by Rachel Caine
"David once told me that Jonathan used to be like you, Lewis. He had all three powers. And in some way, he was more… connected. To the Earth. So maybe you can work on that angle."
Paul nodded. "The sooner the better. If the Earth wakes up, takes a good hard look at what we've been doing to her this last ten thousand years without anybody to do some explaining, there won't be enough left of us to form a decent fossil record."
"Who says she won't like us?" Lewis murmured.
Paul raised his eyebrows. "Do you like us?"
"Some of us are pretty winsome." I could have sworn Lewis looked toward me, under those long lashes.
"Wow, thanks for the compliment," I shot back, largely sarcastically. He gave me a look that meant he was getting a particularly interesting mental picture, probably nothing suitable for public consumption. He shook it off with a rueful smile.
"Where are you going?" Lewis asked, back on track again.
"Seacasket."
"Where the fuck is Seacasket?" Paul cut in, eyes closed. "Sounds depressing."
"It was someplace I was sent when I was a Djinn."
"When Yvette and Kevin had you?" That had caught Lewis off guard. "That business with Yvette wasn't my finest hour, sorry. I got a little distracted—"
"Distracted?" I let out a laugh that really wasn't much amused. "The way I remember it, you were pretty focused, Lewis. Somewhere south of your belt buckle."
"Yeah, thanks for the memories." He had the grace to look embarrassed. "Anyway, I was pretty much out of commission for most of that. You want to tell us about Seacasket?"
Not really. I sat and crossed my legs, then my arms. Defensive body language. Remembering Yvette gave me a seriously sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, because I couldn't think about her slinky, skanky sexiness without also remembering how she'd looked at the end, when Jonathan had remorselessly carried out her stepson's orders and crushed her skull.
"Okay." I sucked in a deep breath. "Kevin, Yvette's stepson, was my master while I was a Djinn. She didn't want me. She wanted David. She had a whole kinky-sex-and-bondage thing going for him."
"And?"
"And what?"
"Seacasket," Lewis prompted.
Oh, I so didn't want to remember. "She wanted David, and he wasn't showing up for her to claim the way she'd intended. She figured the way to get him was… to make him come and stop me from doing something terrible."
"In Seacasket."
I nodded. "It's a little town in Maine. I didn't know why she picked it, I only knew that she had every reason to believe that David would show up to defend it. It was a trap. For him. So she could…" I couldn't go on. I didn't want to remember that part, didn't want to think about her getting her hands on David and doing the things she did. Lewis looked away again, as if what was on my face was too private to witness.
I'm okay with what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms, and David's not my property (in any sense anymore), but dammit, David hadn't been a willing participant, then or ever. He'd hated it. Loathed it. And she'd taken great pleasure in the rape of his will, not to mention his body. I could never stop hating her for that. Never.
"I remember something Jonathan said once," Lewis said contemplatively. Jonathan wouldn't even give the time of day to most humans, but Lewis was no doubt on Djinn speed dial… "There are other things out there. Things even the Djinn are afraid of."
Paul was watching us the way you'd watch a tennis match, and there was a bit of a spark in his eyes again. Not quite out of the game yet. "There's something in the Warden records," he said. "Early writings. Nobody thought the translation was correct. There was a reference to some kind of higher form of Djinn. Nobody's ever found any trace of one, though."
"Think that's what Jonathan was talking about?" I asked Lewis. He shrugged.
"Don't know. I think you're right. You've got the best shot of anyone, especially if David's at least trying to help you." He paused to look at Paul inquiringly—a formal gesture, and a kind one.
Paul nodded. "You do work best out there, kiddo. Go do your stuff. I'll stick with Lewis, help manage things here. And Jo?"
I looked up at him, and was caught by the intent focus of his eyes.
"I don't care how into him you are, you be careful of this Djinn of yours," Paul said. "Don't trust him."
"Funny," I said, and opened the office door to leave. "He said pretty much the same thing himself."
The last time I'd seen Lewis, back in Florida, he hadn't been alone, and so it didn't come as that much of a surprise to run into his traveling companion out in the hallway.
Kevin Prentiss had started out a dangerous, disaffected kid with a grudge and a rogue Djinn, and had ended up a surprisingly solid citizen, at least so long as Lewis exerted a good influence on him. Lewis had appointed himself Kevin's guardian and mentor. I wasn't too shocked by that, either; he'd always been the kind to take on wounded birds and outlaws. But it was still a pretty brave thing to do, considering that Kevin's last official guardian had ended up really, really dead, and Kevin hadn't been all that sorry about it, either.
Not that I could blame Kevin. I couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of terrible life the kid—seventeen, maybe?—had had with the psychopathic Yvette before David and I had come along to receive a short, radioactive burst of that horror.
Still, the first thing I thought when I saw Kevin was that I'd never seen him smiling before, at least not like that. It was a full, charming, sweet kind of smile, one that lit up his eyes and changed his normally surly expression into something that would melt the heart of any teen angel. Oh, he still looked slacker-chic, all longish tangled hair and sallow skin and slouching body language.
But that smile.
One instant later, the smile made sense, because Cherise was with him.
She looked freshly scrubbed, and she was restored to her usual glossy perfection—hair artlessly tousled (but perfectly ordered), makeup flawless. She wore a tight little top that showed off a tanned midriff, and low-rise jeans that were so low, she ought to be handing out referrals to her bikini waxer. A real pocket-size bombshell, from her head to her newly enameled toenails.
Kevin was—of course—enthralled. Cherise didn't seem to mind that, but frankly, I didn't understand why. Kevin was a bad boy, just not in the generally accepted attractive way. He was trouble in faded baggy jeans, with slouched shoulders and an attitude that sneered in the face of authority. Okay, so that was exactly what most girls Cherise's age—younger than mine, okay?—found sexy. But still. Kevin? Cherise could have literally any guy she wanted. I was perplexed by her sudden turnaround on the issue of quality date material.
And then I thought, She wanted to get back in the door. Being with Kevin did the job nicely, because he wasn't accustomed to taking no for an answer, and besides, he had the long arm of Lewis to back him up.
Lord, I hoped she wasn't quite that manipulative, to come on to a guy just to get an invitation back in through the front door, but I wouldn't put it past her…
Or myself, come to think of it.
"Hello, Kevin," I said with a reasonable degree of welcome in my voice. The sweetly angelic smile twisted in on itself.
"Hey," Kevin mumbled at the floor. "Seen Lewis around?"
"Yeah, he's in there. He'll be out in a minute." I couldn't bring myself to the point of small talk. I mean, I appreciated that Kevin was a complete and total jerk sometimes, but it was hard to get over having been his Djinn. Even that, I could have gotten over, if it hadn't been for the stupid French maid outfits he'd forced me to wear, the better to ogle me by.
He must have taken my silence for accusation, and looked up to glare. "Lewis brought me. I didn't just show up or anything."
"I'm glad he did. We need you here," I said. I meant it. Kevin had a pretty impressive talent, when he wasn't trying to be a jerk about it, and we couldn't afford to be choosing only the nice people with good personalities.
Lewis, who'd come up behind me
, nodded. I could see his face out of the corner of my eye. He was standing just a little too close, and I could feel the feedback burn of our powers responding. He didn't move away. "Kev, they could use you in the last conference room. They're talking about fire control. You can help." He looked at Cherise, glanced over to me. "And—you can—?"
"Cater," she said brightly. "Gotta feed all these people. Bottled water, coffee, sodas, ice—I'm hell on wheels with logistics. Um, as long as somebody has a credit card to use. Any volunteers? I'm looking for something with a platinum limit…"
"Cherise," I said, and reached out to take her hand. "You really don't need to be here. You should go home. I mean it. Everything's okay."
She studied me for a long few seconds. "I never knew you were so good a liar," she said. "Everything's not okay. Kevin told me. I saw a lot of it for myself anyway. Things are all screwed up, and you people are the ones who can set them right again. I want to help."
"You're not—look, this isn't about you. It's just that you don't have the kind of skills that this needs to—"
"Give me a credit card and phone line, I'll show you some skills. Step off my thing." She stared me right down, turned to Lewis, and gave him the same treatment. "Wow, you guys just don't get it, do you? This isn't your planet. It's our planet. And you may be all kick-ass powerful superheroes, but that doesn't mean you don't need our help. Well, my help, anyway. Because I am the goddess of getting food delivered, and don't you forget it."
Lewis quirked an eyebrow and half a smile, and looked at me. I shrugged. "Girl's got a point," I said. "Maybe we need somebody with a little… practical perspective."
Kevin shot Cherise a thumbs-up. "Hey, let me know when you get the munchies ready. I could eat."
She made a shooing motion. Kevin ambled off in the direction Lewis had indicated… slowly enough to assert his independence, of course. He really was a gifted kid. I couldn't exactly call him a good kid. Maybe he'd turn out all right—he certainly had been given the chances. But I couldn't quite get the memories out of my head of what he'd been like when he'd had power over me. What he'd been like when he'd had power over his stepmother.
He'd liked using it. Dangerous, for a Warden.
I nudged Lewis with an elbow once Kevin was out of earshot. "You're keeping tabs on Teen Psycho, right?"
"He's not that bad."
"Lewis…"
"Yes, I'm keeping tabs on him." He sounded resigned. "Somebody needs to. Listen, I hate to rush you, but I can handle things here. What do you need?"
"Need?…"
"To make it to Seacasket and check things out." He gave me that not-smile smile. "Fast car?"
"Oh, you think? Maybe I can borrow Cherise's. She's got a cherry Mustang that pretty much rips up the road… Well, it used to be cherry. I think the last drive put a few dents in it."
"No need to do that," he said, and dug in the pocket of his blue jeans for a set of keys that he flung my direction. I caught them out of the air.
"This better not be an SUV," I warned. Because Lewis had an affinity for that sort of thing. I was an onroad kind of girl.
He flashed me a full grin this time. "How about a vintage SS Camaro? Midnight blue and black? I bought it in Jersey just for you. Somehow, I just knew you were going to need wheels."
My heart skipped a beat.
Chapter Three
He wasn't kidding about the car. It was pretty much the Holy Grail of cars, and I had the keys.
It was parked in the secured, bomb-hardened garage downstairs—the one reserved for only the most senior diplomats and Warden staffers. Well, what with the death and destruction, there were bound to be plenty of parking spots open. It had a fabulous exotic gleam under the overhead lights, a polished sapphire hiding unsuccessfully in a field of pebbles. The conservatively styled BMWs and Infinitis looked drab in contrast, though somebody had spiced up his love life with one of those kicky little BMW Z4 Roadsters in sleek, polished silver. Very James Bond.
I ran a hand reverently over the Camaro's silky finish. It was a 1969 model, a V8 with a 396 engine—a big, boxy car, nothing really elegant about it, none of that designed-in-a-wind-tunnel slickness of newer cars. I opened the door and popped the hood, leaned in for a look, and felt my heart give that extra-double-thump reserved for true automotive love.
It wasn't just a COPO—a Central Office Production Order model, which would have been cool enough. No, it was one of the rarest of the rare: a 9560 with an all-aluminum ZL-1 427. The lightest, quickest, fastest Camaro ever made. Also, the rarest and most valuable. I winced to think how much cash Lewis had laid out for this beauty. It was in perfect condition, maintained with loving care. Not so much as a scratch.
I almost hated to be taking it out into the field, where things were bound to get ugly… but then again, it might just save my life. Speed counted.
I closed the hood and stood there for a moment, hand on the smooth finish, feeling the latent power of the car. It wasn't a replacement for my beloved, lost vintage Mustang, but that would be like saying that Secretariat wasn't a replacement for Man O' War. It was a thoroughbred, born to run.
And… Lewis had bought it for me.
Huh.
I wasn't sure I liked the implications—a guy buying you a car is at least as significant as him buying you a ring, and maybe more so in my slightly skewed worldview—but then again, I needed fast transportation.
A moral quandry. I hated those. And no question, the Camaro was seductive. I could always return it, I told myself. Sell it. Pay him back later. I didn't have to think of it as some kind of down payment for something more… intimate.
Then again, the Camaro conjured up those kinds of thoughts, all on its own. It just had that kind of aura. Sweaty bodies and smothered cries. Somebody had gotten lucky in this car a lot.
Dammit. I opened the door and slid inside. It was as perfectly maintained inside as out. Not a speck of trash or dust in it. I closed my eyes and went up into Oversight to take a walk around it, aetherically speaking.
Oh, God, it glowed. There was power in this machine. It was infused with love and dreams. In the act of creation, humans gave things a kind of reality on the aetheric, even though there was no life in inanimate objects per se. Every caring act of maintenance, every brush of the cloth on the dash or the chamois over the finish had rubbed a kind of power into this car along with polish.
I'd never seen anything like it. I wondered briefly how it would have looked to my eyes if I'd still been a Djinn; I'd have been able to unroll its past like a carpet, if I'd wanted. As it was, I was willing to bet this was a one-owner car, until now.
And that answered the question of why Lewis had bought it, too. Things like this, infused with this much power and substance, were rare and precious. It would have drawn him to it.
I let out a long, pleased sigh and inserted the key in the ignition. The engine fired up with a low, raw growl, then purred so smoothly that the tiny fine vibration under my body was almost unnoticeable.
"God, you're beautiful," I said, and ran my hand around the steering wheel. Adding my emotion to what armored the car. "And you know it, don't you, baby? You know it."
I shifted gears, and it responded perfectly to me. We eased up parking levels, to the secured gate, where my ID was checked by a uniformed security guard, and then I was out. Bright—though unfocused and cloudy—day outside, and my eyes were unprepared to deal with it; I hunted in the glove box and discovered an ancient, still-cool pair of Ray-Bans that cut the glare to something less nuclear.
It wasn't a short drive to Maine, and I didn't have a lot of time to waste.
Time. Right. I felt a pulse of alarm, remembering Eamon's two-day deadline, but I couldn't do anything about that; I couldn't even begin to try. I pictured Sarah, crying and afraid, hurting. I had to believe that he wouldn't hurt her. After all, I'd seen him with her, and I knew that on some level, Eamon did care for her. He wouldn't torment her to make a point unless I was there to witness it.
It was all no good without an audience.
I hoped.
Even with the dark thoughts, it felt good to be in the world again, and moving under my own control. I didn't think I could stand to be trapped inside the headquarters building for long, cut off from the hum of the wind and the whisper of the sea.
Okay, so New York hummed more from traffic and whispered more of sirens, but it still felt good.
The Camaro prowled through traffic like a big, dangerous beast… not feline, the way it was built. More wolf than cat. It turned heads, except for the cabdrivers, who ignored me to the point that I had to look sharp not to add yellow paint to the Camaro's shiny finish. I couldn't afford to go up into Oversight, not in heavy traffic, but I could sense an electric crackle in the air, potential energy heavy as impending rain, but without the healing moisture. That was going to ground itself soon, and in a particularly ugly manner, if something wasn't done.
Well, the good side of things was that I no longer had to worry about other Wardens second-guessing me when it came to things like this, and for the first time in a long time, I was at full power. So as I hit the bridge and sent the Camaro loping over the water, I concentrated on reading the systems swirling overhead. They were huge, invisible tornadoes of power. Unstable. Charges clicking together in chains, whipping wildly, then breaking when the stresses got too great. This was a reaction problem. The Wardens were concentrating their forces on handling a myriad of disasters; there were bound to be consequences.
And here was a big one.
The sky was surly overhead, soggy with thick, darkening clouds that blew in from the sea. The water under the bridge heaved and breathed on its own, a secret life most of the millions in the city would never even sense, much less understand. Water had memory, of a kind. Blood had DNA, and water had a similar structure that existed only on the aetheric plane. That DNA had been badly damaged over the years, but it still purified itself, renewed itself, struggled continually against the assaults of mankind to corrupt it.
We were damn lucky, the human race. Damn lucky that the earth's systems protected us as a side effect of its own survival mechanism, because we damn sure weren't smart enough to do it for ourselves.