Lewis jerked upright and hit the door running into the main room. Venna blipped out and probably materialized ahead of him.

I looked wordlessly at David, and he took my hands and held them.

I hate him, he said. I hate that he left you out there alone. Whatever comes, Ill never forgive him for that.

Amen, I said. But lets live through this first, okay?

He gave me a smile and kissed me, and we went to join the fight.

At first glance, it looked like nothing was happening. Lewis was standing at the table that I assumed doubled as the Warden War Room. Venna snatched up Cassiels bag (without permission) and began flitting from Warden to Wardenliterally, buzzing in and out of reality faster than a hummingbirdand opening the bag so they could take the Djinn bottles inside. Seeing that Venna herself couldnt touch them, that was a pretty good compromise. She ran out of bottles after twelve people, but I could see at a glance in Oversight that her evaluation of who were the most powerful was dead-on.

Be careful, I said in a voice pitched to carry. Those Djinn may or may not want to follow your orders. Some of them may turn on you, but its the best shot we have.

They wont, Venna and David said, as one, and exchanged a look. Venna continued, Well make sure they dont. Theres no time for politics now.

Wow. That was quite a statement, coming from the new head of the Old Djinn. Ashan had been all about the politics, andof coursethe superiority and general hatred. But there was a new sheriff in town, tiny as she might be, and I rather enjoyed the idea.

One by one, the Wardens uncorked their bottles. Most looked damned nervous, and I didnt blame them, but as the Djinn misted into evidence around us, none of them made aggressive movements. They stood, silently waiting, just as Lewis was.

Lewis said, in a faraway kind of voice that told me hed gone far out on the aetheric, Its coming. Get ready.

I went up with himnot as far up, because Im not Lewis, and he could, as always, take things further than any other living Warden. Id never really understood his limitations, but I understood that he had them, and he was more than likely pushing them now.

I didnt need to soar quite as high as he did, because what was coming for us was perfectly evident, in vivid reds and deadly blacks, poison greens and rotting yellows. It was a tsunami of power rolling through the desert like a wave, sweeping everything ahead of it, and although I didnt know exactly what it was, there was no question of what it did.

That was the Four Horsemen. That was the Grim Reaper.

That was Death, and it was coming to wipe Las Vegas off the face of the Earth.

I had no idea what our powers could do against it, but I looked at David and said, Can the Djinn stop it?

No, he said. Not even the Djinn can do that. But we can hold it back, for a time.

Do it, I said.

He nodded and vanished, and around the room, other Djinn did the same. I went up on the aetheric to watch, and I saw the wave sweep toward the glittering, insane tangle of lights and colors that was Las Vegasand stop, frozen in its tracks. The Djinn had taken up positions all the way around the perimeter, and as I watched, I saw that while the wave was still seething, bubbling, it was at a standstill.

David misted back in, along with Venna. Its not going to hold, Venna said. You have less than a day, probably only hours. There are millions here. Once the Djinn fall, theres nothing to stop it, and they will die. All of them.

I looked around at the room, at the Wardens in their shell-shocked state. I remembered those insane gamblers still stuck at the slot machines out there in the face of the end of the world as we knew it.

I thought about Cherise, who might already be lost, but would be soon if we didnt find a way to stop this.

Theres no more time, Venna said. If you want to live, we must go now.

Itll take hours to get to Sedona, I said. Venna gave me an exasperated look.

No, it wont, she said, and reached out to take my hand, and Lewiss. Hold on. I will take you.

Wait! I said, Imara has a barrier in place! You cant get through it!

She knows were coming, Venna said. She doesnt like it, but she knows. Its her choice whether she destroys us to protect her own existence.

Youre gambling on her allowing us entrance.

Venna smiled. Its not a gamble. Shes your daughter.

She seized our hands, and I had just enough time to anticipate how bad this was going to be. . . .

And then it was much, much worse.

Venna dragged us through the aetheric planes, and my God it hurt, like being towed through coils of barbed wire. It seemed that the aetheric itself was burning, aflame with all the growing and intensifying fury and determination, pain and panic. More and more people were realizing that there was no escape, and the pressure was building to fatal levels.

Somehow, we made it through to the other end without losing our lives. Even with Venna, traveling through the aetheric was more of a crap shoot than I liked, and Lewis in particular seemed badly affected by the whole trip. He staggered and sat down, hard, on dry red dirt.

We were in canyons of sandstone, as crimson as the surface of Mars, and overhead the sky was a cool, featureless, unnatural blue.

We were inside Imaras bubble. As it had been in the Fire Oracles area of influence, the world seemed to have been frozen hereI couldnt see a single living thing moving. No birds, no insects. Not a breath of air. It was eerily silent.

Venna said, I told you shed let us in.

Dont get cocky, Lewis said. She doesnt have to let us get any closer.

The floor of the canyon was sand covering a hard-pan surface of bedrock. Whatever river had carved this particular bend was long vanished, and rain was something rarely seen here. The canyons towered the height of four-story buildings over us, built out of layer on layer of reds, oranges, and browns. The ground was like a treeyou could read its history by the rings and layers of its life. The life of this land was long, and hard, and austerely beautiful.

Overhead, the sun was black in the center, rays blazing out in intense bursts from the edges. It was frightening and strange, and I wasnt sure what I was seeing at first, until Lewis said, hoarsely, Eclipse.

Its not an eclipse out there, David said. Not one scheduled in this part of the world for years to come.

It didnt matter. This was Imaras domain, and she could do anything she wished here. If she wanted to blot out the sun, she could.

I looked up. At the top of the cliffs above us was a harsh glitter of glass windows built into the structure of the rocks. Shes up there, I said. Were on the wrong side. The stairs are behind it.

The Chapel of the Holy Cross was built by man, but it had been laid on the template of something that had been there for ages, maybe since the beginning of time. Standing here, I could see through this world and into the next, with Oversight, and the chapel took on huge, shadowy dimensions, filled with power and significance, pain and endurance.

No time for the stairs, Venna said, and tried to take our hands. Lewis and I both stepped back. She raised her eyebrows. What?

No more of that, Lewis said. Weve pushed the odds too far already. Youd lose one of us this time.

You say you need to go up there, she pointed out. What would you like us to do?

Carry us, I said. Get us to the top, but not through the aetheric. Can you do that?

She considered it for a few seconds, locking eyes with David in silent communication, and then they both nodded.

Shes going to try to stop us, David said. Whatever you do, dont let go.

He put his arms around me, holding me tight against him. I looked over at Lewis and Venna, and burst out laughing. It was ridiculous. He towered over her on approximately the same scale as the cliffs towering over all of us. What was she going to do, hug his knees?