He didn't say anything. I could tell he'd dropped the veil concealing him from Antonelli,
because Antonelli's mouth stretched wide, and he tried to croak out something that was probably
a plea. His lips had gone the color of iron, and his skin looked dead and pale and rubbery.
He was about to lose consciousness, so I let him have a torturous, cruel gasp of air, loaded with
O2. He gagged and pitched forward, openly weeping; he wasn't coming after me, that much was
certain. He just wanted to live to get away.
But I didn't want him to get away. I let him have just enough oxygen to survive, not enough to
get his arms and legs in any kind of working order. Then I picked up my purse and walked over
to him, crouched down to where he was sitting against the wheel of the van, and pulled down my
sunglasses to look into his eyes.
''What were you going to do to me, Lee?'' I asked him. ''Don't lie. It'll only make me angry,
and you won't like what happens when I lose my temper.''
I let him have more oxygen, just enough. I'd scared him, all right. I'd terrified him almost more
than was strategically necessary, and I knew-again, in a detached, academic sort of way-that
it might bother me later. Maybe it would bother me a lot.
Or-and this was a lot more worrisome-maybe it wouldn't bother me at all.
It took Lee six breaths before he was able to decide to choke out, ''Going to kill you.''
''Meaning, you're still going to kill me, or you were supposed to kill me?''
''Supposed to.'' His face contorted with effort, and he bared his teeth. ''Going to.''
I'd known that was a possibility, but somehow, it was very different hearing it. I glanced up at
David. He was standing over us, quiet, but his expression . . . Antonelli was lucky not to be
relying on his mercy. I might have developed a nasty streak, but I was the kinder choice between
the two options.
''I guess I should give up on the friendship bracelets, '' I said. ''Good, I suck at crafts. So, I'm
guessing all this wasn't your own brilliant idea. You haven't had an original one since you set
your cat on fire in the second grade. Who sent you? Think hard, Lee. We're going into the final
lightning round. If I don't believe you, the next breath you take could be water. Or cyanide. I just
love chemistry.''
He didn't want to talk, but self-preservation is a damn fine motivator. No matter how badass his
bosses might be, they weren't here. I was. Like anyone else, Antonelli wanted his next breath to
be sweet and life-giving, not foul and toxic. He knew better than to question whether or not I
could do it.
''Sentinels,'' he croaked. ''Want you dead. Paying cash.''
''Hmmm. How much?'' He looked at me as if I were totally crazy. I wasn't so sure he was
wrong. ''I'd like to know how much it was worth, stabbing me in the back.''
''Five million.''
I sat back, surprised. ''Five million dollars?''
''I'd kill you for free,'' Antonelli muttered. ''Bitch.''
''Is that any way to talk to the person holding your oxygen tank?'' I asked, and cut off the flow
into his lungs. He choked and thrashed. ''Oh, okay. I see your point. Five million is a lot of
temptation. But I don't think it was the money. You might like me to think it was, but I think
whoever sent you scared the crap out of you.'' I let him have an entire ten breaths of sweet,
sweet air. He shook his head. ''Come on, Lee. Please. I don't want to hurt you anymore. Just tell
me who sent-''
I had no warning. Neither did Antonelli.
Some tremendous force slammed into me, throwing me facedown to the gravel path. I rolled,
tossed my hair out of my face, and saw that David had also been driven back from Antonelli.
That was . . . almost impossible. Unless he'd been taken by surprise, by someone or something
of nearly equal strength, it was very hard to knock a Djinn for a loop. For a fatal second, David
was distracted from Antonelli by a perceived threat against me, while I was busy regrouping and
trying to figure out what the hell had happened.
Antonelli didn't hit us while we were vulnerable; he wouldn't have had either the concentration
or the energy. No, someone else struck Antonelli. I'd gone up into Oversight, struggling to catch
a glimpse of what was going on, and saw a huge red, spectral hand reach through the aetheric
and punch claws deep into Antonelli's chest. I felt the black wave of despair and fury like a
psychic blast. In the real world, Antonelli's eyes locked with mine.
And then the spectral hand crushed his heart like a grape.
Murder, cold and sudden and utterly merciless.
Lee Antonelli swayed on his knees, and as long as I live I'll see his face, see that terrible, sad,
confused expression and those lovely brown eyes begging me to explain why I'd let this happen.
You could say that he deserved it; he'd been willing to kill me.
But you'd be wrong. Nobody deserved that.
David whirled, turning into a blur of light, and was gone. I caught Antonelli as his corpse pitched
forward. Blood burst out of his mouth and nose, and I realized it hadn't been only his heart the
hand had gone after; it had been his lungs, too, and probably any other organ of note. His
murderer had systematically pulped him from the inside, like a kid squashing tomatoes in a bowl.
I cursed breathlessly, well aware it was too late. David had darted off in pursuit, but I could tell
there was little to no trace on the aetheric of who'd delivered the death blow. Someone horribly
powerful, though. Someone not afraid to break every rule.
I'd forgotten to worry about conservation of energy, in those few seconds, and as I eased Lee to
the pavement, the imbalance went critical. First, the windows on the van blew out in a shrapnel-
spray of glass. One second later, the windows in my car followed. Then the diner's plate glass
windows. The concussive effect rippled out, losing strength until it was only cracking glass and
denting metal, and then it faded away.
I didn't care about that. Someone had murdered a Warden right in front of me, and I hadn't been
able to do a damn thing to stop it.
Some hero I was.
I heard a confused babble, and then the patrons and staff of the diner boiled out into the parking
lot, yelling questions, momentarily more upset about their auto damage than anything else.
Someone caught sight of me on my knees, with Lee's body cradled in my arms, and the tenor of
the babble changed and grew louder as people converged around me in a forest of heads and
shadows.
''What happened?'' one of them asked. ''Is he okay?''
''No,'' I said. I sounded calm. That was odd. ''I think he had a heart attack.'' Stupid thing to
say; there was blood on his shirt, on me, still dripping from his gaping mouth. ''Maybe a
hemorrhage.''
''That's sad; he's so young,'' someone else murmured. I heard a cell phone being dialed, and a
voice asking for an ambulance. After a pause, they also asked for the police. Well, I couldn't
blame them. Big dude dead on the ground, with a burn mark in his shirt and blood all over his
face.
And me, with blood on my hands.
I couldn't explain, so I didn't try. I just sat next to Lee's body, and by the time I realized that I
was uncontrollably trembling, it was too late to claim I was too badass to care about what had
just happened.
I was crying by the time the sirens approached.
I should have realized that where the police went, the scavengers would follow. In this case, it