Gale Force

I couldn't even close my eyes. You son of a bitch, I thought. How dare you do this. How dare you. . . .



I felt the power of the Wardens and the Djinn beyond the room flare up into one white-hot unity, burning through the black shield he'd put up.



Not quickly enough.



"You know, you cost me," Bad Bob said. "I spent a while cultivating all that hate, all that fear from the Sentinels. And you had to go put on a public show and get all the fanatics to wriggle out of the woodwork, whether I wanted them to or not." He leaned very close to me, lips lover-close, and whispered, "That's why I need you, Joanne. Be thou bound to my service."



That made no sense. I was no Djinn. The Rule of Three didn't work on me, and in any case the agreement between the Warden and the Djinn had ended; it was just words. It meant nothing.



It had to be a bluff.



And I couldn't help a surge of pure fear, because there was so much visceral delight in his face.



"Be thou bound to my service." His eyes were blood-shot, not entirely human anymore. His breath smelled foul and ancient, something ages in the ground.



Stop, I wanted to say. I couldn't. He wasn't even letting me breathe, and my lungs were crying out for air. I couldn't even wield the power necessary to supply a trickle of oxygen. Stop this.



"Be . . . thou . . . bound . . . to . . . my . . ." He whispered each word separately, eyes drifting half closed in pleasure, and then smiled. "Service. Ahhhh."



I felt the white-hot force of the united Wardens and Djinn break apart into a million spinning pieces. The thread between me and David held, but only barely. Things were changing, terribly changing, and I couldn't see the edges of the wave that was rippling out from this moment. I didn't know what he'd done, or how, but it was flooding the world, drowning everything.



And when the flood receded, there was an ominous silence. The aetheric felt clean and very empty.



I drew in a whooping, gasping breath and sobbed it out, then breathed in again. Some of the black spots dancing in front of my eyes started to recede . . . not all, by any means. I felt one half step from unconscious, but I kept myself on my feet, facing Bad Bob.



"There," he said. "That's better." He chucked me under the chin, as if I were his favorite niece who'd just performed a cute trick. Or a puppy. "Oh, you have questions, don't you?"



I managed to get enough breath to gasp, "What -  did - you - "



"You had a Demon Mark, once upon a time," he said. "You may have gotten rid of the Mark, but it left you stained. Vulnerable. Mine."



The Wardens burned through the shield and launched their assault, with or without the Djinn, and the doors of the penthouse blew off the hinges. Lewis strode in, surrounded by a barely visible nimbus of red light, and behind him came a grim-faced phalanx of my friends: Marion Bearheart, walking with a cane; Kevin, scared but determined; Luis Rocha, the Earth Warden I'd first met during the original Fort Lauderdale event. Dozens more, people I knew and liked, people I hadn't even known would put themselves at risk for me.



David stepped out of the center of the group.



"Whoops, Daddy's home," Bob said. "Time for me to be leaving. You will come see me, won't you? I'll expect you around sunset. Love that bloody color on the water."



My muscles were working again. I shakily reached for power and pulled it down, pulled it from all around me, every surface. The room lit up with miniature lightning strikes, all bleeding toward me.



"Bride of Frankenstein," Bad Bob said. "All right, all right, I'm going. Don't set your hair on fire."



He crooked his little finger and vanished with an audible pop of air. I stared at the spot in the aetheric; the writhing black tentacles took longer to leave, finally slipping through a raw wound in the world.



I didn't drop, though I'm sure everybody expected me to. Instead, I turned to David and asked in what seemed like a very normal tone of voice, "How badly are we screwed?"



He should have rushed to me, taken me in his arms. It was what he always did - what I expected him to do.



But he stayed where he was, watching me, and I no longer understood what I saw in his bright, burning-penny eyes.



He said, "Ashan was right. The vow we exchanged has made the New Djinn vulnerable again to the Rule of Three. My people are at risk now. From yours. We did this, the two of us."



He sounded . . . distant. Almost cold. I couldn't control a shiver. Go to him, I told myself, but I couldn't seem to move. If I moved, I'd fall down.



"He's already turned Rahel to his cause," he continued. "She belongs to him. You can't trust her anymore. Remember that."



He sounded so alone. I got myself steadied, a little, and took a step toward him.



He stepped back. Keeping plenty of space between us.



"I can't," he said. "I'm sorry. I have to see to the safety of my people now."



"David - "



For an instant, I saw the torment inside him, and it stopped whatever I was going to say dead in my throat. "I can't," he whispered. "He's destroying her. He's taking great pleasure in it. How many more of my people have to die, Jo? We're not mortal. This shouldn't be happening to us. It should never have happened." He blinked, and the metallic shine came back in his eyes. "I'm sorry."



The Djinn left. Just . . . left. All of the Djinn, gone without a sound, including David.



He hadn't even said good-bye.



I collapsed to my knees. Someone - I didn't even see who - helped me up. I told everyone to get out, but they wouldn't. Understandable, I supposed.



I went into the bathroom, slammed and locked the door, and skinned down the fabric of the dress to get a look at my right shoulder blade.



Bad Bob had branded me, the same way he'd branded his Sentinels. It was a mark in the shape of a torch. The old stains left from the Demon Mark I'd once carried had given him a gateway . . . like a cut letting in bacteria. And now I was infected.



The proof was right there on my skin.



I stared into the mirror at the black mark, hideously reminded of the Demon Mark that had once grown inside me, and how that had felt.



How good that had felt.



I flinched at a hesitant knock on the door.



"You okay in there?" Lewis asked.



My eyes, in the mirror, were wide and empty. He can have me, any time he wants me. I couldn't allow that. If David wasn't going to fight Bad Bob . . .



Then I had to.



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.