by Rachel Caine
He stopped talking, and slowly turned his head off to the side, staring into shadows.
"Fool, you were saying?" Ashan asked. He was still smiling. I liked that smile even less the longer it stayed. "I'm not so much of one. Though clearly you are, since you continue to come running at her beck and call, even without the bottle forcing you to her will."
"What have you done?" David let go of Ashan's wrist. "Ashan—"
"What was necessary," he said. "We were gods once. We were worshipped. And we will be again."
"Yessssss," whispered a new voice. If it could be called a voice. It was more like flesh being dragged over sandpaper. "Godsssssssssss."
And an adult Demon stepped out of the shadows.
It could have been the same one who'd chased me in the forest; all I could identify about it was its wrongness, its essentially alienness. The geometry of the thing didn't make sense. Skin that wasn't skin. Terribly wrong, misshapen, bleeding light and shadow like a drug-induced nightmare.
It was speaking.
David took a soundless step back, mouth open, eyes wide. Astonished, for a split second, and then the true horror of the situation snapped in for all of us.
Ashan was in league with the Demon. Betraying the Djinn themselves. Betraying the Mother.
His betrayal of humanity was nothing compared with that.
David lunged for me, and threw me over the back of the booth to slide down the lunch counter. I tipped over and slammed to the tile floor on my hands and knees. He didn't have to tell me to get out. I got the message, loud and clear. I scrambled up and ran full speed for the glass doors.
I hit them and bounced.
No time for pain or confusion. I whirled around, grabbed a chair, and whacked the hell out of the glass. Again. And again. The chair came apart on the fourth try in a clatter of loosened screws and aluminum framing.
"An old trick of Jonathan's," Ashan said. "Freezing time makes a good refuge. Or prison."
David was backing away from the Demon, but it was coming, and I didn't think he could stop it. Not with Ashan on its side. He reversed course and lunged, grabbed the Demon by one misshapen limb, and sling-shotted it into Ashan.
Who staggered and screamed as the Demon's claws ripped into him for support. I felt that popping in my ears again, painful and deafening, and David spun toward me to scream, "Now!"
I yanked open the door. "Come on!"
He tried to reach me.
The Demon was faster. Horribly fast, faster than anything I'd ever seen. It moved in a blur, and then it stopped in the next fraction of a second, and it had him. Its claws wrapped around him, growing to the size of knives… of swords…
They punched through his flesh and skewered him in a cage of black steel.
"No!" I screamed.
He reached out with one hand, and I thought he was reaching for me, but then the wind hit me with brutal force, driving me back through the open door.
Outside.
Thunder cracked overhead, and the door snapped shut, almost ripping the skin of my arm with its force. I grabbed the handle and pulled. Tried harder. Tried until I was panting and shaking with effort.
Lightning flared again, and on the other side of the glass I saw a nightmarish vision of Ashan moving toward David, who was slumped in the Demon's claws.
There was a tremendous crash, like the biggest glass pane in the world shattering under a hammer. The door suddenly gave under my pull, and I staggered backward, whipped by the wind, soaked by blowing rain, and lunged back inside the diner. I had just enough time to take in a breath, and something awful went wrong inside me. It felt as if along the way, every cell in my body turned inside out, ripped itself apart, mutated, exploded, and then reformed in a shaky configuration likely to melt at any moment.
I coughed. The breath I'd inhaled felt stale, minutes old. Filthy with toxins. My stomach rolled. There was a sense of a rubber band snapping against my skin, and suddenly a roar of voices, rattle of dishes and glasses and mugs, of footsteps, of cloth rustling, and everything seemed out of focus and nauseatingly loud.
"Sweetie?" A hand under my elbow, a kind woman's voice in my ear. "Sweetie, are you okay?"
That snap had been Ashan letting go of the time he'd kept frozen. Everything had lurched forward, including me. The diner looked completely normal—patrons chewing and talking, waitstaff pouring coffee, cooks serving up behind the gleaming steel counters.
I stared at the bare spot of floor where David had been, shuddering. Water pattered off me in a continuous rain.
They were gone. David was gone. With him out of commission—I couldn't think he was dead, I couldn't—there was nothing standing in Ashan's way.
Nothing but me.
I straightened up and reached for power. It came in a welcome hot blast of air, drying the moisture from my hair and body. I didn't even try to hide it. The pink-uniformed waitress backed away from me, eyes wide, as I formed the moisture into a tight-packed gray ball, like a round cloud, and pitched it at the nearest industrial sink. It broke into a splash and swirled away.
"Wait!" she yelped as I headed back for the door again. I didn't.
I needed to get to Sedona, and I was going to make it happen.
Driving was out of the question, even in the Camaro. It would mean hauling ass into Ohio and Indiana and all the way down to good old Tulsa, Oklahoma… and from there, it would be a mere nine hundred miles or so to Sedona.
I didn't have the time.
I called Lewis. This time, I got him on the first try, and without preliminaries, I said, "I need the company jet. Right now."
There was a brief hesitation, and when he responded I heard a smile in his voice. Not much of a smile, granted. "You want the keys to the Jag, too?"
"I need to get from Boston to Sedona, and I don't have the time to waste taking the scenic route. Send the damn plane, Lewis."
The smile was no longer in evidence. His voice got lower, tenser. "Jo, tell me you're kidding."
"No. David—" I bit my lip to keep the sob at bay. "David ran into trouble. I have to do this alone now, and I need to get to Sedona. It's—Lewis, if I don't do this, we may not have any kind of a shot." I had to shoulder the phone as I changed gears to whip around a log-hauling eighteen-wheeler. "Got a crew who's willing to chance it?"
"The plane's already busy taking Earth and Fire Wardens to new posts."
"Then I hope the pilots on duty aren't afraid of a little turbulence."
"A little," he repeated. "Jo, think about what you're saying. You know the protocols. Weather Wardens do not fly under Condition Violet. Ever."
"True," I agreed. "That's a good rule. Now we're going to break it."
"If I put you in a plane right now, with what's going on, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. You know what kind of trouble you're asking for. And how do you know that you need to be in Arizona?"
"I know."
"No other better ideas than flying?"
"If I was still a Djinn, I'd put my hair in a ponytail, cross my arms, and do a Barbara Eden. Crap, hang on." I dropped the phone, downshifted, and narrowly avoided rearending a sedan that pulled out of a side road and braked in front of me. The Camaro growled, and the tires scrabbled for purchase on the damp pavement. I got her straightened out and whipped around the sedan so fast, I think I blew the Yankees cap off the driver. I fumbled one-handed for the phone and got it braced between my shoulder and my ear. "Sorry."
"Don't crash. That really would be the end of the world."
"You're only worried about the car, aren't you."
"Little bit," he agreed. He was tapping keys. I hadn't even known he could type. "Jo, I'm not going to argue with you. You're right. We're losing Wardens every time we engage." There was a short, telling silence, and then he said, "I hate to send you out there alone."
"No choice," I murmured, half under my breath. "Listen, when this is over, I want a damn raise, got that? And… a nice house, on the beach. And… I'll think of somet
hing else when I'm not saving our asses."
He laughed hollowly. "If we live through this, I'll make sure you get it. I can redirect the plane. Where do you want to meet it?"
"Logan," I said. "I'm heading there now."
No good-byes. Lewis and I were well past good-byes right now. I remembered the fight with David, and struggled again with a massive crushing weight of tears. I don't love Lewis, I thought fiercely. I love you, David. You, damn you.
I sucked in a deep breath and shook it off. No point in getting killed in a crash because I was teary over my boyfriend.
He wouldn't appreciate the sacrifice.
There was a reason flying was a last resort. Wardens—particularly Weather Wardens—just don't fly in unsettled systems like these, the ones that trigger a Condition Violet emergency. Trapped inside a thin-skinned metal box tens of thousands of feet in the air with a bunch of innocent passengers, you're helpless. And there's something about moving through the atmosphere at airplane speeds that draws attention, especially if you have to pass through clouds or storms. Ever dropped ink into a bowl of water, and watched it swirl and expand? That's what clouds look like around a speeding airplane carrying a Weather Warden when the aetheric's out of control.
The flight crew who staffed the Warden jet were all combat trained, the best of the best. If they couldn't get me through, nobody could.
All I had to do was get there. With the rain and wind so fierce, the roads were terrible; I fought the elements and traffic in equal measure. The Camaro was named Juliet, I decided. Juliet didn't have the brass of Jezebel, or the teasing flirtation of Delilah. Juliet was a pure flame of passion, of dedication, and that was how I felt. The Camaro wasn't going to be turned away from its goals, and neither was I.
The Wardens were having to push hard to save lives, and balance was precarious, up on the aetheric. I could sense the cool vibrations underneath the Warden's bolder moves. The Ma'at were on the case, contributing their subtle countermoves. In this particular instance, what they were doing wasn't undermining the Wardens; it was actually helping. Nice. I wasn't under any illusions that the interfaith cooperation would last long.
As I drove, I scanned the radio. Talk radio stations along the East Coast were chattering about the weird weather, the sudden explosion of natural disasters around the world. People were using words like global warming and apocalypse, but thev were the fringe elements, and people were still laughing it off. Good. The last thing I needed to deal with,, in addition to fighting the growing hostility of the world around us, was the general population going nuts.
When I hit clear road, I raced. The police who might normally have been interested in a speeding Camaro were involved in other problems, and my coast stayed clear all the way to the airport. I screeched into a short-term parking spot—if I didn't make it back, I wasn't going to be in a position to worry about fines. If there was anybody left to charge them. I jumped out of the Camaro and nearly got bowled over by a gust of wind; I created a relatively calm space around the car and went to the trunk of the car for my luggage before I remembered that I didn't actually have any.
Except I did. There was a neat little leather rolling bag in the trunk. I unzipped the pockets and found cash, a platinum card embossed with my name and an expiration date some years in the future. In the main compartment, a half-dozen pairs of underwear, a couple of additional sexy lace bras, some lace-topped stockings, two pairs of designer shoes (one the high-heel Manolos that Imara had brought me), and an explosion of outfits, all neatly folded. There was even a pair of snappy sunglasses that made me look as mysterious as a fugitive film star.
David. David and Imara, most likely. I wondered when they'd had a chance to put this together, and there went the tears again, futile and dangerously sapping my strength.
I stopped off in the first airport bathroom to change clothes. I stripped to the skin—a weird sensation in a public forum—and put on new everything. After the underwear, I donned a hot-pink sleeveless tee with a crisp white shirt worn loose. New black jeans with the Miu Miu flats. My old clothes went into the bag.
As I left the bathroom, I heard my name being called over the intercom, and I headed for a courtesy phone, which directed me to a deserted area of the concourse. People milled around, looking frustrated. All the boards showed delays or cancellations, and from the look of some of them, it had been a long twenty-four hours or more.
I followed the directions and spotted a handsome uniformed man waiting for me with a hand-lettered sign that read wardens on it. He had the posture of somebody who'd done military service, and the uniform was still formal—the standard captain's suit of commercial aviation, with a cap to match. I smiled at him and held out my hand, palm toward him. He passed his own close to it and nodded at the stylized sun-symbol that manifested.
"Ms. Baldwin," he said, and put the sign under his arm to offer me a firm handshake. He was middle-aged, probably in his early fifties, and he had the hard-bodied look of a guy who was enthusiastic about his fitness. Tanned, too. Streaks of silver in his hair that he might have cultivated, they looked so casting-office perfect.
"What's your name?" I asked him. He looked momentarily surprised.
"Captain John Montague, ma'am. My copilot is Captain Bernard Klees. No other crew on board for this trip. We try to keep it small, times like these. I understand that you're Weather."
I nodded. "That's right. I know it's going to be a challenge for you—"
"Ma'am, we eat challenges for snacks."
"Don't you mean breakfast?"
"Never found them to be a full meal," he said, straight-faced, and made a graceful, professional gesture to move me toward the departure doors. We didn't have a Jetway, of course, being a private plane. The captain took charge of my bag as we stepped out into the rain and wind, and trundled it briskly across to a waiting Learjet big enough to carry ten or fifteen passengers. A budget Learjet, if such a thing was possible. Weather Wardens were generally loath to fly, so it usually carried only Fire and Earth Wardens, and only at the highest levels.
He loaded my luggage in a compartment and told me to take any seat, and as my eyes adjusted to the relative gloom, I saw that there were other passengers on the flight. Seven of them, in fact. I didn't recognize most of them, but there was no doubt they were Wardens; the crew was taking authorized personnel only. It was possible that these unlucky few were being flown in from overseas, as the Wardens redistributed their manpower to meet the crisis.
I knew Yves, an Earth Warden with long dreadlocked hair and a perpetual smile; he winked at me and gestured to an empty seat next to him. I winked back, but before I accepted, I scanned the remaining faces. Nancy Millars—Fire—not my favorite person in the world, not my least favorite. Rory Wilson, also Fire, who rated higher both because he was a better Warden and because he was just, well, cute.
The last two caught me by surprise. They were sitting together, heads down, but then looked up as I took a step down the aisle, and I found myself looking at Kevin and Cherise.
"What the hell?" I blurted, amazed. Cherise shouldn't have been anywhere near this plane. She didn't have the credentials.
Kevin's face was setting itself in stubborn angles—jaw locked and thrust forward, head lowering like a bull about to charge. Man, the kid was defensive. "We're supposed to be here," he said. "Check with Lewis if you don't believe me."
I stared at him, at the mottled flush on his chin and cheeks and forehead under the lank unevenly cut hair. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. I couldn't even tell if he was lying, but I always allowed for that possibility when it came to Kevin.
I looked at Cherise. She raised an eyebrow, the picture of cool competence. Sometime during our time apart she'd found time to get her look together. She was ready to shoot the cover of Sports Illustrated. I had no doubt that there was a bikini somewhere in her bags. She'd never leave home without one.
"Glad to see you, too, Jo," she said. "Are you okay? Last time I saw you—"
"Sorry," I said. She stood up, and we hugged. "Yeah, I'm okay. I guess. Looks worse than it is."
She put me at arm's length and studied me. "Looks pretty bad. That's maybe a seven on the cute scale, but only because it's you in that outfit. And what's up with the bruises?"
"Bad day."
"No kidding." She nodded toward Kevin, who was glaring at me resentfully. "Lewis said I could keep him company."
Lewis, I reflected mournfully, was such a guy. If Cherise wanted to go, she'd have found a way to convince Lewis in about ten seconds flat. It was just her special superpower. I could manipulate weather, she could manipulate men.
"I even have a special identification thingy," she said, and pulled it out of the pocket of her jeans. On it was a silver metallic printed copy of the stylized sun of the Wardens, with her name and picture below it. "See? I'm, like, official. I can flash my badge, Jo! Isn't that cool?"
She'd always wanted to be one of those people from The X-Files, I remembered. Good grief. This was out of hand.
"Miss Baldwin?" That was the cool, firm voice of the captain, coming from behind me. "We need to get moving. Please take a seat."
I could exercise my authority—presuming anybody acknowledged it—and toss Cherise off the plane, but that would mean tossing Kevin, as well, and if Lewis had dispatched him for a reason, that was a very bad idea. I pasted on a smile, waved to the captain, and moved past Cherise and Kevin to slide into the seat next to Yves.
"Long time no see," Yves said, and leaned in to kiss my cheek. "Such a warm greeting! I might think you don't even like me anymore."
I turned and kissed him, as well, both cheeks, European-style. "Yves, you know better. But you might have heard, I've been having some, ah, challenges lately."
"Challenges," he repeated, and laughed. Yves had a wonderful laugh, bubbly and full-bodied as champagne. "Yeah, I heard about your challenges. Somebody tried to get me to vote against you, you know. Get you taken in for—" He made a snipping gesture. We tried never to directly refer to getting neutered and having our powers removed, except in gestures and low voices. "Told 'em to fuck off, I did."