They were the perfect shock troops.

As the first child crawled along a branch toward me, mad eyes shining, I shifted my weight and grabbed for her wrist, twisting it. The knife fell like steel leaf.

She raked my arm with her fingernails and bared her teeth.

I had no choice but to sweep her off the branch, stunning her into unconsciousness as I did so. I cushioned her fall on the dirt with a burst of power.

Another was already coming. And another behind him.

These are annoyances, my Djinn side complained. Deal with them and move on. And had they been adult humans, I would have done so, but the reluctance to hurt a child was encoded in my helix DNA, and not even Djinn wisdom could counter it. You’ll waste your power fighting this battle. It’s what they want.

I knew that, but I also remembered Officer Styles on the road, the desperation and trauma in his face. The promise I’d made to him.

There were ten children here. Ten families searching for answers and praying for miracles. I couldn’t take that hope from them.

I dropped out of the tree, crouched, and began touching the children on the head, one after another. I forced myself to be methodical about it, ignoring their weapons. It worked for the first two. The third scored a long cut along my arm that burned like drips of fire before I sent him unconscious.

The fourth and fifth of the remaining nine went down without injury to themselves or me, but as I turned to the sixth, I felt a blinding cold pain in my side, and looked down to see that C.T. had buried a knife to the hilt in my body.

I slapped my palm down on his forehead, triggering sleep, and he collapsed to the dirt.

That left three still standing. They were two girls and another boy, and they clearly recognized the danger I represented. They stayed farther than arm’s length, waiting to see what I would do.

Sink them in the ground.

No. That was my Djinn ghost talking, and I would not do it—first, because it would hurt and terrify them, and second, because I could not afford the burst of power. Not injured.

I eased my weight down to my knees, trying not to gasp as pain arced through my nerves, and reached for the knife in my side. I touched it lightly, diagnosing the wound as best I could. I did not think it had cut any significant blood vessels, but there was damage—intestines cut, a cut to my liver that could be dire if untreated.

I pulled the knife out and somehow did not cry out. Blood dripped from the steel. I held it for a moment, staring at the children who circled me, and then rammed it point first into the ground in front of me.

They rushed me all at once.

Concentrate. My vision blurred, and I blinked away the haze. My hands flashed out, right and left, and brushed sleep into the minds of two of the children. Their falling bodies caused the third to stumble, and his club, aimed for my head, struck my shoulder instead with bruising force. I grabbed it, yanked it away, and pulled him toward me. He struggled in my arms, but I held him still, staring into his empty, wide eyes.

“You,” I said softly. “The one who hides behind children. I am coming for you.”

The boy’s mouth opened and he laughed softly. That was no child’s laughter. There was too much malice in it, too much knowledge.

Too much madness.

“Come, sister,” he said, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he fell to the ground.

He wasn’t breathing.

No.

I put my hand over his chest and felt no sign of heartbeat.

My enemy had just killed him casually, from a distance.

“No,” I said aloud, and pulled the boy into my lap. “No.” There was still a feeble flutter of life inside of him, struggling like a bird in a net. “You won’t do this.”

I put my hand over his heart and closed my eyes. Luis’s warnings came back to haunt me—I wasn’t trained in this; I could so easily damage the child—but I had no choice. There was no one better qualified to take my place.

I put my fingertips above his heart and forced his heart to pump. Once. Twice. Three times. Each time, I sought for the return of a rhythm, but his system seemed paralyzed, unable to function on its own.

His bloodstream, though sluggishly moving through my efforts, carried little oxygen. None was coming through his lungs. I would have to breathe for him, as well. I pulled in as deep a breath as I could, bent over him, and filled his lungs; the cut on my side stretched and widened, and tears blurred my vision.

My pain didn’t matter.

I forced his heart to beat again and again and again. Breathed.

His open eyes stared at me, and there was no shadow of self in them. No hope.

I felt the flutter of life weaken in him, and continued to stimulate his heart in slow, thick beats, an imitation of life, nothing more. . . .

The child’s heart suddenly jumped out of rhythm with my prompting, vibrated, and gave a strong beat.

Another.

Another.

He sucked in a breath and let it out in a scream.

I held him against me as he screamed and cried. All around me, the fallen children lay silent. I watched their chests rise and fall, alert for any changes, but my enemy did not bother with their deaths. He—or she—rightly concluded that they presented me with more of a dilemma alive.

I took out my cell phone and checked for a signal. None, of course. This was deep country, off the human track in many ways. I would get no help from the police, not until I could locate a working telephone.

The child put his chubby arms around my neck. I stroked his dirty hair. “What’s your name?”

He sniffled wetly. “Will.”

“All right, Will, everything is fine now. I’ll keep you safe.” I would need to bandage my wound. I was losing blood, and it was sapping my strength. The internal damage would have to wait until I could reconnect with Luis or find some other source of aid. “Will, I need you to help me, all right?”

He nodded, but he didn’t let go of me.

“I’m going to have to wake up the other children. I will need you to be my helper. When the others wake up, they might be scared, and I need you to be their friend. Can you do that?”

He nodded stoutly, and climbed out of my arms and stood with his shoulder pressed against mine. Trembling, but upright.

I made certain he was steady enough, and then trailed my fingertips lightly over the forehead of another child, a girl with dark hair and darker skin. She sat up, startled, and began to cry.

“Will,” I said. He gave me a doubtful look, but went to the girl and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he said solemnly. “You’re okay, Christy.”

He knew their names. “Will, is there a girl named Isabel? Do you know her?”

Will continued to pat the weeping Christy on the shoulder. “There are a lot of kids.”

That sent a cold ripple through me. “How many?”

“Lots.” He likely couldn’t count very high, so that was hardly definitive proof, but I had the strong feeling he meant hundreds. “I don’t know some of the new ones. They just came.”

“Came where, Will?”

He and Christy both looked at me as if I was utterly stupid. “The Ranch,” they said together.

“And where is The Ranch?”

I heard a click of metal, and an adult voice from the trees said, “You’re standing on it, bitch.”

It is a custom of human villains, at least in song and story, to take their prisoners back to their secret lair, where the prisoners outwit and destroy the villains.

My enemies were far from fairy tales, and I knew they did not intend to allow me one step farther toward the answers I sought.

The children were loaded into a large four-wheel vehicle and taken away, even Christy and Will, who looked resigned to it all. I felt a pang at seeing C.T. taken yet again, but at least he slept on.