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"You sent me out here," I said. "You put me on the hook for bait. Let me do this. " No answer but static. "Fine. Joanne Baldwin Prince, signing off - "
"Wait," he snapped. I did. "Don't take David with you. We're not allowing any of the Djinn to make landfall. Too dangerous for them. "
I was a bit unclear on the concept of how one stopped Djinn from doing something, if they weren't bound to a bottle, but I didn't bring it up. "And what do you suppose I'm going to do about stopping David?"
His sigh rattled the speaker. "You're not going to love the idea. "
"Try me. "
He did. I heard him out, although my first impulse was to blow the radio up in a satisfying shower of sparks. I thought about it.
After a long, quiet moment, I agreed.
"Jo?" I was so deep in thought that Lewis's voice startled me. "Still there?"
"More or less. Look, I can't trust anyone on this ship, not with what you're asking. Send me someone. " I thought about that for a second. "Send me someone who isn't going to take shit from some fairly scary pirates. "
"I've got just the guy," Lewis said. "We're going to slow down, to give you time to get to the island ahead of us. But we'll be coming when you need us. "
"I hope so," I said. "Let's not say our good-byes this time. Last time was a real bitch. " He seemed to think so, too. " Grand Horizon,signing off. "
" Sparrow,signing off. " I put the old click-to-talk mike down and sat for a moment in silence, staring at the equipment.
Then I rummaged around in the desk drawers. It was a battered old thing, looked like it had seen service in the First World War, and I surprised a long-tailed rat in the top drawer, who stared at me with beady little eyes and an entire lack of alarm. A pet, maybe.
Or maybe this was his ship, and I was the infestation.
I shut that drawer and tried the next one. The rats had made nests of the paperwork that had once been in there; it was nothing but shreds.
The third drawer yielded an almost empty bottle of Cutty Sark.
"Score," I said. I unscrewed the cap, wiped the lip of the bottle with my shirt, and threw back the rest of the booze in one long, thirsty pull. When there were no more threads of amber snaking their way down the glass to my mouth, I lowered the bottle and set it on the desk.
"David?"
He opened the door.
It's not that easy to catch a Djinn who's alert for treachery, and David - even though he loved me - knew better. I'd just told him not to trust me.
But he gave me the benefit of the doubt, even with the empty bottle open on the desk in front of me.
I looked up at him and said, "We need to talk, honey. " Lewis sent Brett Jones, Fire Warden, former Special Forces. He was bigger than Josue, and after a dick-measuring initial meeting, Josue evidently accepted that Brett was meaner as well. I didn't know Brett that well, but Lewis did, and if Lewis sent him to take care of us, then we could trust him.
"Watch your back," I whispered to Brett as I passed him. He'd come armed to the teeth, which made him fit right in with all my pirate crewmates; on him, though, it looked like professional accessories. He nodded to me. It seemed like a thousand years since we'd sat in the movie theater on the Grand Paradise, watching as our colleagues were carried off in body bags after that first clash with Bad Bob's storm.
Brett looked as hard and tired as I felt. He also looked very alone, standing at the bow with his arms folded, watching the speedboat head back to the distant cruise ship. The weather was still foul over in that direction. The storm just wasn't about to give up its prize, no matter how hopeless it was.
Standing in the filthy confines of Josue's tiny captain's cabin, I brushed the worst of the tangles out of my hair, and used a burst of power to clean my clothes and remove the worst of the grime from my skin. As accommodations went, even temporary accommodations, these earned zero stars; the bed was filthy, the floor was littered with toenail clippings, and the walls were pasted over with hard-core porn actresses in action shots.
David opened the cabin door and stepped in. He watched me in silence, not touching me.
We'd talked about all this, but convincing him was another matter altogether. And even when he bowed to necessity, he did it grudgingly.
I wished I could really tell what he was thinking, but then, he probably was wishing the same thing.
"One good thing about this," I said. "This time, we get to do it right. " He shrugged. "As far as I'm concerned, the first time was good enough for eternity. " That made me smile. "You must be a romantic. I mean, what with all the mayhem and the chaos and the not finishing the ceremony - "
"If I wasn't a romantic, I wouldn't be here. "
He had an excellent point. I decided not to pursue it. Instead, I put down Josue's comb and did another critical review. I looked. . . surprisingly good, actually. The sun and sea had given me a blush of bronze, and my eyes seemed clear and cool as the Caribbean waters. My hair had, for a change, taken its glossy curls to a style, instead of to a mess.
David slid his hands over my shoulders, and I looked up at him. "It's time," he said.
"Wouldn't want to keep the guests waiting. "
The guests were, of course, the assembled pirates of the ship I'd recently, and randomly, named the Sparrow. None of them had made any effort to change clothes, splash water on their faces, or brush their teeth, but they were seated cross-legged on the deck, clearly happy with slack-off time.
Josue had donned a ridiculous coat. A tuxedo jacket, obviously ripped off from some prior victim on a yacht. I hoped I wouldn't notice any bloodstains.
"Hurry your asses up," he said. "We don't have long. " Not exactly the wedding march, but it would do. I exchanged a look with David, and he gave me his hand, and we walked the short length of the deck to the bow, where Josue was standing. The sun was behind clouds again, and the air smelled heavy with brewing storms.
David's best man - and, I supposed, standing in for my maid of honor - was the Fire Warden, Brett Jones. Big and foreboding as a Djinn, only armed like a pirate and watching Josue and everybody else, including me, with smart, cold focus.
I felt both protected and unsettled.
"I don't have no holy books," Josue said. "So I make it up as I go along. You don't like it, you go get married in hell. "
"As long as you get the important stuff right," I said. "Go ahead. "
"I get paid first. "
There was a brief pause, and then David reached into his pocket and brought out a small handful of very large bills. Josue grabbed them and flashed a highly inappropriate smile, then asked, "What's your name?"
"David Prince. "
"David Prince, you come here with this woman to be married. Right?" I didn't dare throw a glance at David, because there was something so weirdly hilarious about this that I was already choking on it. After a beat, he said, "Obviously. " I coughed.
"You sure you want to do that?" Josue said. "Because you got to take care of her, love her, never look at another woman. Even if she's sick or gets old and fat. " My coughing turned into a full-fledged fit.
"If you mean will I stand by her in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for all the days of our lives - yes, I will," David said, very quietly. The urge to laugh left me suddenly, and I squeezed his hand. "I vow that I will. "
I felt no corresponding surge from the aetheric, the way I had the first time we'd done this, but then, David had completed his side of the vows the last time we'd done this.
I hadn't, not officially. Which was why Lewis and I had decided to go through with this. It was an experiment - probably doomed to failure - to see whether or not it would make any difference in the way Djinn and humans were bound together. . . if we were bound together by ritual, completely.
"You're sure about this," Josue said. He continued to stare at David. "I give you some time to think. "
David didn't smi
le. "I'm sure. Move along. "
"Well, okay. " He turned to face me. "How about you?"
"You suck at this," I told him. I got a slow leer in return. "Come on, at least make an effort!"
"You dump this guy, come back to my cabin, I'll make an effort. "
"To clean up the toenails off the floor?" I asked sweetly. "Come on, Josue. Today. " He clasped his hands, and tried for a pious expression. I doubted he'd ever seen one, except maybe in the DVD collection belowdecks. "Do you - what's your name again?"
"Joanne Baldwin. "
"Joanne Balderwin, take this - uh, Prince David, to be your husband? Do you swear to honor and obey him, and to never look at another man, even if this one gets - "
"Sick, old, and fat, yes, I know. "
"What would that matter? He's a man, yes? It is the prerogative of a man to get sick and old and fat. " The crew laughed raucously behind us. "Do you swear to honor and obey him, even if this one gets poor and lazy?"
I closed my eyes and fought a cage match with my temper. "Ask it right. " He heard the echo of darkness in my voice, and the laughter of the crew died away. "I mean it. " Josue cleared his throat. When he spoke again, the mocking tone was gone. "Do you take this man as your husband, forsaking all others as long as you both live?" Close enough. I felt something happening, a stirring in the aetheric like a soft breeze. It swirled around me, lazy and gentle, and then solidified into a silver mist.
"Yes," I said. "I vow it. "
The mist fell like soft silver rain on the aetheric, and I felt it sliding over my skin in warm threads.
And then it hit the black torch, and all hell broke loose.
"Jo!" David grabbed me as my knees folded. "What - ?" I had to make this work. Had to. Holy crap, Lewis had been right the whole time. Because our wedding vows hadn't been finished, I'd made myself vulnerable to the invasion by Bad Bob. The equations had been out of balance, and on the aetheric that was a very bad thing.
We were setting it right.
The connection between us went wild, power flooding from him into me in a silver torrent.
Power straight from the bloodstream of the aetheric, pure and white-hot.
"Take it out of me," I panted. "Hurry. Hurry! "
David rolled me over on my stomach and ripped my shirt open, exposing the rippling, angry tattoo on my back. The thing under there was being forced to the surface.
David's power was acting in self-defense, because I was now part of him. Flesh of his flesh.
I heard his breath rush out, and then he put one hand on the back of my neck and said,
"Hold still. It's coming out. "
I felt blood sheeting over my back, and heard the pirates scrambling backward to get away from the thing that was thrashing its way out of me.
I had enough control left to block the nerves before the pain got unbearable. I couldn't see what was happening in the real world, but on the aetheric there was something that looked like a cross between a squid and a virus flailing its way out of my silver-shining body.
David fried it into grease and smoke on the deck beside me, and then burned it again.
The change was immediate, and dramatic. Calm flooded me, and confidence, and power - the power of the Djinn.
I directed it to my back, and sealed the ravaged muscles and torn skin - something not even Lewis could have done, as powerful as his talent for things like that was.
I'd just become something else. A bridge between the Wardens and the Djinn. . . and something of both at the same time.
And Bad Bob's mark was gone.
I was free.
David picked me up and cradled me in his arms. I felt warm and relaxed, contented as a drowsy cat in the sun.
"It worked," he said. He sounded surprised. "You were right. "
"Damn straight," I said. "It's why he wanted to stop us at the wedding. Bad Bob knew that once we exchanged vows, he wouldn't be able to control me anymore. " I felt drunk on silver bubbles, and I laughed. "Free. We're free of him. "
David captured my hands and kissed them. "Not quite yet," he said. "He can't control you.
That doesn't mean he's helpless. " He pulled me back to my feet. My shirt was a disaster, so I tied the rags together in a makeshift halter top. Not so bad, really, all things considered.
Josue had prudently retreated as far as he could from us. Brett Jones was still standing there, looking focused despite the sight of an alien critter ripping out of my flesh.
I nodded to Josue. "Finish it. "
"Hell with you, crazy bitch!"
"Finish it!"
From all the way across the deck, he made the hasty sign of the cross. "Then I declare you married," he said. " Mazel tov. Kiss the bride before we do. " He picked up a half-empty bottle of cheap rum, pulled out the cork, and swigged down a gulp, then passed it around. Our version of cheap champagne.
David pulled me into his arms, and what would have been a symbolic kiss turned deep, hot, and thoroughly suggestive. I helped with that part, thinking of nothing except the moment, the sensation of his body against mine.
We'd won. At the very least, we'd won my freedom from becoming Bad Bob's slave.
Now I had to make sure that David didn't suffer that fate, either.
We broke the kiss and clung together, panting. He was whispering things to me, quiet wonderful things. Promises.
And then he closed his eyes and said, "I don't want to do this. Not this way. "
"I know," I said, and kissed him again, gently. "But it's important. Tactics and strategy, right?"