Gale Force Page 0,107

and licked his lips. "Down to us, isn't it?"

"Is it?" I cocked my head and smiled back at him, trying to be as winter cold as he. "So what're you going to do, Bob? The Djinn have twice the power they did an hour ago, and none of the restraints they used to have. You can't command them. You can't trick them. And you damn sure can't scare them anymore. The Wardens know you now, and the ones who thought the idea of the Sentinels made sense are learning better, fast. You can't threaten to go public. What's left?"

"Same thing that's always left, girly-girl." He shrugged. "Death, horror, destruction. No matter how good you are, you can't stop it all. I'll push you until you break, you, the Wardens, the Djinn. Until you make a mistake and I come for you."

"You don't think coming here was a mistake?" I asked. " 'Cause I have to admit, ballsy. Not real smart, but ballsy."

"Oh, I'll be gone well before help arrives," he said. "Might surprise you, but I can do the Djinn thing now - blip around through the aetheric. Handy when you want to visit old, suspicious friends."

I felt the atmosphere shift, slide toward the darker spectrums. "Okay. Nice to see you, Bob. Now, fuck off."

"I always did love your sharp tongue," he said. "I'm not going to fight you today. Be a shame to destroy that dress." The bastard winked at me. "No, I'll just go home, play with my new friends. You know them, I'll bet: Rahel, that rascal, pretending to be all soft and human like that. Oh, and my new friend. Someone very special."

He reached into the shadows, and he pulled out my daughter.

Imara stumbled and fell to her knees, the brick-red dress she normally wore now fluttering and writhing around her. He'd bound her up with black ropes of twisting, glittering power, and where they touched her, they burned. No, I thought numbly. Impossible. She was safe; she was taken back to the chapel; Ashan was guarding her. . . .

"Ashan never did like this one," he said. "Figures on appointing a new Earth Oracle in short order. Nice friends you have. Maybe you ought to reconsider which side of this you're on, girl; what do you think?"

I lunged for Imara and slammed into a barrier, one that blew me back across the room to slam full force into the glass tiles of the bar. I saw stars and darkness, and sank to an awkward sitting position on the floor, surrounded by fallen shards of mirror.

"Oh, don't fuss. She's not really here. Just thought I'd give you fair warning, because it's going to hurt you a whole lot worse than it hurts me when I do get around to taking your kid."

"Stop," I said. I felt light-headed, sick, hot. I no longer felt in the least invulnerable. "What do you want?"

"I want to make a deal," Bad Bob said. "Your daughter's life for David's. Fair trade."

"No." I snarled it. "You don't even have her, you bastard; you already said so!"

"I said I don't have her now. Not that I wouldn't have her by the time your little rescue party fails to take me out. Sorry, kid," he said to Imara's image. "Mommy doesn't love you all that well, looks like. Too bad, you're a cutie."

He showed me what he was going to do to her, to my child, and I didn't look away. I wanted to, desperately, but something in me that was far colder, far wiser than my heart made me stay strong.

"When I'm finished," he said, in a whisper as black as the Unmaking itself, "then I'll reach through her to destroy you. But not before. I want you to feel every moment of it, Joanne. Every . . . single . . . moment."

The Wardens and the Djinn had finally arrived, no doubt summoned by Kevin and Cherise. I felt the flare of power outside the doors; they were out there, but Bad Bob was keeping them shut out. He could do that. He had power to burn . . . but he wasn't doing it alone. I recognized the signature behind it.

Ashan. Ashan was still interfering, throwing up barriers, trying to get me killed. He'd consider his problems solved, if I just disappeared from the face of the earth. After all, the vows David and I had exchanged had elevated the New Djinn in power - made them, I suspected, a match