I sucked in a deep breath. "So if you don"t want me to keep going after him, what do you want me to do?"
Paul sank into a chair, leaned forward, and clasped his hands together. The gold chain around his neck swung free. It was a Saint Eurosia medal, patron saint against bad weather. I was reminded that when his relatives had sit-downs like this, it was sometimes to talk about whom to whack.
"The kid"s scared," Paul said. "He knows things are out of control, but he won"t talk to us. I"m pretty sure he thinks we"re going to kill him."
As if we weren"t. Yeah, right. "So what"s the plan?"
"I"m ready to bring the full power of the Wardens down on him if I have to, but I don"t want to go to war here. It"s too dangerous. People are going to die if we do it the hard way."
"So you want to make a deal with him."
"Yes."
"And you what-want me to be your middleman? That"s bulls.h.i.t.
He"s been spending the last three weeks trying to keep me the h.e.l.l away from Vegas."
They were all looking at me . . . Paul with a dark, sorrowful intensity, Marion with compa.s.sion, the other two with a mix of contempt and curiosity.
I suddenly knew, on a very visceral level, that I really wasn"t going to like this conversation at all.
Paul said, "Jo, give me your Djinn"s bottle."
Silence ticked on, dragging the seconds with it; I felt blood start to pound loud in my ears. "What?"
"Your Djinn. David." Paul leaned forward, elbows on knees, looking earnest. "C"mon, Jo, it isn"t like you have him officially anyway. You got him by accident; he was Bad Bob"s originally. If we had a calm minute around here, we"d have asked you to turn him over to the pool anyway. You"re not authorized to handle a Djinn yet, and we need every single one right now to keep the systems stabilized."
I sucked in a breath of air that felt thin and hot. "You"re kidding me."
"No." Paul held out his hand. Just held it out. n.o.body else moved.
"Jo, babe, let"s not make this official."
"If you didn"t want to make it official you should"ve come without the posse."
Point scored. His eyes flickered. "Please, Jo. Swear to G.o.d, I"m too tired to f.u.c.k with you right now. Don"t make it hard."
"Don"t make it hard?" I repeated, and slowly got to my feet. They all stood up, too, and flesh crept along the back of my neck. "I"m not handing him over, Paul. He shouldn"t even be chained to a d.a.m.n bottle, anyway. He"s not-"
Instantly David was corporeal, standing behind Paul"s chair, face white and eyes blazing. He mouthed one word.
Careful.
I realized, with a cold shock, what I"d almost blurted out. I"d almost told Paul about the Free Djinn, the ones roaming around loose and unclaimed out in the world. There were a lot of them, a lot more than the Wardens could ever have expected, and if I mentioned that then the Wardens would see it as their responsibility to find them and enslave them ... for their own protection. Or some equally bulls.h.i.t backward explanation that boiled down to benefiting the Wardens and no one else. Especially now, when they were running so scared. They"d use anything and everything to bail themselves-all of humanity-out.
I swallowed what I"d been about to say and finished up. "He"s not going to be put in any G.o.dd.a.m.n pool. He"s not a resource. I claimed him, and I"m keeping him."
David flickered and was gone. I felt suddenly, coldly alone, standing here with four Wardens staring at me. Four Wardens, I realized, who each had the power of a Djinn at their commands. No accident, that. Not when they were complaining about the shortages.
"You said you don"t want a war," I said to Paul. "Don"t start one with me, babe."
He let me make half of a dramatic exit. When I put my right foot on the staircase, beside the maniacally cheerful fountain, he said, "I get that you think you"re in love with this Djinn-which is f.u.c.ked-up beyond all measure of f.u.c.ked-up, by the way. But beside that, which we will be talking about later, this doesn"t end with you walking away, right?"
I didn"t turn. Didn"t let myself hesitate for more than a split second before I took the second stair.
Paul"s voice went official. "By the authority of the Wardens Council, I"m ordering you to turn over your Djinn to us. And if you don"t, I"m taking you down, and Marion"s authorized to put you under the knife. You"ll lose everything, Jo. Everything. Even your powers.
And maybe that"ll kill you, but right now I can"t f.u.c.king worry about that."
At the top of the stairs, David flickered into existence, walking slowly down toward me. He had on his traveling clothes, his long olive-drab coat, and he looked young and innocent and angelic. My vision of him, imposed on him? Or his own reality? How much of him was really him? I didn"t know. I couldn"t.
He locked eyes with me for a second, then went past me down to the lobby. Hands in his pockets. The Wardens had all come to their feet, staring, and I could tell they were a whisper away from throwing their Djinn into all-out battle.
He looked back over his shoulder. The overhead lights trapped a shimmer of red and gold in his hair, and reflected sparks of hot bronze in his eyes as he smiled at me. A gentle, heartbreaking smile.
"Give them what they want, Jo," he said. "It"ll be all right."
All around him, Djinn were moving like disembodied shadows. He was surrounded. Hemmed in. Trapped.
I took the bottle slowly from my pocket, felt the pulsing heat of the magic inside of it, thought about what it would be like to lose him.
I can"t. Can"t.
If I started a fight, it would go nuclear in minutes. Too much power here. Too many people with the ability to destroy half the continent.
Too much G.o.dd.a.m.n emotion.
I prepared to smash the bottle against the railing.
"Jo." He whispered my name like a caress, and followed it by laying fingertips gently against my cheek. "Don"t. This needs to happen. Just do what they tell you."
He led me down the two steps, over to Paul. Paul held out his hand again.
I can"t.
I let the bottle drop from a height of about a foot, from my hand to Paul"s. David could have intervened. Could have jostled Paul, made him fumble the catch; could have, in that split second, blown the bottle across the room to shatter against faux stone.
I gave him that chance.
He did nothing.
Paul caught the gla.s.s container, and I felt the connection explode, melt away into silence. Even though David was holding my hand, he was gone, gone from me. Even his skin felt insubstantial.
His eyes turned dark. Human. Brown.
Sad and quiet and-hiding just under the surface-wary.
"Good choice, kids," Paul said. He looked tired and unhappy as he looked at David. "Back in the bottle, please."
I could feel David trying to fight, but the pull was irresistible, and in a sudden convulsive flicker he was gone. Paul reached out for the stopper, which I handed over as well. My fingers felt numb.
I watched as he worked the stopper into the bottle. The four Wardens seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Paul handed the bottle to Marion, who took a black magic marker out of her pocket and wrote a rune on the bottle itself. A sign, I recognized, that was a kind of mystical DO NOT OPEN, CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE. She opened a leather satchel sitting next to the chair and eased the bottle into special padding, then closed and locked it.
"Okay." I pulled in a deep breath and tried to put the anger aside.
"Now you"ve got David out of the way. When do I go?" Paul looked up, startled, frowning, as if I knew something I shouldn"t. "h.e.l.lo?
Vegas? Meet and greet with Teen Psycho?"
Paul didn"t answer me. Marion said softly, "Kevin doesn"t want you, Joanne. He has no reason to trust you. You can"t negotiate with him on our behalf."
My mind went blank. "Then why all this-"
To get David. To get David away from me, to play us against each other.
I had a sudden premonition of disaster even before Paul said, "You"re going home, Jo. Now."
"Like h.e.l.l!" I rounded on Marion, on the case where she"d put David.
And I heard Paul say flatly, "Marion, take her."
THREE.
I had a couple of choices-one, I could fight like h.e.l.l and trash the hotel and probably kill a whole lot of people, or two, I could give up and see where it took me.
I didn"t like option two, but I liked option one even less, and when Marion moved toward me, power at the ready, I just stood still for it.
"Easy," she whispered to me, and wrapped something around my wrists behind my back that felt thick and organic. At her touch it stirred, writhed, and tightened into something tough and flexible. It couldn"t cut me, but I wasn"t likely to be breaking loose from it, either. Wind and water don"t do much against the power of living things. It was probably some sort of vine she"d cultivated for times like these. "n.o.body"s going to hurt you, Joanne. Please trust me."
I"d never been able to trust her. Ever. I liked her, but her agendas and mine just didn"t match and never had. Her hand rested lightly on my shoulder for a second, then pressed harder, guiding me to a chair.
She sat me down, took out another vine from her pocket, and bound my ankles.
"Done?" Paul asked. She nodded and stepped back. Paul-my friend-got down on one knee next to the chair and looked me right in the eyes. "Go ahead. Ask."
"Okay," I said. I kept my voice low and calm, even though I wanted to scream at him-it wouldn"t do a d.a.m.n bit of good, and I might need a good screaming voice later. Right now, they were in control.
Wait for an opportunity. "Use your heads. I can help you; you know I can. You can"t afford to ignore the opportunity here. C"mon, guys.
Wise up."
He was sweating, I noticed. Paul, the iceman, was sweating bullets, and there were dark patches under the arms of his nice, neat golf shirt.
"This goes way beyond personal feelings. Sorry, babe, but we don"t have a choice here. We thought we could contain the kid, but things are too serious now. We need to deal, and with Jonathan on his side, he"ll know if we"re not playing straight. So you go home. This gets done without you."
"Who had that brilliant idea?" I shot back.
"I did." A new voice, coming from the corner. Paul looked over his shoulder, and I saw someone step out of the shadows from beneath the stairs.
It was old-home week at the Holiday Inn. I looked up into the tired, drawn face of Lewis Levander Orwell, my friend, once upon a time my lover, and saw the bleak, black acknowledgment of just how f.u.c.ked-up all this was. And then I really saw, because he wasn"t walking on his own. He had a cane, a fancy carved affair that had dragons running up the sides. Extra long, because he was pretty d.a.m.ned tall.
He"d lost more weight, gone from lanky to thin and fragile. His skin had a translucent ivory cast to it, as if he were fading away like a Djinn.
It was an effort for him to walk the four short steps to the chair across from me. No one tried to help him, but I could feel the weight of their attention, their concern. He sank into the plush brown velour with a sigh, propped the cane against the arm, and folded his hands together as he looked at me.
"You look like s.h.i.t," I said bluntly. I surprised a thin smile out of him.
"Right back at ya. How much have you slept?"
"Averaged out, a couple of hours a day."
"Can"t survive that way, Jo."
"You"re one to talk."
Silence ticked. Lewis"s eyes flicked aside to Paul. "Sorry about the drama. I"d have done this on my own, but frankly, I think you could kick my a.s.s right now."
"I could kick your a.s.s anytime," I shot back reflexively, but I was a little appalled by the fragility I saw in him. He looked . . . breakable.
I"d never seen him like this, not even when he"d been hurt.
Lewis was dying. Really dying.
"Don"t blame Paul for this. It was my decision."
That got my attention. "Since when do the Wardens take orders from you?" Because even though, technically, he was a Warden-the most powerful one in the world-he"d been on the outside a lot longer than he"d been in. Lewis wasn"t a conformist, and he hadn"t exactly risen through the chain of command.
In true form, he blew past the question. "We can"t defeat Kevin by frontal a.s.sault. You already understand that."
"I"m having a hard time seeing how keeping me tied the h.e.l.l up is winning the battle!"
"We need to talk to him. Persuade him to give up. It"s our only real choice."
"How the h.e.l.l are you going to get him to talk at all? He"s holding all the cards!"
"You let me worry about that part." Lewis shifted, as if something inside hurt him. "First things first. We have to get Jonathan out of his hands. You agree?"
I had to. I knew what Jonathan was, and how important he was to the Free Djinn-plus, Kevin wouldn"t have the leverage and force multipliers necessary to destroy the world if we took his Djinn away.
"Sure."
Did I imagine it, or did Lewis"s knuckles turn a little whiter?