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down as I noticed his distress, and I watched as he staggered to a dusty velvet wing chair and dropped into it, rocking back and forth, head in his hands.

David and I exchanged glances, and David went to the other Djinn and crouched down, laying a hand on the man's knee. "Ortega," he said, "what is it?"

"It's my fault," he said. His voice sounded weak and sick, and pressed thin under the weight of emotion. "I swear to you, I never meant - I thought - I was only curious, you see. You know how curious I am. It's always been a curse - "

A curse, indeed. David froze for a moment, then bowed his head. His hair brushed forward, hiding his expression in shadow, and he said in an ominously soft voice, "You had it. The other book."

Ortega nodded convulsively.

"Whom did you trade the book to?"

"A Warden," Ortega said. His voice was muffled by the hands pressed to his eyes. "He never knew I was Djinn. I swear to you, I never meant - I lied, I didn't get it from the Air Oracle. I created a copy of the original book - "

"I need this Warden's name," David said.

"I never meant for any harm to - "

"The name, Ortega." I shivered at the tone in his voice; he didn't often sound like that, but when he did, there was no possibility of argument. He was invoking his right as the Conduit, the Mother's representative to the Djinn, and it rang in every syllable.

Ortega took in a deep breath, lowered his hands, and looked David in the eyes. "Robert Biringanine."

"Bad Bob," I said blankly. "But he's dead!"

Ortega shook his head. "I saw him," he said. "Two weeks ago. On the beach. And he's been around for a while now."

Chapter Eleven

To say that was a shock would be an understatement. A shock implied a jolt, like sticking your finger in a light socket; this was more like grabbing the third rail of the subway.

I'd killed Bad Bob Biringanine - well, at least, seen him die. I'd always staked a lot of certainties on that fact; I'd been told his body was found, and nobody ever seemed to have any doubt that Bad Bob was pushing up daisies. They'd certainly gone after me with enough vengeance to sell the concept of murder.

As his last act prior to dying had been to infect me with a Demon Mark, ensuring my enslavement and eventual death, I didn't feel too good about his miraculous reappearance. Of all the people I would pick to claw their way out of a grave, he'd be the dead last - pun intended - I ever wanted to see.

Partly it was because he'd so successfully hidden his capacity for cruelty and corruption from me - from most Wardens - for so long. Partly it was that I still had nightmares about that horrible day, about the helpless fury I'd felt and the slick, gagging feel of the Demon sliding down my throat.

It couldn't have pleasant associations for David, either. He'd been the Djinn who'd held me down. Rape, he'd called it later, and he'd been right, in an aetheric kind of way if not a physical one. But it had been a rape of both of us - he hadn't wanted to do it any more than I had.

I'd taken three steps back from Ortega, an involuntary retreat that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the monster that had just leaped out of the closet to roar in my face. David must have sensed my reaction, but he stayed fixed on Ortega.

"When?" he asked. "When did you give him the book?"

"A few months ago." Ortega struggled not so much to remember - Djinn didn't forget - but to order his mind so things were clear. "The day of mourning. He came - he had something I was looking for. He said he'd trade. He wanted the book."

By the day of mourning, Ortega meant the day Ashan had killed our daughter, Imara, or at least destroyed her physical body. Imara had become the Earth Oracle, but on that very black day, we thought we'd lost her forever.

Oh, and I'd died, too. Kind of. I'd ended up split, amnesiac, and wandering naked in the forest. Yeah, good times.

That day had seen the expending of a lot of power. A lot. Some of it was from the Wardens, some a product of the Djinn, some