“Oh no,” he said, very earnestly. “I was thinking of the thing with my tongue, actually.”
“What thing with your tongue?”
His smile deepened, and sparks flew in the darkness of his eyes. “You sure you really want me to demonstrate? Right here?”
I was pretty sure that if he did, there’d be a lot of women asking to order what I was having. I took a deep, slow, determined breath, and said, “Play nice, David.”
“I’m always nice.”
Oh, I didn’t think so. That was part of his dark, chocolate-rich charm, and as I’d already noted to him . . . I really couldn’t resist chocolate.
He ate the rest of the fruit, nibbling on the moist bites with such suggestiveness that I think every waitress in the diner made sure to come by and ask if there was anything at all she could do for him. He never noticed. He was having too much fun making me squirm.
But when I glanced down involuntarily at my watch, he sighed, ate the last bite of cantaloupe, and nodded. “Right,” he said. “Let’s get going.”
“As soon as this is over—”
“Don’t think I won’t hold you to it.”
Chapter Six
When we came out of the diner, there was a van pulled up behind the car, neatly blocking us in. I felt my nerves tighten up and shiver, but I silently told them to stand down; I’d already made a fool of myself over the semitruck, and this would turn out to be just another idiot picking up, dropping off, or parking badly. In fact, it even looked like a delivery van— battered, a bit weather-faded.
The sunlight caught a glitter on the door, and I paused, blinked, and tried to convince myself it was nothing but random metallic paint flecks. Tried hard, but got nothing. I gave it up and took a quick look in Oversight.
The van took on the dimensions and solidarity of one of those military Humvees, wickedly armored and decorated with spikes. Tough and badass—that was its essential character, interpreted for me visually by whatever processing filter the Wardens had that others didn’t. The aetheric showed truth, but it was a subtle and strange kind of truth.
One thing was unequivocal about the truck, though: On the door panel blazed the stylized sun emblem of the Wardens.
I opened my mouth to warn David, but he already knew, of course. He stopped, studying without expressionthe van and whatever occupants it held. All the playfulness was gone, and he reminded me of a hunting leopard, lean and powerful. His eyes had gone a color that should have been a warning, and probably would have been to anybody with sense.
Unfortunately, the Warden who got out of the van was Lee Antonelli, and he had less sense than a pet rock. He was a big guy, and a gifted Fire Warden, but when it came to subtleties, he was likely to crush them under his big steel-toed boots and never notice. How he’d survived the Warden/Djinn conflicts was anybody’s guess, but the fact that he hadn’t had a Djinn issued to him in the first place was enough to keep him off the initial hit list, and I strongly suspected he’d spent most of the conflict hiding out.
I said Lee was big. Not brave. Hence, of course, the unreasonably tough shell of attitude on his van, not on his person.
He leaned against the passenger side of the van and crossed his arms; they were impressively muscled, and he’d invested a small fortune in body art. It should have made him look intimidating. Instead, I thought it made him look like someone doing hard-ass by the numbers, especially when coupled with the shaved head. “Warden,” Lee said to me. He didn’t so much as glance at David. I wondered why, and then I realized that Lee couldn’t see him. David had made himself invisible, although he was still there to my eyes.
“Warden,” I replied to Antonelli coolly, “who taught you how to park? I’d say Sears, but really, they do a much better job. Maybe you were absent the day they explained what those parallel lines in the lot are for—”
“Shut up, Baldwin. I’m supposed to pick you up and escort you in,” he said. “Since whatever you’ve got going on is so damn important, I guess I’m riding shotgun.”
This was weird, and it wasn’t normal. Lewis knew I was coming; he knew David was traveling with me. Why send Antonelli, of all people, whom he knew I couldn’t stand? Lewis might work in mysterious ways, but that was downright impenetrable. I bought time to think by digging a pair of big sunglasses out of my purse and putting them on. There. Without a clear view of my eyes, Antonelli was going to have a tougher time figuring out what I’d do. “Shotgun,” I repeated, “so you’re the bodyguard. Flattering.”
Antonelli ran one hand over his bullet-shaped shaved head and gave me a grim-looking smile. “Most ladies would say so.”
“Save the smarm, I’m not in the mood.”
He shrugged. Flirting was reflexive for him; he didn’t fancy me, except in the abstract way that somebody like Antonelli fancied anyone with internal sex organs. If I stood still long enough, he’d gladly take a turn, but other than that, I was furniture. “Playtime’s over, then. Let’s move. In the van.”
I stayed right where I was, next to the door of the Mustang. “I’m driving my own car.” Technically, David was driving, but Antonelli might not know that. In fact, he didn’t look nearly worried enough, so I doubted he had any idea there was an angry Djinn standing a couple of feet away, eyes lit up like Halloween lanterns.
“Look, I don’t know the plan; I’m just following orders. Lewis says take the van; we take the van,” Antonelli said. “I don’t ask no questions; neither do you. Come on, sister, let’s go. I’ve got things to do.”
There was a ring of sweat around the high neck of his muscle shirt, and dark streaks under the arms. Unless Antonelli had come straight from the gym, something was up. He was nervous.
“We can sort that out,” I said, and pulled my cell phone from my pocket. “Let me just call—”
The circuitry inside the phone fried, boiled into vapor in an instant. I dropped the red-hot case and blew on my blistered fingers. Antonelli hadn’t moved, but something about him had changed. I could almost smell it: the burned-metal bite of desperation, mingled with a coppery odor of fear.
“Get in the fucking van,” he said. “I’m not playing, bitch. Don’t make this a showdown; there are too many people around. Kids. I don’t want to do that, and neither do you. Let’s keep this calm.”
Oh God, he was serious. I could tell it from the sweat on his skin, the dark shadows in his eyes. He was a whole lot more scared of someone else than he was of me.
That needed to change, right now.
I dropped my purse to the ground, glad I’d donned the sunglasses. I made sure my feet were firmly planted, shoulder-width apart, the right slightly forward to give me a more stable base.
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “I don’t want to do this. You don’t want to do this. But somehow, I think it’s going to happen anyway, because I can’t get in that van, Lee. Whatever’s going on, I can’t take the chance. Let’s think this through before we both start something that will end badly.”
David had not moved. Hadn’t spoken. Still, I was feeling the vibration of menace from him like the subsonic pulses from a volcano about to blow; this was going to go south, very badly, very fast.
“Who is it?” I asked. “Lee, tell me who’s making you do this. It’s not Lewis. It’s not the Wardens. Somebody’s forcing you to take me out of circulation. Come on, man, we don’t have to make this a throw down. We can talk about it, work it out.” While I talked, I used my Earth powers, subtly sending calming vibrations to him, lulling him into a state in which he might be more inclined to listen. To trust.
Antonelli shook himself, as if he were throwing off a wrestling hold, and I knew my brief second of opportunity was gone. “Save it,” he snapped. “I’m not some wet-behind-the-ears trainee. You can’t con me.”
And then Lee Antonelli, one of the best natural Fire Wardens I had ever seen, declared war.