Gale Force

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 Dji

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 Dji

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-''

Kevin stopped. I knew that feeling, all too well. I wanted to help him, but I knew it was

something that he had to deal with himself. No platitude was going to help, no matter how

sincere.

''Kevin.'' I took one of his hands and drew it out of its tight ball; it stayed tense in mine,

trembling, ready to yank away at a second's notice. ''Before Paul showed up, they may have told

you some things. Something that could help us.''

He was already shaking his head. ''I'd have said if they spilled their guts, okay? But they didn't.

They just talked about what a bitch you were, and how you were willing to fuck over the

Wardens for your boyfriend. . . .''

''Finally, someone you could agree with,'' I said. He shot me a covert look, almost hidden by his

dangling, shaggy hair.

''No,'' he said, ''I don't. Not after I saw what they wanted to do.''

I felt a shiver crawl hand-over-hand up the bones of my spine. ''What did you see?''

''They were going to torture him,'' Kevin said, glancing up at David, then away. ''Make him tell

everything about the Dji

''They really are crazy,'' Lewis said grimly. ''Destroying the Dji

destroy us. There's no way humanity, or anything else alive on this planet, would survive a

catastrophe like that.''

We thought of it at the same time, our gazes locking over the top of Kevin's bowed head. David

must have as well, because he spun toward us.

''He knows that,'' I said. ''Bad Bob knows that. He's not stupid enough to assume anything else.

So why would he want to destroy the human race?''

''You know,'' David said.

''It's not Bad Bob,'' I said. ''Is it?''

''No,'' Lewis agreed. ''I think it's a Demon wearing his skin.''

Unfortunately, I had way too much personal experience with Demons. Most recently, I'd seen

the damage they could do once they took on a human form. I thought the Wardens had been

pretty successful about purging anyone from their ranks who carried a Demon Mark-a larval

form of a Demon that granted the carrier more-than-normal strength and energy, almost like

having a secret Dji

before it began to corrupt you from within, and if you wanted to survive, you had to get rid of it

by passing it to someone else.

Someone else more powerful, because the Demon Mark was only attracted to power. It traded

up.

I'd been the unfortunate recipient of such a thing, at Bad Bob's hands. I hadn't understood, at the

time, that he'd been paying me a kind of backhanded compliment. . . . I hadn't known, then, how

really strong I was.

He had. He'd chosen me for just that reason.

It had killed him in leaving his body-he'd waited too long, hung on to his power until it was

nested deep inside. I thought about his cold body lying in a grave somewhere, and wondered if

his flesh was still there, peaceful and empty. Maybe what was walking around right now was

Bad Bob reanimated; maybe it was just a semblance, like the one Rahel had worn to play

Cherise. Either way, it wasn't Bad Bob on the inside. Couldn't be. But if it was a full-grown,

fully formed Demon, it had powers I couldn't begin to understand.

''The antimatter,'' I said. ''The Demon produces it, secretes it, something like that. That's why

there's no machinery, no plant they've had to set up. That's why we couldn't find any kind of

permanent base for the Sentinels-they don't need a plant, not even a hidden one. Because he

just . . . makes it.'' Like sweat, or blood, or other bodily fluids. It was the very essence of why

the Demon didn't belong here; it literally destroyed the world around it, just by being. The

human shell kept it contained, like a space suit insulating an astronaut from the cold of space.

If it left that shell . . .

I remembered what Jerome Silverton had said about the black shard we'd found embedded in the

dead Dji

petajoules of energy. The spear I'd seen Bad Bob use to kill Ortega had been at least five times

the size of the shard we'd originally found. Catastrophic would be charitable.

The Demon was hunting us. Hunting Dji

antimatter weapon. Once it was strong enough, what would he do with it? Where would he-