He was injured.

He might be dying.

I was hurt, but not so badly; I could see places on my aetheric body where I continued to bleed off energy in brightly colored streams. I concentrated on stopping the flows, and slowly, painfully, the bleeding became trickles.

I let go of my hold on the aetheric, and the gravitational pull of my physical body snapped me back through a dizzyingly long distance, a rush of starlight and waves of color, a fall from heaven. ...

I came upright in the chair in the motel with a gasp. I was still holding the cell phone, but there was only static and distant noise on the line. “Luis?” I said. “Luis, answer me if you can hear me!”

Nothing. I heard more noise now, other voices, and then a rustle as someone else picked up the cell phone. “Cassiel?” Marion’s voice. She sounded guarded.

“Is he all right?”

“Don’t know yet; he’s out cold. No obvious physical damage, but I’ve had a good look at Luis Rocha these past few days, and if he’s hurting, it’s a real problem. What happened?”

I didn’t want to tell her. There was something frightening and intimate about what we’d done; it felt forbidden, though as far as I knew there were no customs or laws against it.

But then, there never were until someone invented the newest perversion.

“We joined on the aetheric,” I finally said, choosing my words carefully. “Not touched. Joined. Became one. I had to pull us apart; it was killing him.” When she didn’t immediately reply, I asked, “Do you know of this? Have you seen it done?”

“Not by humans,” she said. “A very few times by a human and a Djinn, but it takes a strong bond to even attempt it. Maybe the Djinn have something like it among themselves ...?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think there’s anything like that in Djinn experience. Did I kill him, Marion? Did I—”

“No, he’s not dead,” she said. “Hurt, yes, but not dead. No worries, we’ll take care of him here.” She cleared her throat. “Perhaps you shouldn’t—”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Perhaps we shouldn’t. Ever.”

I hung up, staring thoughtfully at the blank wall in front of me. Djinn couldn’t—or didn’t, in any case—merge in the way that Luis and I had on the aetheric; that seemed to be reserved exclusively for Wardens and Djinn ... but technically speaking, I wasn’t even a Djinn, only the remnants of one.

Odd, that I was the first to discover this intimate, cruelly beautiful connection that could occur between two people on the aetheric—unless it couldn’t occur to anyone but me. Perhaps that was one of the strange outlying pieces of my once-Djinn self; perhaps Ashan had deliberately left that capability to me, to help me protect myself here on the aetheric from Pearl.

I wouldn’t rule it out. Ashan played very long, very obscure games, and he had manipulated me from the beginning. If this was some kind of weapon left to me to discover, then it was a dangerously seductive one.

It appeared that I could protect myself from the worst that Pearl could do, on the aetheric. All I needed to do was kill the Warden who stood with me.

I rested my aching forehead on my palms, and quietly, deeply hated Ashan all over again, the smug and unfeeling bastard brother of my soul.

I left the next morning, as soon as I could be sure of recovery from my adventures on the aetheric ... because I had a new destination. It was far, far across the country, but the first new lead that I had on Pearl and her plans.

First, I had to get to Trenton, New Jersey, but I needed to do it without triggering the interest of the FBI, which had to be actively on the lookout for me now. I was an easy target to spot—after all, I was tall, thin, albino in coloring, with green eyes and a hand and forearm made of copper. Not exactly average, especially in my white motorcycle leathers and on the sleek Victory I was riding.

I needed a human makeover.

My first task that morning was standing in front of the mirror and concentrating very, very hard on altering my appearance, one feature at a time. The hair was the most obvious, and easiest ... I slowly darkened it from pink-streaked white to a smooth cap of black. My skin was much harder to alter, and I decided not to try; I had seen others with similar coloring who achieved it through application of makeup, and although they attracted attention, I would be a stereotype, difficult to identify as an individual.

Hair completed, I went to a cheap, dingy thrift shop, where I found a tight, long-sleeved black shirt, a battered black jacket, and black nylon cargo pants covered with massive silver zippers and nonsensical pockets. When the clothes were paired with equally battered black boots, I looked ... different. I studied myself in the mirror critically.

“Needs something,” the clerk said. He was an old man, with rheumy eyes and a humped back from age and bone loss. What little hair he still had was a dirty gray. It stuck out like the mane of a lion and hadn’t been washed in some time. “I got it. Hold on.”

He shuffled off at a speed that was, for him, fast, and returned a few moments later with two things: a black collar studded with silver spikes, and a necklace. I dropped the chain of the necklace over my head, and a snarling silver skull with wings leered back at me.

I liked it.

The collar fitted around my neck with just enough room to feel comfortable, and I had to admit that the two additions made the ensemble memorable, and at the same time, utterly not matching the description of the woman the FBI would be seeking.

One problem remained. The Victory.

“If I pay you a fee, will you keep my motorcycle here for me, but not sell it?” I asked. “And my other clothes?”

He squinted at me suspiciously. “How much of a fee?”

“A thousand dollars to hold these for me here. You can place a price tag on them, but just be sure no one buys them.” I gave him an unsettling smile, one I had learned from the best. “I would be very upset if I come back and they’re not available.”

“A thousand,” he repeated, as if he’d never heard the word before. I watched the light slowly dawn in his eyes—the sunrise of greed, with dollar signs for rays. “Yes, sure, can do, missy. What name do I—”

“Jane Smith,” I said.

“That’d have to be cash, missy.”

I opened my backpack and took out an envelope. “That is fifteen hundred,” I said. “For the clothing I just bought, and for your services. Please understand that even if you take this money and run, I will find you. I’m very good at exacting justice when someone tries to cheat me.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed in his scrawny neck like a golf ball trapped in a hose, and then he nodded. “Wouldn’t think of it,” he lied. “I’ll guard your stuff like it was my own. Better, even.”

“An excellent idea.” When he tried to take the envelope, I held on to it. “This also buys your silence.”

“Never heard of nothing,” he agreed, and snatched the money away. “I’ll put that bike in the back, put a ten-thousand-dollar price tag on it. That’ll keep it here. Nobody with ten grand to their name ever stepped foot in here, anyway.”

It sounded like a perfectly reasonable plan. As long as the Victory was gathering dust and dreaming of the open road, I’d be far less recognizable.

I bought, at the last minute, a pair of black leather gloves with the fingers cut out. That disguised most of the oddity of my left hand. A few large silver rings drew attention away from the coppery skin even more. As I was admiring the effect, and thinking that these would be a great benefit if I had to punch anyone, I heard a harsh blatting noise from the parking lot. The clerk went pale and scurried into the back.

I headed for the door. A hulking man at least six and a half feet tall shoved in before I could reach it, and all six and a half feet of him—at least the parts visible—were covered in violent tattoos, mostly in reds and blues. A winged dragon graced his shaved head, its snarling maw open just over his nose like a helmet. His black leather jacket was heavily decorated with patches and paints, rips and scuffs, and I was fairly certain he was a murderer. Some people just give off that aetheric stench.