Cape Storm

serious and very calm.

“I’m here to help you,” he said.

He opened his hand, and in it were fragments of glass.

The broken pieces of his bottle.

I stared at them for a moment, into his eyes. “How—?”

“Cherise,” he said. “She wants you to live. So do I. She got the bottle away from Kevin. She—trusts me.”

Cherise was a romantic idiot, in this one sense: She simply didn’t understand how dangerous David really was. I wasn’t even sure I understood . . . although I was starting to get a really good idea.

I tightened my grip on the rail as the ship pounded into a particularly deep trough, then painfully plowed up the leading edge of the next wave. “I see. And did you stop for anything else along the way?”

“You mean, did I kill Lewis?” he asked. “Not yet.” He took one more step, and we were body to body, soaked with rain, blinded by lightning. Sealed together by storms. “That doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten him. Don’t ask me to do that.”

I couldn’t begin to try. “How did they raise the ship?”

“Who says they did?” David’s smile was knowing, and a little bitter. “It’s not the Grand Paradise. Lewis lied to you from the beginning. The Grand Paradise was a decoy, designed to lure Bad Bob into showing his hand. He sent the other Wardens out of Fort Lauderdale, aboard the Grand Horizon. It’s a sister ship—a little smaller, a little faster. Crewed entirely with Wardens and Djinn. It’s been making good time and staying off of Bad Bob’s radar. Until now.”

That son of a bitch. Lewis really had suckered me, every step of the way. He’d known I was a risk, if not a ready-made traitor. He’d used me as a stalking horse, although I had to admit he’d put himself on the line, too.

But he’d also exposed Cherise and dozens of other innocents who had no place in this. And an unforgivably large number of Wardens, although I supposed for any kind of a feint to work, he had to commit himself to it.

I would never forgive him for risking so much, no more than David would be able to forgive him for the kill switch that Lewis had put in my brain.

“So by suckering Bad Bob into kicking the living crap out of us, the Grand Horizon got a virtually free ride,” I said. “Right?”

“As far as I know.”

“How could you not know?”

“It’s crewed by Ashan’s Djinn. Everything was compartmentalized from me. Deliberately so.”

We’d both been cut out. Well, I’d been hoping Lewis had fallback positions, in the beginning, and it looked like he’d done a hell of a lot more with a hell of a lot less than I’d have managed in his place.

“They’re in for it now,” I noted, as three lightning strikes crawled the Grand Horizon’s deck, searching for something to destroy. “But we’re still going to get there ahead of them.”

“I know.” He cupped my face in both hands, and he studied me closely. I knew what he was looking for.

“I’m all right,” I said. “Seventy-five percent all right, anyway.”

He seemed to calculate me at about the same rate.

“If we succeed,” he said, “we will have another problem to consider.”

I hadn’t actually thought past the consequences of failure, which were fairly horrific. “Like what?”

“You may inherit his power. And you may be tempted to use it.”

“I could use it for good.”

“So did he. Once. It isn’t a power you can use, Jo. It’s a power you must destroy.”

I looked back at him. “So if I grab it from Bad Bob, you’re going to take it away from me. Or die trying.”

“Maybe,” David said. “But first we have to live to get there, don’t we?”

I turned to face him. The next lurching drop sent him into me. Our lips found each other, hot and hungry and damp, tasting of salt and desperation. For a moment even the storm seemed to stop, suspended between heartbeats.

I felt the darkness in me trying to reach out to him, and slapped it down hard. No. Not yet. David might be here, he might be with me, but he wasn’t with me. And I wasn’t going to be the one to enslave him yet again, not until I had no other choice.

I turned to face south, toward the empty horizon. “He’s not far now,” I said. “One thing at a time, right?”

David’s arms gripped the railing on either side of me, bracing me against the violent bucking of the ship as we plunged toward the darkness. “Right.”

Chapter Ten

The Wardens on the Grand Horizon had learned from our mistakes, it appeared; we saw them break through the storm, and they must have set up a series of Djinn/ Warden cooperative alliances to maintain their bubble shield, because I could see the glistening curve of it from the deck of our ship as the waves broke and foamed over the smooth round surface.

I wished them luck in keeping that up. It was brutal, soul-shredding work. “How long until they catch up?”

David handed me a plate. Our pirate cook had made some kind of meat, finely chopped and spiced, with spongy bread. It was delicious, and surprising; I’d somehow expected wormy crusts and rum. I gobbled down the lunch with gratitude.

“Good?” David asked, amused, and shook his head at my garbled reply. “They’re gaining. They’ll catch up to us by midday.”

“Can’t let that happen,” I mumbled. “Lewis was very clear. This needs to be me. Not them.”

“Bad Bob and his storm didn’t slow them down. How do you propose either of us stops them, short of destroying them?”

I chewed and swallowed. “Ask them.”

He evidently hadn’t thought of that. I winked and carried my plate to the wheelhouse, where Josue was dozing on a stained old cot at the back while his navigator did the hard work of steering the tough little vessel on the course I’d set. I asked about the radio and was pointed belowdecks, to a small, claustrophobic closet of a room with bad ventilation and a crew member who evidently liked beans and hated baths. I evicted him from his battered chair and rolled up to check out the radio. It was old, but highly complicated.

“Hey!” I yelled through the closed door. David opened it. “Help me out a little. I’m not Sparky the Wonder Horse.”

That earned me a full, warm smile. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“Watch it.” I meant that; he was looking at me like I was the old Joanne. The less demented one. “Keep your guard up. I mean it, David. Bad Bob can be funny, too. That doesn’t make him any less of a monster. Don’t you dare trust me. I can’t trust myself, not anymore.”

The smile faded, and the sparks in his eyes turned ash-dark. “Yes. I understand.” David looked at the radio, and the dials turned. “There. That should put you in touch with the Grand Horizon’s bridge.”

“Thanks.” I slipped on the headphones as he shut the door between us—less to provide me with privacy than to give me elbow room. There wasn’t enough space in here to breathe. “Merchant vessel—” Oh, hell, what was this ship’s name? “Merchant vessel Sparrow for the cruise vessel Grand Horizon. Please respond, over.” I expected I’d have to repeat myself, but instead I got an immediate crackle of connection.

“Sparrow, this is Grand Horizon.” I knew that voice. “You made it.”

“Lewis.” I kept my voice neutral, although I was glad he’d made it, too. Even if he had tried to kill me. “You’re