Gale Force (10 page)

Not that there was much chance of it; with Lewis’s Earth Warden treatments, and David’s Djinn-powered supplemental healing, I’d have to be damn stubborn to screw up that badly.

But I felt cold—cold and scared, for no reason I could really put a name to. Once I was back in my room, even piles of blankets didn’t seem to thaw the ice. I wanted David. I wanted him here, with me.

I wanted him safe.

And I was desperately afraid that he wasn’t.

When I tried to follow up and find out more about the dead Djinn, the antimatter black shard . . . I was told it was none of my business. Officially. This came in a curt e-mail message from Warden HQ, courtesy of my good friend Paul, who had evidently decided that the only kind of ball I was going to play was hardball, and therefore he’d better play to win.

I couldn’t really resent this, because he was right; I was recovering, I was weak, and it was being handled by competent people. So I needed to stay out of it.

Naturally, I couldn’t stay out of it.

Not really my thing, being sensible. Instead, I did my work quietly, hidden in between the obvious tasks of drafting the guest list for the wedding (everybody wanted to attend, and no, I wasn’t going to feed the entire North American Warden contingent with lobster tails and open bar). I researched caterers, florists, and ministers.

Where we were having the actual ceremony, thankfully, was a foregone conclusion. There was a chapel in Sedona, one of the places where the Oracles reside . . . this one was the home of the Earth Oracle, a kind of super-Djinn who was an avatar of the Earth herself. I wasn’t entirely sure what the Oracles
did
, exactly, except that they were the direct conduits from the Djinn to Mother Earth. If you wanted to talk to her, you went through them.

This particular Oracle was also my kid. Long story, but she’d been born in the Djinn way, from power— David’s, and mine. Half-Djinn, half-human, and not strong enough to survive the Djinn civil war that had erupted around her literally on the day of her birth.

I’d thought I’d lost her forever, but she was alive, in a sense, if beyond my reach. Oracles didn’t have as much contact with humans, and they couldn’t reach us in the way that Djinn did.

If I wanted my daughter, Imara, to be at the wedding of her parents, then I had to bring the ceremony to her. Super-Djinn badass avatar or not, I didn’t think she could actually leave the chapel, at least on the physical plane. Besides, it was a gorgeous place. I couldn’t think of a better, more sanctified spot to exchange vows.

However, at most, it would hold only a couple dozen people, not nearly enough for the rapidly spawning guest list. That would be like trying to fit Mardi Gras into a two-room split-level. Maybe, I decided, we ought to have two ceremonies. A party in Fort Lauderdale, an all-access blowout to make the rank and file of the Wardens happy. And then a private ceremony in Sedona.

Maybe I could get the Wardens to kick in for the party as a morale builder.

I was working out the costs, and trying to persuade myself that I felt weak because I was tired, not because anything above four figures was unacceptable, when the telephone rang. I picked it up, had a bad reporter flashback, and checked the number. It was blocked, which meant it was probably a telemarketer. Annoying, but not nearly as stressful.

‘‘Hello?’’

The sound of breathing on the other end made my hackles go up. Couldn’t really say why; breathing was not, in and of itself, a threatening sort of sound. But I knew something else was coming, and so I wasn’t surprised when a rough male voice said, ‘‘You don’t care, do you? You don’t give a shit about the dead. The ones who stood up and died for you.’’

I flinched, remembering Jerome Silverton, and forced myself to stay still and listen. ‘‘What are you talking about? Who is this?’’

‘‘You didn’t even warn them it was coming. You didn’t warn your own friends that the Djinn they trusted, the ones they
liked,
could turn around and rip them in half.’’ The hatred in that voice was chilling. ‘‘Now you’re screwing one of
them
. One of the enemy.’’

‘‘The Djinn aren’t the enemy. Who are you?’’

‘‘You’re already on the list,’’ the voice said. ‘‘Fair warning, Baldwin. You’re a traitor, and we don’t want you in charge. Quit now, before it’s too late.’’

He hung up. I sat frozen for a few seconds, staring at the phone, then called Warden HQ and asked for a trace of the last call.

I got nothing. It would take a Fire Warden to disrupt the sort of trace we used, but clearly, our enemies were ourselves. That didn’t bode well for a long-term solution.

I was trying to decide how much of this—if any of it—to tell David, when the doorbell rang. It took me a few long seconds to lever myself out of the chair, put my laptop aside, and go to answer it. The apartment was cool and quiet, except for the distant, constant sound of construction on the other side of the complex, where they were repairing fire damage.

When I got to the door, there was nobody outside. I looked right and left, frowning, and remembered to look down.

It was a delivery service package, plastered with labels. I didn’t remember having ordered anything, but maybe someone had sent me a get-well present. I reached down for it, but as I did, David came up the steps at the end of the hallway and turned toward me with his luminous, lovely smile.

Now
that
was the best present ever.

‘‘What are you doing up?’’ he asked as he came closer. He was tossing newly minted apartment keys in his hand; I’d insisted that if he was going to marry me, he’d have to start doing more mundane, human things, too, such as unlocking doors the standard way, and knocking before entry. He’d found it funny, of course. But he humored me.

‘‘Just getting the package,’’ I said, and bent down again to pick it up.

As my fingers closed around it, David asked, in pure puzzlement, ‘‘What package?’’ and it hit me like a speeding express train—I was already feeling worse. Woozy. Something was wrong here.

And he couldn’t see the package.

‘‘Get Lewis,’’ I said, and backed away, into the apartment. ‘‘Get him
fast,
David.
Go!
’’

He didn’t waste time asking what I was on about; he just blipped away, moving faster than light could follow. I slammed the door and kept on moving, as far back as I could. I ran into the plate glass window, slid along to the opening, and stepped onto the balcony, where I braced myself against the far railing and slowly lowered myself into a deck chair. I was short of breath and sweating, and it wasn’t all just nerves.

That box.
Dammit.
How many people had been exposed? The driver, for sure. People at the distribution center . . . I grabbed a pad of paper, threw away the lists of florists I’d compiled, and began to frantically scribble down anyone I could think of who might have touched the package during the shipping process. They all needed to be examined and treated.

I was only halfway through the list when the phone rang, and I grabbed the extension sitting next to the pad. ‘‘Lewis?’’ It was. ‘‘Get a disposal team over here, right now. There’s a package outside my door. I think it’s the same stuff as in the office building. Antimatter. David can’t see the package at all. Get a team on tracing the package back through the system. People who came in contact with this thing—’’

‘‘Got it,’’ he said. ‘‘Look after yourself. Get the hell out of there.’’

‘‘I don’t want to go near it, and I’d have to if I leave by the door. I’ll have to climb down—’’ I didn’t feel up to the acrobatics, not at the moment.

I didn’t need to. David came out of thin air, moving fast. He picked me up, out of the chair, stepped up on the balcony railing, and off into open space without a second of hesitation. I didn’t even have time to gasp before his feet hit the ground, and then he was carrying me across the parking lot at breakneck speed. He dumped me in the passenger seat of my car, took the driver’s seat, and started it up with a touch of his finger to the ignition.

‘‘David—’’

He wasn’t listening. His eyes were focused and distant. He had a mission, and that mission was to get me out of danger. I didn’t have anything to say about it.

I realized I was still holding the phone. Lewis’s voice was a faint buzz on the other end. ‘‘Right, I’m out of the apartment,’’ I said to him. ‘‘And we’re about to lose the connection. Hurry up with the disposal team. I don’t want that thing lying around where anybody can pick it up. My God, Lewis, there are
people
here.
Innocent people!
’’

David put the Mustang in gear, and we screeched out of the parking place, cornered hard, and accelerated out of the apartment complex and onto the street.

The phone went dead, of course. I tossed it in the backseat and rested my head against the cushions as David put the Mustang through its paces, driving way too fast for a human’s reactions. He must have screened us out of other people’s perceptions, because we blew past a police squad car doing about 120, and there was no reaction at all from the two protecting and serving in the front seat.

‘‘I thought you didn’t believe in this stuff,’’ I said to David. ‘‘You’re acting like you do.’’

‘‘I’m trusting you,’’ he said. ‘‘If you say it’s there, and you say it made you sick, I’m not taking chances. But Jo—I can’t see it. I can’t sense it. It’s just not
there
.’’

‘‘Look, there are things that exist that are invisible to humans—’’

‘‘But not to Djinn,’’ he interrupted. ‘‘Nothing is invisible to Djinn. Nothing that belongs on this earth.’’

This was kind of the point. He must have realized it, too. He was quiet for a moment, and when I looked over, I saw that his eyes had taken on a fierce orange color, like the heart of a fire.

‘‘This isn’t something being done by the Djinn,’’ he said. ‘‘Not mine, and not Ashan’s. Whether I personally believe in it or not is beside the point. If an enemy is sending these things to you, personally, it’s someone human. Someone who wishes you harm.’’

No kidding. I remembered the angry phone call. ‘‘Maybe it’s a Demon,’’ I said. ‘‘They seem to like to drop in for regular visits.’’

‘‘Not funny, Jo.’’

‘‘Yeah, not from this side, either. Do you think it is? A Demon?’’

He seemed to consider it seriously. ‘‘Demons aren’t so . . . strategic in their approach. Their goals are simple and straightforward—consume, kill, escape. Whatever this is, there’s no
sense
to what you described before. The dead creature—’’

‘‘Djinn, David. He was Djinn. We’re sure.’’

He let that pass, but I could tell he was far from convinced. ‘‘And the black thing inside him. Who would do such a thing? Why?’’

‘‘Maybe,’’ I said slowly, ‘‘it was a test.’’

‘‘A test of what?’’

‘‘Of the Djinn,’’ I said. ‘‘A test that you failed.’’

He took his gaze away from the road, which was eerie and alarming, though I knew he didn’t need to be staring straight ahead to drive. ‘‘Failed how?’’

‘‘Failed to sense the danger. Look, that
was
a Djinn we found—’’

‘‘It wasn’t.’’

‘‘Argument’s sake, if it was, why can’t you admit it? It’s as if you just can’t bring yourself to—’’

‘‘There’s nothing to admit!’’ he said, and I heard the unmistakable vibration of anger underneath the words.
‘‘I would know if a Djinn had died!’’

‘‘Except you don’t, and one did,’’ I said, and closed my eyes. ‘‘So what does that mean?’’

‘‘It means—’’ David took in a deep breath, and I could see him struggle to get his temper under control. ‘‘It doesn’t mean anything. Because all this is an illusion, Jo. Just an illusion. There’s no dead Djinn; there’s no such thing as your antimatter.’’

Whoa. The blind spot the Djinn had was big enough to swallow the sun, and it was starting to really scare me. And there didn’t seem to be any point at all to trying to debate it, because he simply wasn’t going to listen.

I turned face forward as he steered the Mustang through traffic at speeds that would have made NASCAR drivers weep and flinch. ‘‘Glad we got that all straightened out.’’

Sarcasm was wasted on him, right at the moment. He sent me a heartbreaking smile of relief, and I realized he actually thought we
had
straightened it out.

Oh dear
God
.

We finished the drive in silence. Once the traffic cleared, David pulled off the road at a beachfront area, one loaded up with pleasure-seeking, bikini-wearing sunbathers, all one tequila short of a
Girls Gone Wild
video. He turned off the engine, and we sat for a while watching the waves crash and roll, and the tanners sizzle and flirt.

‘‘I need my cell phone,’’ I said. David . . .
flickered
. Like a bad signal, or a hologram. And then he reached in his coat pocket and handed over my cell phone, which I knew perfectly well I’d left back on the table in the apartment. ‘‘Hey. Don’t do that, okay?’’

He looked puzzled. ‘‘Don’t do what?’’

‘‘Don’t go back there. Promise me.’’

‘‘Why?’’

I swear, when I closed my eyes, I saw red. I counted to ten, deliberately, and tried to pry my fingernails out of my palms. ‘‘Because even if you don’t believe it’s there, that stuff is toxic to me, and it could be fatal to you. All right?’’

He shook his head. ‘‘There’s no danger. If there was, I’d know.’’

Which was just
crazy
. But he earnestly seemed to think he was telling me the truth.

I took the cell phone and called Lewis. ‘‘Where are you?’’

‘‘Just got here,’’ he said. I heard his breath huffing; he and what sounded like an elephant herd of people were jogging up the stairs. ‘‘Okay, I see it. Box in front of the door.’’

‘‘That’s it,’’ I said. ‘‘Be careful.’’

‘‘I’m not going anywhere near it, trust me. We’re using a bomb robot.’’