Thin Air Page 0,97

future with it.

"We're not going to kill you," Lewis said with an eerie amount of calm. "We couldn't, could we? If you're a Demon, you'd just assume another form. The only way to destroy a Demon without sacrificing a Djinn is with another Demon."

"Guess you don't have one of those handy," I said, and closed my eyes in exhausted relief.

When I opened them, David, expressionless, was taking a sealed bottle out of his coat. There was red wax around the stopper, and an ancient-looking seal dangling from a complicated knot of ribbons.

The knee in my back dug in harder when I tried to raise up, driving me flat and helpless. I struggled to reach for power, but whatever they'd done to me up on the aetheric was holding fast. I couldn't move the weather, or fire, and when I tried to grab for the slow throb of energy in the earth, something slapped me back with stunning force.

Lewis. I'd recognized the handprint of the slap.

"No," I said quietly. "You can't. David, you can't. I'm not a Demon! David, no!"

He walked toward me, put a hand in between my shoulder blades, and nodded to Lewis to let go. The relief of the pressure coming off my back didn't last, because David's hand might not have been as heavy, but it was just as effective in restraining me.

"This bottle contains a Djinn," he said. "A Djinn infected with a Demon. Under normal circumstances the Demon wouldn't migrate back to a human, but you're different. Demons will destroy each other by preference. If there's any good news, it's that by destroying you, we're going to save a Djinn's life."

"David, no! I'm not a Demon!"

It was no good. He was going to do it. I could see it in his eyes, in the fierce, focused determination on his face. "Please," I said. I dropped all my defenses, and let him see me as vulnerable as I really was. "Please don't do this to us."

His lips thinned, and he flinched a little. "I wish you didn't look so much like her."

"I am her, and if you open that bottle you're going to find that out, because the Demon won't migrate, and then you'll have a much bigger problem! David!" He wasn't listening to me. I heard the crackle of the wax seal breaking. "David, God, stop it! Our daughter isn't dead!"

It seemed like, for one second, time stopped. Even the wind ceased to blow. Then it all snapped back with a vengeance, as David snarled and grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked it painfully back, staring into my face with terrifying fury.

"You," he said, "don't talk about my daughter. Ever."

It hurt to talk, but I had no choice. "David, if you open that bottle, you're making a huge mistake. Imara's alive. She's become the Earth Oracle. Go check if you don't believe me." I tried to swallow, but the painful angle at which he was holding my head made it almost impossible. "Go on. I'm not going anywhere."

He was about one second from killing me. Or popping the cork on that sealed bottle. I didn't know what that would do, but it wouldn't be good.

I got support from an entirely unexpected quarter: Lewis. He said quietly, "It couldn't hurt to check."

"Stay out of it," David hissed at him.

"What if we're wrong? Look, I'm the first one to want to believe in miracles, but Joanne's memories came back too fast; we both said so. What if..." Lewis looked at me, then at David. "What if this one's telling the truth? If you're wrong and you open that bottle, we can't make that right without a lot of death and destruction."

"She's lying!" David's grip on my hair tightened. I squeaked faintly, sure my neck was on the verge of separating from my shoulders. That would be a real mess.

"Then go and check." Lewis sounded awfully calm. Almost offhand about it. "She's not going anywhere. It's a short trip for you to Sedona and back."

The pressure on my head relaxed so suddenly it was all I could do to keep my face from bouncing off the road. The push of his hand on my back went away at the same time. I struggled up to my knees, trying to put my shoulders at some angle that didn't hurt like hell, trying to ignore the cutting ache of the zip-ties on my wrists, and looked around. The other Wardens were standing silently around. Nobody was shifting attention,