Gale Force

Just a book that held the secrets to destroying an entire race.

No wonder it felt heavy.

The vault—of course a mansion like this would have one, along with a genuine, honest-to-God panic room— was crammed with stuff. Valuable stuff, to be sure. I was no expert, but I knew that early comics were worth money, and he had shelves full of them, each carefully bagged and labeled. Coin collections. Stamp collections. Toys. Rugs. Artifacts. I edged into the big steel-cased room and waited while David reorganizedthe collections enough for me to put the book down in an open space on a table. “Does he ever sell any of this stuff?” I asked.

“No,” he said, moving a collection of what looked like vintage one-sheet posters. “But he buys a lot on eBay. Put it down here.”

I did, gratefully, and stepped back from it. So did David, letting out a slow breath.

“Ortega,” I said. “Is he going to be okay?”

David didn’t answer. I understood a lot in that moment—his frustration, his anger. There was a good deal of self-loathing in there. David was not Jonathan, who’d held the position of Djinn Conduit before him; he wasn’t naturally the kind of man who could make ruthless, cold decisions and sacrifice his friends and family when necessary. Lewis was like that. David was more like me—more willing to throw himself in front of the bus than push someone else, even if it was the tactically right thing to do.

“He’ll be okay,” I said, and took his hand. “It’s a simple enough job, and they won’t be looking for Ortega. Hell, I’d never have had a clue he was a Djinn if I’d met him in any other context.”

“I know,” David said. “I just wish I’d told him that I didn’t blame him for trading the other copy of the book. I don’t. His obsession is to collect things. Ortega has always been an innocent when it comes to humans; he could never see the potential for evil in them. That’s why Bad Bob took advantage of him.”

“He doesn’t seem very . . . Djinn.”

David led the way back out of the vault and swung the massive door shut, then spun the lock. “No,” he agreed. “Ashan wanted to destroy him completely. I wouldn’t allow it. Ortega doesn’t have much power, for a Djinn—barely more than a human. He’s never been able to really become what he was meant to be.”

“Which is?”

“Cold,” David said. “Like the rest of us.”

I kissed his hand. “You’re not cold.”

He looked at me, and I saw the shadow of what he’d done haunting him. “I can be,” he said. “When I have to be.”

We went back downstairs, edging through the boxes, trying to find empty space. Ortega had left himself a small nest, a room filled with the most beautiful things of his collection . . . exquisite crystal, breathtaking art, blindingly lovely furniture. I hated to sully it with my human presence, but my feet were tired, and the Victorian fainting couch was exquisitely comfortable.

David didn’t sit. He paced. None of the beauty touched him; he was focused elsewhere, on things far less lovely. I used the time to make calls; Lewis had been maneuvering Wardens slowly into position in Florida, using his most trusted people as well as the Ma’at, who still were outside the Warden system and therefore would be more trustworthy in something like this, if less powerful. I broke the news about Bad Bob—which was met with a suspiciously long silence, as if he’d already known and had hoped to keep it from me. That would have been par for the course.

I also gave him the update about the book, and realized midway through that I didn’t actually know what it was David had read that had so unnerved him. It didn’t tactically matter to Lewis, but it mattered to me, so after I finished the call, I asked.

“The Unmaking,” David said. “I didn’t think—until I read it in the book, I didn’t think what you were describing could be true. The Unmaking is the opposite of creation.”

“Antimatter.”

He nodded slightly. “You see it as science; we can’t see it at all, but the Ancestor Scriptures tell us that if it can be brought forth, it will feed on and destroy all Djinn, and we won’t be able to see it. It’s been thought to be nothing but a ghost. A boogeyman.”

“But it’s real,” I said. “It’s the black shard, the one we found in the dead Djinn. That was a dead Djinn.”

“It’s how they grew more of the Unmaking,” David said. I saw his throat work as he swallowed. “It feeds and grows inside a Djinn. What you found was just the husk, discarded and left behind. The Unmaking itself is far, far more powerful. That’s how the Sentinels are able to wield so much power; they steal the energy that pours from the Unmaking’s destruction of the world around it.” He closed his eyes briefly. “I sent Rahel to them without any idea of the danger.”

“You couldn’t have known!”

He ignored my attempt to mitigate things. “Ortega should have been back by now.”

“Maybe he’s having trouble finding them—”

“No.” His eyes unfocused into the distance. “No, that’s not it.”

I felt a sick lurch. “David?”

“He’s—” David reeled, as if he’d been slapped, and crashed into a table that held a glittering display of crystal. He went down amid a shower of glass like falling stars. I threw myself onto my knees next to him, trying to think what kind of first aid I could do for a Djinn, and saw a sickening blackness bloom along the right side of his face, like fast-growing mold. His mouth stretched in a silent scream, and his eyes flared a muddy red. “Ortega,” he gasped. “Help him. I’ll hold on to him as long as I can, but you have to help him!”

Ortega was under direct attack, and it was manifesting in David. Of course it was; he was the Conduit. Until he severed the connection, and left Ortega to die alone, he would suffer along with him.

I launched myself up on the aetheric, burning through the six inches of steel roof like mist, all the way up until the entire Florida coastline was below me, sparking and burning with psychic energy. It wasn’t hard to identify the trouble spot; it was a huge red dome of boiling, smoky power, and as I plunged down toward it, I felt the turbulence of the ongoing battle batter me, threatening to rip me apart. I couldn’t spot Djinn on the aetheric; they were like ghosts, flitting out of the corners of my eyes. But I could see the destruction.

Oversight isn’t ideal to seeing the details of an event, but it is useful for watching the ebb and flow of power. Ortega was an elusive sparkling shadow, dodging between thick threads of power that formed psychic nets; the Sentinels were trying to trap him. They’d already hurt him. I could see the darkness in him, just as it had been manifesting in David back in the real world.

I could sense his fury and despair. He couldn’t get free. There was something holding him here, something —

I needed to get to him. Quickly. But instant transportation was a Djinn thing, and mostly fatal to humans; the only Djinn I’d ever known who could carry a human from one point to another without leaving pieces behind was Venna.

I slammed back down into my skin, a disorienting shock that I ignored because I didn’t have time for it. David was writhing amid the broken glass, fighting for control. My hands hovered over him, but I didn’t want to try to touch him. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but it was beyond my capacity to fight.

“Trying—trying to hold him,” David gasped. “Have to—”

David was choosing this. Ortega was in trouble, and David was trying to anchor him, send him power. That left David open to attack, just as Ortega was.

“Let go!” I shook David by the shoulders with as much violence as I could. “David, let him go! You have to! If they get to you, it’s over. That’s why you sent him! ”

“Can’t let him die,” David panted.

“What can I do?” Why didn’t the Sentinels come after me again, the bastards? At least then, I’d feel less helpless. . . .

“The vault,” David gasped. “The book. Use the book.”

No. There was power in that thing, sure, but it was raw and untamed and all too easy to misuse. There had to be another way to—

David’s hand became a skeletal claw. His skin was turning the color of clay.