Total Eclipse (34 page)

She stared at me with Djinn-fired blue eyes, and finally said, “His powers came to me. I’m the Conduit for the Old Djinn.”

I should have seen that coming, but somehow, I didn’t. I blinked at her, and bit back an automatic, and utterly suicidal,
congratulations.
“I’m sorry,” I said instead. “I had to do something.”

“Yes,” she said, and looked moodily out at the land around us. “Yes, I can see that. She’s trying to reach me, but she can’t as long as you have me anchored in the bottle. My power flows through you.”

“Venna—”

She made some kind of decision, and stood up. I waited as she dusted off her dress—not that it would ever get dirty. She could just be moving away so that she wouldn’t be splashed with my gore when she exploded me.

Yeah, I try to look on the bright side.

“Are you going to sit there?” she said. “Or do you want to see Lewis?”

“I want to know what happened to David,” I said. “Something must have. He would have come back for me.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “That’s in his nature. Come.” She extended her small hand, and pulled me to my feet with such ease she might as well have been a linebacker. When I started to drop the grip, she held on.

“We’re going through the aetheric,” she said.

“Wait, that’s not—”

“Trust me.”

And then everything was a rush of color, light, a feeling of being destroyed to a cellular level,
pain
, and then, suddenly, I was facedown on the carpet of a casino floor, gasping for breath.

Slot machines were ringing, just like the world was still normal. Just like everything that I’d been through had been a terrible, passing nightmare.

I felt like a sack of overcooked spaghetti, and I wasn’t sure I could get to my feet at all, but Venna tugged me back upright. She gave me a long, level look and said, “You should put me back in the bottle now. The longer I’m out, the more of your energy I burn. You can’t afford it now.”

I cleared my throat and nodded. “Thank you.”

“There will be a price,” she said coolly.

That was positively chilling, but I tried not to let her see how much that got to me as I said the words, she misted away, and I capped the bottle firmly. She was right. The second the cork slotted in place, I felt better, stronger, and almost capable of standing on my own. But, since there was a handy wall to lean on, no sense in pushing it.

I heard the metallic rattle of guns being readied, and peered around to see a line of men and women facing me with serious weaponry, and even more serious expressions. Most of them were wearing the tailored blazers of security for the Luxor hotel.

All of them were Ma’at, and I could feel the shields being readied against anything I might try to throw at them.

I was too tired for this crap. I held out my fingers in a peace sign—which was one more finger than I was inclined to show them—and said, “Take me to Lewis.”

Venna hadn’t answered me about what had happened to David, but Djinn were like that.

Lewis would answer, or I’d beat it the hell out of him with my bare hands.

They took me out of the casino area—most of the dedicated players hadn’t paid a bit of attention to the sudden show of firepower—and hustled me through a maze of corridors to a
salon privé
on the second floor. It had the hushed, elegant vibe of a place where only the highest of high rollers was hosted.

The Ma’at guards opened the door—some kind of biometrics—and pushed me inside before closing it after me. It was a large room, and under normal circumstances it would have been exquisitely appointed, but the Wardens had no time for that nonsense, clearly. Expensive antiques had been shoved like driftwood into corners. A round mahogany table that would have caused those
Antiques Roadshow
guys to weep had been unceremoniously loaded down with files, computers, and satellite phones. There were folding tables set up with coffee and food, and cots—mostly full of sleeping people—crammed in at every angle possible. The clear space that was left was where the Wardens were working.

I saw Luis and Cassiel, and made straight for them. “What the
hell
happened to David?” I yelled. That got almost everyone’s attention in the room, even the sleeping ones. I shoved cots out of my way, creating a logjam effect, and scrambled over people to land in front of Cassiel. “He was with you! Where is he?”

She said nothing, but she looked sideways at a tall man pushing his way through the crowd. I didn’t even have to look at him to know who it was—the subdued tingle of his powers was unmistakable against mine.

Lewis.

He grabbed me and hugged me fiercely, which would have normally been nice, but right now I wasn’t interested in anyone comforting me. I wanted
answers.

The words died in my throat when I focused on his face. He looked terrible, worse than I’d ever seen him. Ages older than he’d been when we’d parted back in Miami.

He was tearing himself apart.

From the look on his face, I wasn’t in much better shape. I pushed all that aside, grabbed him by the collar of his rumpled, days-old shirt, and said, “
Where is he?
”

Lewis closed his long fingers over mine, but he didn’t try to take my hands off him. “He’s all right,” he said. “Jo, I’m sorry. I couldn’t let him leave again. I couldn’t take the risk. Ashan is out there—”

“Not anymore,” I said. “Ashan’s gone. Venna’s the Conduit now.”

That made him pause, but only for a second. “How—Never mind. It’s good that he’s gone. He was poisoning her view of us. Maybe Venna can—”

“I can’t let her go,” I interrupted. “Lewis, if I do, she’ll be as bad as the others. She’s probably more powerful than Ashan, and if she gets thrown at us again . . .” I couldn’t think of words to describe how bad that would be. Ashan had been bad enough, but having Venna bent on destroying us . . .

He gazed down at me for a long while, and then said, “Come with me.”

I let go of his collar. There was something in the quiet, almost miserable way he said it that made me gulp; I didn’t want to see Lewis feel beaten. He’d always been the one who just didn’t give up. He cheated, he schemed, he lied, he manipulated—but he didn’t give up.

If he did now, I didn’t think I could bear it at all.

He took my hand and led me past the silent Wardens. There were only thirty or so in the room, and half of those were wounded, some badly. I stopped to touch a few hands. Nobody had anything to say. I saw the same beaten weariness in every face. Well, maybe not Cassiel’s, but she was always the exception. That would require she actually gave a crap.

Lewis led me into a side room—probably some fancy sitting room where countries were bought and sold, never mind companies. It was empty and still. The air conditioning blew on my face and reminded me of the hot stinging spots that remained on my neck, arm, and leg.
Ow.

He shut the door and turned to face me.

“You left me to die,” I said. “Didn’t you?”

“Jo, I couldn’t risk it. We need David here, and there were no guarantees that we wouldn’t lose you both. Rahel told me how bad it was out there, and I put him back in the bottle.”

That raised the hair on the back of my neck, and I knew my posture shifted into something that was a hairbreadth short of attack. “You put
David
back in the bottle. You stopped him from coming to me.”

“Yes. I got it from Cassiel. Don’t blame her. I didn’t give her a choice, and she didn’t know why I was asking.”

Screw that. Cassiel had known. Deep down,
I
had known, too. I’d felt it, I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.

Lewis was still talking. I struggled to hear him over the angry buzz in my ears. “Jo, I trusted you. I believed you’d find a way, and you did.”

“No,” I said. “You left me to die, and you didn’t
see
that out there, Lewis. You didn’t see what was going to tear me apart!”

He didn’t answer that. I understood the misery, now. He really had stood there at that table and made the cold-blooded decision to pull my rescue party, and consolidate his resources.

And leave me trapped and alone.

“Enough,” I said. “
Enough.
If this is what it takes to win, fuck it, I don’t want to win anymore. Give me David’s bottle.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I won’t break it, if that’s what you’re worrying about,” I snapped. I felt that I hardly knew this man anymore, even though I’d spent half of my life thinking of him, loving him just enough to be able to not let go. “I want my husband, and I want to leave.”

“And go where? Do what? Jo, this is the
end
! There’s nowhere to run! She’s hunting us down, all the Wardens, everywhere. Most of us are already gone, for God’s sake. Did you see them out there?
We’re dying!
And when we’re gone, everyone else dies. Maybe it’ll take a few more days, maybe a week, but in the end, she won’t let a single human stay alive. I know that. I
feel
that!” Tears suddenly welled in Lewis’s eyes and spilled down his face, and he just—folded up, as if I’d gut-punched him. No, as if a Djinn had gut-punched him. I realized how tired he was, how shaky, as he sank to his knees on that fine Aubusson carpet. Funny how the wine red color looked like blood, as if he had—like me, back in the plant in Amarillo—already spilled every drop he had to give. “I’ve tried everything. Everything. And they keep coming, killing, destroying. Imara won’t let us near her. The Air Oracle is destroying entire
islands
out there. The Fire Oracle—”

I knew about the Fire Oracle; I’d seen it in my dream. As angry as I was, his horror and grief struck me, and I sank down to a crouch across from him. He was weeping uncontrollably, the tears of a man stretched too far, asked for too much.

“Listen to me,” I said, and reached out to tilt his chin up. He swiped at his face, angry with himself but still unable to stop. He was one step from a complete breakdown, and I could see it in him. “Listen. I know it seems hopeless. I know you think there’s nothing more we can do. But we
can.
We
must.
What’s our choice, to sit here and die when the hammer comes down? Screw that, Lewis. I didn’t fight my way through what I have to give up.”

Consistent, I wasn’t. A few minutes ago my only thought had been to grab David’s bottle and get the hell away from Lewis, from the Wardens, from all this crushing, endless responsibility. But seeing Lewis break . . . That reminded me of something.

It reminded me that no matter what I did, how hard I tried, I could never really be free of the Wardens. I
was
a Warden, and always would be, until the day I died.

“Give every Warden a bottle,” I said, “starting with the most powerful first. It’s time for the Djinn to be on our side. We already broke the rules; let’s make it count. And dammit,
give me David
!”

“If you’ll give me Venna,” he said, and tried for a smile. I nodded agreement. He gulped in a deep breath, and seemed to steady himself. “All right. We’ve got Djinn. We’ve got the Wardens I’ve been able to pull together. We’ve got the Ma’at, not that they’re up to a fight of this magnitude. What else?”

“We’ve got Imara.”

He was already shaking his head before I finished the short sentence. “Nobody’s got Imara, and she wants to keep it that way. I told you, I tried. She won’t come, and she won’t talk to us. She won’t give us sanctuary. She’s locked inside her own world, and she’s letting us live or die on our own.”

I pulled Venna’s bottle out of my backpack and held it out to him. “Give me David. Give me David, and I will bring Imara in on our side.”

“How?”

“Just give me the bottle.”

He had it in his pocket. As he passed it over, I felt heat emanating from the glass. David was really, truly pissed off, and I knew that the second I released him I was going to have a very hard time keeping him from breaking Lewis’s neck.

Lewis uncorked Venna’s bottle, and the child stepped out of thin air to stand at his side, hands folded. She looked up at him, innocence itself, and said, “If you give me stupid commands, I’ll kill you.”

“I expected that,” Lewis told her. “For now, help Joanne keep David from killing me. Which he’s about to try to do.”

Venna raised her eyebrows, but it wasn’t in surprise. I was pretty sure that was amusement. Other than that, she gave him absolutely no assurances.

I took a deep breath, cradled the bottle in my left hand, and pulled the cork with my right.

A storm exploded out of the bottle, and the pressure of the room changed so abruptly my ears popped. David materialized in midstride, long coat swirling like smoke, and lunged for Lewis’s throat.

Venna caught his hand about an inch from its target with no apparent effort, and said, “Maybe you should greet your wife first.”

David whirled around, and I saw the look that Lewis had just faced. I’d never imagined David could seem that angry, or that deadly, but his beauty had taken on cold, unmerciful edges, and the glitter in his eyes was the color of blood.

He blinked, and it went away. “Jo?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. In one step I was crushed against him and held tight, so tight I thought he’d accidentally break my back. After a few breathless seconds he eased off and looked down into my face. His eyes widened, and I knew he was seeing what I’d just been through. Hard to hide things from a Djinn, especially one who knew as much about me as he did.

That triggered the rage again. I knew what he was thinking—he’d seen my horror and desperation, seen how close I’d come to being killed out there, and he was blaming it on Lewis. Well, rightly so, but there wasn’t time for it. Before he could lash out again, I grabbed him by the chin and held him still. “No,” I said. “I’m all right. And we need him as much as he needs us.”

The fact that I was so baldly logical about it helped clear the anger out of him, at least for now. He shuddered as it passed, and nodded to me, and I let go. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said. “Right?”