Gale Force (35 page)

We settled up damages with the Palms; nobody acquainted me with a final figure, for which I was very grateful. I hoped the Wardens’ bank account wouldn’t snap under the strain. I changed out of the lovely wedding dress alone, not daring to let anybody— especially Cherise—catch a look at the brand-new black tattoo I was sporting. When I came out of the bedroom dressed in jeans and a purple knit shirt, the entire crowded roomful of Wardens stopped talking.

‘‘What?’’ I snapped. ‘‘Never saw anybody left at the altar before?’’ Wow. Being dumped made me bitchy, which was, of course, a brave front. I didn’t feel bitchy; I felt . . . alone. I felt as if my whole world had gone the dead, burned color of the torch on my shoulder.

Looks were exchanged among my friends. I wanted to kick and punch something, preferably Bad Bob, until the sun burned out, but I’d have settled for anyone who said something flippant right at that moment.

Nobody did. Cherise finally stood up and said, ‘‘Let me take that.’’

Oh. The dress. It was draped over my arm like a limp silk corpse. I held it out to her, and she zipped it safely back in its protective plastic cocoon.

‘‘Probably should get that back to the store,’’ I said. I was trying to disconnect, trying to shut off all my emotions. I was being pretty successful at it, too.

Cherise looked devastated, as if I’d admitted defeat. ‘‘No,’’ she said. ‘‘Um—can’t return it. There was a smudge.’’ She put on her determined face, which was just cute, and dared me to say otherwise. ‘‘You’ll have to keep it.’’

‘‘What for?’’ I asked. ‘‘Not like we’re going to get a do-over on the wedding.’’ And that nearly broke me. I wanted David. I wanted him to manifest out of the thin air and sweep me up in his arms and carry me off. I wanted Bad Bob to be gone and all to be right with the world, for
once.

That wasn’t going to happen. At least, it wasn’t going to happen unless I
made
it happen.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
I supposed old Edmund Burke had meant to include women in that. And if he hadn’t, well, screw him.

‘‘What’s the plan?’’ I asked Lewis. Lewis seemed lost in thought, but that was probably because, in his typical fashion, he was manipulating a dozen different things at once. Now, he looked up, met my eyes, and I had a second of icy doubt. Could he see what Bad Bob had done to me?
No.
If he could have, Paul would have been busted for a Sentinel the second Lewis laid eyes on him. Whatever Bad Bob had done to me, it was invisible to the Wardens.
And the Djinn,
I reminded myself. David hadn’t tipped to Paul’s betrayal, either.

I knew I should say something, but if I did, I’d be making it real.

I’d be admitting defeat.

‘‘We have to go after him,’’ Lewis said. ‘‘We got most of his support, I think; he’s isolated, maybe even alone. We need to get him before he can recruit more followers.’’

‘‘He’s going to go after the Oracles,’’ I said. ‘‘After my daughter, Lewis. I can’t let that happen.’’

He didn’t argue the point. ‘‘He won’t go after anybody if we don’t give him the time.’’

‘‘Do we have
anything
that can counter what he’s got?’’ Meaning, the Unmaking. And his sheer, horrible power.

‘‘Maybe,’’ Lewis said. ‘‘But I think this is going to be more a matter of wearing him down until we can strike. More of a siege than a blitz attack.’’

The light dawned. ‘‘You know where he is.’’

‘‘He’s at the Wardens’ safe house, on the beach,’’ he said. ‘‘He didn’t try to hide it. He’s inviting us to come get him.’’

‘‘Which means it’s a trap.’’

Lewis nodded. ‘‘But what are our options? We’ve lost the Djinn, but if we don’t go for him now, he’ll have time to build up his organization again. Even if Bad Bob’s got control of Rahel, we may never have a better opportunity.’’

No, I didn’t like it. This was Bad Bob’s version of our wedding—an obvious, juicy target, just waiting for us to strike it. ‘‘We can wait him out.’’

‘‘He can move through the aetheric, like a Djinn. How do you propose we seal him off, without the Djinn’s cooperation?’’

Lewis had a point. We needed to get Bad Bob to fight us on our terms, and that meant letting him think he was winning.

That meant walking into the trap—but being ready to turn the trap to our advantage.

Lewis was thinking of something I hadn’t, but then, he usually was. ‘‘Your link to David. It’s still holding?’’

I went still, listening. It was—slender as a silk thread, but strong as steel. I couldn’t reach him, because he was blocking me, but I could feel him. I nodded.

‘‘Can you draw power from it?’’ Lewis asked.

I concentrated, and felt a tingle of energy creep along the link from David to me. Then more. I held up my hand, and a golden, unfocused glow formed in my palm.

Lewis didn’t look happy with the outcome, which surprised me until he said, ‘‘Then you’re the one who has the best chance. He’ll send you energy to keep you alive, and as the Conduit, he’s got access to more energy than any other Djinn except Ashan. That could give you the edge you need to defeat Rahel, if it comes to that. And Bad Bob.’’

I needed to tell him, couldn’t avoid the embarrassing and fatal truth any longer. I shook the glow out like a match and opened my mouth to explain about the mark Bad Bob had burned into my back— about my vulnerability to him.

I couldn’t. Not a single word.

‘‘Jo?’’

I focused past him, to the delicate, antique desk in the corner. There was creamy, expensive hotel stationery and a Montblanc pen right there, just waiting for me to scribble out a warning if I couldn’t force my voice box to cooperate.

Except I couldn’t so much as make a move toward it.

Dammit.
Bad Bob had installed safeguards.

‘‘Nothing,’’ I heard myself say. ‘‘I think you’re right. Send me in. I think I’m your best bet.’’

Lewis didn’t seem happy with it, but I knew he’d do it. ‘‘Not alone,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve already got teams surrounding the compound. I’ll go with you.’’

‘‘No, you won’t,’’ I said, and I meant it. ‘‘Lewis, one of us at risk is enough. The Wardens need a leader, and like it or not, you’re it. I’m expendable.’’

‘‘Don’t say that,’’ he said. Not, I noticed, a denial, just an avoidance. Lewis was far too practical not to realize that I was right about that. ‘‘I said you had the best chance, but we can do this another way, Jo. All you have to do is say the word, and we’ll—’’

‘‘Lose? Yeah, that works great. Good plan.’’ I felt tears sting my eyes. ‘‘Come on. Have I ever backed off from certain death? Ever? Even when I had something to live for?’’

He flinched at that one, but he didn’t look away. ‘‘No,’’ he said. ‘‘Bad Bob knows that, too. He’s going to count on it. Don’t let him push you into a corner, or you’ll die for nothing. I don’t think I can stand that. You mean too much to me, Jo.’’

It was the closest he’d come to admitting how he felt about me, and he’d done it right out in public. The room—full of Wardens—was deathly still, though whether they were waiting for more revelations or for me to reject him, I couldn’t tell.

‘‘I know,’’ I said softly. ‘‘I won’t.’’

Cherise cleared her throat. ‘‘If you need somebody to, you know, ride along and—’’

‘‘No,’’ I said flatly. ‘‘Not this time. This is no job for anyone who can’t throw a lightning bolt, a car, or a ball of fire the size of Cleveland. I don’t want you anywhere near Bad Bob.’’

She looked disappointed, but not really surprised. Despite the chaos of the day, there wasn’t a smudge on her. Kevin put his arm around her and looked down; elfin and lovely and entirely human, she looked up into his face. The smile they exchanged made my heart ache.

‘‘You’re going?’’ she asked him. Kevin shrugged.

‘‘Might as well,’’ he said. ‘‘Got nothing else planned for the day. My Nintendo’s busted.’’

‘‘Watch your ass,’’ she told him.

Ah, young love.

‘‘Ready?’’ Lewis asked me. I nodded. I still wished I could live a normal life, have what I wanted, be at peace.
I should have taken all of my vacation.
I was just now starting to see the wisdom of waiting for trouble, instead of courting it. ‘‘Can you get David to help at all?’’

I shook my head. ‘‘No. He’s—staying away.’’

Lewis looked very, very grim. ‘‘You mean, he’s walled himself off on the aetheric. The way Jonathan used to do.’’

‘‘I can’t be sure. He’s not giving me anything back about where he is, but it would make sense.’’ David could save himself, and his people, by shutting himself off like that for as long as necessary. Ages, if need be.

Lewis pulled in breath to say something, then decided that discretion was the better part of valor; he held up his hands and walked away to confer with the others.

He didn’t have to say it. I’d already figured out that if David had really withdrawn into his stronghold on the aetheric, I might never see him again.

Not even to say good-bye.

To say that there was a military operation at work on the beach when we arrived was an understatement. One handy thing about the Wardens coming out in public was that we no longer had to make do with covert ops-style equipment. No, this time we had cops, FBI, air surveillance, coast guard boats . . . everything but the dancing bear and big top.

I was pretty sure that none of it was going to mean a damn thing to Bad Bob, in the end. Mortal firepower was beyond insignificant to him, except as an inconvenience, and with the Djinn off the board, we had very little left to counter him.

Just me, the battered and damaged white queen, with a little fleck of black to betray her true allegiances.

Lewis and I sat in a surveillance van, the tricked-out kind, watching monitors in all different spectrums. There was no movement from the beach house. SWAT teams had gone into position, stealthily moving from cover to cover inside the overgrown estate grounds. It wouldn’t help them. Bad Bob knew they were there; he had to know. He probably just didn’t damn well care. Humans weren’t his thing, and in fact they mattered very little to him except as window dressing.

‘‘Nothing on any of the monitors or sensors,’’ one of the Wardens reported. ‘‘Maybe he’s not there.’’

‘‘He’s there,’’ I said. I was watching the house itself. I couldn’t sense or see anything, and I had absolutely no basis for believing what I’d said, but somehow, I knew. I just knew. ‘‘He’s got ways to conceal himself. Probably using Rahel.’’

‘‘We need physical recon,’’ Lewis said.

‘‘I think that’s my cue.’’ I didn’t wait for them to approve; I didn’t wait for the protests. I just jumped down onto the road and walked up to the gates. I looked up at the perimeter camera, and felt Bad Bob’s smile like a fetid ghost all around me.

‘‘Jo,
wait
!’’ That was Lewis, trying to order me back.

‘‘For what?’’ I asked him, and he had absolutely no answer to that. I read it in his eyes, though.

He wanted me to say something, anything, to make this easier. But I didn’t have it, and neither did he.

So I went on.

The gates creaked open, and I walked alone, shadowed by the SWAT commandos and FBI tactical units, up the winding path. I remembered walking it with David, in happier times; Ortega was still alive then, still delighting in all his lovely things. I hadn’t feared Bad Bob, except as a ghost safely sealed in my memories.

The night was cool, and there were clouds blowing up at the horizon. A natural front, nothing sinister about it. Overhead, the stars were chips of ice, sharp enough to cut.

If I’d been walking with my lover, with my
husband,
it would have been magical.
I love you,
I whispered to him, along the bond between us.
I will always love you. I’m sorry.

I felt nothing in response.

I walked up the steps, moving steadily and without hesitation. I reached for the knob, and opened the front door. It was unlocked. I’d known it would be.

Bad Bob was sitting in a leather wing chair next to the fireplace, feet up, puffing on a cigar. He had a bottle of liquor next to him—scotch, this time. He raised the bottle, and I levitated it to me. The taste of liquid gold burned the roof of my mouth, then poured down my throat and started a sickening burn in the cold pit of my stomach.

‘‘It’s not poisoned,’’ I noted, and sent it back. He caught it effortlessly out of the air and chugged a few mouthfuls, then put it aside.

‘‘Wouldn’t waste good scotch. Or good poison,’’ he said. ‘‘Wouldn’t kill you, anyway, would it? Nothing kills you. Goddamn cockroach, you are. You’ll survive a nuclear winter.’’

‘‘Look who’s talking,’’ I said. I sat down on the edge of the couch across from him. There were a few lights burning, not many, and the whole effect was ghostly. Outside the windows, the beach was dark, the water slick and almost flat—a calm sea. ‘‘You’ve been dead a few times, I hear.’’

He chuckled. ‘‘Hurricane Andrew should’ve killed me,’’ he said. ‘‘Came damn close, actually. But there was always just one more damn challenge, one more thing to do. One more life to save. You know how it is.’’

‘‘That’s your story? That you were in the business of saving lives?’’ I leaned back and folded my arms. ‘‘Oh, come on.’’

‘‘I’ll put my scores up against anybody’s. Including yours.’’

‘‘You
killed
people!’’

‘‘How many collateral goddamn damages have you had over the past few years, girl?
What the fuck makes you the hero of the story?
No, more to the point: What makes me the villain?’’

I stared at him, not exactly sure what he was doing. I’d come here intending to make him kill me, or to destroy him in the process, if that was possible; to wound him badly enough that Lewis could finish him off. I hadn’t expected him to be so damn defensive about, of all things, his record as a
good guy
.