Djinn . . . I wondered how much of the toxic stuff I had crawling through my cells right now.
Too much, almost certainly. The Earth Wardens had done their work, so I was probably going to
feel sick, but not drop dead.
Probably.
''Fantastic,'' I said sourly. ''Do you recognize him at all?''
David's head shake was just as certain, and just as regretful about it, as Venna's had been. I
could see how frustrated he was, how baffled by his inability to comprehend what was in front of
him, and it scared me, too. He was one of the most powerful entities on the face of the Earth. He
shouldn't have this kind of blind spot.
I was trying not to think about it as an Achilles' heel, but that was getting more difficult all the
time, especially when the whole thing ran through my head and the person imprisoned on that
wall and impaled by the black spear was David, not Ortega.
They wouldn't know him, I thought, with a sickening drop of my stomach. Venna, Rahel, all the
Djinn– they'd just stare at his body and not know who the hell they were looking at. They
wouldn't even remember him at all.
Of all the possible ways to destroy someone, that had to be the worst.
It reminded me, with a sudden snap, of how Ashan had tried to destroy me, not so long ago-on
the day that my daughter had died. He'd tried to strip away not just my life, but the memory of
my life. He'd been stopped midslaughter, which was why I was still around, but there was
something fundamentally similar about what Ashan had done, and what was happening now, to
the Djinn.
The Mother had intervened to stop him-but, I thought, that had mostly been because he'd done
it on the grounds of the chapel in Sedona, on what was, for them, holy ground. The same kind of
protection might not apply for David out here.
The answer was in the book. It had to be in the book.
''David-'' I chose my words very carefully, remembering Venna's extreme reaction. ''The
book, the one that we looked at earlier-''
He raised his eyes to meet mine, and I saw surprise in them. ''The Ancestor Scriptures.''
''You remember them.''
''Of course I remember them.''
''And what about where we left them?''
''In a vault,'' he said promptly. ''Locked up.''
''Where was the vault?''
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. For a second he looked baffled, then angry, then
blank. ''I don't know,'' he said. ''How can I not know?''
''David, what did the book say about Unmaking?''
His pupils expanded, black devouring bronze.
''Don't say that.'' His words had the ring of command, but I was no Djinn.
''You have to listen to me. I think that all this is connected to-''
He grabbed me by the arm. ''Don't say it. Don't.''
''David, stop it!'' I yanked free. He hadn't used Djinn strength on me, but plain old human
strength was enough to piss me off. I didn't like being grabbed, not in that way, and he knew it.
''It's connected to what Ashan did when he messed with our reality, to try to erase me from the
world. Bad Bob reappeared about the same time. This weapon, the thing they're using, it's a tool
of Unmaking; that's what they're calling it-''
His eyes flared black, like Venna's. ''Stop,'' he growled.
''It's killing you, and you can't even see it. You can't see those you lose. It's just destroying
you.''
He spun around and stalked away, fury in every sinuous movement. He knew, somewhere deep
down, but there was something in Djinn DNA that kept him from acknowledging any of it.
The secret was in that damned book, which I couldn't read without major consequences. I knew I
wouldn't be able to resist its pull.
Lewis was watching us from the back of the room, having completed his own blood donations;
he looked tired, but alert. ''Everything okay?'' he asked.
''Do you think Rahel is okay?'' I shot back, and saw the flinch. ''Sorry. I know you-care for
her.'' I wasn't exactly sure what that entailed, between Lewis and Rahel; I wouldn't have been
surprised if they'd been casual lovers. Rahel wasn't the type to fall in love, and Lewis . . . Lewis
already had, with the wrong person.
''He hasn't hurt her yet,'' David said. He had his back to us, but he was listening. ''They're
hiding their tracks, but the connection is still there. I can trace her as long as they hold her.''
Was that a good thing, or a bad thing? I thought about the trap Bad Bob had laid this time
around. He'd known-because of Paul, oh God, Paul, you fool-that Kevin and Rahel had been
planted to spy on him. Surely he was assuming that David could sense and track Rahel's
position, too.
Surely he would just lay another trap.
Depressing as that was, we'd won a kind of victory here. Yes, Ortega was dead, but so was Paul;
not only that, but the Sentinels had been forced to regroup and retreat. The current count was
twelve dead in total.
Problem was, all of them were Wardens. And it was impossible to tell which of them had been
Sentinels, except for anecdotal information about which side they'd been fighting for. I was sure
about Paul, Emily, and Janette. The rest . . .
Once again, we just didn't know who our enemies really were.
Lewis stood up and walked to where David was standing, facing the window. Facing Ortega's
desiccated body. ''We can't follow them,'' he said. ''They've got weapons that can destroy the
Djinn, and we don't know what they're planning. Let's talk to Kevin. Maybe he's got some
information we don't.''
That was coolly logical, something that neither David nor I seemed capable of being at the
moment. David nodded, and the three of us left the treatment area.
Or tried, anyway. An FBI agent got in our way. She was a tall woman, curved but in that I-work-
out kind of way. Feathered dark hair around a heart-shaped face. Cool, impartial green eyes.
''Sorry,'' she said. ''Nobody moves. We haven't finished our interrogations yet.''
David was likely to just walk over her, in the mood he was in, and that would at the very least
lead to a confrontation we didn't need. I looked over at Lewis, who sighed and dug something
out of the back pocket of his jeans. ''Right,'' he said. ''All-access pass.''
He held it up. I couldn't see what it said, but the woman's eyes widened, and she took a step
back. I got the impression she hadn't done that in a while.
''Yes sir,'' she said. ''Sorry. And they are-''
''With me,'' Lewis said. ''Thanks for your vigilance, but it's not necessary, Agent. We're the
good guys.''
She looked as if she sincerely doubted that, but she didn't say anything, just moved out of the
way with a be-my-guest motion. Then she went to tell her boss, a tall gray-haired man. Cover
your ass. It was the absolute code of any governmental agency, no matter how well-intentioned.
''This,'' Lewis said, ''is a cluster fuck.'' He was looking at the parking lot, which was littered
with burned-out, crushed vehicles, downed trees, fragments of glass and metal. The hotel, which
had luckily been scheduled for demolition anyway, was partially destroyed, whether by us or by
the Sentinels it was impossible to say. At a certain point, it really didn't much matter.
The news media was out in a huge, baying pack. I tried to count the number of satellite trucks,
but my head hurt. I was sure that a fair number of those photo and video lenses were being
pointed in our direction, though, and remembered the reporter from Fort Lauderdale. Man,