Firestorm Page 0,9

safe and seal the bottles until we know what the hell's going on. You got anything, Jo?"

I stretched my hands flat on the scarred wood surface. "Afraid so. Here's the deal. The Djinn were serving us only because of an agreement made a few thousand years ago between the first Wardens and the most powerful Djinn in the world. His name is--was--Jonathan."

Silence, and then... "Kind of a modern name, isn't it?" Cherise asked. "Jonathan, I mean. Wouldn't he have an Egyptian name or--"

"Cherise. This is my story. You talk later. The thing is, once Jonathan made the agreement, which was supposed to be temporary, the Wardens didn't keep their end of the bargain. They didn't let the Djinn go once the emergency was past all those thousands of years ago. There was always some disaster or another to serve as an extension on the contract, and then they didn't even bother making up excuses. Some of the Djinn have had enough of waiting for the Wardens to grow a conscience, and the Wardens forgot that any such agreement ever existed. So the Free Djinn--"

That term caused a rustle of throat-clearing and shifting in chairs, and the inevitable interruption. "There aren't any such thing as--" someone began to declare, in much the same way people once insisted the world was flat.

"Yes there are, Rosa." That was Marion, and her tone was surprisingly sharp, coming from a woman who was normally so level and soothing in manner. But then, we'd all had a damn hard few days. I could see that it might be difficult to suffer fools with the same level of grace she usually displayed.

"Continue," Paul said, watching me.

I swallowed, wished in vain for a drink of water, and got on with it. "So some of the Free Djinn started killing Wardens, trying to free their brethren, as well. But some didn't agree with that tactic, so there was fighting in the Djinn ranks. Jonathan--" What the hell had happened to Jonathan? Something catastrophic. "Jonathan died. And when he died, the agreement between the Djinn and the Wardens, the one that kept them under our command, that went sideways. We don't own the Djinn anymore. Not as of the moment he stopped existing."

Paul's face went a paler shade of scared. "You mean, they're no longer under our control at all?"

"Yes, that's what I mean."

"Well, that's just great. You drove all the way from Florida to tell me we're dead?"

"You want me to go on, or what?" I glared back. He finally closed his drug-glazed eyes and nodded. "Right. Well, we've always thought we were fighting the planet, one on one. A fair contest. But I have to tell you, it isn't fair, and it isn't even a contest. She hasn't even been awake." Inarticulate noises of protest and denial. I ignored them. "She's not even concentrating on us at all. We're like little mosquitoes she's been swatting in her sleep."

Paul's face had drained of what little color he had. "Jo--" "Hang on, I'm still getting to the bad news." I sucked in a deep breath, then blew it out. "She's starting to wake up. Once she does, she can control the Djinn absolutely, and that means we'll face a thousand times the power we did before. Maybe worse than that. And without any help from the usual sources."

He looked glassy-eyed. "Was that the bad news? Because for fuck's sake, don't tell me it gets worse than that."

"Yeah, that was it."

He didn't say anything. The silence ticked off, one cold second at a time, until Marion murmured, "Then that would be the end of it."

Paul looked up sharply. "I'm not throwing in the towel, and you're not either," he snapped. "Jo. What else you got for us? Anything on the plus side?"

"I may--" I edited myself carefully, well aware of the way this might go. "I may know of a Djinn who can still help us."

"I'm the guy in charge of handing out life preservers on the Titanic. Anything you got that can help, let's have it. I mean, we're talking about Band-Aids on a sucking chest wound, but--"

"I don't know if this Djinn has the ability to do much," I said quickly. It wouldn't do to get anybody's hopes up, and I wasn't even sure where Imara was, or what she was up to. "But I'll check into it. Maybe we can get some intelligence about what's happening to the Djinn without too much risk. Meanwhile, we have to get