The black liquid shadow vanished with a pop. Gone. I left Kevin and Cherise tumbled up together and went to look inside the mausoleum. Just a plain old jumbo-sized family crypt, with marble benches and plaques on the wall. Sunlight filtered in graceful Tiffany patterns through the far rose window, bathing the room in brilliant, soothing color.
“David?”
My voice echoed on the cold stone. There was no answer.
As I turned around I ran into him. He was standing right behind me. I smacked a fist into his chest, but not too hard. “Don’t do that!” I yelped, and he smiled. In the sun, he looked chillingly beautiful. I’d kind of gotten used to his slightly rough human looks. This was all that, only distilled into perfection.
I wondered how he saw me now, with his Djinn sight. Not the Warden I’d been. No power. No real value in the world. It hit me with a jolt that David was seeing me as just any other human, and for a moment I felt true, horrified panic and loss. He’d loved me for what I was. Did he love me for what I was now?
He touched me gently under the chin and bent to kiss me. It was a thoroughly sexual kiss, all heat and heart, and the warmth spread through my body like liquid, gathering somewhere around my womb. It felt . . . wonderful. He didn’t break the kiss until we both heard the mumbling from Cherise break into actual words.
“. . . hot, have to get out . . .” She sat up suddenly enough to dump Kevin’s head off her lap, and he groaned and rolled over, facedown. “We have to get out—oh. Wow. Did I get us out of there? If I did, I’m awesome and oh God my jaw hurts! Ow, what the hell!” Cherise had a bruise forming there where I’d clocked her—red right now, but it’d be a spectacular sunset before it was done, I’d bet. “Little help?”
I smiled at David, stepped back, and went to offer her a hand.
She hauled herself up, looked down at her clothes, and groaned. “I look like a bag lady who got dressed out of an incinerator after it was burning. How come you look so good? And I stink like a mule, too. Ugh. Did we get anything out of that at all? Because if we didn’t, I’m totes billing the Wardens for . . .”
I glanced over at David. He had his arms folded, watching us quietly. Waiting for Cherise’s monologue to end, I presumed. Which, eventually, it did, and she ended up staring at him as her voice trailed off.
“Oh,” she said. “Is he back? All magic-y again?”
“Yes,” he said, without an ounce of amusement. “I’m back.”
She cocked an eyebrow, almost back to the old, sunny Cherise. “Nice paint job. Very plush.” She stopped short of asking for a ride, which was, considering it was Cherise, tactful restraint. “So you got us out.”
“With your help,” David said, very generously. “Yours, and Kevin’s.”
Kevin, for answer, rolled over on his back, stared up at the sun, and groaned again. “I hurt all over,” he said. “Did I lose at mixed martial arts? Maybe with a ninja?”
“Have you ever even tried mixed martial arts?” Cherise asked, and held out a hand to him to pull him to a sitting position, then to his feet. “Because you should. Those guys are smoking hot. In a bad-guy sort of way.”
Cherise wasn’t this shallow, but she could give a really good impersonation of it when she wanted. Right now, she was (literally) whistling past this graveyard, which, no matter how picturesque and perfect, was a less than ideal place for us to enjoy our continued survival.
Kevin knew all that, which surprised me. He folded Cher in an embrace, bent and whispered something in her ear, and then took her hand. They started walking down the gravel path toward the road.
At the gates of the graveyard, I saw the gleaming shape of the Boss pull up, idling with an intimidating growl. Our anonymous Djinn chauffeur was behind the wheel. I’d just started wondering where he’d gotten himself off to, but I supposed Whitney had pulled him well out of danger. She wasn’t the type to sacrifice important assets unless it was absolutely necessary. I think she trademarked the phrase You’re on your own.
That chain of thought linked, fast as the speed of light, back to David, and I suddenly rounded on him, fists clenched. “Wait!” I said. “Why are you still you?”
The only thing, as far as I knew, that had protected David from becoming subject to the whims and will of the Earth had been the fact that his powers had been taken from him. Once restored, he should have been dragged into the collective hive mind with the rest of the Djinn.
I hadn’t surprised him with my question. He sighed and stopped walking before he could run into me, but he didn’t answer. Not at first. Finally, he looked up at the smoke-gray, unnaturally smooth sky. “She can’t reach me,” he said. “Not here. The Fire Oracle has an excellent shield up. It may not last, but it’s kept him safe this far. When I leave here, I won’t have that protection.”
“You knew this could happen,” I said. “You knew, and you did it anyway.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” he said. “I still don’t. My options are very limited, Jo. I wish it weren’t the case, but it is, and we have to accept that.”
“What options?”
“I could stay here with the Oracle. If I go outside the borders of Seacasket he can’t help me anymore.” David shook his head. “Staying here isn’t really an option. I can’t do much here to help you, and I can’t protect you.”
“You can protect yourself.”
“Not really my focus.”
“There’s nothing wrong with—”
“Second,” he interrupted, “I could leave with you and try to resist the Mother’s call. It’s possible I could, for a while; I have before. But that was when she was only partially aware. You heard what the Oracle said: she’s waking up. I won’t be able to stay apart from her for long. She’ll be much, much stronger.”
I swallowed, throat tight, and waited for the other shoe to drop. Presuming there were three shoes.
“Last, I can go directly from here to the aetheric, to Jonathan’s house. It’s kept Whitney safe and uncompromised. It’ll do the same for me. I can do you some good there, as long as the avatar stays with you.”
“But—” It was hard to get the words out. “But you won’t be with me.”
“Staying with you was never a choice,” he said. “That’s what I meant. My options are limited, and all of them take me away from you. If I’d stayed human, I’d have died in the cavern. If I stay with you, I’ll turn against you. If I leave, I won’t be able to be with you, to—” Djinn or not, David was distraught. He was just handling it much better than I was. “But I’ll always do what I can. Always. It may not be enough, Jo. I may fail you.”
He sounded so unhappy about that, and it broke my heart. “You’ve never failed me,” I said. “Never. And you never will, because this isn’t a pass/fail kind of score, David. I love you. I want you to be safe. That’s all.”
I meant it, though my knees had started trembling at the thought of leaving this place without his presence at my side. It wasn’t even so much the power he could bring to bear on our behalf—it was the sheer comfort of him. I needed him.
And I was going to have to do this without him, or lose everything. David on the opposite side of this was a death warrant for all of us. He was just too powerful.
I smiled. It actually felt warm, and real, and confident, even if I truly was scared to death deep down. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “We’ll be fine. Walk me to the car before you go, okay?”
He took my hand, and for a moment we just stood together, drinking in each other’s warmth, the reality of our bodies standing in the same space, the same time.