wouldn't she feel vindicated? She now officially had a scoop.
''How much did they get?'' I asked.
''Oh, everything. Tornadoes forming out of nowhere. Cars bursting into flame and exploding.
Trees getting thrown. Buildings disintegrating.'' Lewis's shoulders twitched, then straightened.
''The FBI wants me to give a statement. Something along the lines of, we're a secret government
agency; we'd tell you but we'd have to kill you, blah blah. They'd like me to tie it to terrorists.''
I stared at him. ''And what are you going to do?''
He shrugged. ''Don't know yet.''
''You really think this is a good time to lie?''
''Well, I don't think it's exactly a good time to tell the truth.'' He glanced at David, whose eyes
seemed to be fading back to a more normal color. ''I'll leave the Djinn out of it, if you'd like.''
''That's kind of you, but I think we'd better tell everything if we tell anything,'' David said.
''Let's talk to Kevin. We don't have a lot of time.''
Kevin was sitting with his least favorite people. Well, that probably wasn't fair; he didn't like
anybody, so most people were his least favorite people, but he reserved a special kind of dislike
for the Ma'at. I wasn't really sure why, except that in general, the leadership of the Ma'at was
pretty unlikable.
Two of them were flanking him: Charles Spenser Ashworth II and Myron Lazlo. Talk about the
Old Boy Network . . . they weren't just in it, they'd laid the original cable. Lazlo had dressed
down for his public appearance; he normally liked subtle, tailored suits that reeked old money,
but he'd deigned to wear what I supposed was his ''field outfit''-khaki slacks, a cotton shirt
open at the neck, and a sport coat that undoubtedly cost nearly as much as the sports car he'd
probably arrived in.
Even so, Charles Ashworth's outfit made Lazlo look cheap.
Both of them were older than the pharaohs, and twice as stern, both in looks and in attitude.
Yeah, I liked them just as much as Kevin did.
I thought it was just about the first time I'd ever seen actual relief on the kid's face as he spotted
me.
''About time,'' he said. ''Who put me in fucking detention with the Mummy Twins?''
I had to admit, that made me smile. The Ma'at had taken a lot of their iconography for their
organization from the Egyptians, and it was no accident they'd made their headquarters at the
Luxor in Las Vegas. I suppose they could have made a case for Memphis as well, but where else
do you get a real live pyramid for a clubhouse?
''I did,'' Lewis said. ''Thanks, gentlemen.''
The gentlemen in question glared and, in Lazlo's case, gave him a well-I-never patrician huff.
''We are not your staff,'' Ashworth snapped. ''Do you have any idea what kind of imbalance
this little fracas has caused? Oh, of course you do. You're supposed to be preventing this kind of
thing, you know. Protecting people, not putting them in danger. Isn't that the Warden credo?''
He said Warden as if it were an epithet, which it practically was, for the Ma'at. They looked on
themselves as the accountants of the aetheric; they were concerned about balance, always
balance. Important, yes, but even supernatural double-entry bookkeeping was still bookkeeping,
and I couldn't work up much enthusiasm for their way of doing things.
''The credo of every one of us is to stop Bad Bob Biringanine from screwing things up any
worse than he already has,'' Lewis said. ''I'll expect your support.''
He sent them on their way with a jerk of his head. He was probably the only person in the world
they'd have taken that kind of treatment from, another mystery of Lewis Levander Orwell. He
had an impressive presence, but not that impressive-generally. And yet we all jumped when he
snapped his fingers.
Kevin stayed where he was, slouched in the plastic chair, as the two older men vacated. I settled
in on one side, Lewis on the other. David paced. It was what David did, at times like these. He
looked preoccupied, and I knew that he was tracking Rahel, trying to find out everything about
what the Sentinels were doing.
''You saw Paul, right?'' Kevin asked. He kept his head down, and addressed the question toward
the tops of his dirty Nikes. ''Bastard sold us out.''
''I know,'' I said. My whole heart hurt, and I hadn't allowed myself to really feel it yet, the
depth of Paul's betrayal. Things he'd said came back to me-his refusal to disagree with the
Sentinels, his reluctance about my relationship with David, and the wedding. For Paul, it had
been a matter of us versus them. He had never really understood, deep down, that Djinn and the
Wardens were the same. Different points on the same scale.
Sometimes I despaired for the human race.
''I think they bought the cover at first,'' Kevin was saying. ''They had us in a room for almost a
day, talking to us. All about how the Djinn had always been dangerous, and we'd been stupid to
ever open ourselves up to them.'' His bitter eyes followed David. ''Can't say I ever really
disagreed with that. Made a lot of sense to me.''
''That's why you were perfect,'' Lewis said. ''How'd Rahel do?''
''Fine. If I hadn't known she wasn't human, I'd never have figured it out. She was-'' Kevin's
throat worked nervously, his prominent Adam's apple bobbing. ''She was really good at being
Cherise.'' And I couldn't imagine Kevin had been able to really play along too well, but that
might have been okay. After all, he was socially awkward at the best of times.
''When did Paul show up?'' I asked.
''About an hour ago,'' Kevin said. ''That was when they cut us off. Tried to make it seem like
they were just testing us, but Rahel knew Paul was in the building, she told me. She knew he'd
sell us out.''
''Didn't she try to get the two of you out?''
''Yeah.'' Kevin's voice faltered. ''I made her stop.''
Silence. I looked at Kevin's hands. They were tightly bound up together, trembling.
''Why?'' Lewis asked the question I wanted to, in a voice far more gentle than I could have.
''What happened?''
''There was this girl. I didn't know-she might have been one of them, I don't know. But they
said-they said they were going to kill her if we tried to leave. I had to-'' Kevin squeezed his
eyes shut. ''Christ. I should have just let Rahel get out of here.''
''Trust me, if Rahel hadn't thought it was important to stay, you'd have been yanked out whether
you wanted it or not.'' Lewis glanced at David, who was still pacing, but listening to every word.
''Then what happened?''
''They had this stuff. Black stuff. I guess it was like-like the stuff you found.'' Antimatter. I
nodded. ''They tied Rahel up with it, and she couldn't move. I know she tried to get away, but
she couldn't; she was able to make enough noise that I could run. I was looking for a way out
when you showed up.'' He nodded at me. ''I should have-''
Kevin stopped. I knew that feeling, all too well. I wanted to help him, but I knew it was
something that he had to deal with himself. No platitude was going to help, no matter how
sincere.
''Kevin.'' I took one of his hands and drew it out of its tight ball; it stayed tense in mine,
trembling, ready to yank away at a second's notice. ''Before Paul showed up, they may have told
you some things. Something that could help us.''
He was already shaking his head. ''I'd have said if they spilled their guts, okay? But they didn't.
They just talked about what a bitch you were, and how you were willing to fuck over the