Brennan snorted. “Yes, Bre’r Rabbit, I’m going to walk you into the briar patch,” he said. “Threatening Earth Wardens with guns. That’s a winning strategy.” He sounded genuinely amused, but in the next snap of a second, that was utterly gone. “Hand it over, or I’ll hand you over to gravity, and I assure you, she isn’t as kind as I am.”
I smiled thinly. “No.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Excuse me, I think I heard you say no. I must have been wrong about that because—” Suddenly, the wind’s shove turned into a persistent, strong push that, despite my efforts to stabilize, moved both Luis and me back over the roof toward the edge; not quite over, but the distance was halved before he finished his sentence. “Because that would really be very sad. I’d have a moment.”
“So would I,” Isabel said. I hadn’t seen her get out of the van, but she was now standing on the other side and facing Brennan from that angle. “And you wouldn’t like that, Mr. Brennan.”
“Oh, it’s just Brennan,” he said. “You’re a cutie, aren’t you? Don’t.” Once again, his voice went from warm and oddly gentle to utterly cold in the whiplash space of an instant. “If you think you’re going to whip up a little fiery surprise for me, I wouldn’t. See Miss Walinsky, there?” He nodded to a slight young woman in a violently purple hoodie, with blue streaks in her hair and a ring through her nose. “Miss Walinsky makes your normal firestarters look like wet rags. I don’t think either one of you wants to be getting into it. Portland already burned. We’re trying to keep that kind of behavior to a minimum here, so put a cork in it. So to speak.”
He returned his attention to me and held out his hand again. He didn’t need to speak.
And neither did I. I was an arm’s length from the edge, and now I took a giant step toward it, and held the bottle out, dangling it carelessly from two fingers over the drop. “I think we have room for negotiation,” I said. “Don’t we, Brennan? And the next time you threaten that child, I’ll take it out of you in flesh.”
His face went still and his eyes went empty, and for a second I couldn’t tell what he was doing or thinking. Then it was as if he flipped a switch, and he was all smiles. The hand lowered back to his side. “That would be interesting,” he said. “But let’s put a pin in that for now, shall we? Why don’t we get in out of the cold and have a nice, comfortable discussion? Always nice to see more Wardens. We damn well need the help. Okay, everybody stand down. Down. We’re all friends here.”
I sincerely doubted that, but he made gestures, and the armed military were the first to head back through the roof door. Then one by one the other Wardens followed. Miss Walinsky, I noticed, went next to last, and Brennan slowly backed up toward the exit while still carefully watching us. The pressure of wind against my body faltered, and stopped; I hadn’t even realized how much there had been until he released it. For a Weather Warden, he had an impressive amount of power and control.
“Come on down,” he said. “We’ve got coffee. And I promise, no more strong-arm tactics.”
This wasn’t because he had a moral aversion to them, I thought; it was because he was smart, and flexible, and he knew they wouldn’t work. Not with me.
I exchanged a look with my partner, and Luis shrugged, then winced from the twinges in his strained muscles. “Unless we want to live up here, no point in hanging around,” he said. “You realize he’s going to try to commandeer that bottle for the cause, right?”
“Of course,” I said. “I’d do the same in his place. But it’s not going to happen. The Wardens don’t do well with Djinn. They never have. And I’m not betraying Rashid to their tender mercies.”
“Well, there’s one good thing,” Luis said, and put his arm around Isabel as she came to join us. The van shifted on its flat tires, groaning, as Esmeralda slithered her way out as well. “We’re not on our own anymore. And there’s coffee. I don’t know about you, but I could use some of that.”
I agreed about the coffee, at least.
In fact, the coffee was excellent, but as Luis murmured to me, it was Seattle; hardly extraordinary, given their obsession with caffeinated drinks, that they knew how to properly make it. I sipped a cup and let the warmth soak into my abused body; I was Warden enough to ensure that there were no subtle chemicals included to, say, put me to sleep in order to liberate Rashid’s bottle. And Brennan, at least, wasn’t stupid enough to try that.
Instead, he was trying persuasion. And logic.
“Look, we’re happy you’re here,” he said as we took seats in what had once been some sort of corporate conference room; the chairs were opulent leather, the table large enough to seat thirty in comfort, and the lights were controlled from a remote that he operated with apparent expertise. On the far wall, a flat-screen television was tuned to a twenty-four-hour news channel. Both the chaotic footage and the scrawling text below reported mounting death tolls from the ongoing disasters around the country and the world. “As you can see, we need all the Warden power we can get.”
I remembered the still, breathless morning, and my conviction that it was the last peace the human race would know.
It was a pity I’d been right.
Esmeralda had declined to come with us; she’d ignored the shocked looks of the Wardens, and the outright white-knuckled fear of the military, and slithered into an office. She ordered food, a lot of it, and water, and slammed the door. I wasn’t expecting her to join the conversation anytime soon.
Isabel was with us, and the look she gave Brennan was unsettling. She didn’t like him much, and I supposed that was Brennan’s own fault, really—nevertheless, it was a pity. We needed to work together, and his actions had made that more difficult.
“Yeah, we were heading to join up with you,” Luis said. “I got a call from Warden HQ. They wanted to divert us to the mine problem.”
“Ah,” Brennan said. He sounded more subdued than he had before. “They got split off from us heading out of Portland. Going into the tunnels was the only way they could get away, but once they were in, there was no getting out. Their Earth Warden was killed, and without him, they’re stuck. They’re alive, but they need help, and we need them.”
“So you won’t mind if we go on and do that, then.”
“Not at all, but before you do, let’s talk about—”
“We’re not talking about the bottle,” I interrupted. “Because it stays with me. There’s no point in discussing it.”
Brennan settled back in his chair, dark eyes fixed on me. “You want to explain to me exactly how you managed to get a Djinn in a bottle? Because that trick stopped working some time ago, as far as I was aware. Not that I’d test it out.”
I stared at him, expressionless, until I knew I’d made him uncomfortable (though he was better at most in hiding it), then said, “All you need do is wait for a Djinn to try to kill you, have a bottle ready, and be able to hold him off long enough to repeat the ritual three times. Of course, your chances are somewhat slim.”
Brennan shook his head. “Slim,” he repeated. “I don’t think that’s the word I’d choose. Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Yes,” I said. “Do.”
Luis, sensing the tension between the two of us—oh, and it was thick, for reasons even I did not completely understand—leaned forward, sipped his coffee, and said, “Okay, so, we need to make sure that the girls will be safe here with you while we’re gone.”
“And how do you propose I guarantee that, Mr. Rocha?” Brennan asked. “I can’t guarantee anything to anyone, as of yesterday, and you should know that better than anyone.”
Isabel was frowning now, and she looked at Luis with her arms folded. “I don’t want to stay here,” she said. “I can go with you.”
“No, you can’t, mija,” he said. “Where we’re going is very dangerous, and I want you here, where you can do the most good, okay? The Wardens need your strength. We won’t be long, I promise.”
Her frown stayed, but she didn’t say anything more. Giving in so easily wasn’t like Isabel, and I wondered what she was plotting under the cover of that silence. Nothing I’d like, almost certainly.