Rachel Caine: Gale Force

I dragged myself to a wild, panting halt, flat-footed, staring at Bad Bob’s blue eyes. The tip of the Unmaking trembled just an inch from his chest. He made no effort to get away.

“Do it,” he said. “Maybe I’m not your enemy after all. You ever think of that?”

Sweat burned down my face, in my eyes, and I felt my hands spasming, trying to drop this thing that was already killing me. It wouldn’t do any good, but you couldn’t blame my body for trying to save itself.

He was trying to tell me something. There was a message under all this, a message unknown and beyond translation, but somehow, one I was receiving.

Bad Bob had expected me. He wasn’t the type to go in for self-sacrifice, and he knew how to set the hook firmly.

How to use the best possible bait . . . himself.

He had the power to stop me, if he wanted. Why wasn’t he?

He’d taunted me. He’d threatened my daughter. He’d done everything he could to drive me to this moment. He’d used my vows with David to open the Djinn up to the Rule of Three. We knew he had Rahel. And Rahel had a gift . . . for mimicry.

The last piece fell into place with a physical shock. This wasn’t Bad Bob.

It was Rahel. It had to be Rahel, forced to take on his shape, be his puppet, his sacrificial goat.

I felt a pulse of power in the black torch on my back. Bad Bob was getting impatient with me. I wasn’t following the script.

I closed my eyes and reached for the cord that bound me to David. Energy was flowing through the connection, thick and golden, a torrent that was racing through my body in a frantic effort to keep me alive. It wasn’t working anymore. I need you to show me, I whispered. I need to see. Help me see.

I went up into the aetheric. It was hard, so very hard that it was like ripping off my own skin; I barely made it into the lowest levels, and my Oversight revealed the room in dull reds and blacks.

It wasn’t Rahel in the chair after all. Rahel was outside, heading to the van . Bad Bob was holding me here, and going after our flank by attacking Lewis.

I needed to act. If Rahel was out there, that meant that Bad Bob was in front of me. Had to be. I just had to strike that last inch. . . .

I saw a bright copper flash, just a flash, with the last fading strength of Oversight before I fell back into my skin, and I knew. I knew the truth.

David hadn’t gone to the aetheric. Bad Bob had used Rahel to lure him here, and he’d bound him, just as he’d bound Rahel.

David was sitting in the chair in front of me, and I was an inch away from taking his life. I’d come so close, so horribly close, to making the wrong choice. One more inch, just one, and my life would have been over, even if I’d survived this day.

David had been trying to warn me all along. Maybe I’m not your enemy.

Oh God.

I tried to keep my expression the same, except for a slight involuntary widening of my eyes. I was barely hanging on; subtleties would be lost, if Bad Bob was— and I knew he would be—watching.

He wouldn’t want to miss seeing me make such a catastrophic mistake.

I know it’s you, I tried to say to David, through our locked stare. Trust me. If Bad Bob had put him in thrall, he wouldn’t have much room to maneuver, and no room to give me any real assistance. All I could hope was that Bad Bob, clever and cruel as he was, hadn’t thought of everything.

And of course, that I had, which wasn’t too damn likely.

“Where?” I shaped the word only with my lips, burning my question into Bad Bob’s eyes, trying to get across one simple, impossible message. For a second I thought I’d guessed wrong, that I’d just destroyed myself for nothing and missed my only chance, but then those blue eyes darted quickly away, to a point just behind me and to my right.

The doorway. Of course. Bad Bob would want to see this up close.

One thing about the Unmaking; it was pointed on both ends. I didn’t have enough strength and control left to turn, so I lunged backward, angling toward the doorway. One step, two, fast and hard, letting my own exhausted weight do the work as I drove the weapon in reverse, straight for the real enemy.

I felt the end of the spear slam home, and felt the whole thing vibrate like a struck bell. It shook my hands off its heated surface, and my whole body threw itself into an uncontrollable spasm, every muscle sparking and spasming and driving me hard to the floor.

In the chair next to the window, the fake Bad Bob continued to sit, watching me—unable to move, because he couldn’t move.

I writhed over on my back. Sweaty hair clung to my face, obscuring my vision, but as I swiped it away I saw Bad Bob—the real one—standing over me, staring down at the black rod that had punched completely through his stomach and emerged glittering and bloody from the other side.

He laughed. “Good thinking,” he said, and blood fountained out over his chin and bubbled in his mouth. “Damn, girl. Still got an arm.”

He fell heavily to his knees, face draining white, and gripped the Unmaking with both hands. I wriggled backward away from him as he began to pull it free of his body, one torturous inch at a time. His hands were shaking, turning gray, but he kept at it with single-minded intensity.

And what he pulled out of his body was thicker . He was creating more of it, generating it from his own body.

But it looked as if it hurt like a son of a bitch.

I crab-crawled back until I bumped into the legs of the man sitting in the chair, and looked up at him. I saw a single flare of Djinn fire break free of the disguise.

“David,” I whispered. I got no response, of course. There was a container somewhere; there had to be if Bad Bob had bound a Djinn—something glass, something breakable. But even though the beach house was relatively uncluttered, I didn’t have time or strength to search. Bottles in the kitchen, the refrigerator, hidden in cupboards, forgotten in the attic—it could be anywhere.

Bad Bob grunted with effort as he pulled, one convulsive jerk after another. The Unmaking was sliding slowly out of him. I watched the sharp end disappear into his back. Another two or three pulls, and he’d have it out, bigger and more powerful than ever.

I’d bought us some time, but it was running out. Outside, I heard explosions, and felt the ground tremble under my feet. Rahel had reached the van, and she was going after Lewis. It was a free-for-all outside.

I closed my eyes and found what little small, still pool of Earth power I had. I’d never had time for real training, real control, but for this, I didn’t need it. It’s always easier to destroy than to create.

I attuned myself to the specific frequencies of glass, crystal, and porcelain, and sent out a pulse of power that rippled out from me like a sonic boom.

It hit the bottles in the bar and exploded them in a mist of silica. Crystal decanters and tumblers vibrated apart. The wave reached the windows and blew them out in sprays of glitter. It rolled over Bad Bob, past him, and shattered everything that could be shattered, continuing relentlessly through the entire house, as far as I could push it.

He could have hidden his bottles somewhere else, but he’d want to keep them close. Warden instinct. I pushed the wave front as far as I could, but my strength failed before I reached the gates of the estate.

“Bitch,” Bad Bob whispered, and with one convulsive jerk, pulled the spear completely out of his body. The gaping wound crisped black at the edges, then began to knit itself closed.

In the chair, the false image of Bad Bob flinched, and I felt the timbre of power in the room shift and flow as the force that had been holding David apart from me cut off.