Gale Force Page 0,114

necessary." Bob's grin flashed. "Sometimes that's also fun, though."

I didn't want to hear any more. Outside the windows, the seas began to chop as the wind moved faster, as temperatures shifted and swirled. He was playing with the weather. Taunting us. Sending temperatures into a downward spiral out near Cuba, creating an imbalance that would surely force intervention.

"I'm going to kill you," I said. "Demon or not. Dead or not. You're not walking away today, not if it costs me every last breath I have. If you made me what I am, then what I am is coming after you."

He sighed. "Ah, Jo. Wave a red flag, and you run at it like a bull, every time. You think I didn't know that?"

Which was exactly how I wanted him to think. My gaze had fixed on something black and glittering, mounted like some exotic trophy weapon on the back wall of the house, right out in the open, almost as a taunt.

The whole house was lethally radioactive. I was, in effect, already dead. Even as an Earth Warden, I couldn't diffuse that much radiation through my system without damaging my own cells. Maybe Lewis could, but not me. My daughter had cut herself off from me - had been forced to.

The power I was drawing from David in a steady stream was keeping me alive, but it wouldn't save me over the long haul. It was a treatment, not a cure.

I turned away from Bad Bob and walked to the Unmaking. It was glimmering with its own black aura, sending its poisonous tendrils deep into the house, into the aetheric.

"You don't want to do that, honey," he said. "It's suicide."

I picked it up.

The outside of it felt shockingly hot. A slightly rough texture when I ran my fingers lightly down, finding the balance point. The horrible thing was heavier than I'd expected, and my muscles began to shake, trying to rid me of the burden.

Bad Bob hadn't moved. He raised the cigar to his mouth and puffed, eyes half closed. "You got the wrong idea, Jo. You can't kill me this way."

"You're probably right," I panted. I fought, but lost, the battle for control of the weather system that was rotating in past Cuba, moving high and fast and wild. It collided with warmer air, and the clouds built walls of thick, heavy gray. Lightning burned inside it, living and dying in rapid-fire flares. "But I'll bet it slows you down for the others to finish."

"They'll have their hands full trying to keep half of Florida alive by nightfall. If I make things bad enough, the Djinn will have to show their faces just to keep the balance, and once that happens . . . they're mine." His pale blue eyes focused on me. "Put it down, kid. You're just killing yourself faster."

I shook my head. Sweat dripped down my face, matted my hair. "No. Make me. I know you can."

"Why should I?" he asked. "You want to kill me, kill me. Do it. Maybe you'll be right. Maybe it'll just be that easy."

I lunged, both hands barely able to keep hold of the black spear, and as I did I had an involuntary flash of sense-memory, of Jerome Silverton digging that black shard from a dead Djinn, and of my dream of David lying dead in the street, pierced just like this.

I dragged myself to a wild, panting halt, flat-footed, staring at Bad Bob's blue eyes. The tip of the Unmaking trembled just an inch from his chest. He made no effort to get away.

"Do it," he said. "Maybe I'm not your enemy after all. You ever think of that?"

Sweat burned down my face, in my eyes, and I felt my hands spasming, trying to drop this thing that was already killing me. It wouldn't do any good, but you couldn't blame my body for trying to save itself.

He was trying to tell me something. There was a message under all this, a message unknown and beyond translation, but somehow, one I was receiving.

Bad Bob had expected me. He wasn't the type to go in for self-sacrifice, and he knew how to set the hook firmly.

How to use the best possible bait . . . himself.

He had the power to stop me, if he wanted. Why wasn't he?

He'd taunted me. He'd threatened my daughter. He'd done everything he could to drive me to this moment. He'd used my vows with David to open the Djinn up to the Rule