Текст книги "Gale Force"

Автор книги: Rachel Caine

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Still, I fished a tissue out of my purse and wiped the plastic down before I started dialing.

Lewis answered on the third ring. ''Somebody tried to kill me,'' I said. ''No, don't interrupt, and

don't joke. It was Lee Antonelli. I had things under control, but somebody took him out at a

distance. He said something about the Sentinels putting out a contract on my life.''

There was a silence on the other end that stretched on for longer than I would have liked.

''How'd they kill him?'' Lewis asked.

''Some kind of aetheric attack, nothing I've ever seen before. Lewis, they just reached out and

destroyed him. What the hell is going on?''

''Just get here,'' he said. ''The faster the better.'' He hesitated for a second, and then his voice

softened. ''You okay?''

''Yeah. No damage.''

''That's not what I meant.''

''You mean, am I okay with the concept that somebody's capable of hiring marginally loyal

Wardens as hit men to take me out, and killing them if they fail? No, not really.''

I went cold inside when Lewis said, ''If it makes you feel better, you're not the only target.''

''You?''

''Among others.'' He didn't elaborate, and I didn't think it was a good time to ask. ''Watch your

back. If they can kill Antonelli from a distance-''

''I've got David,'' I said. ''And we'll both be watching for it now. You be careful.''

''Always. Call when you get back on the road.''

''Can't. Cell phone had a fatal issue during the fight.''

''Get David to fix it,'' Lewis said. ''I don't want you out of contact for a second.''

And that was it. Sentimental, it wasn't, but then we understood each other too well for that most

of the time. Not that we couldn't be friends, but business was business, and staying alive was

serious business these days. I'd fought beside him, and he knew that when the situation got dire,

I'd be there.

Still. A little verbal hug might have been . . . nice. I replaced the receiver, listened to the machine

swallow my quarter deeper into its gear guts, and peered around the corner of the scratched

plastic bubble. The reporters were still there, trying to solicit comments from uncooperative

cops. They were also talking to diner patrons. I hoped nobody had any creative explanations that

involved magic.

David came out of the diner, hands in the pockets of his long olive-drab coat. He didn't look

happy. Wind caught the tail of the coat as he strode toward me, giving him an almost princely

magnificence, but I doubted anybody but me noticed except for some of the waitresses, who

were still acutely David-oriented.

''I didn't find anything,'' he said as he reached me.

''Are you all right?'' He knew I wasn't. It was a pro forma question, but I especially liked that it

was accompanied by a gentle brush of his fingertips along the line of my cheek.

''Fine,'' I said. He held my gaze.

''Really?''

''No.'' I gave him a very small smile that felt crooked and unsteady on my lips. ''That was-

unpleasant.''

''I know,'' he said, and looked down at my hands. They were clean-the cops had allowed me to

wash up-but I still felt the psychic imprint of blood on them. ''It could just as easily have been

you.''

''Maybe,'' I said. ''I don't think so, though. There was something that made him vulnerable to

them, maybe a link they'd created to keep track of him through the aetheric. It pushed us out of

the way and went straight for him. If they'd been able to take me out the same way, don't you

think they would have done it?''

I couldn't tell if it had occurred to him or not; David was being extraordinarily secretive at the

moment. He gazed at me for a couple of seconds, then turned his attention to the reporters. ''We

should get out of here,'' he said.

''Do you know who was behind it?'' I asked.

''If I did, would I tell you right now?'' he asked, all too reasonably. ''But I think you already

know.''

''If we can believe Lee, it was the Sentinels,'' I said. ''How come I'm on their hit list when I

barely know their oh-so-pretentious name?''

''Because of me,'' he said. ''Let's get out of here. I'd like it if you were a less stationary target.''

''Cops want to talk to you.''

David took my arm, a sweet gentlemanly gesture that didn't exactly fool me. He walked me in

the direction of the Mustang, which was currently an awkward bastard stepchild of a convertible,

what with all the glass scattered in glittering square pieces on the ground. ''I don't want to talk to

them,'' he said. He opened the driver's-side door. ''I'll let you drive.''

''Bribery, pure and simple. You're bribing me to do something illegal.''

''What's illegal about it? It's your car. You already talked to the police. You're not guilty of

anything.''

Well, he did have a point. But I still felt uneasy, driving away under the noses of cops and

television cameras. ''We'll be seen,'' I said, and nodded toward the news crews. David didn't

bother to glance their way.

''We won't.'' Only a Djinn could sound that confident. Or arrogant. I supposed if I didn't love

him so much it would have been just a shade more on the arrogant side. ''If we get entangled

here, more lives are at risk. We need to be moving, Jo.''

Djinn were nothing if not ruthlessly logical. And they weren't above hitting the pressure points,

even on those they cared about.

I silently got behind the wheel of the Mustang. It started up with a low rumble. Nobody looked

in our direction. ''Repairs,'' I reminded David. The broken remains of our windshields and

windows rose up in a glittering curtain from the pavement, liquefied into a pool in each open

area, and then solidified into clean, clear safety glass. I checked that the driver's-side window

rolled down, and it functioned perfectly.

''I'm disappointed in you,'' David said. ''You believe I'd do it wrong?''

''I think that you have enough to think about already, '' I said. ''His van's still in the way.''

Moving a working crime scene would have been a puzzle even to one of the most powerful

Djinn on Earth, but David was a lateral thinker; he didn't bother to move the van, or the cops, or

anyone else.

''Hold on,'' he said, and our car lurched slightly and then began to float above the road. It rose at

a steady pace, carefully level, then moved forward over the gabled roof of the diner. Nobody

looked up to follow our progress. I held on to the wheel in a white-knuckled death grip; flying

had never been my favorite method of transportation, and far less so when the vehicle wasn't

actually designed for flight. Shades of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

''What are they seeing?'' I asked. My voice was a half octave higher than I wanted it to be.

''Nothing of any significance. To them, the car hasn't moved from where it's parked. They see

the two of us standing at the phone booth. Oh, and a flock of birds overhead, just in case

someone has some rudimentary sense of the aetheric.'' Some people did; the ones with a strong

sense of it generally put out shingles as psychics or became wildly successful investors or

gamblers. If they had more than that, they probably would have ended up in the Ma'at, where

they were taught to combine their powers with colleagues, and work in concert, if their abilities

weren't enough to qualify them as Wardens.

I had to rely wholly on David to keep me off the Warden radar. I would remain mostly difficult

to find until I had to draw on my powers, but at that moment, I'd light up the aetheric like a

spotlight in a cave.

My brain was babbling to distract itself from the impossibility of a ton of metal hanging in

midair, gliding at an angle away from the diner and toward a very busy road. ''Landing will be

tricky,'' David said. ''Are you ready? When we touch down, you'll have to really accelerate to

make the merge.''

Great. Now freeway merging was taking on a whole new dimension of complexity. I nodded,

and got ready to put my foot down and shift as David brought the car in at a gliding angle,

moving us faster and faster as the road blurred on approach. . . . It was like landing a jet, only

way scarier, from my point of view.

The tires hit pavement with a lurch, and I instantly clutched, shifted, and accelerated, leaving a

rubber scratch where we'd hit. The Mustang bounced but recovered nicely, and when I checked

the rearview mirror, the car behind us was still a few feet away. Not quite heart-attack distance,

at least not on my end. I could only imagine that on the other driver's end, having a car just

appear in front of him might have been . . . unsettling. Maybe when people said he came out of

nowhere after an accident, they really were telling the truth.

I got the inevitable honk and New Jersey salute, returned the favor, and settled into the drive.

David relaxed-but not all the way. I could translate his body language pretty well, and he was

still tense. Trying hard not to let me know it, but tense.

''You're starting to believe me,'' I said, ''that things aren't quite as straightforward as they

seemed.''

''They never are with you. I've always taken you seriously,'' he said. ''But now I'm taking your

enemies seriously as well.''

Not a good sign for them, and that cheered me up as much as the food back at the diner. I was

tired, and achy from the stress and the drive, but there was something restful and strangely

comforting about having the wheel beneath my hands and my feet on the pedals. And David at

my side, which happened far less than I'd always craved. Which reminded me . . . ''You're

hanging around,'' I said. ''Do Djinn get vacations from the day job?''

''Since I'm the boss, I can take vacation whenever I want,'' he said, and took off his glasses to

needlessly polish them. It was so cute that Djinn had poker tells, just like humans; I knew

instantly that he was fibbing. ''I can take the time.''

David's job wasn't exactly low-key. He served as the Conduit for half of the Djinn, a link

between them and the raw power of Mother Earth. Without that link, the Djinn were reliant on

Wardens and their relatively feeble draw of power from the aetheric. His job was different from

that of the Oracles, but even more crucial, and it didn't have time off.

The Djinn didn't like being reliant on humans. Ever. I supposed that if I'd been one of them,

ancient beings who'd been forced into the worst kind of slavery imaginable for centuries at a

time, I wouldn't be all that fond of relying on others, either.

What else David did besides managing that power flow for his people, though, was a mystery to

me. I knew he had to leave me on a fairly frequent basis to attend to business; I knew some of

that business had to do with Djinn stepping out of line and needing correction. In a sense, David

had become the court of last supernatural resort, a role I instinctively knew he didn't want and

wasn't comfortable in playing. His friend Jonathan had been a great leader, one who'd held the

Djinn together despite all the infighting for thousands of years; he'd had a certain ruthless

wisdom that everyone respected.

David, however, was crippled by two things: One, he wasn't Jonathan; two, he had me to worry

about. I was his Achilles' heel, at least when it came to his fellow elementals. Most of them

didn't understand why he spent so much time in human form, and they'd never understand why

he had offered marriage to a mere bug like me. They'd forgive him for it, those who liked him;

after all, pledging to stay at my side would only last a human lifetime, barely a blink to the

Djinn.

But it was a worry. He'd become kind of a Crazy Cat Lady among the elementals, far too

attached to humanity for his own good. It was a sign, faint but definite, that he wasn't destined

for the same long-term status that Jonathan had held.

It made David vulnerable in ways I could only dimly imagine.

''What are you thinking about?'' David asked. His eyes were closed, and his head was back

against the cushion.

''Whether I want purple roses or yellow ones. I think purple might be a nice touch for the

wedding bouquet.''

''That's not what you were thinking about.''

''How do you know?''

He smiled, but didn't open his eyes. ''Because I know when you're happy, and you're not.

Thinking about wedding bouquets is something you do when you're happy.''

''You make me happy,'' I said, and that wasn't at all a lie. I took his hand in mine. ''And that's

all that counts.''

He lifted my fingers to his lips and pressed a warm kiss against them. ''Yes,'' he said. ''It is.''

Chapter Seven

The rest of the drive was full of the normal annoyances of traffic, construction, and generally

idiotic behavior by other motor vehicle operators. David didn't have to ward off any supernatural

assaults, and all that the day required of me was moderately offensive driving to avoid the

unexpected lane changes and people failing to check their blind spots.

We rolled into the Warden parking garage, checked through the extensive security procedures,

and got our passes for the headquarters floor. It had been remodeled, again; somebody had

kindly seen to taking my name off the Memorial Wall, where they'd hastily had it added when

I'd been thought to be dead. That was what I thought, anyway, but then I looked closer. They'd

really just put some kind of filler into the engraving, a clear indication that they expected me to

get clobbered at any time. This way, they could rinse it out and voila, I'd be memorialized all

over again. At a bargain.

I cannot even begin to say how much that bugged me, but I bit my lip and smiled when I noticed,

and ignored David's slightly alarmed look. He was picking up vibrations, all right, and I tried

hard to keep myself under better control.

Lewis was waiting for us in the big round conference room, the main one, and there was a crowd

with him. Most of them I knew by sight, and some I counted as closer friends. There wasn't a

single unfriendly face, which was something of a relief.

Unless you counted Kevin.

Kevin Prentiss was seated at the table like an equal member of the war council, and next to him

sat Cherise. My best friend wasn't a Warden; she was way cool of course, but controlling the

elements wasn't her bag. So I had to wonder what she was doing in such a high-powered inner

circle.

She caught my look, raised her eyebrows, and shrugged. ''Don't ask me,'' she said. ''Lewis

wanted everybody here. Kevin was with me, and he said I could come along.'' The subtext was

that nobody had wanted to piss Kevin off by demanding his ride-along girlfriend step outside. He

was maturing, but I suspected he'd always have more than a little of that sullen, aggressive

attitude he was known for. He was at that startling age when the changes come fast and furious;

his weedy physique was filling out, developing into a fairly impressive chest under that battered

black T-shirt. He avoided my eyes, but then, he always did. We had shared some very

unpleasant, even embarrassing moments, and neither of us wanted to get too cozy. It had been a

big step for him to spend time with Cherise (and coincidentally with me) on the roof of the

hospital; he'd made up for it by ignoring me the rest of the day. I'd returned the favor.

Kevin was here because he was a seriously talented young man. Not trained, not restrained, but .

. . talented.

And maybe he cared about me. A little.

I was surprised to recognize that there was a Djinn in the room as well. She sat in the far corner

of the room, long, elegant legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, displaying lethally

gorgeous shoes. I hadn't seen Rahel since the earthquake in Fort Lauderdale, so it struck me how

much better she was looking these days. She'd taken a beating at the hands of a Demon, not too

long ago; for a while, we'd been worried she wouldn't recover.

When she turned her head slightly, I could see the scars on the right side of her sharp-featured

face– etched grooves, as if she'd been clawed. I nodded to her. She inclined her head, and her

thousands of tiny black braids slithered over her shoulders with a dark rustling sound like old

paper on stone.

She was sticking with purple again for her outfit. It looked good on her.

Lewis got me and David seated at the table, and didn't waste any more time. He hit a control

inset in the table, and a projector beamed a picture onto a screen at the far end of the room. It

was grainy surveillance video, and it took me a few seconds to recognize that it was my parking

lot, in front of my apartment. I started to ask what was going on, but then I got my answer . . . a

delivery person got out of a dark-colored panel van and jogged up the steps toward the second

floor. Lewis froze the picture. ''Ring any bells?'' he asked me. I studied the face of the man on

the screen, but it was an awful picture. I shook my head. Lewis released the freeze frame, and I

watched the deliveryman disappear into the hallway with a familiar-looking box in his hands.

When he came back ten seconds later, no box. Surveillance showed him getting into his van and

driving away. It was the kind of thing that happened a dozen times a day at any apartment

complex, nothing that would alert anyone to potential trouble. ''License plates?'' I asked.

''Covered with mud,'' said one of the Power Rangers down the table-Sasha, his name was, a

nice-looking guy with a ready smile. I called him a Power Ranger because he worked with

Marion Bearheart, and was part of the unofficial police force of the Wardens. When someone

broke the codes, Sasha and those like him took it on. I didn't much care for the system-it

bothered me to have so much power in the hands of so few-but most of them were honest.

More of them were honest than the rank and file of the Wardens, to be fair. ''We've been in

contact with every delivery service. None of them had drop-offs at your apartment that day.''

''Which leaves us with . . . ?'' Lewis asked. For reply, Sasha appropriated the controls, bringing

up another video on the screen. This one was better defined, but at an odd angle. One of the

traffic cameras, maybe.

''We tracked the delivery van back, but we lost it in the warehouse district. They were damn

careful. It took hours to trace them this far, but I don't think we'll get much farther, not with

these methods. If they're smart-and I think they are-they'd have had Earth Wardens ready to

reduce the entire truck to slag and spare parts in a few minutes.'' Sasha blanked the screen. ''If I

had to guess, I'd say we ought to be looking for warehouses rented out in the last two months.''

''Put somebody on it,'' Lewis said.

Sasha folded his arms and sat back with a cocky smile. ''Already done.''

Lewis turned his attention to another Earth Warden, young but sharp. Heather something or

other; I'd heard good things. ''What about the package itself?'' Lewis asked her.

Heather ducked her head shyly and studied her interlaced fingers. ''Still analyzing,'' she said, so

softly I could hardly hear her. ''But there is definitely a high decay rate to what's inside. It's

dangerous, most certainly.''

''But not a bomb.''

She looked up at him, then at us, wide-eyed. ''Oh yes,'' she said. ''It had a delivery system and a

trigger. If you'd opened the package, it would have gone off and spread the contents.''

''And the contents are . . . ?'' David asked, in that cool, controlled voice so at odds with the look

in his eyes.

''Antimatter,'' Heather said. ''Antimatter colliding with any kind of matter will produce a

violently energetic reaction. The by-products are-''

''There was a trigger?'' I asked. ''What kind of trigger?''

Her gaze slid away from mine, toward Lewis, and then back, as if she'd been seeking approval.

''It looked as if it was adapted from a more traditional bomb-making approach. Timer and a

small charge designed to crack the shell holding in the antimatter, spilling it out into the world.''

''Not a skill you pick up at your local community college,'' Paul grunted.

''Unfortunately, it's not exactly rare, either. And with the Internet so helpfully offering tutorials

for this kind of thing, it will be hard to track.''

''The paper?'' Lewis got us back on track. ''The wrapping, the card?''

Heather brightened immediately. ''That's a possibility, '' she said. ''If the Djinn can help us, we

may be able to trace the card's history back and find out who came in contact with it.''

But that experiment failed. I could have told them it would. When they brought in the card-in a

heavily shielded container, since it was saturated with radiation-and presented it to Rahel, she

just shook her head. ''Nothing,'' she said. ''I see nothing at all.''

It was the same with David, and I could see his frustration and growing alarm. He'd dismissed

all this at first, but there were too many of us now, and we were too credible. The Djinn had to

believe us-but believing us meant accepting half a dozen impossible things. Heather,

disheartened, reclaimed the thing and began to have it carted back to the lab for more tests.

I stopped her. ''Can I see it?'' I asked. She looked surprised. ''Well, it was addressed to me. It

stands to reason that I might see something others don't.''

I doubted she bought that theory, but I really did want to see it. It had been meant for me. So had

the bomb-for me and David. I supposed the first explosion would have killed me, and the

antimatter would have done the job for David. . . .

Heather handed me a pair of protective gloves, draped a heavy shielding vest around my chest,

and put a protective hood on me before she allowed me to reach into the container and pull out

the card. It was, as Lewis had told me, a greeting card-a fairly nice one, actually, with a graphic

of a wedding cake, a bride, a groom. Inside, cursive preprinted script read, Congratulations to

the happy couple!

But when I saw what was underneath, I felt cold, clammy, and sick. It said, in plain block letters

pressed deep into the paper, Sleep with the enemy, pay the price.

Beneath it was sketched a symbol, kind of a torch. The kind that peasants carry to attack the

monster-dwelling castle.

I cleared my throat and turned the card over. ''Was there anything else?'' My voice was muffled

by the helmet, but clear enough. I distinctly saw Heather shoot another of those looks toward

Lewis. ''Well?''

''Give it to her,'' Lewis said. He sounded grim and calm. ''No point in hiding anything.''

Heather brought out another container. This one had several sheets of paper that had been folded

in half-probably to fit inside the card or its envelope.

Plain white paper, no watermarking. Cheap quality. On it was printed in very small type a-I

hesitated to call it a letter, because there was no hint of communication to it. A manifesto,

maybe.

The Sentinels were declaring war on the Wardens, and they'd felt compelled to give us all their

reasons. It was quite a list, starting with a detailed analysis of why the Wardens could no longer

be trusted to put the interests of the human race first. Seems we'd been corrupted not by our own

greed or weakness, but by contact with the Djinn.

Most of the manifesto was about the Djinn, and the crazy paranoia gave me the creeps. Sure, the

Djinn could be capricious, even cruel; they certainly didn't forgive those who trespassed against

them, and turning the other cheek had never been a high priority for them. Added to that, they

had millennia of pent-up anger against the Wardens.

But even so, the Sentinels' position wasn't that Djinn ought to be treated with care and caution-

it was that none of them deserved to live. That every single Djinn in existence had to be hunted

down and destroyed for the human race to survive.

That they had to be punished for their crimes before they were allowed to die.

I felt sick, and I'd barely skimmed the thing. David hadn't been able to, saturated as it was with

antimatter radiation that rendered it effectively invisible to him, but he could read my expression

and mood like flashing neon. He stood up and said, ''Enough. Jo, enough.''

I nodded and put the manifesto back into the container. Heather sealed it and took back her

protective equipment. ''They intended that to be found,'' I said. ''So they really didn't intend the

bomb to go off, did they?''

Lewis and Heather once again exchanged that look.

I was starting to really hate that look. ''These weren't in the box with the antimatter,'' Lewis

said. ''They were in your mailbox, where they'd be found later. But they're still saturated with

radiation, enough to sicken anybody who touched them.''

No question, this was serious. If they'd succeeded with the bomb in the package, I'd be dead or

badly injured, and David . . . David would be, too. Putting tainted, taunting letters in my mailbox

was worse yet. It reminded me of the cruelest of terrorists, who detonated one explosion and

waited for rescue workers to arrive before detonating another. My friends would have been the

ones to suffer.

I tried to lighten my own mood. ''Special Delivery Guy delivers the mail, too,'' I said. ''Give

him credit, at least he's a full-service assassin. Maybe we can get him to throw in a pizza and hot

wings next time.'' All my attempt at humor did was give everybody the opportunity to stare at

me with faintly worried looks, as if they were afraid that I was going to scream, faint, or grow a

second head.

At length, Heather said, ''We're following up on anyone who goes into the hospitals for

treatment of radiation sickness or burns, but I have the feeling that a well-trained Earth Warden

could have handled these letters without lasting damage, if he was careful. Or she, of course.

And we have to proceed on the idea that whatever the Sentinels are, they're well organized and

well protected.''

Lewis nodded, acknowledging the point. He wasn't watching Heather, though; he was scanning

the faces around the table. I didn't know what he was looking for, but he stopped and focused on

Kevin. ''You've got something to say,'' he told the kid. It wasn't a question.

Kevin, who'd been staring at the table, looked up, and his face flushed red along the line of his

jaw, bringing a few pimples into sharp relief. His eyes were almost hidden by the messy fall of

his hair, but I had no problem reading his body language. Busted.

''Yeah,'' he said reluctantly. ''So, I got this message about a week ago.''

''About?'' Lewis's voice was calm and even, but I wasn't fooled. Neither was Kevin, who

looked down again at his clenched hands.

''About joining the Sentinels,'' he said. ''They told me they could use my talents.''

There was a long, ringing silence. I instinctively put out a hand to touch David's, telling him

without words to hold his temper.

''What did you say?''

Kevin cleared his throat. ''I told them I'd think about it. I figured maybe keeping the bait out

there would help.''

''Good thinking,'' I said. ''Thanks, Kev.''

He shot me a frown. ''Didn't do it for you.''

''I know. But as it seems that they're after me, I still appreciate it. Did they say they'd be getting

back to you? Give you any way to approach them?''

''Yeah. They gave me a phone number.''

Lewis let out a slow, quiet breath. ''Let me have the number.''

''No.'' ''No.''

''What?''

''No. It's my lead. I get to follow it.''

''This isn't a goddamn game!'' I'd never seen Lewis lose his temper, but that was a sharp crack

of anger in his shell of Zen. He stood up, leaning both fists on the table. ''You can't screw with

these people, Kevin. And you'd better not screw with me, either. They want Jo and David dead,

but I don't think they really care how many people they have to take out along the way.''

It was a mistake, a big one, and I knew it the second Lewis raised his voice. Kevin had been

raised by an abusive parent, and he didn't react well to things that dredged up that bitter past.

He said, without looking up, ''Fuck you, Lewis. I'm not your bitch. I don't have to do what you

say.''

Lewis started to reply, but I grabbed him by the shoulder and squeezed hard enough to get my

point across. I used fingernails. He flinched and looked at me, and I saw the light dawn in his

eyes and clear away the fog of anger. He took a deep breath and walked away from the table,

heading for the far corner of the room where Rahel sat in silent witness. Kevin's narrow gaze

followed him, just aching for a confrontation.

I said, very softly, ''Would you be willing to join the Sentinels? Go undercover?''

That brought Kevin's attention back to me with a snap, and for a second he looked his age-far

too young to be so angry and defensive. ''What?'' he asked. On the far side of the room, Lewis

turned and made a move, but then he checked himself with a real physical effort.

''You'd be credible,'' I continued. ''You're strong, you've never really liked the Wardens, and

you're on record as being one of my biggest nonsupporters. They're recruiting you already. Why

not join up? You could be our inside man.''

David touched the back of my hand, just a light stroke of fingers, and I heard him whisper, so

softly it could have been my imagination, ''Are you sure about this?'' I wasn't, but it was the

best chance we were probably going to have to send someone inside the Sentinels quickly.

Kevin abruptly sank back in his chair in a trademark teenage slump, round-shouldered and

boneless. His eyes drifted half closed. ''Yeah,'' he said. ''Why not? They'll probably be better

company than the old farts around here. The Sentinels may be assholes, but at least they have

some backbone.''

A few eyebrows went up around the table, but nobody said anything. They were leaving it up to

me, and I knew-knew-that I was about to make a decision that could cost a young man his

life.

I said, ''Do it. And Kevin?'' He cocked his head to one side. ''If they ask you to kill me, demand

at least five million. That's the current market price. Wouldn't want you getting shorted on the

deal.''

He smiled, and I have to admit, it wasn't a comforting smile at all. ''Maybe I'll do it at a

discount,'' he said, ''because we're such good friends.''

And then he flipped me off.

That ended the first official war meeting of the Wardens.

''I'm putting a stop to it,'' Lewis said an hour later. He'd been pacing for at least forty-five