Windfall

He stared at me for a second, astonished, and then laughed. Really laughed, a genuinely amused guffaw. He moved his hand away from Sarah’s throat to stroke her hair, then grabbed it and wrenched her head back to a dangerous angle.

I came up out of the chair. “Leave her alone!”

“Or?” Eamon didn’t even look at me. He no longer seemed amused, or casual. There was something dark and tense in him now, and I could see a compulsively cruel streak in him that was very unsettling. He liked doing this to her. Almost couldn’t resist it. It’s hardly the first time… I wondered what he’d done to her at night, when she’d been lying in that bed with him, zoned out on whatever drug he’d given her. Oh dear God. I had to stop this.

“Stop it or I’ll kill you,” I said. I meant it.

He looked up then, the nightmare still in his avid eyes, the hungry set of his lips. “I live on borrowed time with a very scary set of characters as company. Threats from you are like being threatened by a sprog on the playground, love. But do go on. It’s amusing.”

I changed tacks. “Is that why you want to get a Dji

He was thinking over what I’d said, clicking it over in his brain. It was easy to see that he was brilliant. His transparency was part of what made him so damn frightening. “Invincibility,” he said. “No. Although that would be nice, wouldn’t it, invincibility? But I can take care of myself, always have. Not interested, really.”

“Why do you need a Dji

“For someone else.”

“You don’t strike me as the type who thinks of others.”

I got a hot flash of temper, the first I’d really seen. “I haven’t struck you at all, pet. But if you insult me, I may have to take my fit of pique out on someone more ready to hand. Here’s what I want from you, and it’s not negotiable: be a good little bitch and go out and find me a Dji

“I’m not leaving you here with Sarah!”

The flare of temper I’d spotted was nothing compared to the full-throated roar that erupted out of him. “I’m not giving you a bloody choice!” He took Sarah’s limp left arm, skimmed the sleeve back, and held her forearm in both hands.

Prepared to snap it.

His eyes dared me to test him.

I swallowed hard and said, “If you hurt her, you have no idea how much I’ll make you suffer before you die.”

“You’re repeating yourself, and as there’s only one of the three of us who’s sustained any injury at all, you might think hard about the trend.” He tightened his hold on her fragile, limp arm. “You have exactly two hours before I start breaking things, working up from the bottom. If I go slowly enough, she’ll wake up before I’m finished. Oh, and love, just in case you have any brilliant ideas about calling the police, I’m taking her with me. I’ll call and tell you where to meet me with the Dji

I stood, tense and agonized, as he rose and effortlessly lifted Sarah’s limp body in his arms. It was a parody of a romantic picture, her hair tousled, her head cradled against his chest. Arm draped loosely around his neck. I remembered seeing them asleep in bed together, curled into each others’ warmth.

It made me sick.

“If you try to stop me leaving, I’ll toss her down the stairs,” he said, and walked to the door. “I can assure you she’ll break her neck at the very least. Maybe if you’re lucky she’ll only be paralyzed and you can be changing her bedpans and apologizing to her the rest of your life.”

I swallowed and somehow managed to get myself to stand still. He looked back on his way out, warning clear in his eyes.

“Two hours, Joa

I let him go. Partly, I just didn’t see a way to stop him without risking Sarah’s life; partly, I was just too stu

I slid back the patio door and walked out into the cool predawn breeze.

Cotton-thick clouds formed a black shield and blotted out every evidence of approaching morning. It was as dark as midnight out here.

The security lights in the parking lot showed Eamon walking calmly to his car.

Sarah looked fragile and small and vulnerable in his arms. He put her in the passenger seat, strapped her in with no evidence of anything but gentleness, and shut the door. He even hesitated to be sure her robe was inside the car first.

He looked up at me for a moment, with no expression that I could read, and then got in and drove away.

I wanted a Dji

And when I got my hands on one, Eamon was going to understand just how dangerous screwing with me could be.

I wouldn’t have followed him even if I’d had the skills, mainly because there was no way he wouldn’t notice the great white whale of the minivan trailing him through early-morning traffic. And Eamon, I already knew, had a criminal’s perception about danger. No point in giving him a reason to carry through on threats I was pretty sure he meant.

I needed serious help. With John Foster gone, there was no Warden in town I could turn to for help, and I didn’t have time to apply for any outside assistance. Two hours wouldn’t get anything from Paul. Even if Marion had been inclined to lend a hand, she was out of the picture, recovering in some hospital from what must have been a near-death experience with one of Ashan’s militant Dji

My allies—never plentiful—were MIA. I tried making calls, but Lewis wasn’t answering his cell, Rahel didn’t seem inclined to show up at my beck and call, and I knew better than to count on anything but the back of Jonathan’s hand at this point.

David… no. I couldn’t rely on David at all.

It was just me, and time wasn’t on my side. Neither was power. I had enough power to get by, not enough to stage a major confrontation. It would take more than vitamins and protein shakes to bring me back from the kind of energy devastation I’d been through recently… it was going to take time, and rest.

Neither of which I’d had, or was likely to get.

I stood on the balcony, watching the horizon. There was something out there, something big and badass and coming this way, and I could feel it like a storm of needles over my skin. It wasn’t supposed to be there, hadn’t been forecast by any of the normal weather models. It was purely, aetherically magical.

Everything was out of balance, wobbling like a bent wheel, and I didn’t know if it could ever be fixed again… or if it could, what that price would be.

I closed my eyes and went up to the higher plane.

The world dissolved into a map of shadows and lights and fog. My apartment building turned featureless; nobody spent enough time in it to give it character. I soared up, arms outstretched, and watched the city grow smaller under me, consolidating itself into a flickering pattern of energy.

I went higher, until the Earth curved away from me. As high as Wardens could safely go. I felt the drag warning me to stop, and hovered there, staring down at the world’s giant, swirling mass. In Oversight, it wasn’t blue and green and peaceful; it was a mass of shifting colors, bands of energy that moved and twisted, fought and shattered and reformed. That wasn’t just human potential at work. Part of it was Dji

The world was fighting. Struggling with itself.

The storm off the coast of Florida was a black hole, a photonegative of a hurricane. Still tightly wound up, clouds just starting to spiral out from that hard center. It felt… old. Ancient. And powerful.

I tore my attention away from it and concentrated on what else I could see.

Dji