“Stop,” David said, and I froze. The page slowly flattened, revealing dense lines of text, all carefully scribed in a language that bore no resemblance to anything I’d ever seen in human writing. “Ortega. Read.”
Ortega took a look, frowning, and his eyes widened. Unlike David’s, they stayed firmly in the range of human colors, and he quickly backed away. “What the hell is that?”
“I think that’s what the Sentinels have found,” David replied, never taking his eyes off the text, as if it were a poisonous serpent poised to strike. “I think it’s the source of their power, and how they plan to strike at us.”
Ortega looked pale now, and deeply troubled. “But—if that’s true, we have no defense.”
“Then we have to come up with one.” David took a thick felt bookmark from a drawer in the podium and slipped it in place between the pages, then nodded for me to close it, which I did, feeling a massive rush of relief. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could have resisted focusing on those words, and repeating the whispered sounds that echoed in my head.
“So, I guess you know that the Sentinels must have a copy,” I said, staring at the closed volume. I carefully flipped the latch back into place and slotted in the iron peg to secure it.
Clearly, it wasn’t what David and Ortega expected me to say, and from their expressions, it hadn’t occurred to them. “Impossible!” Ortega blurted. David didn’t try to deny it; he was already thinking along the same lines I had followed.
“Star had one.” I glanced at David for confirmation, and he gave an unwilling nod. “Do you know what happened to it when she died?”
“I thought it was destroyed,” David said. He looked very troubled. “If it wasn’t . . .”
Ortega was looking, if anything, even more horrified. My voice ran 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 from the Earth herself. And there’d been a Demon in the mix, fouling the well of power. . . . Anything could have happened, out of that bloody mess.
Apparently, anything had happened. Somehow, Bad Bob had managed to come back.
If he’d ever really been gone at all.
Suddenly, the appearance and rise of the Sentinels was beginning to make sick, deadly sense. Bad Bob was a player; he wanted power, and he’d do anything to anyone to get it. I’d cheated him the first time.
He’d make damn sure that David and I weren’t in any position to do it again.
By separating the Wardens from the Djinn, then destroying the Djinn, he could ensure that no one had the resources and strength to fight him when he made his final move. Divide and conquer. A timeless classic.
“He’s in Florida,” I said. I was sure of it, as sure as I’d ever been of anything in my life. “The bastard’s not even hiding, really. This is his old stomping ground. He’s got networks of friends and supporters; he feels safe here. That’s why we traced the signature to the Keys, and Kissimmee—”
“The beach house.” David snapped to his feet.
“What?”
“The beach house. I sensed him. I thought it was just a memory, but—” A pulse of light went through his eyes, turning them pure white. “The signature of the power fits his.”
“He’s been at the goddamn beach house?” I’d gone inside. I’d searched the house looking for the focus of the wards. Bad Bob must have been out picking up his latest issue of Megalomaniacs Weekly, which was damn lucky for me, because if he’d been there, I’d have been trapped inside the house, with David outside, and Bob could have done anything to me, anything at all. . . .
I couldn’t think about that. Not without shaking. I’d been through a lot of trauma in my life, but there was something so slick and calculated about Bad Bob’s use of me. . . . It was worse than betrayal. He’d cultivated and trained me specifically to transfer the Demon Mark to me, a cold long-term plan that I’d spoiled by not being quite as weak as he’d anticipated.