Gale Force (9 page)

‘‘Yes,’’ she said. ‘‘But he says he finds no one missing.’’

‘‘Ashan?’’

Another green flash to her eyes. She folded her arms. ‘‘Ashan says his Djinn are all well. He says nothing more.’’

Which might or might not mean anything. Ashan wasn’t chatty at the best of times. ‘‘But I
saw
him. And trust me, he was a Djinn.’’

‘‘How could you tell?’’ Zenaya asked me, very reasonably. I started to answer, then hesitated.

Because I really wasn’t sure how I knew. I just . . .
knew
. ‘‘His aetheric signature,’’ I finally said. ‘‘Only the Djinn look like that.’’

‘‘Leaving aside that point,’’ Guillard said, in his rich, dark chocolate voice, ‘‘clearly you came into contact with something highly dangerous. Earth Wardens have not been able to correct some of the damage you sustained. We are dependent on simple human methods, which is why we’ve had to hospitalize you for so long.’’

Lewis nodded. He wasn’t looking at me; he kept his gaze focused on the window, on the rain outside. ‘‘Sometimes damage just surpasses our ability,’’ he said. ‘‘That could have been the case this time.’’

‘‘No,’’ I said. ‘‘David tried to heal me, and you know he should have been able to. He has before.’’

Lewis had no answer to that. Whatever he was thinking, he was keeping it close to the vest, and he wouldn’t damn well
look
at me. I wondered why. Was he angry about Silverton? He had every right to be, I supposed. I’d screwed up, big time, and a Warden had paid with his life.

Guillard asked more questions about the black shard, things to which I had no real answers except to give a recitation of my conversation with Silverton in the basement. And then the whole thing was over; Jones and Guillard wished me well and departed, and Zenaya left without a backward glance.

Lewis stayed. He still wouldn’t look at me. Out of sheer stubbornness, I refused to speak first. I sipped water and tugged irritably at my drying hair, trying to get it to stop poodle-curling around my face. I used to have straight hair. I liked my old straight hair.

When I finally turned my attention back to my guest, Lewis was staring at me, and what was in his eyes wasn’t anger at all. Or even disappointment. It was something neither one of us could ever really acknowledge, and it was big and powerful and breathtaking.

He cleared his throat and looked down, and said, ‘‘You scared the shit out of me.’’

‘‘Yeah. Sorry, I had no idea it was going to be that dangerous, or I’d have done more, taken better precautions—’’

He waved that aside. ‘‘Silverton was your expert; you were listening to him. So if there’s blame, it’s his, and he’s beyond all that now, poor bastard. Even if you’d pulled back as soon as you found the dead Djinn, it would have been too late to keep you from getting sick. This stuff is badly toxic. We couldn’t have left it there. As it is, we’ve had to inform NEST, and they’re following up with radiation treatments for anyone who reports in sick to the hospitals.’’ NEST was the Nuclear Emergency Support Team, out of Homeland Security. I didn’t want to imagine how
that
conversation had gone.

‘‘But by taking it out of the Djinn’s body—’’

‘‘The Djinn’s body must have been containing it, to a certain extent. You exposed yourselves to a massive dose,’’ he said. ‘‘Silverton more than you, because he actually touched it, even with protective gloves.’’

It could have just as easily been me. Maybe Silverton had known the risks when he’d reached into that cavity to grab the thing; maybe he’d just been unlucky. No way to know. I’d come close to dying lots of times—I’d actually gone over the edge, once or twice—but this felt different.

This left me shaky and deeply unsettled.

‘‘Is it true? That the Djinn really can’t sense it at all?’’

‘‘The Djinn think we’re all suffering from some kind of mass hallucination,’’ Lewis said. ‘‘David’s being kind about it, but it’s a blind spot for them. A big one. I don’t know how we’re going to convince them.’’

‘‘If me lying in this hospital bed doesn’t—’’ I felt light-headed, short of breath. ‘‘David has to believe me. He has to.’’

Lewis gazed at me, expressionless. ‘‘I hope he does,’’ he finally said. He leaned over and kissed me chastely on the forehead. ‘‘About your wedding—’’

Oh, man. I’d known we’d have to have this conversation sometime, but I really wasn’t ready for it. ‘‘Lewis, I’m sorry—’’

‘‘Don’t,’’ he said. ‘‘Trust me. It won’t make things any better. I’m okay. And I’m happy for you. I’m just worried. This thing—the Sentinels. They already didn’t like you. I can’t imagine they’ll be sending any congratulations about the ultimate mixed marriage.’’

He left before I could say anything else.

I closed my eyes and floated in a morphine cloud, trying to figure out who, outside of the Djinn, could create the black shard that I’d seen. Who was capable of that kind of lethal, subtle action?

I didn’t know.

I had dreams of distorted, screaming Djinn, of people being destroyed one by one, of the city in flames, of myself, walking through the rubble in a beautiful, perfect wedding gown.

Of David lying in the street, dead, with a black shard driven entirely through his body.

I woke up shaking.

Chapter Four

So . . . I healed.

David came to visit, of course, and he stayed as long as his duties would allow—longer than he should have, by the expressions of the Djinn sent to remind him of other duties at hand. But despite what I’d confidently said to Lewis, I could tell that David didn’t wholly believe me about the black shard, or the dead Djinn. He couldn’t. There was some kind of selective blindness that he couldn’t control, and that was weird and scary. It didn’t matter, though. The Wardens figured it out without the help of the Djinn.

Somehow—I don’t know how—Lewis and a few other top-level Wardens managed to remove the black shard and take it to a containment facility, where experts, brought in under high-level security clearances, agreed that in fact it was, as Silverton had said, antimatter. Antimatter in some kind of stabilizing matrix. When I asked where the stuff was, and how it was being contained, I was told it was need-to-know, and I didn’t. Frankly, I was a little bit relieved. I was busy recovering, trying to get my strength back. My muscles seemed loose and weak, and once the doctors let me out of bed I spent my time mostly in the physical therapy room, working hard to get myself back in shape again. The pain went away. After a few weeks of natural healing, they tried Earth Wardens on me again, and this time, it worked; burns and scars smoothed out and disappeared, and I was left with glossy skin badly in need of a tanning session.

Of course, I could always count on Cherise for that kind of therapy. She showed up one day toting a blue beach bag and told me to get dressed.
Undressed
was more to the point. She’d brought my favorite swimsuit, a skimpy little turquoise number that showed off as much skin as the law allowed. I changed, assuming we were going to the hydro pool for some swim therapy, but instead, she got me in the elevator, stripped off her white camp shirt and shorts, and revealed her own bathing suit choice: even less than I had on, though technically I supposed it could be considered clothing. It was a couple of scraps of tangerine orange, and she looked spectacular in it.

‘‘Tell me we’re not going to the cafeteria,’’ I said. ‘‘They’re having meat loaf. Again.’’ Cherise winked at me and pressed the button for the roof. It was restricted access, but she had a key card, which she used with the kind of triumphant flourish usually reserved for magicians with hat-dwelling rabbits.

‘‘I know you’re not up to a trip to the beach,’’ she said, ‘‘so we brought the beach to you.’’

They really had. It wasn’t just Cherise; it was Kevin—her sometimes boyfriend, despite a five-year age difference—a Fire Warden with a deep-seated attitude problem. He was sitting in the shade of a beach umbrella, wearing camouflage baggy shorts and a death’s head muscle T-shirt. He was, at eighteen and change, growing into his height; he was looking less like the underfed, awkward teen I’d first met, and more like the tall, strong man he would become.

Across from him sat Lewis, wearing khaki shorts and a ratty T-shirt advertising that Virginia was the place for lovers. They were both wearing slick sunglasses,and I had to admit, they looked pleased with themselves.

‘‘Hey,’’ Kevin said. Too cool for any kind of more enthusiastic greeting. I nodded back. We kept our dignity. ‘‘Heard you screwed up. Way to go.’’

‘‘Isn’t this
great
?’’ Cherise didn’t much care about things like dignity, if they got in the way of enthusiasm, but then, that was something I loved about her. Something I suspected Kevin loved, too. ‘‘Check it out, we’ve even got waves!’’

They’d outdone themselves. God only knew how they’d managed it, but they’d cordoned off part of the roof and put up patio tables, beach umbrellas, spread sand several inches deep, and put in a pool. Not a big one—more of a landscaping kind of thing—but sure enough, Lewis obligingly generated some rolling miniature surf. It was very cute.

There were two lounge chairs. I settled myself on one, already relaxing in the warm glow of the afternoon sun, and stretched my long legs out as Cherise kissed Kevin and took the other lounger. We debated the merits of coconut-scented oils over banana sunscreens. I went with sunscreen, figuring that I’d had enough dangerous radiation for a lifetime.

As I rubbed it into my legs, a male hand reached over my shoulder and took the bottle away. I looked up, pulled down my sunglasses, and squinted.

David gave me a slow, wicked smile. ‘‘I’ll do it,’’ he said. ‘‘Lie still.’’

I licked my lips, tasted sweat, and returned his smile. I settled back against the cushions. David came around to the side of the lounge chair, perched on the edge, and squeezed some sunscreen out into his palms.

‘‘You guys aren’t going to make this X-rated, are you?’’ Cherise asked. ‘‘Because if you are, I need a barf bag. Or a video camera.’’

David didn’t glance toward Lewis, and I had to fight not to. ‘‘Nothing that couldn’t air on the nightly news,’’ he said. ‘‘Word of honor.’’ He held up his glistening hands. ‘‘Ready?’’

‘‘Oh, yes.’’

I closed my eyes in total, animal satisfaction as his fingers massaged sunscreen into every inch of my feet, then worked their way slowly up my legs, my knees, up my thighs, seeking out every ounce of tension in every muscle. He skipped areas that might have led to excessive moaning (not that I wasn’t moaning already) and moved on to my hips, my stomach. What he did to my shoulders should have been in the
Kama Sutra
. It felt . . . healing. And yes, sexy as hell.

‘‘Turn over,’’ he said, low in his throat, and I glanced up to see that wicked, lovely spark in his eyes. ‘‘Time to do your back.’’

Oh, and he did me. Thoroughly. I was a boneless, purring heap by the time he’d finished. David pulled up another lounge chair and parked himself next to me. When I looked at him, he was showing more skin than I could remember seeing from him before in public; he had on a simple black pair of swim trunks, and nothing else, and it was
spectacular
. I let my gaze wander down the clean sculptural lines of his chest, bump over his taut abs, and found myself staring none too subtly at his swim trunks.

‘‘Jo,’’ he said. I heard the curl of soft reproach in his voice.

‘‘Sorry,’’ I said. ‘‘But you’re worth a rude stare or two, you know.’’

He smiled. I couldn’t tell if he found me amusing or arousing, or both. He took in a deep, slow breath without replying and turned his face up toward the sun. I remembered how it felt for a Djinn, that almost sexual pulse of warmth and energy. Gave new meaning to the term
hot
.

It was a long, lovely afternoon. Lewis read a book.

Kevin and Cherise played cards. There were cold beers, and all in all, it was just . . . perfect. Peaceful. There was weather out over the Gulf, but it held politely off, stacking up its clouds at the boundaries of the low-pressure system in neat storage ranks.

I wished it would never end, but of course eventually it did. As the afternoon cooled, and the clouds began to move in, David kissed my fingers and murmured, ‘‘I have to go.’’

‘‘I know,’’ I said, and opened my eyes. His were brown, almost completely human in color as well as in the emotion they contained. I wondered from time to time what Djinn really thought about us, about the tedious nature of human existence, but David really seemed to delight in participating when the opportunity presented itself. ‘‘You’re being careful, right?’’

That got me an ironic tilt of his eyebrows. ‘‘Look who’s talking.’’

‘‘Exactly. You’re consulting an expert here. Nobody better at getting into trouble than me.’’ I rolled up to a sitting position, facing him. ‘‘I mean it, David. I dreamed—’’ No, I didn’t want to talk about that. The image of him lying broken in the street, pierced by that black
thing
. . . no. ‘‘I mean, I’m just worried you’re not taking this seriously. About the antimatter. ’’

That earned me a trace of a frown. ‘‘It’s not that I don’t take it seriously. It’s that for the Djinn, it’s invisible. We can’t see it, touch it, measure it. It doesn’t exist to us. How can I possibly watch out for it?’’

‘‘If it doesn’t exist, how did it end up inside a dead Djinn?’’ I demanded. He kissed my fingers again.

‘‘Jo, I already told you, there is no dead Djinn,’’ he said. ‘‘Believe me, we’d know. We always know. None of us is missing.’’

He kissed me again, an apologetic good-bye, and that was it. He misted away, off about his business, and I felt a sudden chill. Cherise had thrown a couple of wraparound robes in the beach bag, and I donned one, shivering in its terry cloth embrace.

Lewis noticed. I suspected he noticed a hell of a lot. ‘‘Let’s get you back in bed,’’ he said. ‘‘You’re checking out tomorrow. Don’t want you relapsing.’’