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