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a security alert. Please be patient. The elevators will restart momentarily."

He slumped against the wall. "Great. Again."

"Happens a lot?" I asked.

He nodded, gave me a sideways look, and then a full smile, with teeth. "Sign of the times, you know how it is. So. Visiting?"

"From Iowa," I said. "Des Moines office."

"Not a great time to be here, huh? What with the weather."

"Yeah, I thought it looked bad. Actually, I'm Earth, so any storm looks bad to me," I said, and returned the smile tooth for tooth. "You know, Earth . . . corn, peas, wheat . . . breadbasket of the USA?"

"Huh. Would have taken you for a weather girl. Stormy eyes." Ah, romantic weather talk. In the old days, it might have even gotten him somewhere. "My name's Ron."

I said the first thing that popped into my head. "Gidget."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Whoa." Ron had dark thick hair, cut short, and eyes of no particularly interesting shade, but he knew how to focus. "You in for meetings?"

"Actually, just finished. I'm on my way to the airport." Lying wasn't just fun, it was a way to lay false trails. With any luck, they'd be chasing an Earth Warden named Gidget all the way to Des Moines for the next few hours. "They're sending me out to the fire. Maybe I can do some good with animal rescue."

Ron looked dubious. "I wouldn't be trying to go anywhere, in weather like this. I'd just stick around, if I were you. We have a pretty secure storm facility. It doubles as a nuclear shelter, so I'm assuming it'll hold off a tornado if it has to."

"Tornado?" I repeated, and tried to look like a dumb Iowan girl. "You're kidding, right?"

"There's a lot of disturbance in the aetheric. You didn't know?"

"Well, sure. I just figured it was-" I made a vague gesture. Let him fill in the rest.

"Ah. Yeah. You must've heard we caught him." When I stared at him, unmoving, he added the rest. "You know. Lewis. Lewis Orwell?"

"Really?" I tried to sound impressed, and not ready to backhand him into next week for the way-too-satisfied tone he was taking. "Was he here in the city?"

"Close by. New Jersey, as it turned out. All these years, looking for him, and he was right across the state line. Funny how things turn out." Ron nodded sagaciously. "They think he's behind this stuff."

"What?" I didn't have to feign shock on that one.

"Sure. You think it's an accident that they get their hands on him, and all hell breaks loose on not one but three fronts? They've got the West Coast problem under control, but we're going to take a real beating from this storm. Not to mention those poor bastards out in Yellowstone." He leaned closer. "They think he might have some kind of Demon Mark. Anyway, they're getting Marion Bearheart in here. I figure they're going to try to, you know-" He made a yanking-up-by-the-roots gesture. I literally staggered, caught by sick surprise.

"They're going to neuter him?"

He looked surprised at my reaction. "Well, not . . . actually ... I meant they were going to, you know, close off his connections. Make sure he couldn't do something like this again."

I'd known perfectly well what he'd meant. Neutering was the right word for it. Castration. Ripping out the heart and soul of who he was. It was as horribly malicious as throwing acid on the Mona Lisa-Lewis was a treasure, a once-in-a-thousand-years goddamn gift.

They could not do this to him. I wouldn't let them.

I forced a smile. "You're on Marion's staff?"

"Afraid so." Ron tried for a sheepish little-boy cute look. It almost worked. "I'm just in training, though. No way they'd let me even in the same room for a procedure like that. They're waiting for at least four other Senior Wardens before they even try anything."

I smiled, nodded, and wished to hell that the elevator would start. Not that I couldn't mist out and get away, but I couldn't do it with Ron staring at me, not if I wanted to have any kind of chance for a clean escape. God, Jonathan, you'd better have him. I'd tear this building down one steel I beam at a time if I had to, to make sure that they didn't carry through on their threats.

No wonder Lewis had been so paranoid