Page 31 (1/2)

I held her off, and found so to survive between the rocks nearand weaving between the stones It slithered out of a crevice and wrapped around her ankles, yanking her flat on the ground, then dragged her out into the open where I could see her

I knew the wo, older than many of my peers in power - a veteran, someone who’d ruled with an iron hand in the old days A contemporary of Bad Bob’s Her name was Deborah Kirke She’d been wounded in the Djinn rebellion, I remembered, and she’d lost most of her family when her Djinn had destroyed her house around her She had cause to believe Bad Bob’s anti-Djinn agenda, but that didn’t ainst me and the other Wardens

That meant she had to be stopped

"Deborah," I yelled "Just stay down, dammit I don’t want to hurt you!" She didn’t I suppose, from her perspective, she really couldn’t

I trapped her under a clu the top layer into a concrete cage She could breathe, and in ti her way out of it I was heartsick doing this to an old lady, but I had a war to fight, andto win me any consideration from their side in return

Another fored from cover as well I knew this one, too - Lars Petrie, a Fire Warden He liked to forh, one hissed through the air and cut a burning path down ht arm It wrapped around my wrist and yanked me off balance I wasn’t prepared, and the burn bit deep, charring skin and muscle That was bad; burns created distractions, made it harder to concentrate, channel, control the forces I needed to balance

I grabbed water out of the sea It rose in an arc into my hand, frozen solid, and co it arrowing at Petrie’s chest

He dodged The spear hit the rocks behind him and shattered into snow, but it distracted him While it did, I forh the whip The flaly black spirals up the skin of my arm, with red exposed muscle

I tried not to think about howto hurt once the nerves woke up

I started running for him, knife clutched in my uninjured hand, and while I was at it, I shook the rocks under his feet, aHe wrapped his fire whip around a boulder to steady hi at hiot it under his chin and held the cold edge there Our eyes met, and Petrie’s widened in shock and horror

"Listen to ht here NoneYou can’t win, and he doesn’t expect you toYou’re nothing but compost and cannon fodder to him"

"Yeah? And what the hell am I to you?" he demanded, and shoved me backward "I watched four Wardens die while Djinn ripped the one of them You don’t care about us, any of us Don’t pretend we’re the saain, and I ht foot back for better stability as I tried to anticipate which way I needed to dodge He trailed the whip on the ground, snaking it this way and that, hissing the burning edges of it over stones A tiny alarmed crab scuttled out of a tide pool and toward the sea A second later, the whip touched the pool and turned it into steah still to be trapped there

"I’m not your enemy," I said, and held out empty hands toward him "Come on, man Let’s not do this"

Petrie, like Deborah, was a post-traumatic survivor of the Djinn attacks I didn’t knohat had happened to him, but I remembered that the review team had removed him from his duties, and that Miriam, the head of the internal security team of the Wardens, had put in precautions

Petrie had a fail-safe in his brain Dae fail-safe in place The first one stunned, and the second one killed If I knew the stun code

But I didn’t And I had no tied and irrational, he was one hell of aloop of fire It flared at , and I dropped to a crouch That savedto decapitateflaed forward and pulled up seawater with both hands, for a massive wave that shattered over the rocks and hit Lars fro his fire whip in a hot blast of steam

I threw myself on his chest as he sprawled on top of the rocks "Stop!" I screahting me!" I put a forearled My ar on his chest, and I felt savage Soresponsible for all ht, I’d had so

And I alould

He got an arht hook to h to break free, or to break my bones

"Just stop," I said "Please stop" I didn’t know if I was talking to Lars Petrie, or to o, and he sat up, exultant triued face I backed away

I heard a dry, ironic sort of clapping behind me "Impressive" Bad Bob’s voice "Daooder, after all this effort" Petrie’s face twisted in fury, and his fire whip formed in his hand, then snapped toward me

From directly behind oing to do that anyway

A sheet of ice the thickness of a razor slashed through the air, spinning like a saw blade

It sliced feathering hairs from the top of

I gasped as Petrie’s hot blood splashed over me in a wave That blade hadn’t been aimed at me

It had been intended for Petrie I whirled around while Petrie was still falling

Bad Bob was sitting in a battered deck chair behind ht out in the open, on top of a pile of rocks that I’d have sworn had been erinned and waved atmotion "Hell of a shot, eh? I should turn pro" Petrie’s head and body hit the stones separately, spattering me with even more blood

I couldn’t turn to look I didn’t dare take aze away from Bad Bob, as no illusion, not this ti distance

Victory was at hand for one of us

"You look tired," Bad Bob said "Rough trip?" He sipped a beach drink He earing a Hawaiian shirt in vomit yellow and pinkeye pink that clashed with his skin and hair He also earing old man shorts, socks, and flip-flops If I hadn’t knoho and what he was, he’d have looked like any old pensioner roa directions at Disney

"Why?" I blurted He knehat I was asking, so I didn’t even look at Petrie

"Thought I’d give you a helping hand, since you see soured you’d be well on down the road to not caring about anyone but yourself by now"