Текст книги "Gale Force"

Автор книги: Rachel Caine

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were.

Paul Giancarlo, my trusted friend, was with the Sentinels.

I saw the terrible guilt in his eyes, but there was something else, too. A fanatical light that I'd

never truly recognized before. He was hurt, I thought. He was hurt by the Djinn. He was in

charge while they destroyed the Warden headquarters. He saw people die, people he liked.

People he loved.

Bad Bob had preyed on him as surely as he had all these others. He'd made them victims all over

again. Worse-he'd made them victimizers.

''Jo,'' Paul said. ''Christ, what are you doing here? Get out!''

''You want me to send David instead?'' I glared at him. ''Paul, there's not enough what the hell

in the world for this!''

He clenched his fists, and I saw the muscles in his jaw tense and jump. He'd always looked a bit

thuggish, but never more than when he was truly angry. ''If we get David, it's over. It's done.

No more bloodshed, '' he said. ''If we have to go through all the Djinn, how much suffering is

that? Come on, Jo. You know they can't be trusted. You know!''

''Apparently I can trust them more than I can trust you,'' I said.

''Ah, reunions,'' Bad Bob said. He reached down and flipped open the lid on a black box on the

floor, something like what Heather the scientist had used to carry her radioactive materials when

she'd done her show-and-tell at Warden HQ. ''Stop it, you two. You're making me all teary-

eyed. Next thing you know we'll all be group-hugging and braiding each others' hair.''

Nothing seemed very real to me, and yet was simultaneously very, very clear. I could see every

single line of wood grain, every strand of Ortega's hair where it drifted in the subtle breezes of

the hallway.

I could see everything.

A black spear rose of its own accord from the box that Bad Bob had opened. This was no shard;

it must have been at least six feet long, glittering and lethal. It slowly turned, and I had the

horrifying idea that it was aware, that it was seeking out its victim. It was nothing on the

aetheric, an absence of all things around it, just a black hole that could never be filled.

''Too bad your boyfriend couldn't be persuaded to make an appearance,'' Bad Bob said. ''I

suppose we'll just have to perform a small demonstration instead with this unlucky fellow.''

Paul caught sight of the hovering spear, and his face went an ugly, ragged shade of pale. ''No,''

he said. ''No, you agreed, only if we could get-''

The spear oriented itself and launched itself with sudden, horrific violence at Ortega.

I screamed and tried to form a shield in front of him, but the spear-the Unmaking-tore right

through as if my power was completely meaningless to it, and buried itself in Ortega's chest.

The sound he made was like nothing I had ever heard, something I couldn't bear to hear. It was

sheer torment, the sound of a Djinn being pulled apart and feeling every hard second of the

process.

Oh God no no no.

I was watching Ortega, but I was picturing David writhing on the floor of that room amid the

shattered crystal, and dying along with him.

The Unmaking was burrowing into him. I could feel it eating at him, could see the color leaching

from his skin.

And as it ate him, it grew larger.

''Oh God,'' Kevin said, and I'd never heard him sound like that, so utterly blank and young. As

if he'd never seen anything terrible in his life.

On the other side, Paul Giancarlo and most of the others winced and turned away. Some covered

their ears. Some looked sick.

Bad Bob continued to smile, utterly unmoved, and all my hate focused to a red pinpoint, right

between his crazy blue eyes.

My power wouldn't work against the Unmaking, but it would damn sure make a dent in him.

I called up everything, everything, and balled it into a single bright lance of light in my right

hand, and slammed it toward Bad Bob Biringanine.

Who kept smiling.

Paul Giancarlo stepped in the way-no, not stepped. Lurched. I don't think he meant to; I don't

think that it was his choice at all. Bad Bob owned the Sentinels, body and soul, and even they

probably didn't understand just how much his creatures they'd become. They'd opened the door

to hate and revenge, and the darkness had claimed them. Lee Antonelli had shown me that.

Bad Bob used him as a human shield, because he knew it would hurt me the worst of all.

I didn't scream, but the anguish must have shown in my face; Paul must have seen it, in that

instant before the force I released hit him squarely in the chest.

It was fast, so fast he never blinked as the light hit him and blew out his nervous system,

destroyed his brain stem, and dropped him lifeless to the floor.

I'd just killed my friend.

Kevin paused, just for a second, eyes wide, and then he attacked when he realized that I wasn't

capable of doing anything else at that moment, too frozen in shock to move or even defend

myself. The Sentinels were in confusion; Bad Bob was smiling at me, oblivious to anything but

my horror, and the rest of them had no idea what they were supposed to do. Like the Ma'at, they

were a collective mass of power, and without a guiding force, they fell apart.

Even so, if it had been just Kevin and me, we'd have been lost. Each of the Sentinels had more

power than we did, drawn from that black well of energy the Unmaking created when it

destroyed things; they'd have killed us on their own, given time.

They didn't have time.

An explosion rattled the entire building from outside. I saw a flaming car roll by the doors at the

far end of the hall.

The cavalry had arrived with a bang.

I felt the aetheric popping and crackling with the arrival of more Wardens-some on the scene,

some pouring power in from remote locations. I heard the sound of fighting from outside, and

then something massive crashed against the outer wall, smashing a hole the size of a Buick in the

brick, and through it I saw . . . the Apocalypse, or at least, as much as could fit in the parking lot

of a condemned motel.

A tornado skimmed past the opening, sucking and howling, sparking lightning against every

metallic surface. Cars rolled and disintegrated under the assault, then caught fire as Weather

Wardens clashed with Fire. I couldn't tell the good guys from the bad guys, at least until the rest

of the wall came down with a heavy slam, and Lewis walked in over the rubble, leading a small

but heavily kick-ass army, and joined me and Kevin.

''Surrender,'' he said flatly to the group of Sentinels at the end of the hall. ''Do it now and we'll

let you live to see a trial. Otherwise, you get buried today.''

He meant exactly what he said. Lewis was giving no quarter today, if they pushed him into a

showdown. There was no trace of hesitation in him at all.

Bad Bob must have known it. He winked, jolly as a leprechaun, and blew me a kiss. Then he

went to Ortega and wrenched the black spear out of him with his bare hands.

As it came out, it grew, adding inches more to its length. With every death it was fed, it grew

more malevolently, horribly powerful.

Ortega was a dessicated corpse. A husk.

Bad Bob reached down and yanked up a small female form that lay huddled at his feet, tied with

glittering black ropes. Cherise's big blue eyes were wide under the confusion of blond hair, but

the fury in her was all Rahel.

''You don't want to risk this one, do you?'' Bad Bob asked, and yanked hard on her hair.

''Come on, Lewis. I know you better than that. You're one of the good guys!''

Lewis's expression didn't alter by a flicker. ''She's human. Humans get hurt when Wardens

clash; you know that. It's on your head, not mine.''

''My son, you've really learned how to operate in the subzero, haven't you? Well, very fine, but

we both know that despite this very pretty shell, what's inside is no more human than that.'' He

jerked his head toward Ortega's body. ''Probably a whole lot less human, actually. She's a wild

one, isn't she?''

Rahel was playing Cherise for all she was worth, and it broke my heart to see my friend so

scared, shaking, and crying. ''Please,'' she choked, ''I don't know who you think I am, but I'm

not-''

''You're a Djinn,'' Bad Bob cut in. ''Show me. Show me now, or I use this.'' He still had the

spear in his other hand, and he raised it, prepared to thrust it into her guts.

Lewis let out a low, almost inaudible moan.

Rahel flowed out of her disguise, dark and commanding and imperious, but still restrained by the

black ropes. Her eyes snapped violent yellow sparks as she struggled to get free. She subsided,

panting, dreadlocks wild around her hawk-sharp face.

''That's better,'' Bad Bob said. ''Do tell David that we'll be in touch, Jo. If he wants to stop me

from continuing to kill his people, he should consider giving himself up to us. Very soon.''

The Sentinels crowded around him. Bad Bob grabbed Rahel, and each of them touched the black

surface . . . and vanished. All of them together, Rahel included.

He'd taken her.

Kevin collapsed against one of the left-standing structural walls, gagging for breath. He looked

terrible. I must have looked a hell of a lot worse, because Lewis took one look at me, gestured,

and suddenly there were two Earth Wardens at my side, pouring warm, sticky power into me like

syrup.

I felt a rush of presence around me as I started to fall, and David's arms caught me and held me

close. ''Oh God,'' he whispered against my hair. ''Are you crazy? What were you trying to do?''

''Save you,'' I whispered back. ''Always.'' I wanted to tell him that everything was all right

here, too, in this warm, soft place I'd reached where nothing hurt. But I couldn't stay in that

place, even though it was so tempting to just give up and let shock take over.

Instead, I forced my legs to stiffen, and I pulled away from him. David let me go. He saw what

was in my face, and he let me go.

I walked toward Ortega. When Lewis tried to stop me, I shook him off. When he tried again, I hit

him with a lightning bolt. I was insane, but not quite that insane; I pulled the charge at the last

moment, feeding just enough through him to knock him back a step.

Ortega was dead. His eyes had gone black, burned and lifeless, and his skin was a dull, dusty

gray, as if he'd turned to stone. David joined me, standing close but not touching.

''It's not your fault,'' I told David. I could only imagine that he was thinking about ordering

Ortega to come here, because he'd known there was a chance. . . .

But that wasn't what he was thinking at all. David cocked his head slowly to one side, staring at

the dead Djinn, and asked, very quietly, ''Who is he?''

Chapter Twelve

None of the Djinn knew him, not even Venna, when I insisted that she be summoned from

whatever beach resort Ashan had decided to take his people to for the duration of the crisis. I

wasn't sure that Venna would come, but she'd always been her own master, and that hadn't

changed just because Ashan thought it had. He might be her Conduit, but he'd never own her.

Venna, dressed in her vintage Alice outfit, paced slowly in front of the wall and Ortega's body,

studying him closely. It was eerie, seeing that kind of detachment packaged in the body of a little

girl who almost radiated innocence.

She and David were the only ones allowed near the body at all. The entire room had been

cordoned off in space-age-looking shielding, and all of the rest of us were being thoroughly

checked out by a radiation team. Not surprisingly, we'd all gotten a dose. ''Not that it's as

unusual as people think it is,'' said the Chatty Cathy in the hazmat suit who was drawing my

blood. ''The average American gets about three hundred fifty millirems a year, just from the

environment. Hey, want to know the weird part? Forty millirems of that comes out of our own

bodies. We're little fusion reactors, you know. Potassium-40 in the brain, Carbon-14 in the

liver.'' She was chatty because she was scared, though her hands were steady enough. She must

have realized it, because she sent me an apologetic glance through the plastic visor of her space

suit. ''Sorry. I jabber when I'm nervous. This is just-well. They don't exactly train you for this

at NEST school.''

I wondered what the government had been told, or was telling them; the whole thing was

founded on need-to-know, and I doubted even this woman had a clue. There were some FBI

agents stalking the scene in their trademark dark windbreakers, talking into cell phones. Lots of

cops. Fire department.

And reporters. Lots of reporters, a cresting wave of them held back by a sandbar of uniformed

police around the perimeter. I could hear the dull thud of news helicopters overhead. No doubt

we were in heavy rotation on all the news channels.

In the shielded room, Alice finished her inspection of Ortega and came out. The NEST doctor

working on me muttered something under her breath, but she kept her eyes down and focused on

what she was doing. Keep on living in denial, I thought. Safer that way, lady.

Venna came up to my side and stared at the needle in my arm. ''What is she doing?''

''Taking blood.''

''Is she going to give it back?''

''Venna, what did you sense in there?''

''He is not a Djinn,'' she said. There was no doubt in her voice at all. ''I don't know what he is.

Or was.''

''He was a Djinn,'' I said. Venna slowly shook her head. ''Venna, that was Ortega. You know

Ortega; you remember him-''

Another slow shake of her head. It was exactly the same response I'd gotten from David, and

from two other Djinn he'd summoned. None of them recognized Ortega at all. They didn't

classify him as human; they didn't classify him as anything. Certainly, not anyone.

I thought with a sudden hot pang of the Miami estate, all that fascinating, rich chaos that Ortega

had surrounded himself with. I'd barely met him, but I was the only one who could mourn him.

''Never mind. Thanks for the help,'' I sighed to Venna, who cut her eyes sharply toward the

doctor, who was withdrawing the needle and applying a bandage to the bend of my arm. ''You

know about Rahel?''

''That your enemies have her? Yes.'' Venna continued to stare at the doctor, to the extent that

the poor woman fumbled the tube she was holding, but caught it on the way to the floor. ''I do

care, you know. But this is a mess humans made, and humans must correct. Ashan won't

interfere. He won't want me to interfere, either.''

''Venna,'' I said, ''that's Bad Bob Biringanine in charge of the Sentinels. You know what he did

to Djinn before. You think he's going to be any better now? Any kinder? You can't stick your

heads in the sand and pretend like you don't live here, too, as if you're not at risk. Rahel's proof

of that.''

No answer. She transferred her unblinking stare to me, which at least enabled the doc to make a

confused, nervous getaway.

''There's a book,'' I said. ''The kind of book Star had. You know the one. And Bad Bob has it.''

Her eyes went black. Storm black. She didn't move, but there was something entirely different

about her, suddenly.

I held myself very, very still.

''A book of the Ancestors?'' she asked. I nodded. I was very careful about that, too. ''Then he

has power he should not have. Like Star.''

''Does that change anything?''

She never blinked, and her eyes stayed black. ''I don't know,'' she said. ''I will find out.''

That sounded ominous. She blipped away before I could ask how she intended to go about doing

that, and I didn't think any amount of calling her name was going to get her back. Not now.

David was still in the shielded room. He was studying Ortega, the way someone might a

fascinating abstract sculpture, trying to find meaning in random patterns. I tapped on the window

and got his attention; he shook his head, as if he was trying to clear it, and came through the

decontamination door. One of the NEST members tried to lecture him about procedures, but he

ignored it and came directly to me.

''Radiation,'' I reminded him.

''I shed it in the room,'' he said. ''How about you? How do you feel?'' Oh, the joys of being

Djinn . . . I wondered how much of the toxic stuff I had crawling through my cells right now.

Too much, almost certainly. The Earth Wardens had done their work, so I was probably going to

feel sick, but not drop dead.

Probably.

''Fantastic,'' I said sourly. ''Do you recognize him at all?''

David's head shake was just as certain, and just as regretful about it, as Venna's had been. I

could see how frustrated he was, how baffled by his inability to comprehend what was in front of

him, and it scared me, too. He was one of the most powerful entities on the face of the Earth. He

shouldn't have this kind of blind spot.

I was trying not to think about it as an Achilles' heel, but that was getting more difficult all the

time, especially when the whole thing ran through my head and the person imprisoned on that

wall and impaled by the black spear was David, not Ortega.

They wouldn't know him, I thought, with a sickening drop of my stomach. Venna, Rahel, all the

Djinn– they'd just stare at his body and not know who the hell they were looking at. They

wouldn't even remember him at all.

Of all the possible ways to destroy someone, that had to be the worst.

It reminded me, with a sudden snap, of how Ashan had tried to destroy me, not so long ago-on

the day that my daughter had died. He'd tried to strip away not just my life, but the memory of

my life. He'd been stopped midslaughter, which was why I was still around, but there was

something fundamentally similar about what Ashan had done, and what was happening now, to

the Djinn.

The Mother had intervened to stop him-but, I thought, that had mostly been because he'd done

it on the grounds of the chapel in Sedona, on what was, for them, holy ground. The same kind of

protection might not apply for David out here.

The answer was in the book. It had to be in the book.

''David-'' I chose my words very carefully, remembering Venna's extreme reaction. ''The

book, the one that we looked at earlier-''

He raised his eyes to meet mine, and I saw surprise in them. ''The Ancestor Scriptures.''

''You remember them.''

''Of course I remember them.''

''And what about where we left them?''

''In a vault,'' he said promptly. ''Locked up.''

''Where was the vault?''

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. For a second he looked baffled, then angry, then

blank. ''I don't know,'' he said. ''How can I not know?''

''David, what did the book say about Unmaking?''

His pupils expanded, black devouring bronze.

''Don't say that.'' His words had the ring of command, but I was no Djinn.

''You have to listen to me. I think that all this is connected to-''

He grabbed me by the arm. ''Don't say it. Don't.''

''David, stop it!'' I yanked free. He hadn't used Djinn strength on me, but plain old human

strength was enough to piss me off. I didn't like being grabbed, not in that way, and he knew it.

''It's connected to what Ashan did when he messed with our reality, to try to erase me from the

world. Bad Bob reappeared about the same time. This weapon, the thing they're using, it's a tool

of Unmaking; that's what they're calling it-''

His eyes flared black, like Venna's. ''Stop,'' he growled.

''It's killing you, and you can't even see it. You can't see those you lose. It's just destroying

you.''

He spun around and stalked away, fury in every sinuous movement. He knew, somewhere deep

down, but there was something in Djinn DNA that kept him from acknowledging any of it.

The secret was in that damned book, which I couldn't read without major consequences. I knew I

wouldn't be able to resist its pull.

Lewis was watching us from the back of the room, having completed his own blood donations;

he looked tired, but alert. ''Everything okay?'' he asked.

''Do you think Rahel is okay?'' I shot back, and saw the flinch. ''Sorry. I know you-care for

her.'' I wasn't exactly sure what that entailed, between Lewis and Rahel; I wouldn't have been

surprised if they'd been casual lovers. Rahel wasn't the type to fall in love, and Lewis . . . Lewis

already had, with the wrong person.

''He hasn't hurt her yet,'' David said. He had his back to us, but he was listening. ''They're

hiding their tracks, but the connection is still there. I can trace her as long as they hold her.''

Was that a good thing, or a bad thing? I thought about the trap Bad Bob had laid this time

around. He'd known-because of Paul, oh God, Paul, you fool-that Kevin and Rahel had been

planted to spy on him. Surely he was assuming that David could sense and track Rahel's

position, too.

Surely he would just lay another trap.

Depressing as that was, we'd won a kind of victory here. Yes, Ortega was dead, but so was Paul;

not only that, but the Sentinels had been forced to regroup and retreat. The current count was

twelve dead in total.

Problem was, all of them were Wardens. And it was impossible to tell which of them had been

Sentinels, except for anecdotal information about which side they'd been fighting for. I was sure

about Paul, Emily, and Janette. The rest . . .

Once again, we just didn't know who our enemies really were.

Lewis stood up and walked to where David was standing, facing the window. Facing Ortega's

desiccated body. ''We can't follow them,'' he said. ''They've got weapons that can destroy the

Djinn, and we don't know what they're planning. Let's talk to Kevin. Maybe he's got some

information we don't.''

That was coolly logical, something that neither David nor I seemed capable of being at the

moment. David nodded, and the three of us left the treatment area.

Or tried, anyway. An FBI agent got in our way. She was a tall woman, curved but in that I-work-

out kind of way. Feathered dark hair around a heart-shaped face. Cool, impartial green eyes.

''Sorry,'' she said. ''Nobody moves. We haven't finished our interrogations yet.''

David was likely to just walk over her, in the mood he was in, and that would at the very least

lead to a confrontation we didn't need. I looked over at Lewis, who sighed and dug something

out of the back pocket of his jeans. ''Right,'' he said. ''All-access pass.''

He held it up. I couldn't see what it said, but the woman's eyes widened, and she took a step

back. I got the impression she hadn't done that in a while.

''Yes sir,'' she said. ''Sorry. And they are-''

''With me,'' Lewis said. ''Thanks for your vigilance, but it's not necessary, Agent. We're the

good guys.''

She looked as if she sincerely doubted that, but she didn't say anything, just moved out of the

way with a be-my-guest motion. Then she went to tell her boss, a tall gray-haired man. Cover

your ass. It was the absolute code of any governmental agency, no matter how well-intentioned.

''This,'' Lewis said, ''is a cluster fuck.'' He was looking at the parking lot, which was littered

with burned-out, crushed vehicles, downed trees, fragments of glass and metal. The hotel, which

had luckily been scheduled for demolition anyway, was partially destroyed, whether by us or by

the Sentinels it was impossible to say. At a certain point, it really didn't much matter.

The news media was out in a huge, baying pack. I tried to count the number of satellite trucks,

but my head hurt. I was sure that a fair number of those photo and video lenses were being

pointed in our direction, though, and remembered the reporter from Fort Lauderdale. Man,

wouldn't she feel vindicated? She now officially had a scoop.

''How much did they get?'' I asked.

''Oh, everything. Tornadoes forming out of nowhere. Cars bursting into flame and exploding.

Trees getting thrown. Buildings disintegrating.'' Lewis's shoulders twitched, then straightened.

''The FBI wants me to give a statement. Something along the lines of, we're a secret government

agency; we'd tell you but we'd have to kill you, blah blah. They'd like me to tie it to terrorists.''

I stared at him. ''And what are you going to do?''

He shrugged. ''Don't know yet.''

''You really think this is a good time to lie?''

''Well, I don't think it's exactly a good time to tell the truth.'' He glanced at David, whose eyes

seemed to be fading back to a more normal color. ''I'll leave the Djinn out of it, if you'd like.''

''That's kind of you, but I think we'd better tell everything if we tell anything,'' David said.

''Let's talk to Kevin. We don't have a lot of time.''

Kevin was sitting with his least favorite people. Well, that probably wasn't fair; he didn't like

anybody, so most people were his least favorite people, but he reserved a special kind of dislike

for the Ma'at. I wasn't really sure why, except that in general, the leadership of the Ma'at was

pretty unlikable.

Two of them were flanking him: Charles Spenser Ashworth II and Myron Lazlo. Talk about the

Old Boy Network . . . they weren't just in it, they'd laid the original cable. Lazlo had dressed

down for his public appearance; he normally liked subtle, tailored suits that reeked old money,

but he'd deigned to wear what I supposed was his ''field outfit''-khaki slacks, a cotton shirt

open at the neck, and a sport coat that undoubtedly cost nearly as much as the sports car he'd

probably arrived in.

Even so, Charles Ashworth's outfit made Lazlo look cheap.

Both of them were older than the pharaohs, and twice as stern, both in looks and in attitude.

Yeah, I liked them just as much as Kevin did.

I thought it was just about the first time I'd ever seen actual relief on the kid's face as he spotted

me.

''About time,'' he said. ''Who put me in fucking detention with the Mummy Twins?''

I had to admit, that made me smile. The Ma'at had taken a lot of their iconography for their

organization from the Egyptians, and it was no accident they'd made their headquarters at the

Luxor in Las Vegas. I suppose they could have made a case for Memphis as well, but where else

do you get a real live pyramid for a clubhouse?

''I did,'' Lewis said. ''Thanks, gentlemen.''

The gentlemen in question glared and, in Lazlo's case, gave him a well-I-never patrician huff.

''We are not your staff,'' Ashworth snapped. ''Do you have any idea what kind of imbalance

this little fracas has caused? Oh, of course you do. You're supposed to be preventing this kind of

thing, you know. Protecting people, not putting them in danger. Isn't that the Warden credo?''

He said Warden as if it were an epithet, which it practically was, for the Ma'at. They looked on

themselves as the accountants of the aetheric; they were concerned about balance, always

balance. Important, yes, but even supernatural double-entry bookkeeping was still bookkeeping,

and I couldn't work up much enthusiasm for their way of doing things.

''The credo of every one of us is to stop Bad Bob Biringanine from screwing things up any

worse than he already has,'' Lewis said. ''I'll expect your support.''

He sent them on their way with a jerk of his head. He was probably the only person in the world

they'd have taken that kind of treatment from, another mystery of Lewis Levander Orwell. He

had an impressive presence, but not that impressive-generally. And yet we all jumped when he

snapped his fingers.

Kevin stayed where he was, slouched in the plastic chair, as the two older men vacated. I settled

in on one side, Lewis on the other. David paced. It was what David did, at times like these. He

looked preoccupied, and I knew that he was tracking Rahel, trying to find out everything about

what the Sentinels were doing.

''You saw Paul, right?'' Kevin asked. He kept his head down, and addressed the question toward

the tops of his dirty Nikes. ''Bastard sold us out.''

''I know,'' I said. My whole heart hurt, and I hadn't allowed myself to really feel it yet, the

depth of Paul's betrayal. Things he'd said came back to me-his refusal to disagree with the

Sentinels, his reluctance about my relationship with David, and the wedding. For Paul, it had

been a matter of us versus them. He had never really understood, deep down, that Djinn and the

Wardens were the same. Different points on the same scale.

Sometimes I despaired for the human race.

''I think they bought the cover at first,'' Kevin was saying. ''They had us in a room for almost a

day, talking to us. All about how the Djinn had always been dangerous, and we'd been stupid to

ever open ourselves up to them.'' His bitter eyes followed David. ''Can't say I ever really

disagreed with that. Made a lot of sense to me.''

''That's why you were perfect,'' Lewis said. ''How'd Rahel do?''

''Fine. If I hadn't known she wasn't human, I'd never have figured it out. She was-'' Kevin's

throat worked nervously, his prominent Adam's apple bobbing. ''She was really good at being

Cherise.'' And I couldn't imagine Kevin had been able to really play along too well, but that

might have been okay. After all, he was socially awkward at the best of times.

''When did Paul show up?'' I asked.

''About an hour ago,'' Kevin said. ''That was when they cut us off. Tried to make it seem like

they were just testing us, but Rahel knew Paul was in the building, she told me. She knew he'd

sell us out.''

''Didn't she try to get the two of you out?''

''Yeah.'' Kevin's voice faltered. ''I made her stop.''

Silence. I looked at Kevin's hands. They were tightly bound up together, trembling.

''Why?'' Lewis asked the question I wanted to, in a voice far more gentle than I could have.

''What happened?''

''There was this girl. I didn't know-she might have been one of them, I don't know. But they

said-they said they were going to kill her if we tried to leave. I had to-'' Kevin squeezed his

eyes shut. ''Christ. I should have just let Rahel get out of here.''

''Trust me, if Rahel hadn't thought it was important to stay, you'd have been yanked out whether

you wanted it or not.'' Lewis glanced at David, who was still pacing, but listening to every word.

''Then what happened?''

''They had this stuff. Black stuff. I guess it was like-like the stuff you found.'' Antimatter. I

nodded. ''They tied Rahel up with it, and she couldn't move. I know she tried to get away, but

she couldn't; she was able to make enough noise that I could run. I was looking for a way out

when you showed up.'' He nodded at me. ''I should have-''