Gale Force

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.