Gale Force - Page 19/37

Sunrise dawned warm and clear, and by the time the heat grew oppressive I was upstairs in my apartment, eating a small container of yogurt. Exhaustion was blurring my eyes, and I didn't care much about eating - hence the yogurt, which wasn't really eating, per se. All I wanted to do was take a shower and nap. Can't do anything until David comes back, I reasoned. Might as well rest up.

Instead, after my shower (which was every bit as wonderful as I'd anticipated) I ended up, phone book and phone next to me, parked in front of the Internet, obsessively researching so I could cross off items on my wedding checklist. I was puzzling over the catering problem - $18.95 per plate for a meal that was going to be served on plastic? Really? - when the phone rang. I picked it up immediately, thinking it would be a callback from the florist.

Instead, it was Cherise, and man, was she pissed. "You don't trust me," she said. "I can't believe you!"

"Where are you?" I asked in alarm, because I'd left strict instructions that Cherise could not be seen or heard from, under any circumstances, until this charade with Kevin and Rahel was over with. "Cher - "

"Oh, relax, this is a secured line. My buddies from the Wardens and Homeland Security all say so, plus my own personal Djinn bodyguard. So I'm being a good little convict," she said. "By the way, thanks for booking me at a nice hotel. Lewis said I could order room service any time I wanted, but no bonking the waiters, no matter how hot they are. Oh, I'm ordering movies, too, and you guys are paying. Even if I order porn."

If that was the worst of it, I'd gladly pony up the cost of pay-per-view. "You need anything? Clothes?"

"What's the point? Not going anywhere. I'm just lounging around in a T-shirt. It's like a pajama party, except I'm going to get really bored with painting my own toenails. So I'm going to call you and take it out on you." She paused for a second, and her tone grew more serious. "Is this really dangerous? You know, for Kevin?"

"Maybe." I couldn't be dishonest with her, not Cherise. "But he wanted to do it. In fact, he kind of insisted."

"He would. Rahel's doing me, though, right? So he's covered?" She made it a question, painfully eager for reassurance. I swallowed hard.

"He's covered," I said. "Rahel's smart, and she's strong. If anything goes wrong, she can get him out."

Not if she can't see the danger. But I'd fought that battle with David, and lost. All I could do was hope that Kevin, whom I'd properly prepared with all the information I had about the antimatter, would be able to recognize trouble coming and help her avoid it.

"These Sentinel people. Do you know who any of them are?"

"No," I said. "Well, one, but he's dead now."

"Then how do you know who you can trust?"

"I trust you," I said. "I trust Lewis. For this, I trust Kevin. I always trust David. But believe me, my trust circle's getting smaller all the time."

"Good. Maybe you won't get yourself hurt quite as often." I heard the TV come on in the background, and the bed creak. "Okay, I'm going to my happy place. Russell Crowe movie festival, baby. Sorry you can't be there, but if you decide to come over - "

"I'm not in New York," I said, "and even if I was, going to see you would blow our whole operation."

"I guess." She sighed. "Okay, Mr. Dreamypants is on. Call you later?"

"Yes," I said. "Hey, Cher?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know any good caterers?"

Cherise's question about the Sentinels stayed with me the rest of the day, as I went about my so-called normal life. If anybody had turned up likely suspects for the Sentinels list, they weren't sharing it with me. No sign of David, and no messages from beyond. I got calls from various Wardens either congratulating me about the upcoming marriage, or fishing for gossip about the confrontation with Kevin. I answered honestly to both, so far as it went. I didn't try to hide my frustration with Kevin, but I told them it was Lewis's problem, not mine.

None of the phone calls had seemed overly strange, but my paranoia dials were all on high. I couldn't rule anyone out.

Hearing my doorbell ring only made my self-preservation alarms go off. I was boiling pasta. I took the precaution of turning off the burner - in case I died, no sense in burning the building down again -  and went to look through the peephole.

It was David. Oh. I had told him to start acting like a human, hadn't I? I needed to get him his own key. I unbolted the door and swung it wide -

David lunged forward, grabbed me by the throat, and drove me back to the wall as he kicked the door shut. It was a real threat; his grip was bruising my neck, making parts of me panic in fear of imminent strangulation. I grabbed for his wrist, which was stupid, and tried to get a scream past his hand.

No good.

He smiled, and I recognized the expression. It wasn't David's, although he was wearing David's face. I croaked out, "Don't you fucking pretend to be him!" and David's body shrugged, and the Djinn morphed into his more usual form.

It was Ashan, leader of the Old Djinn. Venna's brother and boss, and the least likeable creature I'd ever met, including the ones who'd tried to kill me. Ashan was a cool, smooth, handsome bastard, all chilly grays and ice whites, and he didn't care for people at all. He liked me a good deal less than that. "I've come for a purpose," he said, "but I don't need to hear your prattle."

I made some incoherent noises, which got the point across that his grip on my throat was impairing my ability to curse, and he finally let up enough to allow breath in, profanity out. After the profanity, I got my pulse rate dialed back from Going to Die to Total Panic, and said, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You brought this on yourself," Ashan said. He emphasized that by slamming me back against the wall with painful force. "I was content to let you live, but you, you push, you always push."

"Let go!" I snarled. He must have sensed I meant business, because although he didn't obey instantly, he finally released his grip and stepped back. Not far back, though, and the cold fury in his eyes stayed in place. "Where is David? What have you done to him?"

He slapped me. A solid man-slap, one that I was not prepared for; it burned and I felt a wave of total rage crest at the top of my head and flow down every nerve ending. Somehow, I held myself back, but my hands clutched into convulsive fists. "You will destroy him," Ashan said flatly. "I care nothing for you, but I do not want another war among the Djinn, and you will bring it on. It is best if you disappear from this world before you can rain destruction on all of us."

Word had gotten around fast, even on the outer reaches of the aetheric. I hadn't expected the Djinn to approve, but I hadn't expected this. "All because we're getting married?" Venna was right about one thing: The two of us engaging in a little sexual adventure hadn't bothered too many people. It was the wedding that was pissing them off.

"It is a vow," Ashan said. "And a vow is, for us, unbreakable. Do you understand? You will bind him to humanity, and he is the Conduit."

All at once, I got it, and it was like a second, harder slap, only this one was directly to the surface of my brain. "Oh crap," I breathed, suddenly not angry at all. "You mean that by taking vows to love and cherish in sickness and in health - "

"Through him, all of the New Djinn could also be bound," Ashan said. "Conduits to the Mother must not make such vows. We became slaves the last time such was made. I will not allow it to happen again, not for such small gain as your personal happiness."

And another thing came crystal clear to me. Ashan wasn't screwing around this time.

I read it in his expression: He was going to kill me. Problem solved.

And I think he would have, except that right at that moment, somebody else tried to kill me.

I thought it was Ashan who'd attacked for an instant, as I felt the force slam into me and pin me back to the wall, sink past my skin, and close around my heart like an iron hand. But I could see that in fact it wasn't him, because he'd been forced back from me by the attack, and he was off balance and confused.

I remembered David at the diner, blown back by the aetheric attack that had taken out Lee Antonelli.

They were coming for me. No warning, no quarter. I was under attack by the Sentinels.

Dark shadows flew out of the walls and coalesced into Djinn - Ashan's bodyguards, who'd been keeping their distance until they were summoned. A threat to their boss brought them running, but once they were on the ground, the next step wasn't exactly clear, since Ashan wasn't the target. I was.

And one more coalesced out of the air, a blur of motion, burning copper-bright. David. He was coming, and coming very fast, heading straight for me, blind to everything else around him.

The Djinn bodyguards stopped him, but only for a few seconds. He was too strong for them, even collectively, but the instant he broke free, Ashan lunged like a white tiger. The two of them fell, rolling, a blur of motion that somehow still conveyed the fury and power of the conflict.

As David tried to fight his way to me, I drew all my power inside, fighting the invisible fist that was trying to contract and squeeze my heart into red jam. I felt my distant, powerful daughter's flow in to augment mine; she couldn't act directly, but she could help.

It was enough - barely - to keep me alive.

For now.

I opened my eyes. The fight between the two most powerful Djinn was already over.

David was on his knees, held fast with Ashan's arm around his throat and his hands twisted behind his back, and the look on his face nearly made me cry out. It was shattered. Horrified. Betrayed.

"Oh, God, no. Jo, hold on," he said, his voice rough and trembling. "Ashan, let go, damn you. Let me help her!"

The Djinn stood silently, watching. Waiting to see what would happen. Probably waiting to see how fast I was going to drop dead. This was nothing but a gift to Ashan - I'd die, and his hands would be clean. There was no reason for David to come after him.

I held against the assault, somehow pushing back the squeezing hand around my heart, and I didn't dare speak to David. I couldn't. No breath and no strength left over, and I knew it wouldn't do any good, no matter what I said. He couldn't act, not with Ashan in the way. If he could have, he'd have already done it.

"Ashan, you can't stand by and see her murdered!" David screamed. "Let me go!"

Ashan said, in a soft but deadly cool voice, "It's the business of humans. She told you that. I'm only enforcing what you know are the rules."

My vision was eroding, black spots appearing at the edges. Maybe that was why I didn't immediately recognize that one of the Djinn standing next to Ashan was Venna, dressed not in her Alice pinafore outfit, but in plain black. I focused on her. Her blue eyes were blazing hot, the color of a gas flame.

She said nothing. She didn't try to help either one of us, not even David, whom I knew she loved. She loved Ashan more.

No help was coming.

The Sentinels can't keep this up, not at this level of power, I told myself, trembling. Only maybe they could. The assault continued on the aetheric, furious and unrelenting, and it required every bit of concentration I possessed to keep myself from folding. Power was counteracting power, and the resulting forces were out of control; I couldn't do anything to reduce the damage, or I'd be instantly dead.

Around us, sparks began to crawl on every available metallic surface, zipping and popping. Lightbulbs blew out. The Sentinels - if that was indeed who was behind this - pressed me harder, and I had to respond.

Windows shattered. I heard the plate glass patio door break with a catastrophic crash. One of the curtains caught fire from the constant sparking. It burned slowly, but it burned, giving off acrid black smoke.

"Stop this! They'll destroy her!" David screamed, and writhed to get free. Ashan held him, but just barely. Venna looked visibly upset, and turned away from them. She brushed her hand across the flame on the curtains and transferred it to her palm, then rubbed it contemplatively between her fingers, frowning, and looked at Ashan. Something passed between the two of them, something I couldn't understand.

The whole world was narrowing, darkness closing in on me. I could feel it all around me, eating away, sinking into every nerve, every muscle.

And the hand around my heart tightened, and every labored thump seemed likely to be my last on this earth.

David's face was taut, pallid, and desperate. He was still trying to twist free, but his strength, like mine, wasn't up to the task.

The odds were too high this time.

"Ashan, give me your leave," Venna said. Her brother frowned, and nodded sharply, once. Venna disappeared so suddenly there was a small thunder-clap of air left in her wake. I couldn't even spare the breath to curse, or to cry out. The pressure was throbbing in every nerve of my body, a constant, grinding pain that grew sharper with every heartbeat. The Sentinels weren't going to let up. They were going to slaughter me one inexorable inch at a time, and the Djinn - the Old Djinn - wouldn't lift a finger to stop it.

And they were going to make David watch, to make it that much more horrible.

I felt something new in the attack - a tremor. Just a flicker, but somewhere, someone was weakening. If it was a combined attack, and I thought it must be, then at least one and maybe more were faltering, running out of power. Hang on, I told myself. I felt sweat dripping from my chin onto my shirt front. A little longer.

It was an eerie way to face the end of your life. If it had just been the Old Djinn, standing there impassively, that would have been bad enough, but David -  the dread and anguish in his eyes was too much. I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated harder.