that again, though." He studied me with those fluorescent eyes - almost Djinn eyes, these days, brighter and more intense than they'd been in the old days when he'd been my boss, a genuine Warden hero. "I have to hand it to you, I figured you guys would argue until doomsday about what to do about me," he continued. "Seriously now, a cruise ship ? I didn't see that coming. Beautiful. I thought maybe a yacht, or a freighter. But putting all those people in the line of fire? You're growing a pair, sweetness. I like that."
I waited. Bad Bob always had liked to hear his own voice more than anyone else's.
"But you know what I think?" he continued, right on cue. "I think it's so showy that it's desperate. Like dressing up in neon and waving look-at-me flags while blaring Tchaikovsky's Fifth. You really should study magicians. Misdirection, that's the key to a good trick."
"You think I'm tricking you?"
"You're not that subtle," he said, which stung because it was true, mostly. "But there's somebody else on board that ship who is."
We both knew that he was talking about Lewis. "You've still got a chance to end this peacefully," I said. "Let Rahel go. Give up. It doesn't have to be Armageddon: Atlantic Edition. We can find a way to make this work, Bob. Or whatever you are."
"I'm still Bob," he said, and winked at me, just the way Bad Bob would have back in the old days. "I'm just Bob plus. And I don't think we're going to come to any nice, peaceful settlement, princess. This isn't about dividing up territory or setting boundaries. This is about me, wiping all of you off the face of the earth, and then my friends coming in to take everything else. It's nature's way, you know. The strong eat the weak. The many eat the few. And I am about to eat you ."
He smiled, opened his mouth, and his jaws gaped hideously wide, like a snake's. If this was a nightmare, it was a first-class effort out of my very darkest subconscious.
I stepped back from him.
His jaws re-formed and closed. The Cheshire Cat smile remained. "Don't look so scared," he said. "You wouldn't believe the stuff I can do with my tongue. Bet I could make you forget all about that wimpy little Djinn boy you're so taken with. Give me a chance - No? All right, then. I guess I'll just have to settle for something else. Thanks for being so accommodating and wandering on over here, by the way. I figured you might, sooner or later. The torch has that effect on people. It just draws people to me, whether they like it or not."
He took two steps forward, thrust out his hand, and put it all the way through my ghostly, insubstantial chest. Unsettling, and a little uncomfortable, but I actually felt a little spurt of triumph. Not as easy as you thought it would be, I was about to say, when I realized that he'd reached to a very specific place.
To the ghostly mark on my back. The black torch. His fingertips brushed against it beneath my translucent skin - I could feel it, even if I couldn't see it happening.
All of a sudden the room was far too small, like a trap, and I wanted to leave this place, now, before something happened.
Too late.
I felt my physical body, still far away on board the ship, writhing in its sleep. I felt the hot tingle of the black torch begin to spread across my shoulder blade.
I'd lost David's containment, and because I was asleep, he might not know it.
Bad Bob removed his hand from my chest, shook it as if he was flicking something nasty off his fingers, gave me a feral grin, and walked away. I struggled to figure out what was holding me here, in this place, pinned like a bug to a board. The mark. He was right. Until I figured out how to turn it off - if I could - he could keep me here, out of my body. I knew that the longer I stayed out, the worse it was going to be when I got back.
I remembered the Wardens, lost in the storm. If my spirit was shredded, my body would just... stop. And they would never know why.
Outside, a truly ferocious storm raged. I felt the hot, damp blast of hair burst into the room, stirring grit and pushing