Gale Force

David had been trying to warn me all along. Maybe I'm not your enemy.

Oh God.

I tried to keep my expression the same, except for a slight involuntary widening of my eyes. I was barely hanging on; subtleties would be lost, if Bad Bob was -  and I knew he would be - watching.

He wouldn't want to miss seeing me make such a catastrophic mistake.

I know it's you, I tried to say to David, through our locked stare. Trust me. If Bad Bob had put him in thrall, he wouldn't have much room to maneuver, and no room to give me any real assistance. All I could hope was that Bad Bob, clever and cruel as he was, hadn't thought of everything.

And of course, that I had, which wasn't too damn likely.

"Where?" I shaped the word only with my lips, burning my question into Bad Bob's eyes, trying to get across one simple, impossible message. For a second I thought I'd guessed wrong, that I'd just destroyed myself for nothing and missed my only chance, but then those blue eyes darted quickly away, to a point just behind me and to my right.

The doorway. Of course. Bad Bob would want to see this up close.

One thing about the Unmaking; it was pointed on both ends. I didn't have enough strength and control left to turn, so I lunged backward, angling toward the doorway. One step, two, fast and hard, letting my own exhausted weight do the work as I drove the weapon in reverse, straight for the real enemy.

I felt the end of the spear slam home, and felt the whole thing vibrate like a struck bell. It shook my hands off its heated surface, and my whole body threw itself into an uncontrollable spasm, every muscle sparking and spasming and driving me hard to the floor.

In the chair next to the window, the fake Bad Bob continued to sit, watching me - unable to move, because he couldn't move.

I writhed over on my back. Sweaty hair clung to my face, obscuring my vision, but as I swiped it away I saw Bad Bob - the real one - standing over me, staring down at the black rod that had punched completely through his stomach and emerged glittering and bloody from the other side.

He laughed. "Good thinking," he said, and blood fountained out over his chin and bubbled in his mouth. "Damn, girl. Still got an arm."

He fell heavily to his knees, face draining white, and gripped the Unmaking with both hands. I wriggled backward away from him as he began to pull it free of his body, one torturous inch at a time. His hands were shaking, turning gray, but he kept at it with single-minded intensity.

And what he pulled out of his body was thicker. He was creating more of it, generating it from his own body.

But it looked as if it hurt like a son of a bitch.

I crab-crawled back until I bumped into the legs of the man sitting in the chair, and looked up at him. I saw a single flare of Djinn fire break free of the disguise.

"David," I whispered. I got no response, of course. There was a container somewhere; there had to be if Bad Bob had bound a Djinn - something glass, something breakable. But even though the beach house was relatively uncluttered, I didn't have time or strength to search. Bottles in the kitchen, the refrigerator, hidden in cupboards, forgotten in the attic - it could be anywhere.

Bad Bob grunted with effort as he pulled, one convulsive jerk after another. The Unmaking was sliding slowly out of him. I watched the sharp end disappear into his back. Another two or three pulls, and he'd have it out, bigger and more powerful than ever.

I'd bought us some time, but it was running out. Outside, I heard explosions, and felt the ground tremble under my feet. Rahel had reached the van, and she was going after Lewis. It was a free-for-all outside.

I closed my eyes and found what little small, still pool of Earth power I had. I'd never had time for real training, real control, but for this, I didn't need it. It's always easier to destroy than to create.

I attuned myself to the specific frequencies of glass, crystal, and porcelain, and sent out a pulse of power that rippled out from me like a sonic boom.

It hit the bottles in the bar and exploded them in a mist of silica. Crystal decanters and tumblers vibrated apart. The wave reached the windows and blew them out in sprays of glitter. It rolled over Bad Bob, past him, and shattered everything that could be shattered, continuing relentlessly through the entire house, as far as I could push it.

He could have hidden his bottles somewhere else, but he'd want to keep them close. Warden instinct. I pushed the wave front as far as I could, but my strength failed before I reached the gates of the estate.

"Bitch," Bad Bob whispered, and with one convulsive jerk, pulled the spear completely out of his body. The gaping wound crisped black at the edges, then began to knit itself closed.

In the chair, the false image of Bad Bob flinched, and I felt the timbre of power in the room shift and flow as the force that had been holding David apart from me cut off.

I'd destroyed the bottle.

David was free.

The golden thread between us vibrated and snapped tight again.

In a second, he had his hands around me and was pulling me up, preparing to carry me through the open window.

"No you don't," Bad Bob gasped, and pointed his finger at us. I froze, off balance, unable to control my muscles. Dammit! I'd forgotten about the torch mark on my shoulder blade. It wasn't only David he'd been able to manipulate.

"If you won't play, you pay," Bad Bob said, and grinned with bloody teeth. He reversed his grip on the Unmaking, found the balance point . . . and drove it straight down, into the floor - through the floor, into the concrete.

Through the concrete, into the bedrock of the earth.

I felt the sentience of the planet cry out, a wave of horror and emotion that overrode every synapse in my body. I felt her agony. She hadn't been hurt so badly in a long, long time. David cried out, and I felt his hands slide away. He lunged past me, heading for Bad Bob, but after one step he pitched onto his side, convulsing.

Conduit to the aetheric and Mother Earth, he was also the most vulnerable to her pain.

The earthquake hit with the force of a bomb, shattering steel and wood and concrete as if it were so much glass. I sensed the perimeter troops, Warden and human alike, being tossed around like dice outside. I heard explosions, cracks, the sound of trees groaning in agony and breaking off in lethally heavy pieces.

I couldn't move. Bad Bob didn't move, either; he stood staring at me, one hand still outstretched, the other gripping the shaft of the Unmaking still sticking out of the ground.

Walls roared, cracked, and shattered. The floor rippled like liquid, then, the carpet shredding, it broke into jagged fragments. Dust became a mist, then a storm.

The roof joists snapped, and the entire thing inverted into a V, crashing toward us.

Bad Bob never stopped grinning. He waved merrily, ripped the Unmaking out of the ground in a single mighty pull, and vanished.

I dropped like a discarded puppet, rolled into a ball, and felt the first heavy piece of debris hit me. It was the wing chair, tipping on top of me. I curled underneath it for protection and screamed as the entire house came down in a rush of smoke, sparks, and crushing chaos.

The chair might as well have been made of plastic.

Breathe.

I couldn't. Something was on my chest. I couldn't get enough room to allow my lungs to expand. My diaphragm fluttered, trying vainly to pull in air. I choked and tried to reach for power, but it felt slippery, greasy, elusive. All my strength was gone.

You have to stay calm. Master your panic.

I had a house on top of me. Not that easy to stay calm.

You're alive.

And dying fast.

David - 

I heard the distant groan of wood being moved. Rising noise, scrapes, the tortured scream of metal.

Can't breathe. I concentrated on putting my body into a state of meditation, to minimize oxygen burn. Slow and steady, wait, wait . . .

Something shifted, and I felt a piece of debris as heavy as the fist of God slam down on my lower chest. Ribs snapped in hot little starry snaps. I heard myself whimper, and then the weight shifted again, vanishing in a cloud of dust, and the pressure against me was gone.

"Oh Christ," someone said. It sounded like Lewis. I tried to open my eyes, but it was too much of an effort. "We're losing her."

A warm hand was under my head, cradling it. I felt a strangely comforting sense of cold creeping through my limbs, tunneling through me toward my heart. Energy cascaded through me, trying to fight the chill, but the chill was stronger. Harder. More determined.

"No." It was David's voice, choked and despairing. "No, no. Jo, hold on - "

I pulled in a delicious breath and let it out, one last time. I wished I could open my eyes and see him, but in my mind I saw him as he'd been at the wedding, alight and golden and perfect.

I hadn't wanted to hurt him this way.

It didn't hurt at all, slipping away on a tide of darkness. It felt . . . peaceful. Hello again, I said to death. I was resigned, if not ready.

And then I was caught by a sharp, red-hot hook. The tide tried to pull me, but the hook - burning through my body, back to front, on my right shoulder blade - held fast. Heat flared and blazed - not the gentle healing of Earth power, something else. Something wild and dark and harsh, burning black in every nerve.

The next breath I took I let out in a raw, thin scream. I opened my eyes, and saw Lewis leaning over me, and David, and Marion Bearheart. Kevin was standing in the background, looking helpless and oddly vulnerable. Dozens of others were behind him. The sky ripped open with lightning, and rain began to fall in a cold silver curtain.

I laughed. My body put itself back together in hot, agonizing snaps and jerks, every nerve carrying every second of the pain to my brain.

And the pain felt so good.

Lewis let go of me, staring in bafflement that was turning fast to grim horror.

David didn't move, but I saw the same thing in his face - the same revulsion and sickness.

"You think I'd let her go that easy?" It was Bad Bob's voice, but coming raw from my own throat. "You think I'd let any of you go that easy? She's the future, boys. My future."

The laughter that exploded out of me was like a black, nauseating cloud, and this time even David flinched away from it. I rolled up to my hands and knees, covered in fine dust like flour where I wasn't streaked in blood.

Alive. Whole. Even the radiation sickness had been flushed out of me.

The torch on my back burned, burned so hot. . . .

"So who's the bad guy now?" I taunted. He taunted.

There wasn't any difference now.

I turned my face up to the rain, and laughed, and for the first time, I understood why he was as he was, what about this was so intoxicating. No ties. No worries. No burdens. Just power, as pure as it came. People didn't matter. All that mattered was winning.

I didn't care about David, or Lewis, or any miserable little collection of cells walking the planet. They were all just meat and fuel for the engine.

And it was so . . . beautiful.

Then Bad Bob let me go, once he'd shown me the world as he saw it, a landscape where flesh and blood were as meaningless and desolate as sand and rock. I felt the fire gutter and die on my back, and my whole body jerked and folded in on itself.

Mourning for what I'd just lost.

I felt tears burning in my eyes and knew that the worst thing of all this was that I couldn't be sure anymore that if he offered me the choice to feel that again, of my own free will, that I wouldn't take it.

So who's the bad guy now?

The circle of people around me waited tensely. I lifted my face again, and said, "He's gone." My words were almost lost in a blast of wind flying in from the ocean, blowing dust and debris and tattered palm leaves into the air. "I have to go after him."

The Wardens shifted, looking at each other, at Lewis. He slowly shook his head. "We're not doing that," he said. "Christ, Jo. What just happened to you?"

David knew. He reached around and pulled the back of my shirt down, and I saw Lewis's face turn a sick shade of white. "Oh God," he said. "We need to get it off you."

"I don't think laser removal is going to cut it," I said. I felt hollow, cored out. Beyond anything but gallows humor. "It's deep. I don't know how to shut him out."

"Then you can't go," Lewis said. "We need to keep you safe. If he can use you - "

"He can use me here. Against you. I need to - I need to finish this." I swallowed hard. "He's still got a Djinn. Rahel. And he's going to use her to make that thing he has even stronger. The next time he puts the Unmaking into the Earth, do you really think any of us is going to survive it?"

I turned and looked at the night sky. Impossible to see how much damage had been done, but I saw fires, heard sirens in the distance.

"I can block him," David said. "If you'll let me. But it will hurt."

He hadn't said a word about being bound, about my almost killing him in the beach house; I supposed there would be plenty of time for that later. But for now, I nodded.

David put his hand flat against my bare skin on my back, and I felt power surge up from beneath me, racing through my body, concentrating in a red-hot ball around the torch tattoo. Burning. I trembled and felt David's other hand close around mine, sending me strength and support.

"I'm here," he whispered. "I'm here, my love."

I stood it for as long as I could, and then turned with a cry and threw myself into his arms. The white-hot pain in my back faded slowly, but it didn't go away. I couldn't see what he'd done, but it felt as if the mark had been overlaid by something else. Contained.

Masked.

"It won't last," David said, and stroked my hair. "I'll have to renew the block when it weakens."