Gale Force

like CERN and Fermilab. Of course, their antimatter was unstable—it had to be, considering that it was manifesting and interacting with the matter-based world. The longest antimatter had ever lasted, even with all their technology sustaining it, was about fifteen seconds before it annihilated itself.

But if this was some kind of bottled, stable antimatter, that was bad. Very, very bad. When matter and antimatter collided, gamma rays were one side effect, which would explain the radiation. Even this container, whatever it was, wasn’t able to completely contain the antimatter, so there was a continuous stream of radioactive energy pouring off it.

“Antimatter collisions are about ten times more powerful than chemically based energy,” Silverton said, and wiped his sweating forehead with his sleeve. “One kilogram of antimatter annihilating itself is supposed to produce about 180 petajoules of energy.”

“Which is . . .”

“Catastrophic would be charitable.”

“And how much do you think is in there?”

We both looked at the thing lying on the concrete floor, alien and deadly enough to destroy a Djinn even without being released.

“I think,” Silverton said slowly, “that we’re looking at about two kilograms.”

In other words, double the worst-case scenario he’d just described.

“We need the Djinn,” I said. “At the very least, they need to know about what happened to him.” I nodded toward the dead Djinn.

Silverton nodded. “I think we’re going to need more than the Djinn,” he said.

“Like who?”

“God.”

Chapter Three

There was no way we could safely remove the black antimatter shard by ourselves. Touching it had damaged Silverton already; he was trying to hide it, but I could see the pain in his face, the way his gloved hands were trembling. I remembered Lewis’s blistered hands— and that had been on the aetheric.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. Silverton didn’t argue. He had trouble getting to his feet. I dumped the equipment, stripped off his pack, and supported him on the way up the stairs. He made it about halfway before his knees gave out. He was a big guy, and I had to work hard to get him up the rest of the way and out into the hallway.

“Leave,” he said. In the light from my floating lantern, he looked drawn and sick. “You need to get the Djinn here, fast. Go.”

“I don’t need to go anywhere to do that,” I told him, and concentrated on the invisible thread that linked me with David. It was thin here, but still a connection. I pulled, and distantly felt his attention shift toward me. I couldn’t communicate with him over the aetheric, at least not from this spot, but he knew I was looking for him.

I put my back into pulling Silverton down the hallway, trying to avoid the worst of the debris. It seemed like a very long way, and I had to superoxygenate my lungs to keep spots from dancing in front of my eyes. I’d pay for it later, but for now, I just wanted out.

My heels hit an inconveniently placed broken computer monitor, and I tipped backward.

David caught me. “What the hell is going on?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

I whirled to face him. I can only imagine how I must have looked—wild-eyed, sweating, scared. He took a step back. “Help me get him outside,” I panted. Without comment, he scooped up Silverton in his arms and walked down the hall, olive-drab coat belling behind him. I hustled after, feeling a shake in my knees that definitely hadn’t been there before. In fact, I felt distinctly sick now, wobbly, light-headed, but I was determined not to show it. We had enough problems to talk about.

David simply blew the glass doors off their hinges at the entrance—effective, if a little showy. The resulting hail of broken glass melted away in midair and formed a soft mound of sand, which served as a bed on which he placed Silverton. “Now,” he said, and turned to me, “what the hell—”

He caught me as I collapsed. Which actually came as a surprise to me—the collapse, not that he caught me. I hadn’t felt it coming on; I’d thought I was coping just fine. David pressed his warm hand to my forehead as he lowered me to the sand beside Silverton. “Jo?” He muttered under his breath, something about stupid Weather Wardens and their foolish sense of invulnerability, which really wasn’t fair because I didn’t feel at all invulnerable at the moment. I felt scared.

David’s magical touch poured warmth into me, but it was like pouring it into a black hole. Whatever was affecting me, it was wrong in ways I couldn’t even begin to realize.

“Wait,” I said, and held his gaze with all the determinationI had left. “David, I need you to go into the basement. There’s a dead Djinn there, and a thing— a thing we think is antimatter. Don’t go alone. Be careful —”

I had more to say, but it got lost somewhere, and the light was too bright in my eyes, and then it was dark and still and quiet, and I was all alone, floating.

Well, dying always had been kind of peaceful for me.

I woke up in a hospital, hooked up to tubes, and I was alone. No David by my bedside. No Lewis loitering in a chair. No Cherise, even.

All alone.

I pressed the call button, wondering if I was in a Warden hospital. Pressing the call button seemed like an Olympic event, and one I wasn’t likely to medal in at that. I was unreasonably exhausted, considering I’d just woken up. While I waited for attention, I looked over the room I was in. Typical hospital issue—an adjustable bed, with rails that were up. Machines that beeped. A silently playing TV high in the corner, tuned to the Weather Channel, which led me to believe that at the very least I’d had Warden visitors.

Nobody was responding to my call. I pressed the button again, sweating with effort. My mouth tasted like metal, and it was sticky and dry. Everything smelled wrong. My whole body ached, the kind of nasty, all-over body aches you get with high fever, and there were some white-hot spots of pain in various joints. I’d been hurt worse, but somehow, being all alone, hooked up to machines and left ignored, made this seem worse.

I gulped down a breath and pressed the button again, convulsively.

The door banged open, admitting a nurse wearing the latest scrub fashions—floral print, with a predominantly red color. She didn’t look familiar, and she didn’t look happy. “Ms. Baldwin,” she said. “Awake, I see.”

I tried to nod. Appallingly, I couldn’t seem to get my throat to produce sounds. I gestured at the water pitcher; she poured me a glass and held it for me. I gulped. Water had never tasted quite so good . . . until I realized that it was taking on a red tinge. I was bleeding into it. I pulled back, gasping, and wiped my lips. Blood on my fingers. It was coming from my gums, which were seeping red.

“Relax, honey,” the nurse said, unbending a little bit when she saw the obvious distress in my face. “You had a pretty high dose of radiation. You’re getting treatment, though.”

The water had lubricated my vocal cords. “Where am I?”

“Extension Hospital Fourteen,” she said, which meant I was in the Warden system, not general human health care. Thank God. “I’m sorry we didn’t have anybody with you, but you’ve been out for a while, and we had other patients. Do you have a lot of pain?”

I managed to keep my nod to a measured sort of response, not a frantic oh-my-God-yes-give-me-drugs sort of gesture. She got the point, though, and showed me the meds button, which I pushed for all it was worth. Liquid gold painkillers slid through my veins, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Even tasting blood didn’t seem that disturbing, suddenly.

“David?” I asked. My voice sounded horribly weak.

The nurse hesitated and didn’t quite meet my eyes. “Your friend and Lewis Orwell brought you in, but they had to leave. Some kind of emergency.”

“Haven’t been back?”