Gale Force

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 cha

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.

Ve

''Taking blood.''

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

''Ve

''He is not a Dji

Or was.''

''He was a Dji

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 Dji

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 Ve

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.'' Ve

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.''

''Ve

to Dji

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

Dji

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 Ve

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. Ve

Dji

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 Dji

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 Ve

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 Dji

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

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

''David, stop it!'' I yanked free. He hadn't used Dji

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

''It's co

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 Ve

''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 Dji

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