"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.
I had no time to think about it. I jumped to my feet and ran, threading through the maze of boxes, shoving over obstructions, hurdling what I could and climbing what I couldn't to make the most direct route back to the vault. I was trembling with fear by the time I arrived, because precious seconds were ticking away, and upstairs David was dying. . . .
The vault was locked. I remembered David closing it and spinning the dial. Christ, no, please -
I had no choice. I reached out with all the Earth power at my disposal, ripped the locking mechanism to pieces, and slammed the heavy metal door aside like so much cardboard. It ripped loose of the hinges and tipped, hitting the concrete with enough force to shatter stone.
I scrambled over it into the vault.
I lunged for the book, opened the latch, and began flipping pages. I need something to save him, I was thinking hard, trying to direct the book to meet my desperate need. Anything. Show me how to save him!
A page flipped and settled, and my eyes focused on symbols. I heard the whispers again, felt them rushing through me like wind, and had time to wonder if this was the right thing to do, the smart thing. . . .
But then it was too late. I felt my lips shaping sounds, heard my voice speak without my understanding what it was saying. On the page, each symbol lit up in fire as it was spoken, burning like miniature suns until I could barely see the rest of the scripture.
Midway through, I felt dry, aching, drained body and soul. It was taking my power to fuel itself, and I still didn't know what it was designed to do. Doesn't matter, I told the part of my self that was screaming, the part that was in charge of self-preservation. If I don't, he's gone.
I had to take the chance.
As I spoke the last word, the entire book flared hot and white, and the force leaped from the pages into the center of my chest, knocking me down in a heap. I felt a sickening, sideways motion, as if the world had been twisted into a rubbery pretzel around me, and when I opened my eyes, I was lying facedown on industrial looped carpet, smelling dust and mold. I rolled over, gasping, and felt every muscle and nerve in my body shriek in protest.
I had no idea where I was, but it seemed that I was all alone. Nothing moved in the shadows around me, as far as I could see. The room looked like a deserted hotel ballroom, but one that had seen its last happy dances long ago. The carpet I was draped across was old and filthy, and the remaining furniture was a drunken muddle of broken chairs, listing tables, and fouled linens.
My brain was racing frantically, but my body was slow to follow. I managed to force muscles into enough order to get me to my hands and knees, and then to my feet, though I had to keep a hand on the dusty wall to brace myself. Apparently, Djinn spell books weren't the most comfortable way to travel, or the most accurate, since I'd been trying to arrive at the place where the Sentinels were hiding out. . . .
I heard voices outside, in a shadowed hallway. I quickly crouched behind a table as a flashlight speared sharply through the dark, sweeping the room. It was a casual check, but I heard footsteps coming farther into the room, and risked a look. There were two people, one with the heavy flashlight in hand. I knew their faces in the backwash of light: One was Emily, Earth Warden, and an occasional adversary; the other was even less comforting - Janette de Winter. I'd last seen her in the Denny's, after the first earthquake in Fort Lauderdale; she looked just as polished, perfect, and diamond-hard as ever.
And just by being here, she was proving out my suspicion that she was a Sentinel.
"Do you feel anything?" Janette asked. I concentrated on concealing myself, aetherically speaking; minimizing the blaze of power around me, drawing in all my senses until I was nothing but simple human flesh. If they were looking for a Warden, they'd miss me.
The flashlight played slowly around the room again in a methodical progression, counterclockwise. I was at the nine o'clock position, and I concentrated harder as the light crawled over the detritus in the room, heading my way.
It illuminated something strange; then there was a flash of movement, and then all hell broke loose.
They hadn't been looking for me. They'd been looking for Kevin, and he was on the offensive.
Fire streaked out of his hand in a flat plane, slammed into the two women, and knocked them back. Emily shrieked, but Janette reacted quickly, damping down the flames before they were injured and setting up a glittering shield that splashed Kevin's assault away in a rolling orange stream. It ignited dry carpeting, brittle walls, and broken furniture in an instant bonfire.
Emily, who could control wood and metal, grabbed an entire tractor's worth of furniture and slammed it toward Kevin with shocking violence and power. I knew her; she hadn't been nearly that strong before. Kevin tried to dodge, but there was no way he could win; Janette was lining him up in the crosshairs for her own assault, and he had no way to stop Emily at all.
As Kevin backed toward the wall, he tripped and went down, rolled into a crouch, and instinctively covered his head with both arms as the wall of furniture tumbled toward him.
I put up a wall of power around him, and both Emily's flood tide of furniture and Janette's flaming wave broke against it at the same time. Again, I was shocked by the force of what they were wielding; it was all out of proportion to what most Wardens would have used, even in extremity. Kevin was strong, but he couldn't have equaled even one of them, much less two in direct conflict.
I could. Barely.
I stepped out from behind the table. I considered a snappy announcement of my presence, but really, it wasn't necessary; both the other Wardens - no, Sentinels - were already turning and looking for me. I felt them lock on and acquire the target, and I shook my hands lightly to loosen myself up.
"One chance to live," I said. "Where's Ortega?"
I couldn't really tell their expressions, not from across the room, but their body language suggested my sudden appearance wasn't just a surprise; it was a real shock. If I'd been hoping that would throw them off balance, though, the surprise was mine; Janette hesitated for barely a second before I sensed a surge of power traveling invisibly through the wall next to me, and the paneling around me burst into white-hot flame. I ignored it. Playing their game was a sucker bet, and I needed to get to Kevin before they could separate us and use us against each other.
I gathered up the heat vortex being generated by Janette's flames and sent it spinning toward both the Sentinels. Neither of them were Weather Wardens, and they weren't trained on how to defuse such things; instead, they scattered to get out of its way. I kicked off my shoes, picked them up, and did a broken-field sprint across the ballroom toward Kevin. When I reached him, I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him out of the tangle of burning chairs and tables surrounding him. "Where's the Djinn?" I shouted. Kevin coughed, spat up black, and jerked his chin toward the doorway. "Ortega! Have you seen him?"
"Yeah," he said, and coughed again, with deep wracking spasms that made my chest hurt to hear them. "Outside. They had him."
Janette and Emily were standing between me and my goal. Not a good place to be. I began throwing flaming furniture together and rolling it toward them in unwieldy balls, and not even their combined powers could catch it all. One ball got past Janette and plowed into them head-on. They went flying. Strike!
"Come on," I snapped to Kevin, and went to the first downed Sentinel. Emily. I straddled her as she lay on the floor, and put her down for the count by encasing her in a thick layer of ice, pulling all the water out of the air to do it. The heat would set her free, but not for a while. Maybe not even in time. Gosh, I was going to lose sleep over that one. I have no idea what Kevin did to Janette, but it wasn't likely to be as merciful. Seeing his smudged, grim face, I had the feeling it was well deserved, too.
We left the ballroom. At the last minute, I damped the fires behind us. Kevin shot me a glance, and I shrugged; I had the desire for bloodshed, but somebody had to set a good example. I knew it wouldn't be him.
"Where's Rahel?" I asked. The hallway outside was more of the same - dim, cluttered, deserted, smelling of age and mildew.
Kevin coughed again, wiped his mouth on his shirt, and said, "They figured it out. They have her, too. I couldn't get to her."
"Do they know - "
"Fuck yes, they know! We were sold out. They were buying it right up until about an hour ago, and then everything went crazy. . . ."
I wanted to hear it, but the anxiety building in me wouldn't stop clanging its warning bell. "We've got to find Ortega, now. Go that way. If you spot him, yell."
But in the end, I was the one who found him.
They'd posed him carefully, the Sentinels, just as they had the Djinn I'd helped discover before. Someone - one of the Earth Wardens - had looped whorls of living wood, thick and stronger than iron, around his arms and legs, pinning him in midair against the wall.
He'd been helpless. However they'd managed it, they'd taken away his defenses, and they'd done it so fast, so horribly fast. . . .
"Jo?" Kevin's hoarse pant came from behind me. I was standing very still, not blinking, not looking away. "Jesus."
We couldn't get to him. There were too many Sentinels between us and Ortega. Six at least that I could see.
I'd expected to see Bad Bob Biringanine, so the sight of him shocked me less than it had a right to.
He looked exactly as I remembered him - white hair, fair Irish skin turned ruddy on the cheeks and nose, fierce blue eyes.
He smiled when he saw me. It was the same cynical, sweet expression that I remembered so well.
And then he turned to the man standing next to him and said something. The man's back was to me, but I knew already, before he turned. Before I saw his face and knew how badly screwed we were.
Paul Giancarlo, my trusted friend, was with the Sentinels.
I saw the terrible guilt in his eyes, but there was something else, too. A fanatical light that I'd never truly recognized before. He was hurt, I thought. He was hurt by the Djinn. He was in charge while they destroyed the Warden headquarters. He saw people die, people he liked. People he loved.
Bad Bob had preyed on him as surely as he had all these others. He'd made them victims all over again. Worse - he'd made them victimizers.
"Jo," Paul said. "Christ, what are you doing here? Get out!"