to you."
To the Wardens,
Your time is up. You've been given warnings, but you've ignored them. Either cut off contact with the Djinn, or face the consequences. Today's earthquake in Fort Lauderdale is proof that we can do what we say. The Djinn must be stopped.
Paul paused and cleared his throat. "It's signed, 'the Sentinels.' "
"The Sentinels? You're kidding me. Aren't they some football team?" It was almost laughable. Almost. "Seriously, man, I've heard rumors, but - wasn't it just talk?"
"Not according to this. Not according to what I've been hearing. Look, we've got ourselves a real, live splinter group," he said. "One not afraid of using terror tactics."
"And they sent a note? How . . . 1980s of them."
"E-mail, actually. And yes, we tried tracing it. No luck. We put the NSA on it, but nobody seems real positive about the prospects. This thing in the ground you and Rocha saw, you think it's some kind of device?"
"Maybe," I said. "But . . . it didn't seem man-made. Didn't register like that on the aetheric at all. I don't know. This is deeply weird, Paul."
"Yeah, but what worries me a hell of a lot more is that what I've been hearing about the Sentinels makes sense."
"I - what?"
"We all know the Djinn are unpredictable," he said. "We've seen it, all right? So is it all that surprising that the ones who got hurt the most - the Wardens who survived that whole bloody mess of a civil war - want to see the Djinn stay out of the way?"
I didn't know quite what to say. "You sound like you agree with them."
"Not entirely," he said, which wasn't, I noticed, exactly a denial. "But I don't like the idea of putting our people at risk for no good reason, either. Maybe the Sentinels have the right idea, wrong tactics."
"You're telling me you don't trust David?"
"Kid - ," Paul sighed. "I can't have this conversation with you. You're not exactly rational on the subject. But I was in the New York offices that day. I saw what happens when the Djinn go off the leash. I fought for my life; I saw friends ripped apart in front of me. You got any idea what kind of impression that makes?"
I couldn't think of any way to respond to that. He'd caught me off guard. I knew that Paul still had bitterness about the Djinn revolt, and he was right; bad things had happened, mostly to Wardens. But he was discounting - or ignoring - all the thousands of years of suffering the Djinn had endured on their side.
Most Wardens wanted to ignore that.
"Right, moving on," Paul said into the silence. "I'm getting the team together here for analysis. We're going to count heads, see who's not answering the pings for roll call. I want a line on anybody who's missing, just in case. I don't suspect my own, but it's useful knowing if somebody's in trouble."
That, I thought, would be a full-time job. Following the Djinn problems of the past year, a lot of Wardens had simply . . . vanished. Most of them were dead, killed in the fighting, but some had slipped away, knowing that we didn't have time to track down every name on the list. It'd take years to round up any rogue agents out there.
"I'm pulling in Silverton," I said. "He's our best option for handling this thing, if it's radioactive. If I need anybody else, I'll let you know."
"Yeah, you do that. And kid?"
"Yeah, Paul?"
"You sure about this wedding thing? Really sure?"
I knew that Paul, once upon a time, had harbored ambitions in the direction of me in his bed, and I'd been kind of willing to contemplate it. But all that had changed, and he was gentleman enough to acknowledge it. Under the exterior of a badass Mafia scion beat the heart of a very sweet man - if you could overlook all the cursing.
"I'm sure," I said softly. "I love him, Paul."
He didn't sound impressed. "You know what he is."
There it was again, that thread of darkness, that almost-prejudice. "Yes, I know what he is. He's someone who's saved my life more times than I can count. He's someone who's put his own life on the line not just for me but for the Wardens and all of humanity. I know exactly what he is. And who he is."
Awkward silence, and then, "Fuck, babe, I've gotta run. We're good, right?"
"We're good," I said.