he'd left, David had told me that meant he'd be back. No time frame. I felt his absence like grief, although according to my watch, he'd only been gone for a couple of hours.
The dark part of me, the part still giggling maniacally over the approaching destruction, was glad he was gone. David could help me control the black tattoo - and of course it didn't want that.
Lewis shook his head, spraying rain in a thick silver spiral. "Haven't seen him!" he said. "Jo, we can't wait. He can reach you wherever you are, you know that. Get on the damn ship!" I looked past the flapping canvas toward the storm front again, where lightning was ripping the sky open with vicious glee. My enemy was out there beyond this storm, with at least one hostage, and a whole lot of raw power in a form that was both invisible and fatal to the Djinn.
Bad Bob had bragged that he could kill the planet if he wanted to.
I was afraid he was right.
I was afraid he'd already started.
This was not the way I'd planned to take a honeymoon cruise to Bermuda.
Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, a white-uniformed ship's officer with rows of gold braid on his sleeves came pounding down the gangway, avoiding departing passengers and arriving Wardens, to skid to a halt in front of Lewis. "Sir," he said, and nodded uncertainly to me on the off chance that I was equally important. "We have a problem."
Lewis dragged me into the cover of the gangway and pushed back the hood of his slicker.
"Of course we do," he said, resigned. "What now?"
"I'm very sorry. We're doing the best we can, but several of the first-class passengers have been... reluctant to leave their onboard possessions. Several of them have valuable items in the ship's safe, and the hold. They won't leave without them, and - "
"I don't give a goddamn about their stuff," Lewis interrupted tightly. "I've given you all morning to make this happen. Get them off the ship, right now, or they're sailing out with us and they can take their chances. Understand?"
The officer - I wasn't familiar enough with shipboard command structure to know what he was, but I guessed maybe Executive Officer - straightened his back to full Navy-style attention, clasped his hands behind his back, and gave Lewis a long, steady stare. "Sir, I recognize that this is a matter of urgency, but we cannot permit you to endanger innocent passengers. They must be offloaded before we can put to sea."
"If we're still in this harbor in thirty minutes, you'll be sailing this ship as a fucking submarine!" Lewis snapped. "They're already endangered. They get off the boat and run for their lives, or they come with us and we do whatever we can to protect them. Those are their choices, but we can't wait for them to call their lawyers to decide." He looked past the officer to Cherise. My best friend - endearingly human, not magically gifted at all -
gave us both a little half wave and kept checking off names. "Cherise! How many are we missing?"
"We're halfway in!" she shouted back. "Better tell the rest of your folks to get their beach thongs in gear!" She sounded incredibly cheerful. "Hey, I hope I get to be Cruise Director too, because this is going to be the best world-ending crisis ever !" Cherise was being only faintly ironic. That was the great thing about Cherise; she could find a silver lining in a coffin, six feet under, without a flashlight. She was possibly the only person I could count on who wasn't supernaturally gifted, unless good looks and a wicked sense of humor counted. Cherise was regular folks, and I loved that she could hold her own with the not-so-regular crowd I tended to attract.
Lewis skipped right over Cherise's attempt to lighten the mood. "Dammit, what's the holdup?"
"You're kidding, right?" Cherise pulled back her rain slicker hat, and her blond hair tumbled out like a flood of sunshine. She looked a little damp, but otherwise perfect, from her beach-approved tan to the hint of dark pink lipstick still kissing her lips. "Getting Wardens to do anything on cue is ridiculous. It's like trying to pull Shriners out of an open bar." Those who thought Cherise shallow - which, taking one quick glance at her perfect features, perfect hair, and dazzling smile, one might - were in for a major