Chapter 5

At first, Abdul hadn't intended to confront the woman. He'd held himself back as he watched her enter the house, then seem to hesitate as she glanced around the living room.

But when she opened the refrigerator door, he'd had enough. It wasn't as though there was anything to see in there — he hadn't yet gotten around to stocking the thing, and only summoned the raw ingredients he needed when it came time to prepare his meals — but something about the casual way she'd looked inside the refrigerator angered him, as though she thought she had every right to poke around as she liked.

And so he'd removed the veil of invisibility he'd wrapped around himself, and asked her to tell him what she was doing.

Her face immediately paled under its light golden tan, but although he could see the way she swallowed, she didn't turn and flee. Instead, she stared directly back at him and said, "Who are you?"

"I am the one who owns this house," he replied. "A house where you are trespassing, I might add."

Now she looked almost guilty, her gaze moving away from him to somewhere nearer the floor. In the late afternoon light streaming through the kitchen window, her eyes looked almost golden, although he guessed they would be more of a greenish blue in illumination that wasn't quite so warm.

"I didn't know anyone lived here," she said. Her voice as she spoke was as clear and as pure as the singing he'd heard earlier, although pitched slightly lower. "I thought Ghost Ranch was just as deserted as the rest of this part of New Mexico." She stopped there, and now her eyes came back up again to meet his. "Are you — are you a djinn?"

The easiest way to answer her was to say yes, and that this place had been granted to him by the elders and therefore was nowhere she should be.

But that would not have been precisely the truth. Also, while he might have wished fervently that she had come nowhere near here, now that she had seen him, matters were a bit more complicated than they had been a few moments earlier.

"That does not matter," he said. "What matters is that you have come to my home, unbidden, and seen what you should not have seen."

Now one of her well-arched brows lifted slightly. This close, Abdul could see that his earlier estimation of her had been accurate, that her features were regular and well-shaped, her skin smooth and without blemish. And although she did not seem to wear any cosmetics — wise, he supposed, for someone who clearly had spent the day walking — both her cheeks and her lips were rosy with color.

"Considering that robe you're wearing, I haven't seen a whole lot," she remarked. Her lips parted again — perhaps to inquire why he covered himself in such a fashion — but then she seemed to think better of the question, for she only said, "I'm really sorry that I barged in here like this. If I'd known the place was occupied, I would have left it alone. So I guess all I can do is offer my apologies and get on the road."

She did sound genuinely contrite…but also troubled. Was it fear over how he might respond, or simple worry about heading back to the highway with nightfall so near?

Not that it mattered. She had seen him, and that meant he could only respond in one way if he wished to preserve the safe, quiet world he'd created for himself here.

"I'm afraid it isn't quite so simple," he said, and her brows drew together. Before she could say anything in response to his comment, however, he went on, "For now that you have seen me, I cannot allow you to leave this place."

A horrible second or two passed while Sarah stared back at the man…djinn…whatever he was. Was this some kind of a horrible joke?

What did he mean? He couldn't actually be saying that he planned to keep her trapped here, could he?

Apparently so, because he seemed to interpret her horrified silence and continued. "You see, this house — all of Ghost Ranch, really — is my sanctuary. I assume you must have come here to explore, to gather information. But I cannot let you take the knowledge of my presence here back to your people."

The way he phrased those words made it pretty clear to her that he must be a djinn. Why he was covered up in that hooded robe, though, she had no idea. Although she'd never seen a djinn in person — she'd managed to evade them during her escape from Albuquerque, and she'd never gone on one of her town's expeditions to Santa Fe where the conscientious objector djinn lived with their human partners — she'd always heard that the immortal elementals were supposed to be almost supernaturally good-looking.

If the weather had been colder, she might have told herself he was merely trying to stay warm, but since the weather had been utterly beautiful lately, with highs floating in the upper seventies, she didn't see any reason why he'd need to bundle up.

"I won't tell anyone," she said quickly. "Really. Besides, we know to stay away from djinn houses unless we've been given an actual invitation. No one is going to bother you here."

"No one is going to bother me because they will not know I am here at all," the djinn said, his tone almost mild…but implacable nonetheless. "Tell me, why did you come to Ghost Ranch in the first place?"

Sarah wanted to lie, to give him an explanation that seemed utterly harmless. Problem was, she had a feeling he'd be able to figure it out right away if she told him anything less than the truth. And even though she didn't know his name or anything about him, something about the quiet strength of his tall, lean body, the dark glimmer of eyes within the hood, seemed to signal he was not the sort of person to put up with that sort of prevarication.

"I'm from Los Alamos," she said, although that should have been obvious. It wasn't as if there was anyplace else on the planet where humans were allowed to live in peace. "We're scouting areas north of there to see if they're viable for expanding our community."

"I see," the djinn replied, which didn't tell her much of anything.

How she wished she could see his face! All her skill at reading people's expressions was utterly worthless in this particular situation.

However, his tone was studiously neutral, which experience told her was not a good thing. No, he didn't like the idea of humans coming around here, not at all.

Which she kind of understood. If she'd chosen an isolated spot like this to make her home, only to be faced with the prospect of having it overrun by a bunch of humans trying to find new places to live, she probably wouldn't have been too thrilled, either.

"But now that we know someone is living at Ghost Ranch, obviously we'll give it a wide berth," she said quickly.

His hooded head tilted to one side. "You just said you wouldn't tell anyone I was here."

Oh, right. She wanted to berate herself for making such a stupid comment, but she knew she was tired and probably had low blood sugar to boot. If she hadn't been so tense, she might have also sensed she was hungry and not at her best, even if food was pretty much the farthest thing from her mind right now.

"Of course," she replied. "I meant, now that I know you're here, I'll just make up some kind of story about how this place won't work for us."

No response at first. But then he said, "No, I fear that is not a good enough solution. I know all too well how driven humans can be when they decide they want something, how they allow very little to stand in their way when they are determined upon a course of action. And that means you must remain here."

What, did he think he could keep her a prisoner in Ghost Ranch indefinitely? Her brain wanted to laugh at the notion, except she knew that djinn could do pretty much whatever they wanted to do. Yes, the djinn elders appeared to be the elementals' nominal rulers, but they didn't seem to step in and lay down the law unless a situation was particularly fraught.

And somehow she couldn't help thinking that they most likely wouldn't consider the fate of one lone human to be their problem. No, they'd probably say she'd asked for her current trouble by coming here in the first place and trespassing on land that had been given to one of their kind, and then they would wash their hands of the matter.

The whole situation was so surreal that her brain didn't want to accept it. There had to be some way to get out of this mess.

"Can't you, I don't know, erase my memories of being here or something?" she asked, even though she realized at once how crazy…and desperate…her question must have sounded.

She couldn't see his face, but she got the impression he smiled under the hood.

"The djinn control many things," he replied. "But even we are not capable of altering a human's memories. So you see that it is not safe for me to let you go."

Impasse. Sarah stared at the djinn, mind flitting from one possibility to the next, wondering if any of those hypothetical options could give her the key she needed to extricate herself from this situation.

Well, when all else failed, it was time to go on pure instinct.

She slipped the heavy pack from her back and slung it at the djinn. It caught him square across the chest, causing him to stumble backward a pace or two.

Would it be enough?

She supposed she'd find out…much sooner than she'd like.

Even as the backpack smashed into her would-be captor, she bolted for the door. She'd heard that some djinn could fly, but not all of them. Her luck had been so spectacularly bad so far that she could only hope it would finally turn, and he would be an elemental of the earth or of water, and therefore would be forced to pursue her on foot.

Looking back would only slow her down, so she resolutely kept her gaze forward as she grabbed the door handle and lifted it, then made a gazelle leap through the front door that would have made her dance instructors proud.

All for nothing, though, as the hooded djinn immediately appeared in front of her, blocking her way.

"That was…not a very good idea," he said. His words sounded slightly winded, so it seemed her attack with the backpack had had some effect. Djinn could be wounded, she knew that much, although they healed very quickly and were almost impossible to kill.

But she hadn't hurt him enough to stop him, and now she guessed he was even less disposed to think kindly of her.

"Sorry about that," she said with a disingenuous smile. "But I had to try."

"I suppose you did," he responded. He reached out and grasped her by the arm, fingers like steel around her bicep.

She didn't wince, though. The last thing she wanted was to let him see he was hurting her.

No other comment, though, and immediately they whirled away through a terrible shifting darkness that lasted for less than a second even though it also felt as though it went on forever. Through it all, the strange djinn maintained his grip on her arm. Sarah knew this was the way the elementals traveled, bending space to get to their destination, although she'd heard that usually, a human traveled with their arms around the djinn's waist so there was no chance of being separated, or getting lost in that terrible other plane.

She hadn't been lost, though. Barely before she had a chance to process what was happening, they appeared in a large room that, if not part of the same house, had been decorated pretty much the same way, with wide-plank oak floors and white plaster walls. Up against the wall opposite was a canopy bed with a black iron frame, and a chandelier of the same dark metal hung from the ceiling overhead.

"This is where you will stay," the djinn told her, and Sarah stared at him blankly for a second or two before the words sank in.

Well, she supposed it was better than a prison cell, especially when she spied a large, luxurious bathroom through the partially open door off to one side. Still, she didn't plan to stay here any longer than she had to.

He'd loosened his grip on her bicep just enough that she was able to pull her arm away. "Nice," she said. "Does it come with room service?"

His head tilted toward her. "You will not starve," he said.

And then he disappeared.

Sarah couldn't help blinking, even though she knew that was how djinn came and went. Really, it had been stupid to try to get away from him. He was probably angrier than ever with her, thanks to the way she'd assaulted him with her backpack.

What the hell was she supposed to do now?

Wait and hope for rescue. What else was there to do? She wasn't under any illusions that Carson would come riding to her aid, her knight in shining armor, but surely after he realized she'd missed their rendezvous, he'd head back to meet with Lindsay and let her know what was going on. Lindsay Odekirk was a very capable woman, and Sarah knew she'd mount a search party right away, just like she'd done when Sarah's friend Isla had gone missing last fall.

This time around, though, Sarah knew she stood on much thinner ice. Isla had been actively kidnapped by a djinn, whereas she'd made the mistake of stumbling onto one of the elementals' properties. It was entirely possible there wasn't much Lindsay or anyone else in Los Alamos could do, except maybe appeal to the elders to see if they would step in.

Whatever ended up happening, Sarah had a feeling it was going to take a while, and that meant she might as well explore her prison cell.

As she'd thought, the bathroom was huge, almost the size of the bedroom in the house where she'd grown up and had still been living when the Heat came along. When her father passed away, she dimly realized that she'd inherited that house, but there hadn't been any opportunity to do anything about it, not with the world ending just a few days later.

And she had to admit this suite was absolutely gorgeous. A free-standing tub sat under one window that offered an amazing view of the tall red rocks only a few hundred yards away, and the glass-enclosed shower had vertical subway tile in a moody shade somewhere between deep green and teal. The floors under her feet were also tile, large-format pieces in a soft beige that she thought might be travertine.

Clearly, no expense had been spared here. Who had designed this place, though — someone from Ghost Ranch, or the djinn himself? Sarah had heard they could make their houses look pretty much any way they wanted, so she thought it wasn't too improbable to believe that he'd remodeled this house to suit his own particular tastes and needs.

All the drawers were empty, as was the enormous walk-in closet she'd passed on her way to the bathroom. Good thing she had a change of clothes and some basic toiletries in her pack.

Except that her pack was still lying in the middle of the living room where it had fallen after her aborted escape attempt. About all she could do now was hope that the djinn would show her a little mercy and blink it into the bedroom after he realized she needed it.

And that, she thought, was expecting a level of forbearance she wasn't quite sure she deserved. It was wrong for him to hold her here like this, but on the other hand, she'd been trespassing…had been poking around in his refrigerator, for God's sake.

No wonder he was so annoyed with her.

Well, there wasn't much she could do now, so she went over to the little sitting area near one of the windows, which also looked south toward the Pedernal, although part of the view was obstructed by a corner of the low-slung house. Still, she could see how the sun had now truly set, and long shadows stretched across the landscape. Off in the distance, the flat-topped peak that had been the subject of so many Georgia O'Keeffe paintings turned dusky purple.

Sarah sat down and watched the world turn dimmer and dimmer.

What else could she do?

No sound from the woman's bedroom, which told Abdul that she had — so far, at any rate — not attempted to escape. Perhaps she had learned her lesson.

He frowned as he extended a hand to have the lights turn themselves on, for the drapes to draw closed and hide the darkening landscape outside. It felt odd to have a human here in the house, albeit in one of the secondary bedrooms. An irony, he supposed, when he had always intended to live here alone.

In hindsight, it might not have been entirely wise for him to pull down all the guesthouses and casitas, for if even one of them still stood, he could have put the intrusive human female in that structure rather than under his own roof. At the time, though, he had only thought of the aesthetics of his surroundings. Certainly there was no reason for him to believe his sanctuary here would be intruded upon by a mortal interloper.

Grudgingly, he had to admit that she'd shown some spirit by hurling her backpack at him, even though she must have known such a gambit was doomed to failure. His gaze moved to the spot where the pack still sat in the middle of the living room rug.

Should he give it to her?

Still wearing a small frown, he lifted a finger, and the backpack floated across the room and into his hands. A quick inspection of the contents told him she had packed light for her expedition — a change of shirt and underwear and socks, but not a second pair of jeans. A few meager toiletries, and a lightweight bag of some kind of synthetic material rolled around itself, clearly intended for sleeping.

Nothing in there that was anything she needed, not when he could provide items that were much higher quality.

Only an intention in his mind, and the bathroom drawers were filled with makeup and toiletries, the closet full of clothing he thought would be more comfortable and becoming than her current denim and hiking boots.

Not, of course, that he cared what she looked like, but more that those plain, ugly human clothes offended his sensibilities.

That task done, he blinked her backpack away into the hall closet and pondered what he should do for supper. He would have to feed the woman, of course, but should he compel her to come out and sit down at the table with him, or would it be better to have a tray appear in her room?

A tray, he decided. While he guessed that making her share a meal with him in the dining room would be far more uncomfortable for her, bad enough that she'd trespassed in the way she had. Why on earth would he discommode himself further by inflicting any more of her company on him than he absolutely had to?

But if you ate together, you could ask her why she sang, passed through his mind then, even as he tried to brush the thought away.

There was no reason for him to know anything more about her. True, she had the voice of an angel, but still, she needed to suffer the consequences of her actions.

And that meant a solitary existence…for as long as it pleased him.