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I gave in Truthfully, it had been a token protest anyway, and Ihter, like David, had a s than I ever could What if ere s worse instead of better? What if ere actually forcing the battle instead of preventing it?

I couldn’t think straight any back e about e You can bury the back up I knew that I was still nu to coh that in private, lying in a bed and hugging a pillow It wouldn’t help Cherise to see round myself I’d felt the unmistakable absence in him, the void where his life had been

No, I didn’t want to remember how it had felt to hold his empty shell, or how he’d looked so pale, bound up in that cheap o away

With a shocking intensity, that mental picture suddenly shifted, and it was Lewis’s face pale and still, it was Lewis

lying in my arms as I abandoned hiasped out loud with the e forehead against the glass as I squeezedto happen

David and I had our powers back Cherise had survived We’d saved so, daet spooked now I couldn’t lose focus That was another good reason to recharge When I was in the throes of exhaustion, it was far too easy to let things overwhelm me, even the unlikely threats I lost all ability to filter

While I was thinking, David had been acting, and I felt the Mustang suddenly leap forward

I looked up and saere hurtling straight for the back of a stopped eighteen-wheel truckand then the car lurched sideith a scream of tires, jumped over a curb, and bumped down on the other side, onto an off ramp Free of the traffic block, we rocketed down the access road toward a nice, neat- looking, moderately priced hotel/motel

We passed it I looked back as it receded into the distance and said, "Uh, that one would have been okay--"

"No, it wouldn’t have been, sugar" Whitney’s accent never failed to make me want to rollabout how thick she laid it on "You’re going to have co soon Won’t do to put you up so to just coain" She sounded utterly certain of herself, and casual about the threat, too Lovely

"What kind of company?"

"The kind you don’t want to stand up to, not that you could You remember little Venna"

Ouch

Venna was the very last Djinn I’d want to have on ht now--even worse than Rahel Venna was i, and she was clever, too Great friend, awesoe of innocence, with those ghostly white eyes like I’d seen in Rahel

I shuddered "Where can we go?"

"I’ over the car now"

We blurred past a lot of inviting-looking roadside inns, took some turns, and ended up on the northeast side of town, as best I could tell Businesses of any kind thinned out and stopped

Wherever she was taking us, it wasn’t going to be the Hilton

The car slowed and stopped in the e on the horizon off the black-top to the right, but I couldn’t tell what it was

"Uh, Whitney? Hello?"

Nothing No answer fro the Djinn, but it just sat there, inert and hot to the touch It was like poking a bag of especially fir her eyes Torumble, turned his face toward her neck as she lifted hiain draped all over her She patted his back, s on?"

"Nothing"

"Well, obviously nothing, because we’re just sitting here Why are we just sitting here?"

"Because David and Whitney are arguing about it," I said I just knew that was the case, and I knew that it indicated a potentially major problem "Whitney says Venna is headed this way Maybe it’s a coincidence, but ood news"

Cherise shuddered "Ouch Okay, got it--crisis i?"

"Because running off without a plan is an even worse idea," David’s voice said, co from the radio

Whitney’s voice, at the saht about this, boss man You try to run them, she’ll catch up You try to hide them in the middle of all those people, she’ll just mon everybody in her way This is your only real shot at keeping them alive, and you know it"

"This is the opposite of keeping them alive!" David snapped back

"I hate it when Moh sarcas pushed around on a board, you know Tell us what’s going on"

David got there first "She wants to take you to a nuclear weapons assembly plant"

I think Cherise and I both said it at the same time "What?"

I think ere both pretty restrained about it, really

"That’s it up ahead," David said "It’s not a good idea It’s so easy for Venna to destroy not just that place but everybody in this part of the state, given all that raw material to ith"

"I know that," Whitney snapped "But it’s also one of the only places we can lock off against her, not just ards and shields, but with lead-lined concrete and bunkers designed to withstand nuclear attacks Best possible place to hide them, especially if we can erase their traces on the aetheric"

Wow, Whit must have been upset, because she’d lost er words

"It’s too dangerous," David said flatly "No We go on I’ we can stay ahead of Venna"

"Venna can materialize any place she wants, and you know it," I said "How exactly do we stay ahead of her?"

"We’re shielding you She can’t know exactly where you are"