoke. Miles's eyes met hers, and Lindsay gave a very small shake of her head.

None of this made any sense. She knew that djinn could do some crazy stuff, but she'd never heard of any of them pulling a stunt like this one.

Then again, they weren't necessarily dealing with your regular garden-variety djinn here. If the elders were the ones who'd drop-kicked Shawn and José some fifteen miles or so, then Lindsay supposed all bets were off…even as she really didn't want to consider the implications of the elders acting in such an openly hostile manner

Nora's plump, friendly features were troubled. "I understand why you thought you needed to try again to find Sarah," she said. "But after what happened last night, I don't think we can risk it anymore. Who's to say what might happen if we keep sending people to rescue her?"

Not anything that Lindsay wanted to contemplate. Everything she'd heard about the djinn elders seemed to indicate they were a calm, measured group whose biggest failing was standing back and choosing not to interfere even when a lot of the people involved might have preferred a little assistance. For them to do something as crazy as bundling José and Shawn up in a tent and then tossing them more than a dozen miles seemed very out of character.

On the other hand, if there was one thing she'd learned about the djinn over the years, it was that they were full of surprises.

"We're not going to keep sending people," Miles said, his voice flat. Although he much preferred to let everyone on the town council have an equal say in the decisions they made, there had been several occasions when he'd used his position as first among equals — as the man who'd created the invention that had kept them all alive for so long — to lay down the law.

"Whatever's going on with Sarah Wolfe, she's going to have to rescue herself."