Gale Force (Page 25)

Ortega was looking, if anything, even more horrified. My voice ran down as I noticed his distress, and I watched as he staggered to a dusty velvet wing chair and dropped into it, rocking back and forth, head in his hands.

David and I exchanged glances, and David went to the other Djinn and crouched down, laying a hand on the man's knee. "Ortega," he said, "what is it?"

"It's my fault," he said. His voice sounded weak and sick, and pressed thin under the weight of emotion. "I swear to you, I never meant - I thought - I was only curious, you see. You know how curious I am. It's always been a curse - "

A curse, indeed. David froze for a moment, then bowed his head. His hair brushed forward, hiding his expression in shadow, and he said in an ominously soft voice, "You had it. The other book."

Ortega nodded convulsively.

"Whom did you trade the book to?"

"A Warden," Ortega said. His voice was muffled by the hands pressed to his eyes. "He never knew I was Djinn. I swear to you, I never meant - I lied, I didn't get it from the Air Oracle. I created a copy of the original book - "

"I need this Warden's name," David said.

"I never meant for any harm to - "

"The name, Ortega." I shivered at the tone in his voice; he didn't often sound like that, but when he did, there was no possibility of argument. He was invoking his right as the Conduit, the Mother's representative to the Djinn, and it rang in every syllable.

Ortega took in a deep breath, lowered his hands, and looked David in the eyes. "Robert Biringanine."

"Bad Bob," I said blankly. "But he's dead!"

Ortega shook his head. "I saw him," he said. "Two weeks ago. On the beach. And he's been around for a while now."

Chapter Eleven

To say that was a shock would be an understatement. A shock implied a jolt, like sticking your finger in a light socket; this was more like grabbing the third rail of the subway.

I'd killed Bad Bob Biringanine - well, at least, seen him die. I'd always staked a lot of certainties on that fact; I'd been told his body was found, and nobody ever seemed to have any doubt that Bad Bob was pushing up daisies. They'd certainly gone after me with enough vengeance to sell the concept of murder.

As his last act prior to dying had been to infect me with a Demon Mark, ensuring my enslavement and eventual death, I didn't feel too good about his miraculous reappearance. Of all the people I would pick to claw their way out of a grave, he'd be the dead last -  pun intended - I ever wanted to see.

Partly it was because he'd so successfully hidden his capacity for cruelty and corruption from me - from most Wardens - for so long. Partly it was that I still had nightmares about that horrible day, about the helpless fury I'd felt and the slick, gagging feel of the Demon sliding down my throat.

It couldn't have pleasant associations for David, either. He'd been the Djinn who'd held me down. Rape, he'd called it later, and he'd been right, in an aetheric kind of way if not a physical one. But it had been a rape of both of us - he hadn't wanted to do it any more than I had.

I'd taken three steps back from Ortega, an involuntary retreat that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the monster that had just leaped out of the closet to roar in my face. David must have sensed my reaction, but he stayed fixed on Ortega.

"When?" he asked. "When did you give him the book?"

"A few months ago." Ortega struggled not so much to remember - Djinn didn't forget - but to order his mind so things were clear. "The day of mourning. He came - he had something I was looking for. He said he'd trade. He wanted the book."

By the day of mourning, Ortega meant the day Ashan had killed our daughter, Imara, or at least destroyed her physical body. Imara had become the Earth Oracle, but on that very black day, we thought we'd lost her forever.

Oh, and I'd died, too. Kind of. I'd ended up split, amnesiac, and wandering naked in the forest. Yeah, good times.

That day had seen the expending of a lot of power. A lot. Some of it was from the Wardens, some a product of the Djinn, some from the Earth herself. And there'd been a Demon in the mix, fouling the well of power. . . . Anything could have happened, out of that bloody mess.

Apparently, anything had happened. Somehow, Bad Bob had managed to come back.

If he'd ever really been gone at all.

Suddenly, the appearance and rise of the Sentinels was beginning to make sick, deadly sense. Bad Bob was a player; he wanted power, and he'd do anything to anyone to get it. I'd cheated him the first time.

He'd make damn sure that David and I weren't in any position to do it again.

By separating the Wardens from the Djinn, then destroying the Djinn, he could ensure that no one had the resources and strength to fight him when he made his final move. Divide and conquer. A timeless classic.

"He's in Florida," I said. I was sure of it, as sure as I'd ever been of anything in my life. "The bastard's not even hiding, really. This is his old stomping ground. He's got networks of friends and supporters; he feels safe here. That's why we traced the signature to the Keys, and Kissimmee - "

"The beach house." David snapped to his feet.

"What?"

"The beach house. I sensed him. I thought it was just a memory, but - " A pulse of light went through his eyes, turning them pure white. "The signature of the power fits his."

"He's been at the goddamn beach house?" I'd gone inside. I'd searched the house looking for the focus of the wards. Bad Bob must have been out picking up his latest issue of Megalomaniacs Weekly, which was damn lucky for me, because if he'd been there, I'd have been trapped inside the house, with David outside, and Bob could have done anything to me, anything at all. . . .

I couldn't think about that. Not without shaking. I'd been through a lot of trauma in my life, but there was something so slick and calculated about Bad Bob's use of me. . . . It was worse than betrayal. He'd cultivated and trained me specifically to transfer the Demon Mark to me, a cold long-term plan that I'd spoiled by not being quite as weak as he'd anticipated.

You're stronger now, I told myself. But I also remembered the moment in my apartment when Bob had focused all the power of the Sentinels on me, and I'd realized that I wasn't going to be strong enough, in the end.

None of us was going to be strong enough, not alone.

"If he's still at the beach house," David was saying, as if he couldn't see I was melting down, "he won't be there for long. We need to get word to Lewis."

I shook my near-panic off with what I hoped wasn't a visible effort, and focused on the problem at hand. "Contact Rahel. Tell her to get Kevin out of there. I don't want him caught in the middle if we spring a trap. We're screwed if Bad Bob has the contacts in the Wardens that I think he does. He was too well liked, even after the facts started coming out. Too many good people still like him. They wouldn't even think of it as betraying us to do a little under-the-table heads-up to him."

David nodded. "Ortega. I need for you to go to Rahel and give her the message. Tell her to extract Kevin. I don't care what she has to do. I don't care how noisy it is. Just tell the two of them to get out."

"Me?" Ortega looked completely thrown. "But I - "

"It's an emergency," David said, and again, I felt that pulse of command and control. "I'm sorry, I know you don't like to leave this place, but it has to be done."

Ortega looked utterly miserable now. "Can't you go? She won't listen to me. She doesn't even like me - "

"No," David said. "I can't." He didn't explain. Ortega heaved a great sigh, nodded, and blipped away.

David didn't relax. He looked grim and angry, and avoided my eyes.

"Why didn't you go?" I asked. "I mean, I'm grateful. I'm just surprised."

"Because if you're right, and if they have what I think they have, they will be setting a trap," he said. "A trap designed specifically for me. They want to lure me in. I hope that they haven't managed to get everything together yet to spring it. That's why I'm sending Ortega."

"Because they'd be planning to get you."

"The Conduit," he said. "If they can destroy me, they can destroy the structure and power of the Djinn. You were right, Jo. I didn't believe it, but you were right. They've found our one true weakness, and I don't know how we're going to defend against them. Maybe Ashan was right. Maybe the only way to win is to withdraw."

"And leave us to fight alone."

He turned toward me, and I saw the fury and frustration in his eyes. "Yes." His hands clenched and unclenched. "The book. We need to get it to his vault. I don't want it out where anyone can stumble across it." He forced some of his anger back with a visible effort; it wasn't directed at me, but at the world. At Bad Bob. "I'm sorry, Jo. I can't touch it. Can you carry it?"

I picked up the weight reluctantly, afraid that even latched it might still have the power to seduce me, but it was quiet. Just leather, paper, ink, and iron.

Just a book that held the secrets to destroying an entire race.

No wonder it felt heavy.

The vault - of course a mansion like this would have one, along with a genuine, honest-to-God panic room - was crammed with stuff. Valuable stuff, to be sure. I was no expert, but I knew that early comics were worth money, and he had shelves full of them, each carefully bagged and labeled. Coin collections. Stamp collections. Toys. Rugs. Artifacts. I edged into the big steel-cased room and waited while David reorganized the collections enough for me to put the book down in an open space on a table. "Does he ever sell any of this stuff?" I asked.

"No," he said, moving a collection of what looked like vintage one-sheet posters. "But he buys a lot on eBay. Put it down here."

I did, gratefully, and stepped back from it. So did David, letting out a slow breath.

"Ortega," I said. "Is he going to be okay?"

David didn't answer. I understood a lot in that moment - his frustration, his anger. There was a good deal of self-loathing in there. David was not Jonathan, who'd held the position of Djinn Conduit before him; he wasn't naturally the kind of man who could make ruthless, cold decisions and sacrifice his friends and family when necessary. Lewis was like that. David was more like me - more willing to throw himself in front of the bus than push someone else, even if it was the tactically right thing to do.

"He'll be okay," I said, and took his hand. "It's a simple enough job, and they won't be looking for Ortega. Hell, I'd never have had a clue he was a Djinn if I'd met him in any other context."

"I know," David said. "I just wish I'd told him that I didn't blame him for trading the other copy of the book. I don't. His obsession is to collect things. Ortega has always been an innocent when it comes to humans; he could never see the potential for evil in them. That's why Bad Bob took advantage of him."

"He doesn't seem very . . . Djinn."

David led the way back out of the vault and swung the massive door shut, then spun the lock. "No," he agreed. "Ashan wanted to destroy him completely. I wouldn't allow it. Ortega doesn't have much power, for a Djinn - barely more than a human. He's never been able to really become what he was meant to be."

"Which is?"

"Cold," David said. "Like the rest of us."

I kissed his hand. "You're not cold."

He looked at me, and I saw the shadow of what he'd done haunting him. "I can be," he said. "When I have to be."

We went back downstairs, edging through the boxes, trying to find empty space. Ortega had left himself a small nest, a room filled with the most beautiful things of his collection . . . exquisite crystal, breathtaking art, blindingly lovely furniture. I hated to sully it with my human presence, but my feet were tired, and the Victorian fainting couch was exquisitely comfortable.

David didn't sit. He paced. None of the beauty touched him; he was focused elsewhere, on things far less lovely. I used the time to make calls; Lewis had been maneuvering Wardens slowly into position in Florida, using his most trusted people as well as the Ma'at, who still were outside the Warden system and therefore would be more trustworthy in something like this, if less powerful. I broke the news about Bad Bob - which was met with a suspiciously long silence, as if he'd already known and had hoped to keep it from me. That would have been par for the course.

I also gave him the update about the book, and realized midway through that I didn't actually know what it was David had read that had so unnerved him. It didn't tactically matter to Lewis, but it mattered to me, so after I finished the call, I asked.

"The Unmaking," David said. "I didn't think - until I read it in the book, I didn't think what you were describing could be true. The Unmaking is the opposite of creation."

"Antimatter."

He nodded slightly. "You see it as science; we can't see it at all, but the Ancestor Scriptures tell us that if it can be brought forth, it will feed on and destroy all Djinn, and we won't be able to see it. It's been thought to be nothing but a ghost. A boogeyman."

"But it's real," I said. "It's the black shard, the one we found in the dead Djinn. That was a dead Djinn."

"It's how they grew more of the Unmaking," David said. I saw his throat work as he swallowed. "It feeds and grows inside a Djinn. What you found was just the husk, discarded and left behind. The Unmaking itself is far, far more powerful. That's how the Sentinels are able to wield so much power; they steal the energy that pours from the Unmaking's destruction of the world around it." He closed his eyes briefly. "I sent Rahel to them without any idea of the danger."