He wasn’t listening. His eyes were focused and distant. He had a mission, and that mission was to get me out of danger. I didn’t have anything to say about it.
I realized I was still holding the phone. Lewis’s voice was a faint buzz on the other end. “Right, I’m out of the apartment,” I said to him. “And we’re about to lose the connection. Hurry up with the disposal team. I don’t want that thing lying around where anybody can pick it up. My God, Lewis, there are people here. Innocent people!”
David put the Mustang in gear, and we screeched out of the parking place, cornered hard, and accelerated out of the apartment complex and onto the street.
The phone went dead, of course. I tossed it in the backseat and rested my head against the cushions as David put the Mustang through its paces, driving way too fast for a human’s reactions. He must have screened us out of other people’s perceptions, because we blew past a police squad car doing about 120, and there was no reaction at all from the two protecting and serving in the front seat.
“I thought you didn’t believe in this stuff,” I said to David. “You’re acting like you do.”
“I’m trusting you,” he said. “If you say it’s there, and you say it made you sick, I’m not taking chances. But Jo—I can’t see it. I can’t sense it. It’s just not there.”
“Look, there are things that exist that are invisible to humans—”
“But not to Djinn,” he interrupted. “Nothing is invisible to Djinn. Nothing that belongs on this earth.”
This was kind of the point. He must have realized it, too. He was quiet for a moment, and when I looked over, I saw that his eyes had taken on a fierce orange color, like the heart of a fire.
“This isn’t something being done by the Djinn,” he said. “Not mine, and not Ashan’s. Whether I personally believe in it or not is beside the point. If an enemy is sending these things to you, personally, it’s someone human. Someone who wishes you harm.”
No kidding. I remembered the angry phone call. “Maybe it’s a Demon,” I said. “They seem to like to drop in for regular visits.”
“Not funny, Jo.”
“Yeah, not from this side, either. Do you think it is? A Demon?”
He seemed to consider it seriously. “Demons aren’t so . . . strategic in their approach. Their goals are simple and straightforward—consume, kill, escape. Whatever this is, there’s no sense to what you described before. The dead creature—”
“Djinn, David. He was Djinn. We’re sure.”
He let that pass, but I could tell he was far from convinced. “And the black thing inside him. Who would do such a thing? Why?”
“Maybe,” I said slowly, “it was a test.”
“A test of what?”
“Of the Djinn,” I said. “A test that you failed.”
He took his gaze away from the road, which was eerie and alarming, though I knew he didn’t need to be staring straight ahead to drive. “Failed how?”
“Failed to sense the danger. Look, that was a Djinn we found—”
“It wasn’t.”
“Argument’s sake, if it was, why can’t you admit it? It’s as if you just can’t bring yourself to—”
“There’s nothing to admit!” he said, and I heard the unmistakable vibration of anger underneath the words. “I would know if a Djinn had died!”
“Except you don’t, and one did,” I said, and closed my eyes. “So what does that mean?”
“It means—” David took in a deep breath, and I could see him struggle to get his temper under control. “It doesn’t mean anything. Because all this is an illusion, Jo. Just an illusion. There’s no dead Djinn; there’s no such thing as your antimatter.”
Whoa. The blind spot the Djinn had was big enough to swallow the sun, and it was starting to really scare me. And there didn’t seem to be any point at all to trying to debate it, because he simply wasn’t going to listen.
I turned face forward as he steered the Mustang through traffic at speeds that would have made NASCAR drivers weep and flinch. “Glad we got that all straightened out.”
Sarcasm was wasted on him, right at the moment. He sent me a heartbreaking smile of relief, and I realized he actually thought we had straightened it out.
Oh dear God.
We finished the drive in silence. Once the traffic cleared, David pulled off the road at a beachfront area, one loaded up with pleasure-seeking, bikini-wearing sunbathers, all one tequila short of a Girls Gone Wild video. He turned off the engine, and we sat for a while watching the waves crash and roll, and the tanners sizzle and flirt.
“I need my cell phone,” I said. David . . . flickered. Like a bad signal, or a hologram. And then he reached in his coat pocket and handed over my cell phone, which I knew perfectly well I’d left back on the table in the apartment. “Hey. Don’t do that, okay?”
He looked puzzled. “Don’t do what?”
“Don’t go back there. Promise me.”
“Why?”
I swear, when I closed my eyes, I saw red. I counted to ten, deliberately, and tried to pry my fingernails out of my palms. “Because even if you don’t believe it’s there, that stuff is toxic to me, and it could be fatal to you. All right?”
He shook his head. “There’s no danger. If there was, I’d know.”
Which was just crazy. But he earnestly seemed to think he was telling me the truth.
I took the cell phone and called Lewis. “Where are you?”
“Just got here,” he said. I heard his breath huffing; he and what sounded like an elephant herd of people were jogging up the stairs. “Okay, I see it. Box in front of the door.”
“That’s it,” I said. “Be careful.”
“I’m not going anywhere near it, trust me. We’re using a bomb robot.”
“We’ve got bomb robots now? Cool.”
“It’s on loan from Homeland Security,” Lewis said. “They’re not going to like it if I get it blown up, though. I’ll call you back.”
Homeland Security was loaning us gear? Wow. When had we actually come up in the world like that? Apparently, while I’d been unconscious in a hospital bed for something or other, or on the run. I wasn’t sure if I liked it. Part of the reason the Wardens had existed for so long in secrecy had been the low profile. The more we “cooperated” with other governmental agencies, the more likely it was that we’d get attention, and any attention was bad.
I remembered the reporters, and shivered. They had a job to do, and although they’d grant me some sick time, they’d be back.
“Let’s change the subject,” David said. “The wedding. Where do you want to have it? At the chapel?”
There was only one chapel for us—Imara’s home, the Chapel of the Holy Cross. I nodded slowly. “But we’d have to have it in secret,” I said. “After hours. They don’t do official weddings there.”
“I could work it out,” he said. I was sure that was true, actually. “It won’t hold too many.”
“Small ceremony,” I said. “Big reception. It works.”
He nodded, staring straight ahead into the rolling surf, the eternal sky. “Are you all right?”
“Me? Sure.” I dredged up a laugh. “Why wouldn’t I be? Just because some crazy is sending me antimatter through the mail . . .”
“We changed the subject,” he reminded me gently. “If you’re worried about the wedding, you can still change your mind.”
I draped an elbow over my seat and curled around to face him, resting my chin on my forearm. “I really don’t think I can,” I said. “And I really don’t think I want to.” I felt a cold breath of . . . something. “Unless . . . you’re having doubts about us—”
“No,” David said immediately. “I’m just concerned for you. You seem . . . unreasonably upset. I just can’t understand how you can be so convinced and upset about something that has no evidence.”
Well, that was rich. He thought I was crazy. “David,” I said, “we’re not going to convince each other on this stuff. Are we?”
He shook his head ruefully.