Ill Wind tww-1

by Rachel Caine

  I reached out with my hand, and the chemical structure on the board became reds and blues and yellows, three-dimensional, spinning, and I plucked away one thing that shouldn't be there—a yellow grape in the wrong place on the stem—and stuck a blue one in its place.

  Again. Faster. Reaching for thousands of spinning models, millions, billions, and it wasn't my hand that was reaching, it was my mind, it was me.

  Yorenson turned from the blackboard and put the chalk down and smiled at me.

  Breathe, he said. Don't forget to breathe.

  — and suddenly there was sweet, sweet air in my lungs, and the noise, my God, the noise was terrific, people shouting, feet running, voices, some kind of alarm going off in a store, the hyperactive beat of music in the distance, sweet, sweet chaos.

  I swept in breath after breath after breath and listened to my pounding heart and thought, I hated that goddamn class.

  Someone was cushioning my head. I blinked and focused and saw that it was David. He looked deathly pale, and I could feel his hands trembling. For some reason his glasses were off, and his face looked different. Stronger. His eyes glittered with flecks of copper.

  "Hi," I whispered. He started to say something, but didn't.

  Somebody slapped an oxygen mask I didn't need over my face.

  Funny how a near death experience can make you hungry. I sat in the food court with David and gulped down a heroic meal of beef kebab, saffron rice, samosas, and some kind of designer water without bubbles or aftertaste. David still looked spooked. He hadn't said a word to me during the hysteria of the paramedic visit, or the argument over whether or not I was brain-damaged enough to go to the hospital… hadn't, in fact, said anything to anybody. He'd just stood there at the edge of the chaos, arms folded, watching me with a frown curved between his eyebrows.

  It was kind of cute, really.

  I had to sign releases and I-won't-sue waivers, not to mention endure dire predictions of disability and death from the local doc-in-a-box who'd arrived on the scene with personal injury lawyer in tow.

  By the time it was over, I'd grabbed David by the elbow and said, "I'm starving," and he still hadn't said anything through the entire walking, ordering, and eating process.

  Now, as I gulped the last of my water and scooped up the last errant grains of orange-specked rice, he leaned forward and asked, "Done now?"

  "Guess so." I ate a last mouthful of naan, licked my fingers, and used the napkin as a last resort. People were still watching me, either because of my excellent fashion sense or because they were waiting for me to fall down and foam at the mouth again. Probably the most exciting thing to happen in the mall since the Christmas pageant.

  He was watching me that way, too. "You want to tell me what's going on with you?"

  "Not really," I said. "Listen, no offense, but I think it's better if you just take the twenty I gave you and look for another ride. It isn't that I don't like you, it's just that—"

  "You might have another one of those?"

  Yeah. I might, this time while driving Delilah at top speed. Or next time, my invisible enemy might decide to wrap a mantle of poison around David instead of me, to distract me while he pulled another little trick out of his magical hat. Somebody really didn't want me to reach Lewis. Who? Why? Who even knew I was looking? The Djinn, of course, but Djinn didn't act without orders from their masters.

  And that Djinn was Lewis's, and if Lewis had given me the directions to meet him, he'd hardly be trying to kill me, too. Well, Paul knew, sort of. And Star. Shit. Speculation was getting me nowhere.

  "If you have another one of those fits, you're going to need help," David said. "Besides, I get the feeling you're driving a long way. I could use the lift. Really. I've got a long way to go."

  "Yeah?" It was the first information David had offered, however oblique. "To where?"

  "Phoenix," he said. "My brother's in trouble. I'm trying to get to him."

  I found a last grain of rice and coaxed it onto my fork. "What's his name?"

  David hesitated, then looked away. "Joseph."

  "Biblical theme."

  "We're a very religious family."

  I shoved the tray away and put my hands flat on the table. They weren't shaking anymore, which was an improvement. And I didn't feel anything much happening around me, not from an eldritch standpoint, anyway—plenty of screaming kids, arguing adults, booming bass from stereo stores, babble in a hundred languages. All in the real world.

  What had almost killed me didn't belong here, in this world. My enemy had been precise this time, tried to get at me personally. Now that I was on my guard, he wouldn't have as much opportunity. Next time, he might try something messier.

  I couldn't afford to be around people when that happened.

  "Phoenix," I repeated. "Look, seriously, it's not safe to be around me, okay? Call it what you want—epileptic fits, demonic possession, poison, Mafia enforcers. It's just not safe. So do yourself a favor, buy a bus ticket, catch a commercial flight, rent a car, just turn around and walk away. Right now."

  He looked at me seriously from across the teal blue plastic table. Behind him, a neon light sculpture of a parrot climbed a tiled pillar. The brilliant colors made him look drab, a bird in winter colors.

  "You're serious?" he asked.

  "As a heart attack."

  He finally nodded and said, "Okay."

  Well, what had I expected? Argument? Heroic measures? Declarations of undying love and loyalty? Hell, he was a road dude, just a guy who'd asked for a ride and gotten in over his head. Cute, but not playing at my power level.

  Still. I hadn't expected him to just say okay and walk away. Not really. Not without even another word. It was a little bit ego-bruising.

  Well, as a matter of fact, that wasn't what he was doing. He had my plastic tray with the empty disposable plates and tableware. He opened a trash receptacle and dumped stuff, slid the tray into a stacker, and ambled back with his hands stuck in his coat pockets.

  "I meant to tell you, you look incredibly good in that," he said. "Purple really likes you."

  He was still waiting. I raised my eyebrows. "Anything else?"

  "My backpack," he said, perfectly reasonably. "It's in the car."

  "Oh." I shoved a shopping bag at him. "Make yourself useful."

  He had a truly wicked smile. "I often do."

  We hiked a Yellowstone distance to the car, and even though the sky was clear except for some high cirrus wisps, I kept an eye on it. Lightning had been known to form chains hundreds of miles from a storm center—been known to strike people dead from clear skies. In my case, it wouldn't be an accident.

  Poor Delilah waited where I'd left her, scorched door and all. I unlocked the back and got out David's backpack. It was surprisingly heavy. He rescued it from me when I almost dropped it.

  "What the hell's in there?" I asked. "Did you rob Fort Knox?"

  "Yeah, this is my idea of a quick getaway," he said, and shrugged into the thing like he'd been doing it all his life. "Tent, portable stove, cookware, clothes, extra boots, and a few dozen books."

  "Books?"

  He gave me a pitying look. "You don't read?"

  "I don't carry the New York Public Library on my back. Hell, I don't even carry it in the trunk."

  "Your loss." Now that he had his belongings, he seemed to still be waiting for something. "You going to be okay?"

  "Me? Sure."

  "You want to explain what happened back there?" he asked.

  "The whole curry thing? Really, I just like Indian food."

  "Funny." He waited. I waited, too. "You're not going to explain."

  "That's the general idea," I agreed. "You don't want to know. It's better that you don't. Safer."

  He shook his head. Before I could stop him—or figure out if I wanted to stop him—he leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the cheek. I stepped back, raised a hand to touch burning skin, and was surprised by how high my heart rate spiked.
r />   "Take care," he said. "And take care of Delilah."

  "Yeah." I wanted to say something profound, but I could barely manage the one word. He turned and walked away, heading back for the mall. Ten steps away, he turned with a dramatic flare of his coat.

  "Hey!" he called as he kept walking backwards.

  "Yeah?"

  "You look like you shopped at Prince's garage sale," he said, and smiled—a real, full, beautiful smile.

  "Hot, aren't I?"

  "You're a regular fire hazard." He waved and turned again, a perfect balletic turn, and kept walking.

  I watched him all the way until he disappeared inside. I had opened the driver's side door, but I didn't really remember doing it. Warm metal under my hand. I got in and smelled a ghost of his aftershave— something cinnamon, exotic, warm. Turned the ignition key. Delilah started up and purred.

  "Just the two of us, baby," I said. I didn't like the sound of it nearly as much as I'd thought I would.

  When I was ten, I went on vacation with my mom to Disney World, just the two of us. Dad was gone by then, vanished into the sunset like Roy Rogers, only instead of riding Trigger, he was riding his secretary, Eileen Napolitano… not that I knew that when I was ten, I knew only that he was gone and Mom was pissed, and anytime I whined about wanting to paint my toenails orange, she told me she didn't want me to end up a secretary.

  Mom and I went to Disney World together—my sister, Sarah, older than me, had opted snobbishly for two weeks of band camp instead. We arrived in Orlando in the middle of a clear and sunny March afternoon, and by seven o'clock, the weather guys were saying hurricane season was coming early. Nobody believed them. We rode the monorail to our hotel, and I splashed in the pool and squealed over the cartoons on TV as though I hadn't already seen them twenty times. And Mom looked out the window a lot at the cool velvet sky, the hurricane moon floating in specks of stars.

  The following morning we arrived at the Magic Kingdom with clouds boiling from the east—a big black storm wall riding the tide. My mom was never one to let a little rain get her down. We rode the Mine Train and Space Mountain and Haunted Mansion. We rode every ride I was tall enough for, even the ones that made Mom queasy. We bought souvenirs for Sarah, even though I didn't think she deserved it, after rolling her eyes and being a fourteen-year-old superior little drama queen.

  When we were taking pictures with Mickey and Minnie, the rain started. It was like somebody had turned a lake upside down, and the Magic Kingdom turned into the Kingdom of the Sea. If you wanted your picture taken with Charlie the Tuna, it was perfect. By four o'clock, the hardiest Mouseketeers had taken shelter in the hotels, away from the windows and the lightning. Even Pluto got in out of the rain.

  Not me and Mom. We were already soaked stupid, so it didn't really matter much anymore. We whooped and hollered and splashed down Main Street USA, played shark attack in Tomorrowland, and pretended that we'd rented out the whole Disney empire for ourselves, just for one day.

  It was the best time we ever had together. And yeah, the rain could have been a coincidence. But when I look back on it now, that was the beginning. Every major moment in my life has been accompanied by dramatic weather, and for a long time, I didn't know why.

  Even after I knew, even after I accepted it was all true, my mom couldn't. Parents almost never did, apparently; she never really had a chance to come to terms with it. Heart attack at the age of forty-nine. There one minute, gone the next, a shock like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky.

  It had occurred to me to wonder, much later, if that had been arranged. I tried not to think about it too much, because it made me consider the path that I'd chosen, or had been chosen for me.

  I didn't get close to people. Not anymore.

  Which perfectly explained why I'd had to leave David behind, the way I'd left every part of normal life behind me when I'd taken the oath and joined the Wardens. I was risking my life every time I reached for power. I didn't have the right to risk anyone else's along with it.

  Too bad. He was really, really cute.

  Just outside of town, two miles over the state border, Delilah sputtered. It was just a tiny hitch, but I felt it like a spike driven between my ribs. Oh, God. Not now. Nothing menacing on the weather front, but that didn't mean opportunity couldn't knock. Or smash me flat.

  Maybe it was nothing, I told myself. Just a ping, just a coincidence, a one-time-only—

  Fuck. She chugged again. And again. The engine sputtered and roared back to life.

  "Oh, baby, no, don't do this, don't—" Delilah wasn't listening. She gulped air, coughed gas, choked.

  We coasted to a halt on the gravel shoulder, next to a road sign proclaiming the wonders of a McDonald's just five miles ahead on the right. Under Ronald's cheery leer, I got out and resisted the urge to kick tires. I could fix her. I always fixed her.

  But not wearing the new purple velvet. Dammit. I'd bought some more practical clothes, but they were still in the plastic shopping bags in the trunk, and there wasn't a changing room in sight. Ah well, the road wasn't that busy, and I was desperate. I grabbed jeans and a button-front shirt and climbed into the backseat.

  Getting out of velvet pants is not as easy as it sounds, at least not in the backseat of a Mustang. Not that I hadn't had practice, but still, there was the embarrassment factor; every time I heard a car, I had to duck down and hold my breath. Finally, I was down to the purple satin panties and lace shirt—no bra, because I'd wanted to make a good impression on David. Which apparently I hadn't, because he wasn't here to appreciate it.

  I was completely naked except for the panties when I heard a tap on the window behind me, screamed, and threw my velvet jacket over as much of myself as it would cover.

  Of course. Why had I ever doubted who it would be?

  "You bastard!" I yelped. David looked puzzled and far too innocent to really be innocent. "Jeez! Turn around, would you?"

  "Sure." He did. I scrambled around, pulling on blue jeans first, then making sure I had my eyes boring into his back while I put on the denim button-down. I had a bra somewhere in the shopping bag, but I didn't want to take the time.

  I knocked on the window and slid across the seat, opened the passenger door, and got out to face him.

  "It's a funny story," he said. "I was just walking along—"

  "As if I want to hear it," I snapped. "Jesus, you scared the crap out of me!"

  "Sorry." He didn't look sorry, but there was a little color in his cheeks that hadn't been there last time we'd said good-bye. A little glitter in his eyes that probably wasn't regret. "I thought you were in trouble."

  "Genius! I am in trouble." I stomped around, popped Delilah's hood, and set the prop in place. "The engine folded."

  "Yeah?" He looked over my shoulder. "What is it?"

  "Hell if I know." I started examining hoses. He didn't bother me, which was odd—how many guys do you know who wouldn't stand over you and offer advice even if they don't know a radiator from a radish? After a few minutes, I looked back and saw he'd taken off his pack and was sitting quietly on it, leafing through a paperback. "What the hell are you doing?"

  "Reading, what does it look like I'm doing?" He turned down a page at the sound of a car approaching, stood up, and held out a thumb. The truck blew past in a smear of wind and chrome.

  "You're hitching?"

  "Beats walking."

  He held out his thumb again. I checked more hoses. They all looked good. The clamps were intact. Dammit. I didn't think it was a valve problem, but with vintage Mustangs, you never knew. I'd already had Delilah's engine rebuilt twice.

  I spun away from the car, put greasy hands on my hips, and stared at him. "Okay. I may be slow, but eventually I get it. You're following me."

  He concentrated on trying to flag down a bright yellow Volkswagen bug the exact color of a lemon drop, but it didn't even slow down.

  "It's the main road out of town," he said. "And I'm heading for Phoenix, remember?"<
br />
  "You are following me!" I resisted the urge to kick Delilah's tire; there was no reason to take it out on the baby. "And you know something."

  "Like what?" He didn't look concerned. In fact, he didn't even look interested.

  "Like who's doing this to me."

  "Well, I know it's not me. Does that help?" He gave up on the road and went back to the easy-chair comfort of his backpack. I gave him a glare and went back to checking hoses, but Delilah didn't give me any hints.

  "Try it again," David suggested. He was back sitting down, reading. I checked the oil and ignored him. Nope, it was full and grime-free. Double dammit. I couldn't see anything blown, no telltale sprays of oil or fluid. The block looked good.

  No sense in delaying the inevitable. I dropped to the gravel, rolled over, and squirmed under the car.

  "Need any help?"

  "No," I yelled. "Go away!"

  "Okay." I heard David get up and walk over to the road as another car approached. It slowed down, then sped up a squeal of tires. "Jerk."

  "Not everybody's as nice as I am," I agreed. "Shit. Shit shit shit." The engine looked good from down here, too. I was getting oil-smeared and gravel-gouged for nothing. "This is just great. Come on, baby, give me a break here."

  I slid back out, cleaned gravel out of the palms of my hands and brushed off my blue jeans, shook dust out of my dark hair, and announced, "I'll try it again." David remained unimpressed. He had taken his pack and moved about twenty feet farther down the road and was sitting with his back against the pole of the McDonald's billboard, reading.

  I slid into the driver's seat and turned the key.

  Delilah hummed to life, smooth and even as ever. I idled her for a while, gave her gas, revved her, closed my eyes, and listened for any hitches.

  Nothing. I let it fall back to idle and felt the vibration in my skin.

  David was reading The Merchant of Venice. He was kicked back, relaxed, feet up. His brown hair gleamed red highlights in the sun, and overhead the sky was blue, blue, merciless blue.

  I popped the clutch and rolled past him, accelerating. He never looked up.

  Ten feet past the billboard, I hit the brakes and skidded to a gravel-spewing stop. In the rearview mirror, I saw him turn down the page, put the book back in his backpack, and heft the thing like it weighed no more than my purse.