Firestorm

nothing happened. 'Shhhh. Nod if you believe me.'

Eamon shakily nodded, throat still struggling to let loose his terror.

'Good.' David pulled the knife free in a single fast rip. No blood followed, and there should have been fountains of the stuff. 'I'm holding the wound shut,' David said. 'But the second you disappoint me, little man, the instant I think that you're mocking me or even thinking about harm to my family, that ends. I watch you bleed your life away in less than a dozen heartbeats. Understand?'

Eamon nodded convulsively. He was paler than the woman on the bed.

'Now, you're going to get the antidote,' David said. 'Which I imagine you have hidden somewhere in this room. You're going to give it to Joanne, and then you're going to go and give it to her sister.' He let go of Eamon's throat. 'Move.'

Eamon edged out of the way, one hand pressed trembling to his side. Too terrified to move quickly. David watched him with glowing metallic eyes, and Imara did, as well.

I made some sound of effort, trying to straighten up. David had his full attention on Eamon, and his knuckles were white where he gripped the knife. I remembered Imara saying that he was fighting off the influence of the Mother, and how difficult it was. I wondered what would happen if he succumbed to that here, in a building full of innocent and helpless victims.

Not for me. Please, not for me. I tried to send him the message, but I had no idea if he was listening. His attention was completely riveted on Eamon.

Eamon, meanwhile, was moving—slowly, carefully, with a hand pressed hard to the place the knife had gone in as if he could hold his life in with it. He walked to a wooden cabinet and dragged a floral suitcase—clearly a woman's—from a narrow cubbyhole. He opened it and took out a bottle filled with clear liquid that he held up in one shaking hand. His hair was plastered to his face in wet sweaty points, and I could feel the rage and fear coming off him.

'I hope we understand each other,' David said. 'If Joanne dies, I take you apart. Slowly. I can show you things about pain that you've never even imagined. And I can make it last for an eternity.'

Eamon, if possible, paled even further. He tossed him the vial. David effortlessly snatched it out of the air without moving his gaze from the other man's face, and held it out. Imara took it and looked uncertain.

'Syringe,' Eamon said. Imara ripped open drawers in the cabinet by the sink and came up with a syringe, which she filled from the vial.

She crossed to me and hesitated again. 'I—I don't know how to—' She did. I knew, and she knew everything I did, but it was comforting to know that there were still things that could make my daughter flinch.

'Vein or muscle?' I asked.

'Muscle,' Eamon said.

I took the syringe out of Imara's hands, jammed it into my thigh, and depressed the plunger. Whatever it was in the hypo, it went in ice-cold, tingling, and then turned hot. It moved fast. I gasped for breath as I felt it move through my circulatory system. My lungs felt as if I'd sucked on liquid nitrogen, and I got an instant, mind-numbing flash of a headache.

Then it was done, and I felt… clearer. Not well, by any stretch. But better.

For the first time, David looked at me directly. I gave him a shaky nod as Imara helped me up. 'I'm okay,' I said. 'Now, can you—help her? None of this is her fault. She doesn't deserve to suffer for it.'

David looked baffled for a second, then turned his attention to the woman lying on the bed. He crossed to look down at her, and put his fingertips on her forehead.

And then he said, very quietly, 'There's nothing there to help.'

'No,' Eamon said, and lunged forward over the bed, one hand still clutched to his side. 'No. She opened her eyes—'

'Imara opened her eyes for her,' David said. 'The mind that was inside her is gone. She's been gone for years.'

Eamon's face turned into a rigid mask, with a red angry flush across his cheekbones. 'No. She's there. I told you, I need five minutes—'

'Her brain is dead, and her soul is gone.' David looked up at him, then at me. 'This is why you wanted a Djinn. To heal her.'

Eamon said nothing. He'd taken the woman's limp hand in his, and he was holding it. For any normal person, it would have been horrible, coming here, holding her warm hand, knowing on some level that it was just a lie her body was telling. I wasn't sure what it was for Eamon. I wasn't even sure why he cared so much. Both his explanations had been lies, David said. So what was the truth?

'You said you had a time limit,' I said.

'Her family's turning off the machines,' he said. It was barely a whisper. 'Tomorrow. Brings new meaning to the term deadline, doesn't it?'

He laughed. It was an awful laugh, something wild and dangerous and mad. Not a good man, Eamon. Not a sane man. But there was something in him, some overwhelming emotion driving all of it.

'How did it happen?' I asked.

'Why would you care?' he asked, and brushed the glossy, oddly healthy hair back from her pale, dry face. It had to be about money, didn't it? Cold, hard cash. Because I didn't want to believe he was capable of love and devotion—it made things far too complicated.

'You did it to her, didn't you?' Imara suddenly asked.

Eamon transferred that feverish stare from the woman to my daughter. 'Bugger off.'

'Imara's right. She was just another victim, wasn't she? Only this one up and died on you.' My voice was shaking, and I could feel the rest of me trembling along with it. 'You got carried away, playing your little games.'

He laughed, and looked down at the woman. 'You hear that, Liz? Funny. Just another victim.' He shook his head. 'Liz and I—let's just say we had a professional relationship. And she violated some professional rules. Things went wrong.'

I was never going to understand him. Nothing he said matched to what his body language said. The slump of his shoulders, the trembling in those long, elegant hands—that all spoke of grief, real and bone-deep grief.

David hadn't said anything. He was watching Eamon with the same intensity, but the incandescent rage had died down a bit.

'You going to kill me now?' Eamon asked. 'Give me a colorful end to a bad career?'

'No.' David shrugged. 'I healed the wound. You'll be fine so long as you don't make any sudden movemerits. Or come after my family again. If you do that again, I will kill you.'

My family. That struck me deep.

'You can all go to hell for all I care,' Eamon said, and reached across to rest his hand on top of the respirator that breathed for the woman on the bed. 'I didn't poison your sister, by the way. She's the one bright thing in my life. I didn't—' He fell silent.

'If you really think that, then let her go,' I said. 'Just let her go.'

'Oh, I already have. I left her a note. I told her I had to go back to England. She'll come crawling back to you any moment now. Now bugger off, all of you!' The last came with a viciousness like a thrown razor.

David looked down at the bloodstained knife he was still holding, and casually broke the blade of it in two with his fingers. He tossed the remains in the trash.

And then the three of us—Imara, David, and I—left the hospital room.

As the door hissed shut behind us, David took me in his arms, and I melted against him. Into him.

I didn't ask, but David knew what I wanted to say. 'I really couldn't do anything for her. There are limits.'

I kissed the side of his neck. 'I know.'

'I leave you alone for five minutes—'

'It was more like days.'

He growled lightly into my shoulder. 'You're impossible. And I have—'

'Responsibilities,' I murmured. 'I know you do.'

He let go.