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"I’m not your pet psycho" I flinched, because Kevin could have been reading my mind "But yeah, I’ll find Lyle and do this Just don’t put me on speed dial the next ti So What’s our approvedtechnique?"

I pulled the tissue-wrapped crystal tooth out of littered like a diayet clear floor space for our experiments Kevin took to the scientific e kid likes better than trying to destroy so that’s indestructible Kevin tried so many kinds of fire that even I was impressed with the variety and breadth of control he had over it, especially since he didn’t kill us in the process

Except that nothing worked, and eventually Kevin tried sto in frustration That didn’t work so well, either

"Let littering crystal shard lay between us Kevin mimickedEarth powers," he said "I’ll call bullshit"

"You’ll be working with an Earth warden, idiot," I said "Watch and learn I’ to start with super-low frequencies and work my way up You watch the structure with me If you see any response at all, tell me"

"If I’d known this favor of yours wouldyou use a vibrator, I would’ve said hell yeah earlier - "

"Bite nored him - mostly - and paid attention to the structure of the crystal

It took the better part of an hour, but we pinpointed the frequency range that had the greatest effect on the thing I couldn’t get to Venna’s epic pulverizing effect, but I figured that anything that cracked and shattered the bone would do At the very least, it would distract the holy living hell out of the enereat," Kevin said, as I wrote down the nuenius It takes a tree hugger"

"And I’ll get one for you," I said "But I wouldn’t call her a tree hugger if I was you She’ll row backwards if you piss her off" I wrote down the na Three hundred pounds of extremely sarcastic Earth Warden ouldn’t take any of Kevin’s bullshit Maida also had a vicious sense of hu, unless of course they ed to kill each other first

I’m so public-spirited

"Give her this," I said, and handed hiive her a raise if she uys But whatever you do, wait for Lyle to give a signal to ot it I’ve got an IQ above your dress size" He paused "Then again, it ht be the other way around I mean, do they even make dress sizes in the hundred and fifties?"

Cherise was having a terrible influence on the kid I decided that one of us really needed to stay focused on professional dignity, and so I settled for a rude gesture instead of a comeback

"Score," he said He walked away, just another bad-attitude teen fro, world-weary sneakers

It takes a special kind of courage to know your own darkness,I thought I wished he didn’t have to be such an expert, but as long as he was, I had no choice but to take advantage of his skills

Leas going to take my head off for it, too

Chapter Six

Passengers - even e Apparently, that only happens in the h the rest of the passenger and crew interviews in neutral, nonsecure locations No real surprises: a couple of drug slers, some embezzlers, and a few people who had raided the cabin steward’s closet for illegally obtained soaps and pillow mints Other than that, ere clear of evil influences

except for the te already knew about

And les fro with , I was feeling exhausted and even more sore than I’d anticipated Cherise forced sandwiches on lass of scotch, and I dozed off curled up in the corner of a sofa in the first-class-lounge area, listening to half a dozen Wardens debate the logistics of creating a clear course for us to folloishing that David would drop in, but I knew all too well that Lewis had other plans in motion - plans that specifically excluded me, thanks to the Bad Bob mark on my back Need to know, and all that

So I napped

Lightning flared, startling me, and when I opened my eyes, I was somewhere else

No I realized that I wasn’t somewhere else My body was still huddled on the sofa, still watched over by Wardens and Djinn alike Protected

But I was also standing in a small concrete room with bare, dusty floors and a few battered old chairs held together ire and tape, and it was nowhere near the ship that still held ht, but it felt da darkness, and I could feel the blast of sea-salted air that rolled through the room to stir up debris

When the door closed, a bandy-legged old white- haired ht

Bad Bob, in the flesh At least, I presu to wonder how real the real world actually was, in relation to what my former boss could accomplish these days

"Look who dropped in for a visit," Bob said, and pulled up a rickety chair He flopped into it - risking total collapse of the ancient wood - and sat there s at me as if I were a favorite niece co about hilance

Or how vile

I could hear the wind howling and it grated on me, and I wanted to lift my hands to cover my ears - only my ears weren’t physical I wasn’t physical I was a spirit in the aetheric, and there was simply no way that Bad Bob could see me, or that my spirit could walk around like this in the real world Surely this was a drearitty concrete floor underof the storuys a chance to surrender," I said My voice sounded distant and disembodied, and I wasn’t sure he could hear it until his smile widened He was an evil oldsmile It ith his apple red cheeks and blunt little nose "I’d hate to skip the niceties Courtesy is so iar," he said "You’re also playing ame I wonder why?" I smiled to match him "Guess"

"If I have to Well, you found my little friend on board your ship - I felt him shuffle off this ain, though" He studied me with those fluorescent eyes - alhter and more intense than they’d been in the old days when he’d been enuine Warden hero "I have to hand it to you, I figured you guys would argue until doomsday about what to do about me," he continued "Seriously now, a cruise ship ? I didn’t see that cohter But putting all those people in the line of fire? You’re growing a pair, sweetness I like that"

I waited Bad Bob always had liked to hear his own voice more than anyone else’s

"But you knohat I think?" he continued, right on cue "I think it’s so showy that it’s desperate Like dressing up in neon and waving look-at- Tchaikovsky’s Fifth You really should study ood trick"