Thin Air (32 page)

And we arrived at the mausoleum.

“No,” I said. My body couldn't hear me. It was following a completely different set of instructions as my arm lifted, touched the marble door, and then reached for the inset metal knob. “No. No, no,
no
!” Memories flared, burned, and dissolved. Bad Bob. Storms. My car spinning out on the road. The Djinn-hot flash of David's eyes. Lying in his arms, gasping.

My time was running out.

I traced the roots of my power to where E.T. had placed a black stranglehold on them. I couldn't free myself—no chance in hell—but I
could
focus on one tiny opening. It was like breaking the pinkie finger of someone choking you—possible, but of doubtful use.

I did it anyway. I focused everything I had, all three forms of power, through the lens of my desperation, and came out with a white-hot stream of pure energy that burned a hole straight through the black cage holding me prisoner.

Something reached through to me. It came in a slow, warm flood, like syrup…the thick, condensed power of the Earth. It was trying to reach me.

Not enough.
I couldn't use it; the opening was too narrow, the cage too confining. No leverage. I screamed inside, trying to cling to the last memories as my hand turned the doorknob, and I fell into another place, one with no up, no down, just stone and an ever-blazing fire too hot and brilliant to approach….

And E.T. was able to come through, too, because she was holding my hand, and physically she was identical.

Part of the cage in my mind cracked. I ripped at it with everything I had, frantically widening the gap, and the power poured in like water through a hole below the waterline. Filling me up.

She felt the change, and she tried to pull away, but I had control of at least part of myself now, and I body-slammed her down on the rocks with one hand around her throat.

“No,” I gritted out. “No, you
don't
.
You can't have my life!
”

Heat rose up through my body. A wave of fast, tingling fire, a cooling whisper of air and water, then the slow, whispering power of the Earth, the gift of my daughter, Imara. I sensed her now, calm and utterly focused.
It's okay, Mom
, she whispered to me.
We can do this. The three of us. Just hold her still. That's all you have to do.

The
three
of us? Was she counting Evil Twin?

No. She wasn't. I blinked sweat out of my eyes and looked up as the door opened again, and a Djinn formed out of the darkness, moving fast. His olive-drab coat swirled around him, and he blazed like new morning here. Djinn were children of fire, more than any other element, and he burned—oh, God—he burned so magnificently bright.

David took a bottle out of his coat pocket—a thick, ancient, cloudy thing, sealed thickly with wax and dust. A complicated knot of ribbons and more wax dangled from the neck of it. I recognized it. He'd nearly popped the cap on that thing back in the forest, when he'd thought I was the Demon.

There were more Djinn with him, stepping out of the walls all around us. Silent, powerful, angry. Merciless.

With the last core of my being, I recognized one of the newcomers standing near me—pale, silver hair, eyes as vicious as a wolverine's. Oh, he hated me. Not the Demon…me.

Ashan.
Still human.

A little girl in a blue dress and white pinafore stood next to him, her hands folded primly in front of her. Blue eyes shimmering with ageless power.

“Hurry,” she said to David. “If you want to save her, yield.”

David faced Ashan. I was caught between the two of them, with the Demon writhing around and trying like hell to get me off of her. Luckily, her ability didn't include superstrength, and she'd lost her hold over me. Still, all she had to do was wait. I was losing myself fast. She was draining it all away….

David said, “I yield.” He said it to Venna. To Ashan.

And then I saw a swirl of fire erupt out of the pit, wrap around him, and I heard him scream.

“David!” I couldn't let go. If I did, the Demon would destroy us. “David, no!”

Whatever was happening, it was ripping him apart. I could hear the agony, feel it resonating in the stone all around me. I could hear a distant groan, as if the whole world had felt it, too.

And then the flames leaped from David over my head to engulf Ashan.

And he burned. Venna didn't move, even as he shrieked in agony, but I saw perfect crystal tears trickling slowly down her cheeks.

“What are you doing?” I screamed at her. She was watching Ashan, watching the tornado of fire that he'd become.

I felt some fundamental balance shift, and in an instant the flames just…went out.

David went to his knees, gasping. Ashan…

Ashan was perfect. Hard as alabaster, inhuman and burning with power.

Oh, my God.
What had David done?

He looked up, eyes burning copper-bright. “What are you waiting for?” David gasped. He was fire to Ashan's cold, frozen steel, and the two of them looked inhumanly strong as they glared at each other. I could feel the violence gathering in the air. “You've got what you wanted. Keep your promise, you bastard.”

Ashan's smile was as thin as a paper cut. “Perhaps I'll wait a bit.”

David's voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Now,” he said. “You've cost me enough. We have a truce. Don't test me.”

Ashan's smile disappeared, not that it was ever real to begin with, and the two of them locked stares in that hot, airless place, with the eternal pale fire burning just steps away. This was a place of power, and it was full of very scary Djinn. I didn't know what could happen, but it wouldn't be good.

Venna said mildly, “Ashan. You did promise.” She said it with no particular emphasis, but it sent shivers down my spine. Venna—was that her name? I no longer knew her, or the black-skinned Djinn with cornrowed hair, staring at me with burning golden eyes. Or the well-dressed one with the chestnut brown hair, cold and elegant. There were dozens of them, and they were all riveted on me, on the Demon, or on Ashan and David.

Ashan abruptly reached out and put his hand on the back of my neck. I yelped at the cold shock against my sweating, hot skin, and then felt the ice sink in like winter.

“This will hurt,” he said. That wasn't a warning. That was a promise.

And then I came apart, screaming, in a red haze, and he
rebuilt
me, cell by cell, neuron by neuron, in a brutal, fast, cruel process, and I felt every single nanosecond of it like an eternity.

My memories returned with it.

Every one.

I heard the Demon cry out and knew that what she'd stolen was being ripped away, leaving
her
the shell, making
her
the excess baggage of the universe, and even though I hated her for what she'd done (and tried to do), I couldn't help but hate Ashan more.

Because he was enjoying it.

He let go and stepped away, wiping his hand fastidiously against his gray coat. “That fulfills our bargain,” he said, and met David's eyes with absolute menace. “Finish this, or I'll finish you.”

And then he just…left. And half the Djinn disappeared with him. The ones who were left seemed to take a collective breath, as if they'd been dreading the outcome of all that, and even David looked a little relieved. Just for a second.

Then he crouched down to eye level with me and touched my face. “Trust me?”

I nodded, but I really didn't have a choice. And if he had to destroy me to end this, well…then I knew he'd do whatever was necessary. Because David had responsibilities that were greater than his love for me.

I love you. No matter how this goes, that doesn't change.
His words to me on the plane, and they were echoing in the stark, primitive confines of this place. I couldn't stay here much longer; the heat was suffocating, and the flames blazed hotter every moment, sucking moisture out of my fragile human body, flirting with igniting my hair into a fireball. I didn't have the time or concentration to spare to protect myself, and I wasn't sure, with
this
fire, that I'd be able to in any case.

I blinked sweat from my eyes and managed a smile. “Of course I trust you,” I said. “Do whatever you have to, but she can't leave here. She can't live.”

Evil Twin's eyes widened, and she said in a surprisingly soft, vulnerable voice, “David, no. Please, no.” He hesitated for just a second. Long enough for her to continue. “I'll leave if you'll send me home. But please don't kill me. I'm not like the other Demons you've destroyed—they didn't know; they didn't understand. I know what's going to happen. Please, you can't torture me like this!”

“You want me to send you home,” he repeated without inflection. And tears rolled out of her eyes, vanishing into steam in the superheated air. My skin was agonizingly painful, already beginning to cook.

“Please,” she said. “With this many Djinn you could do it. Open up a portal, then seal it. Then my blood won't be on your hands.”

“No,” he agreed. “What
would
be on my hands would be the risk that you would come back, and this time you'd lead an army. That's exactly what you're planning, isn't it?”

The tears cut off instantly, and the Demon's voice hardened. “You'd do the same.”

“Trust me,” David said, “I've done far worse. And I've done it to people I loved.”

And he broke the seal from the bottle, opened it, pressed the heel of his hand to her jaw to pry apart her lips…and fed her a Demon.

I let go. It wasn't conscious, just instinct; I felt the raw menace of the thing as it snaked its way out of the bottle, and I just had to get away from it in an awkward scramble. David's face was like cast metal, no softness there, and no mercy. My doppelgänger was screaming, but it was too late; he held her down, slammed her mouth shut to lock the thing inside, and I watched as the Demon shed her human disguise in the extremity of her fear and rage.

The skin simply shredded into a mist of blood and tissue, and underneath red muscle hardened into black, crystalline shell. Insectile and unsettling.

Her eyes stayed blue.
My
eyes, and she defiantly focused them on me as she struggled to throw off David's hold and expel the poison he'd just forced down her throat.

But not even the strongest Demon could fight Mother Nature—
their
Mother Nature, not mine. Theirs dictated that they hunted by territory, and they'd hunt each other if forced together, to the exclusion of other prey.

Two Demons, one body.

I watched them rip each other apart, screaming, into a black shredded mist, and didn't realize I'd fallen down until David cradled me in his arms, partly shielding me from the heat. I was shaking all over, partly from dehydration, partly from the horror of what I'd seen. Partly from realizing that she'd just been destroyed by the same thing that had once killed me, and my mind had blocked out the details until Ashan had brought it all back.

A stream of blue fog poured from the mouth of the open bottle, and a Djinn formed out of the air and collapsed on his side on the floor, trembling. Wounded, haunted, hurt—but alive. The others closed protectively around and helped him rise.

David didn't speak. He tossed the bottle to another Djinn—a tall, dark-skinned guy dressed in classic
Arabian Nights
costume, whose legs misted into fog about midthigh. I recognized him, complete to the one gold hoop earring. He'd once guarded Lewis's house in Westchester. The Djinn set the open bottle on the floor and stepped away, and the black mist swirling above the remains of the Demon formed a vortex about the bottle.

It fought hard to stay out, but gradually it was pulled in, a steady stream of black fog condensing and rushing into the open mouth.

As soon as the last of it had vanished, the Djinn slammed the wax stopper back into the opening, tied the ribbons, and nodded to David. Who nodded back gravely.

The Djinn vanished, along with the bottle.

“Where's he taking it?” I asked. My lips were dry and cracked, and my tongue felt like old paper. I didn't recognize my own voice.

“Someplace safe,” David said, and frowned at me. “Let's get you out of here.”

But when he opened the door of the mausoleum and we stepped out into the cool, soft air, we had a surprise.

The graveyard was full of Djinn. My first thought was,
Wow, when he calls for backup, he calls for
backup! But then I realized, with a sick twisting sensation in my guts, that David looked just as surprised as I did.

And then his gaze focused on something in the midst of that crowd of several hundred, and a path formed to let two people walk out of the center.

Venna, in her Alice costume.

And, holding her hand like a father taking his favored child for a stroll, Ashan.

David didn't speak. Neither did Ashan nor Venna. I shifted my gaze back and forth, worried, because I could feel the battling tides of power and purpose all around us.

Finally David shook his head. “Let her leave,” he said. “She's got no part in this.”

“But she does,” Venna said, and her hot blue eyes locked on mine. “It should never have gotten this far, David. You put the Oracle at risk.”

“Not the first time that's happened, Ashan. Is it?” David was growing brighter, more Djinn-like, less human. I let go of his hand and took a step back. “Don't pretend you're the savior of the Djinn now. You were more than willing to destroy half of us and
all
of humanity to go back to being the favored of the Mother. Who gave you the right, you cold bastard? Just because you're
older
?”

Ashan's eyes had turned silver, and they looked like cold pools of mercury, still and uncaring. “Yes. Because I'm older,” he said. His voice resonated with assurance and cool, still energy. If other Djinn were fire, Ashan was pure air and water…nothing hot about him at all. You could drown in his deadly calm. “The Mother makes her own rules, but we choose how to obey them. I have a message for you, David.”