Firestorm

Chapter Seven

He'd said a couple of hours. Actually, in most cars it would have been about four; in the Camaro, with Imara behind the wheel, it was closer to two.

No small talk. I sat in the backseat, with Eamon; he had his knife out and tapped the flat of it restlessly against his knee. I felt sicker than ever, my head pounding so hard that I started to worry about an aneurysm. Resting my left temple against the cool window glass seemed to help. A little.

I roused to find that Eamon was taking my pulse. He seemed competent enough at it… He looked up when I tried to pull away and held on. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"Like I'm dying."

"I can give you something for the headache."

"The last thing I want is you medicating me. Again."

He shrugged and went back to tapping his knife. Imara was watching us in the rearview mirror. I nodded slightly to let her know I was all right.

The rest of the trip was conducted in tense silence.

We arrived in Boston just after dark, and Eamon gave directions in terse, single-turn increments. I had no idea where we were going, and it was a bit of a surprise to pull up in the parking lot of a huge granite building. I'd been expecting some deserted warehouse, some place where his sleazy business—whatever it might be—could be conducted in private.

This was a hospital.

"Out," he said to me, and prodded me with the point of the knife when I didn't move. Imara growled, low in her throat. "Let's all behave nicely. We're nearly done, you know. I'd hate for you to screw it up now."

I got out of the car and had to brace myself against the cool finish. Oh, God, I felt sick. Nothing in my stomach, or it would have been on the pavement. Imara took my arm, and Eamon slid the knife into a leather sheath that he concealed in a folded magazine.

"Right," he said. "After you, please."

We went in through the front door, just another concerned little family crowded together for support. All hospitals look pretty much the same; this one had a lived-in feel despite the constant application of astringents and floor wax. Lots of people in scrubs walking the halls, which were decorated with soothing framed prints. I barely noticed. I was too busy thinking about whether or not, since I was in a hospital, I should start shouting for help. The fact that the knife was still in Eamon's possession was a cause for concern, though. He could hurt innocent bystanders.

And would.

"Easy," Eamon whispered in my hear, as if he'd sensed my inner debate. "Let's not get tricky, love. On the elevator, please. And push six."

A long, slow ride. It was just the three of us. I calculated the odds of whether or not Imara could take him before he could stab me, and I could see she was doing the same math problem. She slowly shook her head. Not that she couldn't take him—she could—but that she didn't think it was a good idea.

Neither did I.

The doors dinged open at the sixth floor, and there was another long, clean hallway. Deathly still. We moved down it, and as we came even with an inset nurse's station, the woman on duty looked up and smiled.

"Eamon!" She looked ridiculously happy to see him. Did she not have any idea? No, of course she didn't. He was turning on the charm for her. "You're coming kind of late. Visiting hours just finished."

"Sorry," he said. "My cousin and her daughter got held up at Logan. Is it all right—?"

"Logan? That figures. Sure. Just don't stay too long, okay?" The nurse gave us an impersonal smile, half the wattage she'd reserved for Eamon. She focused in on me, and frowned a bit. "Poor thing, you look done in. Long flight?"

"The red-eye from hell," I said. Before I could say anything else, like Call the police, you idiot, Eamon hustled me onward. "All right, what is this?" I hissed. "Why are you taking us to a hospital?"

"Shut up." He pressed the magazine in my side. Sometime when I'd been distracted he'd slid the knife free, and it pressed a sharp reminder of his intentions into me. "Six doors down on the right side."

Some of the doors were shut, with medical charts in the holders out front. The sixth one was propped open. Eamon gestured the two of us to go first, outwardly polite, inwardly measuring the distance to my kidneys. I stepped in, wondering what kind of trick he was about to play.

None, apparently. No gang of scary people lurking in the corners—not that they'd have been able to do so, in such a small, clean, brightly lit room. Nothing to hide behind. Just some built-in cabinets along the walls, a hospital bed, and the woman lying in it.

Eamon closed the door behind us. We stood in silence for a. few seconds, and I stared at the woman. She was maybe twenty-five—it should have been a pretty, vital age, but she was pallid and loose and limp, her skin a terrible sickly color. Her hair looked clean, and carefully brushed; it was a medium brown, shot through with blond. Her eyelids looked thin and delicate and blue, veins showing through.

I waited, but she didn't move. IV liquids dripped. There was a tube down her throat, and a machine hissed and chuffed and breathed on her behalf.

I opened my mouth.

"You're about to ask me who she is. Don't." Eamon gave me a bitter, thin smile. "Just fix her. You don't need to know anything else."

"Pardon? Do what?"

The smile, thin and bitter as it was, faded. "Fix her. Now." He enunciated it with scary clarity. He transferred his stare to Imara, who frowned and glanced at me. "Don't even think about saying no, love, or I'll do things to your mum here that not even a hospital full of surgeons can fix." He grabbed me with his forearm around my throat, pulling my chin up, and set the knife to my exposed neck. I stood on tiptoe, fighting for balance. Fear gave me a sudden bolt of clarity, but there was nothing I could do or say, not like this. Too risky.

I had to trust Imara.

She slowly extended her hand toward him. Graceful and supplicating. "Sir, please understand," she said. "You didn't have to do it this way. If my mother had known what you wanted, she would have tried to help you without the threats."

"Maybe. Couldn't take that chance, though, could I? But still, here we are, and since you're suddenly taken all warm and fuzzy, go on. Do your good deed of the day."

Imara slowly shook her head. "I'm not—like that. I can do only a few things. I can't heal. Certainly not something as grievous as this."

His arm tightened, compressing my throat. I made a muffled sound of protest and teetered on my toes.

"Please! If I could save this woman, I would, but I'm not capable, don't you see?"

"Then go get someone who can."

"There isn't anyone who can, not among the Djinn or the Wardens. There are rules, and they're larger than your desires or your needs. I'm sorry."

I couldn't see Eamon's face, but I couldn't imagine that cold, crazy man was letting that be the last word. He didn't have a ready comeback, though. I felt a tremble go through him, and the knife dug just a bit deeper into my skin.

"All right!" Imara said sharply. "Don't hurt her! I'll try."

She put her hands on the woman's face, turning it gently to one side so that it faced toward me and Eamon. I thought I saw the translucent eyelids flutter, but nothing else happened. The frail chest rose and fell under the pale nightgown. IV fluids dripped.

And then, with the suddenness of a horror movie, the eyes flew open. Blank and clouded, but open.

The eyes of the living dead, nothing in them at all.

I felt Eamon's reaction through the connection of his arm, a shudder that might have sent him reeling if he hadn't kept hold of me. Which he did, for a blank second, and then he shoved me away and lurched to the bed. The knife fell to the floor, forgotten, and Eamon bent over the woman. "Liz? Can you hear me?"

Her eyes rolled back in her head, and Imara let go as the woman's body went into a galvanic spasm, practically leaping off the bed. Convulsions. Bad ones. I looked at Imara, speechless, and she looked as shocked as I did.

"I told you," she said. "It's forbidden."

Eamon turned on her with the speed of a cobra. "No. You're holding back. Wake her up."

"I can't."

"Wake her up!" he shouted, and turned to pick up his knife. "I need five bloody minutes! Five!"

"I can't give it to you. I'm sorry."

"You're going to be!"

He rounded on me, and Imara reached out and knocked the knife out of his hand. It skidded across the floor in a hiss of metal, and bumped into a pair of shoes that had just manifested out of thin air.

I blinked away confusion and focused. Even then, it took me a few long seconds to recognize that David had come to our aid.

He bent down and picked up the knife. "Looking for this?" David's voice was reduced to a velvet-soft purr. The shine of the knife turned restlessly in his hand, over and over. "It has Joanne's blood on it, I see. Do you really think that was a good idea?"

Eamon froze. The woman on the bed stopped her galvanic spasms and went completely still again. Her eyes were half-shut.

"Yours?" David asked, and pointed at the bed with the tip of the knife. He looked—cold. Perfect and cold and furious, but absolutely self-contained. Rage in a bottle.

"Mine?" Eamon sketched a mad sort of laugh. "What the hell would I do with a girl in a coma? Other than the obvious, I mean."

I remembered Eamon's taunts and hints, dropped all the way back when he'd revealed himself to me as the bastard he truly was. Drugging my sister. I like my women a little less talkative and more compliant, in general, he'd said. The possibilities nauseated me, together with the fact that the nurse outside had recognized him by name, as a regular visitor.

I took a step backward, until the wall was at my back. Felt good, the wall. I needed the support. My legs had gone cold, pins-and-needles cold. My balance insisted that the room was pitching and rolling like the deck of a sinking ship.

David exchanged a look with Imara, a nod, and she dropped her gaze and moved out of his way. Nothing standing between him and Eamon now. I saw Eamon register that, and lick his suddenly pale lips.

"Hang on a minute, mate," he said. "I know it looks bad, but the truth is, I only need to wake her up for a couple of minutes. Less, even. Just long enough to say my good-byes and—"

"Don't lie," David interrupted. The knife kept turning in his hand, drawing my eyes as well as Eamon's. "You have a reason, and it isn't anything so sentimental."

Eamon's eyes narrowed, and I could see him trying to decide whether or not he'd be able to take the knife. He couldn't, but there was no way he'd be able to judge that for himself. I hoped he'd try. I really did.

"All right," he said. "Nothing so saccharine. We were partners. She took possession of a certain payment, and she didn't want to share. I need to make her tell me where she hid the money."

"Still not true," David said. His eyes were terrifying—flames swirling around narrowed pupils. "I want you to speak the truth, just once before you die."

"You don't want to kill me, old son. I'm the one with the antidote for your girl's poison, and unless you want to see her in a hospital bed next to my beloved Liz here—"

David moved in a streak of light, and suddenly he was pressed against the other man, chest to chest, bending him over the hospital bed in a backbreaking curve. His right hand was locked around Eamon's throat, and his left…

… his left held the hilt of the knife he'd buried deep in Eamon's side.

Eamon's eyes widened soundlessly.

"That," David said, "is a fatal wound. Feel it?" He moved the knife helpfully. Eamon tried to scream, but nothing happened. "Shhhh. Nod if you believe me."

Eamon shakily nodded, throat still struggling to let loose his terror.

"Good." David pulled the knife free in a single fast rip. No blood followed, and there should have been fountains of the stuff. "I'm holding the wound shut," David said. "But the second you disappoint me, little man, the instant I think that you're mocking me or even thinking about harm to my family, that ends. I watch you bleed your life away in less than a dozen heartbeats. Understand?"

Eamon nodded convulsively. He was paler than the woman on the bed.

"Now, you're going to get the antidote," David said. "Which I imagine you have hidden somewhere in this room. You're going to give it to Joanne, and then you're going to go and give it to her sister." He let go of Eamon's throat. "Move."

Eamon edged out of the way, one hand pressed trembling to his side. Too terrified to move quickly. David watched him with glowing metallic eyes, and Imara did, as well.

I made some sound of effort, trying to straighten up. David had his full attention on Eamon, and his knuckles were white where he gripped the knife. I remembered Imara saying that he was fighting off the influence of the Mother, and how difficult it was. I wondered what would happen if he succumbed to that here, in a building full of innocent and helpless victims.

Not for me. Please, not for me. I tried to send him the message, but I had no idea if he was listening. His attention was completely riveted on Eamon.

Eamon, meanwhile, was moving—slowly, carefully, with a hand pressed hard to the place the knife had gone in as if he could hold his life in with it. He walked to a wooden cabinet and dragged a floral suitcase—clearly a woman's—from a narrow cubbyhole. He opened it and took out a bottle filled with clear liquid that he held up in one shaking hand. His hair was plastered to his face in wet sweaty points, and I could feel the rage and fear coming off him.

"I hope we understand each other," David said. "If Joanne dies, I take you apart. Slowly. I can show you things about pain that you've never even imagined. And I can make it last for an eternity."

Eamon, if possible, paled even further. He tossed him the vial. David effortlessly snatched it out of the air without moving his gaze from the other man's face, and held it out. Imara took it and looked uncertain.

"Syringe," Eamon said. Imara ripped open drawers in the cabinet by the sink and came up with a syringe, which she filled from the vial.

She crossed to me and hesitated again. "I—I don't know how to—" She did. I knew, and she knew everything I did, but it was comforting to know that there were still things that could make my daughter flinch.

"Vein or muscle?" I asked.

"Muscle," Eamon said.

I took the syringe out of Imara's hands, jammed it into my thigh, and depressed the plunger. Whatever it was in the hypo, it went in ice-cold, tingling, and then turned hot. It moved fast. I gasped for breath as I felt it move through my circulatory system. My lungs felt as if I'd sucked on liquid nitrogen, and I got an instant, mind-numbing flash of a headache.

Then it was done, and I felt… clearer. Not well, by any stretch. But better.

For the first time, David looked at me directly. I gave him a shaky nod as Imara helped me up. "I'm okay," I said. "Now, can you—help her? None of this is her fault. She doesn't deserve to suffer for it."

David looked baffled for a second, then turned his attention to the woman lying on the bed. He crossed to look down at her, and put his fingertips on her forehead.

And then he said, very quietly, "There's nothing there to help."

"No," Eamon said, and lunged forward over the bed, one hand still clutched to his side. "No. She opened her eyes—"

"Imara opened her eyes for her," David said. "The mind that was inside her is gone. She's been gone for years."

Eamon's face turned into a rigid mask, with a red angry flush across his cheekbones. "No. She's there. I told you, I need five minutes—"

"Her brain is dead, and her soul is gone." David looked up at him, then at me. "This is why you wanted a Djinn. To heal her."

Eamon said nothing. He'd taken the woman's limp hand in his, and he was holding it. For any normal person, it would have been horrible, coming here, holding her warm hand, knowing on some level that it was just a lie her body was telling. I wasn't sure what it was for Eamon. I wasn't even sure why he cared so much. Both his explanations had been lies, David said. So what was the truth?

"You said you had a time limit," I said.

"Her family's turning off the machines," he said. It was barely a whisper. "Tomorrow. Brings new meaning to the term deadline, doesn't it?"

He laughed. It was an awful laugh, something wild and dangerous and mad. Not a good man, Eamon. Not a sane man. But there was something in him, some overwhelming emotion driving all of it.

"How did it happen?" I asked.

"Why would you care?" he asked, and brushed the glossy, oddly healthy hair back from her pale, dry face. It had to be about money, didn't it? Cold, hard cash. Because I didn't want to believe he was capable of love and devotion—it made things far too complicated.

"You did it to her, didn't you?" Imara suddenly asked.

Eamon transferred that feverish stare from the woman to my daughter. "Bugger off."

"Imara's right. She was just another victim, wasn't she? Only this one up and died on you." My voice was shaking, and I could feel the rest of me trembling along with it. "You got carried away, playing your little games."

He laughed, and looked down at the woman. "You hear that, Liz? Funny. Just another victim." He shook his head. "Liz and I—let's just say we had a professional relationship. And she violated some professional rules. Things went wrong."

I was never going to understand him. Nothing he said matched to what his body language said. The slump of his shoulders, the trembling in those long, elegant hands—that all spoke of grief, real and bone-deep grief.

David hadn't said anything. He was watching Eamon with the same intensity, but the incandescent rage had died down a bit.

"You going to kill me now?" Eamon asked. "Give me a colorful end to a bad career?"

"No." David shrugged. "I healed the wound. You'll be fine so long as you don't make any sudden movemerits. Or come after my family again. If you do that again, I will kill you."

My family. That struck me deep.

"You can all go to hell for all I care," Eamon said, and reached across to rest his hand on top of the respirator that breathed for the woman on the bed. "I didn't poison your sister, by the way. She's the one bright thing in my life. I didn't—" He fell silent.

"If you really think that, then let her go," I said. "Just let her go."

"Oh, I already have. I left her a note. I told her I had to go back to England. She'll come crawling back to you any moment now. Now bugger off, all of you!" The last came with a viciousness like a thrown razor.

David looked down at the bloodstained knife he was still holding, and casually broke the blade of it in two with his fingers. He tossed the remains in the trash.

And then the three of us—Imara, David, and I—left the hospital room.

As the door hissed shut behind us, David took me in his arms, and I melted against him. Into him.

I didn't ask, but David knew what I wanted to say. "I really couldn't do anything for her. There are limits."

I kissed the side of his neck. "I know."

"I leave you alone for five minutes—"

"It was more like days."

He growled lightly into my shoulder. "You're impossible. And I have—"

"Responsibilities," I murmured. "I know you do."

He let go.

"What about him? Eamon?" Imara was standing straight and tall, hands folded, watching the two of us. My daughter's face was a mirror of mine, at least in form, and in this instance I suspected she was a mirror of my expression, too. Compassion mixed with wariness. Eamon was a wild animal, and there was no telling what he'd do. Or to whom.

"If that demonstration didn't frighten him off, then the next step is to kill him. Not that I'd mind that."

My thoughts were on other things. "The woman—Liz—was she his victim, or his partner?"

"I don't know," David said. "I only know that Eamon never once told the truth about her."

Imara said, "Yes, he did."

David turned to her, surprised.

"When he called her 'beloved Liz.' He meant that."

At the nurse's station, an alarm began to sound. The nurse jerked to attention, checked a screen, and hit a button, then rushed past us… into the room we'd just exited.

"Let's go," David said.

"Is she—?"

"Go."

"Did Eamon—?"

He held the door to the elevator for me, head down, staring at his shoes.

"Oh God, David, did you—?"

He didn't answer. Neither did Imara.

On the way to the lobby, I called Sarah's cell phone. She was crying when she answered. "Jo, oh my God—Eamon—Eamon left me a note—I thought—I thought he really loved me—"

So. He wasn't entirely a lying bastard, after all.

"Sarah?" I said gently. "Stay there. I'm coming."

He hadn't exactly stinted her on accommodations. Sarah was registered at a downtown Boston hotel in her own room, a luxurious suite that came with a panoramic view, a fabulous king-size bed, and its own monogrammed robes.

I knew about the bed and the robes because when we arrived, Sarah was curled up on the bed sporting the robe, clutching a tearstained note in one hand and a generous wad of tissues in the other. She looked like hell, but she didn't look sick. I still felt achy in places, but I knew that was a legitimate price to pay for what I'd avoided. Eamon really would have killed me.

And my sister was weeping herself sick over him.

After parsing some of the hitching, half-understood things she was mumbling, I came to the conclusion that she'd consulted the liquor cabinet for some comfort, too. Great. Drunk, maudlin, and irrational. Sarah's best day ever.

I rolled my eyes at David, who had the grace to turn to look out the windows at the rain streaking the glass. Imara grinned. Together, my daughter and I escorted Sarah to the bathroom, where I dumped a cold shower on her to help with the sobering up (and yes, it was more than a little fun, too), and helped her get herself together. Eamon had provided plenty of tools, from high-quality makeup to shopping bags from half the high-end clothiers in Boston.

My sister should have been a model. She had the rack for it, and the elegant bone structure. Where I was round, she was straight, flat, and lean. Her hair still retained the delicate cut and highlights that I'd helped her put in—God, had it only been a week ago? I decided to forgo the mascara. As much as Sarah continued to sniffle about her latest romantic disaster, it was bound to be a wasted effort.

"I was so worried," Sarah suddenly said as I applied blusher to her pale cheeks. I stopped, surprised. "I didn't want to leave you, Jo. Eamon said—he said you'd gone back to get your friend."

I nodded. "I did." He'd basically left me to fend for myself in a hurricane, but he'd cut me loose, at least. Had to give him points for that. "I'm sorry. It took me a while to catch up to you."

She studied me from bloodshot eyes, getting more sober by the minute. "Were you? Catching up to me? Or were you really looking for Eamon?"

I applied myself to the makeup with an effort. "Looking for you, of course."

"Jo." She stopped my hand with hers. "I know he's a bastard. But there was something about him—you understand?"

"I understand that you were married to one jerk, and you just fell for another one," I said. "But in this case, I can't really blame you. He put on a good show. Even I believed it for a while. So I think I'll have to forgive you for this one."

That was what she wanted to hear. I saw the flash of relief in her eyes, and then she hugged me. A warm cloud of Bvlgari Omnia embraced me, too. She'd put too much on. She always did.

I hugged her back fiercely. "Come on," I said. "Let's get packed up."

It didn't take long. Everything she owned, Eamon had bought for her; like me, she'd had to flee Fort Lauderdale with nothing but the clothes on her back. Even her suitcases were new.

And designer.

Some refugees just are born to land on their expensively manicured feet.

"What am I going to do with her?" I sighed to David as we leaned against the wall and watched Sarah fill the third Louis Vuitton bag with toiletries and shoes. I was considering knocking her over the head and stealing the suitcases. Eamon had excellent taste.

"She shouldn't stay here," David said. "If he comes back, I'm not sure she wouldn't—"

"Oh, I'm sure she would. Eagerly. Eamon could talk her into anything, and you know it."

"Then you'd better send her someplace safe."

"And where would safe be, exactly?" I asked. He folded his arms and stared at the carpet; there really wasn't a good answer to that, and he knew it. "I've used up my favors. I have no other family to ship her off to—"

"Actually," Imara interrupted, "you do."

We both stopped to look at her. A flash of lightning outside the windows illuminated the humor in her smile.

"I'll take care of her," she said. "If you're about to jump back into trouble, you can't keep her with you. She'd slow you down." Imara's golden eyes sought David's for a second. "So would I, as a matter of fact."

"Imara—"

"You have to take her," she said to her father. "You have to take her to see the Oracle, and you know you do. I can't go. I'd just be in the way."

He reached out and brushed her hair back from her face, a gesture I'd felt a thousand times from him. Tenderness incarnate. "I need you to go to the Ma'at," he said. "Take Sarah, and get on the first available plane to Las Vegas to make contact with them. Tell them that we'll meet them in Phoenix."

"Phoenix?" Imara and I blurted it together.

"I'm not taking you back to Seacasket," David said. "That way is—well, it's just not possible. We have to go to the other access point where you can reach the Oracle."

"Phoenix," I repeated. "David, that's a long, long way."

"Yes," he agreed blandly. "Imara, get Sarah on the plane. Jo—"

"You two should get some rest," Imara said with an utterly bland expression. "The room's paid up for the night."

There was a storm, of course. There's always a storm in my life, and this one was big and nasty and intent on harm. I did what I could, in concert with the other two Wardens still alive in the vicinity to help—two hours spent in front of the plate glass window, watching the clouds, reading the weather patterns and gently herding it where it needed to be. David didn't help me with the weatherwork. I think he knew I needed to do this myself, feel that I was at least being useful in some small way.

When I came back to myself fully, he was holding me from behind, arms around me, and I was leaning back against his chest.

"Why aren't you crazy?" I asked him wearily.

"Excuse me?"

"Crazy. Red-eyed, bugged-out crazy. Why isn't she controlling you?"

"She isn't awake."

"Could've fooled me."

David let out a slow breath that stirred my hair. "She's still dreaming, Jo. When she wakes up… it will be worse. A lot worse. Unless something happens to change her mind about humanity."

"Ashan took care of all that. He's been whispering sweet nothings in her ear for years, I'd be willing to bet. Maybe centuries. Nothing I can do or say will counteract that."

David kissed the top of my head where I was curled against him, and he stroked my hair. It was a familiar ritual. My curls relaxed under his touch and smoothed into a silk-soft curtain. I'd never realized how intimate that was, how… caring. He felt so strong when I leaned against him. So solid and immediate and real. "Don't underestimate yourself," he said. "You stopped me in my tracks the first time I saw you. She has to love you."

I was overwhelmed by how much I missed him. Such a girly thing to do, but I couldn't help it; I turned my face to his chest and began to sob. Abjectly, silently, near-hysterically. My whole body trembled with the force of it. I didn't want to be doing these things, risking these things; I wanted to forget the feeling of dread and terror and helplessness that Eamon had buried inside me like a broken-off knife. I wanted to take David home and live in peace. For heaven's sake, just live.

He understood why I was crying, I guess, because he didn't speak. He just held me, stroking my hair, and let me cry. There were advantages to having a lover older than recorded history. He knew when to be quiet and just let me get on with it.

Once the storm had passed, I felt weak, feverish, and not very much better. My eyes were scratchy and swollen, and I needed to lie down and curl up in a ball for about, oh, a week. Next to him. Holding him.

"I'm sorry," he said, and let me straighten up when I tried to pull away. "You didn't ask for any of this. You never did."

"Damn right." I took a handful of tissues from the box that Sarah had been using before me, and used them to wipe my face, blot my eyes, and blow my nose. David watched with nothing but compassion on his face. "I was going to ask why me, but I don't think there's really a very good answer for that."

"The stronger the shoulders, the larger the load," he said. It sounded like an aphorism, but I didn't know it. "You're strong, Jo. Stronger than most humans I've ever known."

"Great. My boyfriend thinks I'm a Clydesdale."

He smiled. "I think you're a goddess."

"Sweet," I said, and honked my nose, "but goddesses don't cry in their beer about crap like this, do they?"

"How many goddesses have you ever met?"

I didn't want to ask how many he'd met. Sounded like a discussion of former girlfriends that I didn't want to have right now. "How long can you stay? With me?"

"I don't know." Oh, hell, I didn't want him to be honest about it. Men. Why don't they ever know when to slide in the comforting lie? "Like you, I'm doing this from moment to moment. On instinct."

"Yeah, but at least your instincts are honed by a few millennia of experience. Mine, they're finely calibrated by a few years of screwing up."

That got a cute little smile from him, with raised eyebrows, and nearly revealed a hidden dimple. Ooooh. I blotted my tears again, to keep him in focus.

"Close your eyes," David said.

"Why?"

His eyebrows quirked. "Don't you trust me?"

Unarguable. I closed them, although it deprived me of the sight of him, which was a big minus. The sandy itch of postcrying swelling was nearly unbearable… until I felt the light, silky stroke of his thumbs across the lids.

And then the itchy, swollen feeling was gone.

I sucked in a startled breath and discovered that my bloated sinus passages were fixed, too. Nice. The ache in my temple also vanished.

The vague heavy ache of the aftereffects of Eamon's drug were gone, as if it had never existed.

I opened my eyes again and looked straight at him. His smile kindled into the kind of fire you get at the heart of a nuclear power plant. The look melted me into a little radioactive puddle. Figuratively. But I wasn't entirely sure he couldn't do it literally, as well.

"You bastard," I breathed. "You could have just zapped Eamon's poison right out of me, couldn't you?"

"I wanted a hands-on approach. And I wanted him to clearly understand that we were not the people he should want to play with."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure you got it across to him." I put a hand on the warm plane of his cheek and let my fingers glide down the warm skin, rough with just a hint of beard. David might be wearing human form as a kind of disguise, but he was thorough about it. He understood the delight of textures.

"We can leave in the morning," he said. "Imara's right. You need the rest."

I didn't want rest. All I wanted was a bed, a lock on the door, and David. It was irresponsible, it was dumb, and I didn't care. I was exhausted with the strain of giving up what I wanted for the sake of… everyone else.

The weather was distracting me. I got up and yanked the cords on the curtains to whip them closed.

His hands slid around me from behind before I could turn around again. They wrapped hot around my stomach and pulled me back against his body. His head dropped forward, pressed against mine, and I felt the shuddering breath that went through him. As if he wanted to weep the way I had, but men—even male Djinn—didn't do that kind of thing. He pressed his lips to the back of my neck instead. His voice, when it came, was rusty and low. "I hate this," he said. "I hate seeing you hurt. I want to keep you safe, and I can't. I can't even keep you safe from me."

"You have."

"So far."

"You will."

"Maybe." He loosened his hold on me and let me turn around; his hands settled on my hips and pulled me closer against him. "I wish you'd never met me. You'd have been—"

"Dead," I finished for him. "You know, because you saved my life. A few times."

He shook his head. "You might not have been in danger if it hadn't been for me."

"Not everything's about you. Or the Djinn," I said, but I said it gently, because I hated to imply he wasn't the center of the universe, and kissed him to let him know not to take it personally. It was a nice, long, slow kiss, and it felt like we were melting into each other. Tension flowed down my back, out through my feet, and left me in a deliciously languorous state of bliss. Without breaking the kiss, David walked me back a step, then another, until the bends of my knees collided with the bed. I wavered, then let myself fall; David let go long enough for me to writhe fully onto the bed, and then he just stood there, looking down at me.

"What are you looking at?" I demanded. I got a beautiful smile that held just a tinge of sadness.

"You," he said. "I just want to remember this."

He shrugged off his olive drab coat and let it fall in a heavy thump to the carpet. Underneath, he was wearing a blue-and-white shirt and a pair of khaki cargo pants.

"Your turn," he said.

"We're taking turns?"

He shrugged. There was a sinful glint in his eyes. "One piece at a time."

I didn't have a coat. I considered, then kicked off my shoes. That got a raised eyebrow. He retaliated by stripping off his own, socks included. I loved his feet. Long, narrow feet with a high arch. Baby soft, because the Djinn had no use for mundane things like calluses. Every inch of him was perfect, I recalled. Warm and velvet-soft and perfect.

I was igniting inside like an oil-soaked rag on a bonfire.

"Shirt, please," he said. The word was almost a purr in his throat. "Slowly."

I made a production out of it, arching my back to slide it off over my head, shaking my newly straightened hair until it fell like black satin over the lace of my bra. David's expression was closed and mysterious, his eyes narrowly focused on the rise and swell of my breasts, the way the lace curved down and away from the skin.

I propped myself up on my elbows, making sure he got a good, long look, and gave him a slow smile. "Your turn," I said. "Shirt."

He went to it with a will. I watched the flicks of his fingers, the way the fabric slid away to reveal burnished skin, and swallowed hard. When the last button fell loose, I had a good view of his flat abdominals, and that sexy shadow of hair that was just barely visible at the waistband of his pants. They rode low on his hips, as if they wanted to come off.

Silence. He was watching me. I was watching him.

"You first," I murmured.

He gave me a slow, completely wicked smile, and unbuttoned his pants, then let down the zipper. As the fabric slipped down his legs to puddle on the floor, I let out a slow held breath. He was perfection and flame made flesh, and oh God, how I adored him.

"You cheated," I accused. "What happened to the underwear?"

"Got impatient," he said, and then my remaining clothes began to mist away, turning into cool wisps of smoke that made me shiver in delight. The bed creaked as he put one knee on it, looking down at me. "I do that sometimes, with you."

"Bet you say that to all the mortal girls."

His eyes met mine, and for a second they weren't Djinn eyes, they were David's, and I saw the man he'd once been all those millennia ago before the fires had turned him into something else entirely.

"No," he murmured. "I don't."

He had great hands. Incredible hands. They glided up my sides, skimmed over my breasts, cupped them in heat. Caressed my nipples until I was biting my lip and making whimpering noises of need.

And then his hand slid down between my legs, and my mind exploded in a haze of bliss so strong that it seemed to dissolve the world in opal swirls. Every muscle in my body convulsed, held, trembled and kept on going, and my thighs trapped his hand in place. It seemed to last forever, and just as I began to slip back into the mundane, he moved and did something else and oh God, it started again.

It felt like hours. Maybe it was hours, slow and hot and torturously wonderful, before he finally succumbed to temptation and slid inside me, melting us together into a mindless, perfect union. It felt so good, so right, and I wanted to move, wanted him to move… but he didn't. He stayed still, buried deep, and our eyes locked together in fascinated wonder. I could feel the energy running through him, hot and wild. The same energy that had overtaken him outside of New York, in the car, but he understood how to channel it better now. How to bend it to his will.

"Let go," I whispered, and his lips parted in a gasp, and the light in his eyes brightened. "There's such a thing as too much control."

He'd made love to me so many different ways, and this was yet another—frantic, wild, tender, dangerous, sweet, and utterly open. Like the weather pounding at the window and crackling in my nerves, he was unstoppable. When the pleasure peaked, it was like a tidal wave carrying me to the sky, where I shivered into stars and fog.

I clung to him, exhausted and shining with sweat.

Panting as it passed. He collapsed with me in a tangle of arms and legs. Our hands were clasped together, still trembling from the force of the aftershocks. David's eyes were closed, and his face was—momentarily, at least—relaxed and peaceful. I studied it with the intensity of someone planning to do a portrait, the way the shadows defined his angles, the way his eyelashes feathered, the way his cheekbones demanded to be caressed.

"I need to tell you something," he said with his eyes still closed. His voice was unsteady, his breath coming quickly.

I didn't feel any steadier. "So long as it's not goodbye."

His eyes flew open. "I'm not that cruel, am I?"

"No." I kissed the point of his chin. He made a lazy sound of pleasure, so I kept on, nuzzling his neck. He smelled clean and hot, with just a hint of musk. Lovely. "Well, sometimes. But believe me, I know when a guy's getting ready to hit the door. That was not good-bye sex. That was whoa, hello! sex."

His arms went around me and rolled me on top of him. Breathtaking, the strength he had. The control. The precision. His skin was hot and damp and wonderful to touch. "Anyone who's ever said good-bye to you is a fool."

"Well, obviously. Your point?" I was playing, but some part of my brain was arguing with me. It had been shut up in the basement while the rest of me had gotten what it wanted, but now it was telling me that time continued its inexorable march, that I shouldn't be wasting this precious few seconds with banter.

I didn't care. Not now. Not with him.

David stroked my hair back from my face, but it kept sliding over my shoulders to rain down around us, a privacy curtain that made the world seem small and perfectly safe. Illusion. But a nice one.

"Most of the Djinn are gone," he said.

"What?" The illusion was thoroughly shattered. "What do you mean, gone?"

"Withdrawn from this plane. I sent them to the place where Jonathan kept his house—you remember?"

I remembered. Not precisely where it was, or how to get to it, because it wasn't exactly explicable to mortal brains, but the point was that it was sealed off from the regular plane of our reality. A pocket universe, of a sort. A retreat. A sanctuary, in a sense.

"While they're there, they'll be outside of anyone's control—mine, and hopefully, even the Mother's," he said. "It's the best way I know to keep things from escalating out of control between the Djinn and humans, if the worst should happen."

"If she decides to kill off the human race, you mean?" He didn't answer. He didn't have to. "You said most of the Djinn were withdrawing. Not all?"

"A few volunteered to stay with the Ma'at," he said. "Ten or so. Enough to help them complete their circle. The Ma'at are working to try to stabilize systems—they won't intervene directly, but they can provide a kind of ballast, settle things down." He paused for a second, and I could tell the next thing wasn't good. "About twenty Djinn are staying with Ashan. I can't stop them, not without a straight-out fight. The problem is that by withdrawing, I let him have the field of battle. But if I don't… Djinn get hurt. And humans get caught in the middle."

Not good news. Ashan was a force to be reckoned with, even by David's standards, much less by my own. And with a small army of immortal, arrogant, angry beings… twenty was more than enough to destroy everything in his path.

"I think Ashan's counting on you to give up, actually."

"I can't fight him."

"Can't—or won't? That was Jonathan's problem. I thought part of the reason he handed things to you was so that you'd be able to… act."

He looked so grave that it chilled the lingering warmth inside me. I slipped off to the side and curled against him; his arm went around me, holding me close.

"I need time," he said. "I need time, Jo. What you're talking about is the beginning of the end for us. It's what Jonathan was afraid of all along. War. Death. Destruction. I'm not…" He hesitated. "I'm not ready. I'm not sure I can be what he was. Ever."

"So you're willing to let humans take the heat for you in the meantime while you debate it?"

His hand, which had been stroking my hair, went still. His eyes closed.

"Yes," he said softly. "I have to be willing to do that. And so do you. Listen, Jo—you spoke to the Oracle. That's unprecedented. You might have succeeded if the Oracle hadn't been—prevented—"

"Infected."

"Yes," he said, and kissed my bare shoulder. "So we try again. We keep trying. And if it comes to a fight with Ashan, I'll do everything in my power to end it with a minimum of bloodshed."

I rolled up on my elbow, looking down at him. "Human bloodshed? Or are you talking about the Djinn?"

He regarded me with absolute steadiness, and there was that shadow in his eyes, the same one that had been in Jonathan's before him. Power. Vast and unknown power. "I have to be true to my responsibilities, Jo. But you're one of those responsibilities now."

"I know," I said, and put my hand on his chest, over his heart. Not really a heart, of course; not really flesh, except by his will. I was touching fire. Touching eternity. "We're just flying by the seat of our pants, aren't we? But then, we've done that from the first moment we saw each other."

"Yes." His burning lips pressed on my forehead for a brief second. "It's like your forest fire. The old world is burning. It's hard to see the new one that's coming, under all the destruction, but the green always comes, Jo. It always comes." He kissed my shoulder again, making a slow trail along my collarbone. "Imara and Sarah's flight touched down in Phoenix without incident, by the way. Safe and sound. Imara's taking Sarah to the Ma'at."

"Sarah in Vegas," I sighed. "I'm not sure that's such a great idea…"

"I was thinking the same thing about Imara. I remember how much trouble you got into there."

"Maybe you'd better keep the kid someplace safe," I said morosely. "Ashan's going to target her to get to us."

"I know he'll try."

"But?"

"But that isn't likely to work," David said calmly. "First, like you, she's too unpredictable. He's never going to understand her well enough to use her. Second… I won't let him touch my daughter again."

I shivered. Ashan didn't know it, but he was playing catch with a grenade if he crossed David on that one.

I kissed him with wordless agreement, and he held me, and for the moment, these precious few moments, danger was something that existed outside of the safety of this still, quiet room, and the warmth of this bed.

And wrapped in his warmth, even though urgency still beat war drums in my blood, I slept.

Morning came with a boom of thunder, and I awoke to feel things spiraling out of control again. I stayed in bed and rose up into the aetheric, struggling to keep the reins on the weather, but it was wild and getting worse.

"We should go," David said. I didn't want to. Being under soft sheets with him, cupped warm against his heat, was the best heaven I could imagine. "The first flight to Phoenix is in three hours."

"I don't think anything's flying out of town today," I said. "Feel the sky."

He was already moving, sliding off the bed and standing up naked, facing away from me. I watched as he formed clothing.

He turned to face me, pulling his olive drab coat into place on his shoulders. "It's only going to get worse." An infinity of regret in the words. I couldn't read his eyes; they were human, and hidden behind glasses and shadows. "We'll have to find a way."

I sighed and looked around. My clothes were neatly folded on the chair next to the bed. I began pulling things on. "So the Oracle is in Phoenix?"

"Not exactly." He pulled open the drawer in the small desk and took out the slender phone book. At a tap of his finger, it turned into a road atlas. He flipped pages, then handed it to me.

I glanced at it, blinked, and looked at him in exasperation. "You're kidding."

"No."

"Please tell me you're kidding."

"I'm not." He tapped the open map with his forefinger. A spot lit up, golden even in the glow of the lamp. "I don't make the rules, Jo. This is where the second Oracle can be reached."

Because the map was of Arizona, all right, but the city that was marked was Sedona. Why had I ever even doubted that sometime, somewhere, I'd have to go there?

"What's so funny?" he asked, frowning. I shook my head, laughing until spots danced in front of my eyes. Waved my hand ineffectively. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," I gasped. "It's just… so New Age-y. What do we do? Meditate in a pyramid? Wear a crystal hat?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, come on. Sedona?"

He shrugged. "The veil's thinnest there."

Well, it would be, wouldn't it?

David wanted to head straight for the airport. I wanted to stop for breakfast. It was the worst decision of my life. But even before breakfast, we had a fight about the car.

It started innocently enough. We waited for a letup in the rain. Outside, the air was cooler, cleaner, felt more alive, somehow, because of David's presence. I thought it was my imagination at first, but then I wasn't so sure; it seemed as if the flowers out front of the hotel got brighter, opened wider in his presence. Another sign of his strength and connection to the heart of the Earth.

Or of really great sex.

The Camaro was wedged in between a giant-tired Ford pickup and a van the size of the space shuttle.

David stopped a few feet from the car, looking at it with an expression I couldn't read. "This is from Lewis, isn't it," he said. Uh-oh. I unlocked the passenger door for him, then went around to my side.

"Official transportation," I said, since I didn't want to think about how deeply obligated I was to Lewis right now. "Warden motor pool."

He sent me a drop the bullshit look, opened the door, and slid inside. I did the same. "Expensive gift."

"Yes." I slid the key into the ignition and fired her up. David ran a contemplative fingertip over the dashboard, seeing who-knew-what with his Djinn senses. "It's fast. I needed a fast car. It wasn't personal."

"Oh, yes it is," he disagreed. "This is a very personal car. A very personal gift."

"David—"

"You can't see it," he said. "You would have, when you were Djinn, but he's in love with you. He's been in love with you for a long, long time. It's all over this car, his feelings for you."

Oh, dear. It wasn't so much that I didn't see it as I didn't want to see it. I'd been careful around Lewis. Not careful enough.

"Well, fine, but I'm not in love with him," I said, and put the car in gear.

"You are," David said. There was a hard edge to his voice I couldn't understand. "Don't lie to yourself."

I felt that, all right. It hurt. "David, I'm not in love with Lewis!" Except maybe I was. A little. A teeny little traitorous bit of me that still remembered the crush I'd had on him back in the day. And liked it when he crinkled those brown eyes at me and smiled so charmingly.

And gave me sexy cars. "I'm not! I'm in love with you! Dammit, why are we fighting?"

"Because he gave you a car, and you took it."

"I needed the goddamn car, David! What was I supposed to do, get Cherise to chauffeur me around to the apocalypse? Don't get me wrong, she'd do it, but it's not exactly the best idea ever!"

He set his jaw and looked out the window. I slammed the car into gear with violence unnecessary to such a sweet ride. "You don't have to worry. I'm not sleeping with Lewis."

"No," he agreed. "You're not. But you have."

Oh, ouch. I'd never directly discussed that with him, but I wasn't too surprised that he knew about it. Hard to hide anything from the Badass Head Djinn.

"Can we get over this now? Because frankly, after last night, there's nobody on this earth that I could possibly sleep with except you."

His eyebrows quirked. "Only last night?"

"Oh, you're pushing it, pal."

He let it go. "You said you wanted breakfast." He nodded up ahead. There was a huge sign, rotating with dignified deliberation, showed a tasty-looking artist's rendition of a blueberry pie and announced that LOUANN'S PIE KITCHEN was open for breakfast.

I saw no reason that pie didn't qualify as breakfast food, anyway.

The parking lot was half full, which wasn't bad for the oh-my-God hour of the morning; apparently, the place was something of a favored watering hole. It was pouring rain, and the Camaro hadn't come equipped with either rain slickers or umbrellas. I formed an invisible-air version as David and I walked across the wet pavement toward the entrance to the restaurant, represented by double glass doors in a weather-beaten glass-and-wood oversize log cabin structure. Someone—Louann, maybe, if she wasn't apocryphal—had planted a wide variety of flowers around the building in creative tiers of planters. It looked lush and rather sweet. I ducked under the green awning that sheltered the doorway and swung open the door.

When I did, I glanced back and caught sight of David standing rigid, staring off into the distance. "What is it?" I asked. He left me and went out to stand in the rain, still staring. "David?"

"Just a second."

"What's happening?"

"Don't know," he said. "Hang on."

And he disappeared. I hesitated. I didn't want to go in, if there were innocent bystanders around; the Djinn wouldn't care how many bodies they had to go through to get to me, if it was me they wanted…

David reappeared, misting out of the air in midstride. He headed straight for me, grabbed me by the neck of my shirt, and marched me inside.

The door slammed shut behind us and locked. And sealed, in some way that I was not immediately familiar with; my ears popped as if we'd suddenly shot up a few hundred feet. David kept hustling me along.

"Hey!" I protested. It dawned on me about three steps later that something was very, very wrong at Louann's Pie Kitchen.

There was nobody inside.

I blinked. The lights were on, but nobody—and I mean nobody—was home. Empty kitchen. Empty lunch counter with pots of coffee steaming on burners. Empty booths and tables. Not a sound of human habitation anywhere. I had an ugly second of memory of some crime documentary I'd once seen, about customers and employees herded into a back room and shot, but in that case there'd be some sign, right? Purses left lying around. Chairs tipped over. Maybe even blood… This looked perfectly ordered, just… empty.

Maybe I was going crazy. Maybe David hadn't been as thorough as he'd thought in cleaning the drugs out of my system, and I was hallucinating. Maybe all of this was a dream. Maybe everything since Eamon had given me the shot had been a dream.

David let go and pushed me into a dull-green leatherette booth, then slid into the other side, facing me.

Oh, bad feelings. Very bad feelings. A fork of lightning suddenly split the clouds outside and cast a harsh white illumination that blanched the warm, homey atmosphere.

And in the flash of lightning, David changed. His body filled out, with broader shoulders, whiter skin. He folded his hands on the table, pale and strong.

When the transformation finished, I was sitting across from Ashan, in his trademark tailored suit. His teal-blue tie looked natty and perfectly tied, his shirt crisp.

When had he taken David's place? Oh God, not in the hotel… No, that was impossible. Afterward, in the parking lot? Or just now, outside? I had to believe it was just outside the door of this place, and that David had been lured away to give Ashan this chance at me.

I debated my choices. I could either die facing Ashan, or die running away.

I didn't run.

And oddly enough, he didn't kill me. At least, not right off.

"Hungry?" Ashan asked blandly. "I recommend the strawberry pie."

He looked down, and he did, indeed, have a plate in front of him with a slice of strawberry pie. The brilliantly red filling was oozing out over the plate like blood over bone. He picked up his fork and took a bite, then took a sip of coffee from a chunky café-style cup.

I might mention that each of these things—the plate, the pie, the fork, the cup—appeared just as he reached for them. A flagrant and unnecessary display of his powers, just for my benefit.

"Where's David?"

"Occupied. I'm sure he'll be back soon," he said smoothly. "Sure you're not hungry? It may be your last meal."

I smiled. It felt wrong on my lips, but I hoped it would be good enough to pass his inspection. "Sure. Mind if I serve myself?"

He shrugged. I went behind the counter and cut myself a slice of coconut meringue pie that looked like just about heaven. I decided against the coffee in favor of a glass of milk. I eased myself into the booth with an annoying squeak of plastic.

If it was a dream, at least I was going to get a piece of pie out of it. And if it wasn't… well, dying on a full stomach sounded like a better idea than the alternatives. I was trembling with fear for David, sick with the knowledge that if he managed to make it back here (occupied, what did that mean?) Ashan would have the upper hand in every way.

Ashan took another bite of pie, watching me.

"I see you made sure we had privacy," I said.

"I felt it best." Another chilling predator's smile. "I'd hardly want to share you with anyone else."

From Eamon to this. I was too numbed to be terrified, really; Eamon had done me that favor, at least. Whatever reaction Ashan had been hoping to provoke, this couldn't have been it.

I took a bite of the pie.

If Ashan was disappointed, he hid it well. He continued to nibble and sip without any hint of homicidal intent. Well, okay, hints, but not actions. I could read the desire to kill me in every look and careful, neat motion.

"Where are they?" I asked. "The people who were in here."

"Still here." He gestured vaguely. "Out of phase. They won't notice a thing. I've moved us a few seconds back in time, in a kind of bubble. Once we leave, it'll snap back. It's a local phenomenon only."

That was mildly interesting. "You can do that?"

"Time is my specialty," he said. "It's an interesting thing, time. Fluid. Very tricky. I don't expect you to understand."

He was positively chatty. Which was odd. Ashan had always treated me like a cockroach. I couldn't imagine him sitting down to a nice, cozy chat with me over pie and coffee. If there was a single burning flame inside Ashan, it was ambition—cold, ruthless, and all-consuming.

So why was he sitting here making nice with me? Was he waiting for word that David had been hurt? Killed?

If Ashan had hurt him, I was going to find a way to make him pay.

Ashan smiled at me over his forkful of strawberry pie. I smiled back and took a bite of coconut. The meringue melted on my tongue. Even in my numbed, tense state, that was nice.

"So," Ashan said, and I sensed he was ready to circle around to the point. "What did the Oracle tell you, Joanne?"

"Besides the screaming? Nothing. Good pie, by the way."

He lost the veneer of affability, and what was left had no interest in dessert. His plate, fork, and mug disappeared. He pressed those large, strong, pale hands palms down on the table. I kept eating, slowly and deliberately. No way was I letting anything this good go to waste. I needed the strength.

"You mock me," he said. "You are not my equal. You are nothing. You are less than the lower life forms that spawned you."

"Oh, you smooth talker," I said. "Careful. You're turning me on."

I'd surprised him. He was used to people cowering and screaming. Even me. Again, my fresh inoculation of terror from Eamon had done me a strange favor.

Surprise made him thoughtful, not angry. He tilted his head and continued to stare at me. "Why do you say such things to me? Do you want to die?"

"Nope," I said. "You'll kill me, or you won't. Your petty little political ambitions are not my concern. You want to be the center of the Djinn universe? Fine. Take it up with David. I sleep with him; I don't tell him what to do. Speaking of David, you're not exactly facing off with him hand-to-hand, are you? What's the matter, Ashan? He got you scared?"

Ashan put his hands flat on the table, watching me, and his eyes were the eerie color of deep oceans lit from below. "Do you have any idea how much I want to destroy every cell of your body? Grind you into paste until all that's left of you is fragments of bone and screams?"

My heart hammered faster, but I kept eating. "Poetic. You should write that down."

I had completely nonplussed him this time. He barked out a dry laugh and sat back. "Do you really think you can defeat me? A weak little creature like you?" I shook my head. His eyes glowed brighter, and the smile grew sharper at the edges. "Perhaps you have finally lost your mind."

"That's probably it." I forked up the last delicious bite of my pie, savoring every bit, and washed it down with a prodigious gulp of milk. Now that was a snack. "I've gone insane. But at least it came with dessert."

He steepled his fingers into long, strong columns of flesh and bone. It reminded me of Eamon, fingertips touching his lips, watching me in the motel room. I felt a bolt of sheer terror flash through me, and it made me flinch; that was bad. Numbness was good. Numbness was my only real defense right now.

I compensated the only way I knew how: with sarcasm. "What are you going to do, Ashan? Glare me to death?"

I'd goaded him a little too far. He reached across the table, knocking my plate off in a wobbling arc to the floor, and grabbed my wrist. He pinned it to the table with crushing force. Probably wasn't even an effort for him to break my bones, shatter the table beneath, bring down the entire restaurant, for that matter. But I just sat still, watching him. Unresisting.

And he didn't exert any more force than he had to, to hold me still.

Like Eamon.

"What do you want?" I asked him breathlessly.

"You keep coming after me. What do I have that you want?"

There was a flash of loathing in his eyes so extreme that I swallowed. "You are of no interest to me at all. You are less than what crawls in the dirt."

I realized something terribly important. Ashan didn't want to be here. He really didn't, and it wasn't about me. He was just dicking around with me out of some obscure desire to play with his food, like a giant tomcat.

"Let go," I said. He did. I boggled, but covered it quickly. No sense in letting him know that I was lost, too. "What do you want to know, Ashan?"

"What did the Oracle say to you?"

"Nothing."

"You lie." His hands were flat on the table again, and if anything his eyes were even brighter, incandescently bright in the darkened corner. "What did the creature say to you?"

"Look," I said quietly. "I don't know what you want, but I can only tell you what I know. Which is nothing. The Oracle screamed, and—" I realized what he was getting at. The Oracle hadn't told me, but Ashan had told me himself, with all his paranoia.

He'd had something to do with the Demon Mark breaking through the defenses to get to the Oracle. Maybe he'd even done it himself.

He must have seen that I'd figured it out, because he backhanded me.

I saw it coming, and I was able to turn my face with the smack, but even so, it knocked me into the wall. My head impacted wood with a crack, and I felt a hot wave of sickness crawl over me. It didn't hurt immediately, but I had an instant conviction that it was going to hurt later. For now, there was just a high-pitched ringing in my head, and a fire-hot throb on my right temple.

Ashan was standing up. I was about to be ripped to pieces, I could feel it in the raw fury boiling off him. He reached out…

And David caught his hand.

They didn't speak. David just stared at him, face set. He looked hard—as hard as the Djinn facing him. Fire and ashes, neither one of them human.

Ashan smiled. "Took you long enough," he said. "I thought I might have to make her scream more to get your attention."

"You're a fool," David said. "And you're the second fool who's tried this in less than a day. You have no idea—"

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 something 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."

I squeezed his fingers. Yves had thick, strong fingers, scarred from years of working outdoors. He was a big guy, solid and comfortable, and I'd always liked him. All Earth Wardens seemed to have a sense of Zen balance to them, but he was one of the best, and I was lucky to have him on my side.

Actually, I supposed I was lucky to even have a side at all.

The seats were lush and comfortable. Whoever had chosen the interior had gone with a dark chocolate leather, butter-soft to the touch. The row Yves and I occupied was midcabin, over the wing. I was on the aisle, away from the windows. That was fine with me.

The intercom came on. "Welcome to Hellride Airlines, folks; this is your captain, John Montague. It's not going to be a nice trip, since as you see, we have a Weather Warden flying with us today," the pilot's electronic voice announced. "We have no flight attendants on board for this trip, so if you want to eat, help yourself to sandwiches and drinks from the cooler. I do hope you enjoy them. You'll be throwing them up later."

The copilot's voice came on with the same cool competence overlaid with a veneer of humor. He had a British accent. I was instantly reminded of Eamon, with a cold flash and a shiver. "Also, should we survive this, donations toward our retirement fund are cheerfully accepted, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Bernard Klees—K-l-e-e-s, no relation to anyone in Monty Python, so please don't ask me for a rendition of the dead parrot sketch."

There was a ripple of laughter. Montague came back on. "Strap tight and hang on, people. We'll get you there."

Radio off. I heard a shift in the idling engine noise, and fumbled for my seat belt. My hands were shaking a little. God, I hated flying; I'd done it a few times before, but only when the weather was firmly under Warden control, and only when circumstances required it.

Yves covered my fingers with his and gently held them as the plane taxied out onto the runway and picked up speed. "Relax," he told me. "They're the best pilots we have. Maybe the best in the world."

I didn't have to tell him how little that meant, if circumstances turned against us. Yves knew.

The plane lifted off with a bump and a sudden angular thrust of acceleration, and then it got eerily smooth. The force pressed me back into the leather, and I whimpered a little, thinking about the air around us, the fact that we were moving through it and drawing attention to ourselves. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to slow my rapid heartbeat.

"I heard you were—" I looked in time to see Yves's eyebrows doing an interpretive dance. "With a Djinn."

"Not just any Djinn," I said. "And yes. His name is David."

Yves lost his smile. "Something wrong?"

"You could say." I turned my head away and tried closing my eyes again. It didn't really help. I still saw David's face as the Demon's claws closed around him, that desperate, furious intensity.

He'd used power to break me free of the trap when he should have been using it to fight for his life. My fault.

"Hey." When I opened my eyes, Yves was holding out a copy of a magazine featuring shiny, glossy people doing stupid things for the cameras. "You used to like these, as I remember."

I needed to put it away. Bury the pain, and focus on something else. Self-pity wasn't my style.

I forced out a smile as though at gunpoint, took the magazine, and flipped it open to the first photo page. "Oh my God," I said, and pointed to the unzipped miniskirt and white stirrup leggings that the misguided pop star was wearing with low-heeled pumps. "Tell me that's not a sign of the end of the world."

Yves chuckled, shrugged, and opened his magazine: Mother Earth News. I wondered if he knew how funny that was.

For the first hour, at least, the trip was uneventful. Self-pity lingered, but Yves had succeeded in distracting me. The magazine's outrageous fashion mistakes occupied my mind, and I was almost feeling normal when something cold pressed against my arm.

I yelped and tossed the magazine into the air.

It was Cherise, with a can of soda. She offered it again. I took it, and she perched on the air of the empty seat across from me. "You okay?" she asked, and popped the top on her own can.

"Sure," I lied. "Why?"

She looked me over. "Jo, honey, you look pretty good, but don't kid a kidder. I saw what you looked like on the way to New York, and I'm pretty sure you've been through hell since then." She sipped daintily at the sweat-beaded can. Moisture dripped onto her lime-green raw silk capri pants, and she frowned at it, then found a napkin and wrapped the can.

I considered my answer carefully. "Um… yeah. I'm okay. I—you know how Earth Wardens can heal people? Has Kevin told you—?" She nodded. "Well, I got healed up, so I'm more or less okay. Just tired." And discouraged, and scared out of my mind. But other than that? Peachy.

She nodded again, looking down, and then suddenly those sky-blue eyes locked on mine. "I got a phone call. From your sister."

"What?" I didn't mean to yell it. It rang around the interior of the plane, bringing everyone to sharp attention. Even Yves, normally the least excitable of people, put his magazine down to look at me. "Sorry. Sorry, guys." I lowered my voice and bent closer to Cherise. "You got a call from Sarah? When?"

"A couple of hours ago. She couldn't get through to you this morning. She sounded—" Cherise's face turned just a bit pinker. "Okay, this is going to sound bad and all, but does she do anything? Heroin, maybe?"

"No," I said. I felt sick to my stomach, and it wasn't the altitude, or the overly sweet soda I was automatically sipping. "No, not Sarah."

Compassion didn't come naturally to Cherise; it made her look too young. "Sweetie, the family's usually the last to know. Listen, she sounded really spaced. Orbital. She said to tell you that she was okay, and that everything was going to be fine. She'd met somebody in Las Vegas. I asked her where she was staying, but she said not to worry about it."

I leaned forward, pressing the cold soda can against my forehead, fighting not to laugh. Or cry. "Yes. Thanks, Cher. That's Sarah all over, isn't it? Rescue her from one madman, she's off to find the next one—"

"She's not okay, is she?"

"No," I murmured. "I doubt she is. I really doubt she's going to be, either."

"She's not with what's-his-name anymore?"

"Eamon? No."

"Too bad," Cherise sighed. "Damn, he was cute. I loved his accent."

"He was an asshole, Cher."

"They're all assholes. But it's not every day that you find one that's really decorative."

"He tried to kill me," I snapped. "More than once."

She froze, deer in the headlights. Amazed. And then her face just filled with delight. "Oh my God! You go, Jo! That's so cool!"

"What?" There were times when I really didn't get life on Planet Cherise.

"You're still here," she said simply, and grinned at me with the unbroken enthusiasm of the truly weird.

I hugged her. Hard. "Staying here, too," I said.

"Oh, you'd better. You owe me for scratches on the Mustang."

She moved away, back to her seat. The gap between her white tank top and the green capri pants showed flawless tanned skin, and a tattoo of a big-headed space alien flashing the peace sign as she bent over to move something out of her way. Probably Kevin's feet. He was snoring.

He stopped snoring as the plane shuddered.

"Damn," Yves said quietly. "Here I was starting to think we'd make it without this."

Turbulence. The plane shuddered again, then dropped, a free fall that seemed to last forever. Outside, clouds were swirling. It was hard to get any sense of what was happening, but I could feel the hot energy consolidating itself out there.

Something had sensed me. A storm, maybe, one big enough to gather some elemental sentience. Or something else, and worse, like one of Ashan's Warden-killing Djinn. This would be a prime target. That was why I hadn't wanted to have others on the plane. My life—sure, I'll risk it. But there were a lot of lives at stake here. And I was the point of danger.

"Everybody hang on!" I yelled. Lightning flashed outside the windows, and I felt the plane powering up. They were going to try to get above it, looked like. Good strategy. The only problem was that the storm was going to chase them. "Yves, switch with me."

We unbuckled and fumbled across each other, mumbling politenesses; he was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a colorful dashiki-style shirt in yellow, blue, and orange patterns. A blaze of brightness in a world that was rapidly turning the color of ashes outside. I settled in his empty chair and buckled in, clutched the armrests, and looked out the window.

I didn't really need the view, but it helped; sometimes, focus could be achieved better with a visual cue. I filled up my lungs, let it out, filled them again, and allowed myself to drift free.

I got battered immediately by currents of force on the way up to the aetheric. It was a war zone, with silent colorful explosions of power snapping and popping in a hundred places at once. The cloudscape roiled, black in places, red in others, everything unstable and bizarre. I spotted an area that had taken on the silvery overlay I knew was going to be a huge problem, and concentrated on it. As I did, I felt myself joined by someone else who boosted my concentration and power, bracing me when I faltered. The power signature felt familiar, but I couldn't stop to wonder about it. I just worked, fast and frantic, trying to make sure the space around our airplane remained relatively disaster-free as our pilots arrowed for the safety of the higher sky.

On the mortal level, the turbulence shook us hard, and then the engines howled louder and suddenly, the ride was glass-smooth again. I gasped in air, feeling the shift on the aetheric at the same time, and recognized the power that had helped me.

Imara. My daughter was with me—not physically, not on the plane, but she was watching over me.

"No," I whispered. My breath fogged the glass of the plane's window on the inside as mist beaded on it outside. "No, stay with Sarah. Stay out of this."

Words wouldn't do on the aetheric level, but she understood what I was saying, I think. I felt a pulse of reassurance from her, from that shadowy flicker of presence; I couldn't see her at all clearly, just as I couldn't see any of the Djinn (or Ifrit, for that matter) while we were on the aetheric plane.

"I mean it!" I said to the flicker that was my daughter. "Stay out of this! Stay with Sarah!" Who, God knew, needed the chaperone.

The flicker moved away from me, but not far. Not far enough. She wasn't minding her mother, clearly; maybe she was under instructions from her father, but I didn't find that too likely. David had been in agreement with me about keeping her out of Ashan's grasp, and yet here she was, hanging about like bait on a hook.

And there was nothing I could do about it.

We stayed high for most of the trip, well above the unsteady clouds; the storms kept forming beneath us, hopscotching across the country. Our passage was causing chaos, no doubt about it, and I had the sick feeling that we were probably causing deaths, as well, but it wouldn't have been better if I'd driven, and it probably would have ended up worse in the end. I couldn't save everyone. Hell, I was no longer sure that I could save anyone.

The speaker gave that distinctive little click, and everyone in the cabin looked up from what they were doing—mostly reading or sleeping. "Hi, folks. Well, we've run about as far as we can at this altitude, we're going to have to start our descent. As you know, this is going to be rough, so please, try to keep those amusement-park screams to a minimum. It doesn't make us fly with any more confidence. Ah, and Captain Klees would like to remind you that today's movie selection of Die Hard Two is now available on your LCD screens. Ah, hell, that was a joke. It's really Turbulence, followed by Con Air. Anyway, you guys keep cool back there. Let us do the sweating."

He was off the air about ten seconds when the first shudder came, as the plane began to tilt forward, nose down.

Oh, crap.

We were in for it now.

The shuddering turned into a steady shaking, as if some giant hand had closed around the plane's fragile skin. I swallowed hard and clutched the armrests as outside the pale blue sky went mist gray, and then started a hellish descent toward black. The clouds looked thick enough to walk on. Thick enough to trap us, like spider-webs around a fly. Lightning flashed close, illuminating the interior with a wash of blue-white flame, and in its flare I saw Yves calmly reading his Mother Earth News, legs crossed. I couldn't see anyone else, but I doubted they were all so fatalistic about it. Surely some of them must have been as terrified as I was…

We shuddered and dropped. Free fall. Ten feet or more, and it seemed to take forever. We hit an updraft with a bang and fishtailed, or tried to; I sensed the pilots correcting up front, adjusting the engines. Keeping us intact.

We dropped again, farther this time, and I felt the plane twisting to the left—and then something hit us from the right side, and we rolled.

Screams. Yves dropped his magazine and grabbed for his armrests as everything went sideways; my empty soda can clattered against the cabin wall in a chittering panic, and I heard a crash from below as bags shifted. The roar of the engines shifted, and then the speakers activated again. Copilot Klees made an authentic western-style yee-haw. "Well, you people are so lucky," he said, as if flying sideways, staring down at the ground from the side window, was an everyday occurrence. "You're about to experience the joy of flight all those U.S. Air Force ads talk about. Hope you're all observing the seat belt sign. Three—two—one—"

The plane rolled left. Rolled completely over so that we were hanging upside down, and I had a brief surreal glimpse of my long black hair shuddering in midair like a beaded curtain, and then the world was rolling again, and we came upright again. Steady as a rock once we'd achieved level status.

Maybe people screamed. I don't know—I'm pretty sure I did. I looked over at Yves as I clawed my disordered hair out of my eyes, and his legendary calm was shaken enough for him to cross himself and begin murmuring something I recognized as an Our Father.

We were still descending.

"Hope you enjoyed that," Klees said. He still sounded absolutely cheerful and unperturbed, as if he did this daily, with two shows in the afternoon. "If anyone feels the urge to purge, please, avail yourself of the bags. My contract does require me to do cabin cleaning, as well."

A shaky laugh from someone up front with more intestinal fortitude than me. I was seriously contemplating the aforementioned bag, which looked sturdy and inviting, but I hadn't eaten or drunk enough to need to resort to it. A few grim, sweaty moments, and I was okay.

I grabbed leather as the plane did another unsettling shimmy combined with a bucking motion. Outside the windows, black clouds pressed as close as night. I rested my aching head against the pillowy seat and thought that maybe I ought to try the aetheric again, but I was no longer certain it was a good idea.

Yves took my hand. The warm anchoring of his skin helped keep me from visions of the plane corkscrewing down into the earth and exploding.

I closed my eyes as the plane shuddered and rocked, heeling from one side to the other, slipping violently sideways as if trying to avoid something I couldn't see or sense. My weather senses were overloaded. I was useless up here, with so much happening and focused right on us. If I'd been on the ground, it would have been different, but I felt so helpless up here, so out of control…

The plane leveled out in a sudden lurch, as if it had suddenly hit a patch of glass-smooth air. No turbulence, not even the slightest bounce. I opened my eyes, blinked at Yves, and he raised his eyebrows and gave a Gallic shrug.

"Bathroom," I said, and unfastened my seat belt, climbed over his knees and hustled for the tiny, cramped stall. It was unoccupied, thank God, and I lunged inside, clicked the latch shut, and leaned over to splash cold water on my face. The urge to vomit was passing. I dampened a paper towel and used it to blot sweat from my face and neck, then leaned over to splash my face again, since it had felt so good the first time.

When I straightened up, there was fog coming out of the air vent over my head. I blinked at it, thinking wildly about James Bond movies and knockout gas, but I didn't smell anything, and I didn't feel any more light-headed than normal.

It continued drifting down from the vent in thick, cloudy streamers, twisting lazily in the air, tangling together into a denser mist as it fell. I stretched out my hand and felt cool moisture on it.

Even though I didn't fly much, I was pretty sure this didn't qualify as normal.

In seconds, the mist had formed a shape, and that definitely wasn't normal. Not even on an airplane full of Wardens.

I felt the hard edge of the sink cabinet digging into my butt, and realized that I was staring when I ought to be fleeing. I reached for the latch on the door—

—and it instantly froze up, covered with ice crystals. When my skin touched it, it burned like liquid nitrogen, and I yelped and flinched backward.

The shape in the fog wasn't male, and it wasn't female. It wasn't anything, really. Soft edges, curves, a genderless oval of face, no features on it.

As I watched, the whole door glittered and glistened with forming ice. No way was I going out that way.

Which was the only way, unless I was brave enough to rip out the chemical toilet and go that direction.

Which I wasn't.

I backed away as far as the tiny bathroom would allow, overbalanced, and sat down hard on the toilet's lid. The fog-shape leaned toward me, and the air around me began to move and breathe in subtle motions, whispering over my skin and combing through my hair, sliding under my clothes to touch me in places where, well, wind just didn't usually go. I controlled the impulse to self-defense. So far, nothing that had happened was life-threatening, just—weird.

"Um—hi?" I ventured. The air around me stirred up, moving faster, ruffling my hair and fluttering my shirt. There was no sense of heat or cold to it; everything was exactly room temperature, passionless and sensation-free. "Who are you?"

The figure wrapped in fog bent closer, and suddenly I couldn't breathe. No air. Okay, no problem, I was a Weather Warden, I'd dealt with this before…

Only I couldn't. I couldn't get a grip on the air at all. Whatever was facing me had absolute control over my native elements.

As soon as I realized it, the air flooded back in, and I took a grateful gasping breath. "Right," I said. "Oracle. There was a Fire Oracle, so you'd be… Air and Water."

I hadn't even thought about it, but of course Oracles would come in threes—Fire, Weather, Earth. Collect the whole set… Well, at least it was another opportunity for me to communicate.

Maybe. So far, this one hadn't said a word.

"I'm—I'm supposed to talk to the Mother," I said. It'd be nice to dress my mission up in fancy talk, but I didn't think that would come naturally to me under stress, and I didn't think that I'd have the time, either. "Can you help me with that?"

No answer. Even the subtle currents of air that had been stroking my skin came to a halt. I hoped that wasn't a rude question.

"I'm a Weather Warden," I said. "I'm—in a way I'm part of you—"

Mistake. The wind came back, a steady, crushing pressure all over me, pinning me in place. I'd never experienced real g-forces, but this reminded me of the films I'd seen. It was painful in ways I'd never imagined, stressing every muscle and bone to the limit.

Then it stopped. I overcompensated, pitching forward almost to the floor, and sawed in ragged breaths that tasted of blood.

The Oracle didn't like being compared to humans; that much was obvious. I could understand that. We were imperfect creatures, constantly being born and dying. Tied to the earth and sea by gravity, hunger, a thousand invisible strings. The Earth herself saw us as a nuisance. The Oracle hadn't seen anything to change its mind.

"I saved him," I said, and looked up at the faceless creature floating in the air above me. "I saved the Fire Oracle. The Demon Mark would have destroyed him, and once it was past him, it would have been in the Mother's blood. So a little respect might be in order here."

No answer. Man, this was frustrating, not to mention scary. I cast a longing look at the ice-covered bathroom door.

"I saved the life of an Oracle, and I need you to help me now. Just help me talk to the Mother."

There was a sudden sensation in the air, as if everything in the world had shivered. The Oracle, wreathed in fog, leaned closer. As it did, streamers of milk-white mist wrapped around me to lick me like tongues. I shuddered, and as the Oracle's face came closer to mine, I saw its eyes.

Just for a split second, because I turned my face away and closed my eyelids and prayed, prayed never to see such a thing again. I remembered that I'd thought Jonathan's eyes had been scary—and they had been, depthless and terrifying—but at least they'd reminded me of something I understood. Something inside my experience.

These were the eyes of eternity itself.

"Help me," I said. "Please."

The air shivered again, more violently this time, with a sound like a million silver bells falling out of a dump truck. Deafening. Was that a voice? Was I supposed to understand it? I didn't. I couldn't. Even the Fire Oracle's screams had made more sense.

"I can't understand you!" I said, and immediately knew that was a mistake. One doesn't correct gods, even minor ones, and if the Djinn bowed to these creatures, that was good enough to qualify them for the name. The air around me curdled and thickened, pressing on me again. Squeezing. I couldn't breathe. Spots danced bright in front of my bulging eyes, and I pitched to my knees on the tiny bathroom floor with the Oracle, bent at some impossibly inhuman angle, following me down. Boring into me with those eyes.

I was starting to wish that I was any kind of Warden other than a Weather Warden. If this was my patron saint, I was in real trouble, because I had the sense that it was playing with me. Enjoying my pain. Interested in my panic.

Just when I thought it would crush me like a grape, the air stilled again, completely dead of intention or life. The Oracle hadn't moved away. When I breathed, I was breathing in mist that flowed off its genderless, featureless face.

I avoided looking at it directly.

"I'm not quitting," I said. "If you won't help me, I'll go to the Earth Oracle."

It had a mouth, after all, and teeth made of ice, and it showed them to me. I whimpered, I think, waiting for it to destroy me, and mist wrapped around my neck in a thick, choking rope to pull me closer.

My skin stung with a sudden ice-cold chill.

I focused past the teeth, on the terrifying eyes of the thing, and said, "I'm not giving up. If I have to give my life to get this done, then I will. Kill me, or let me talk to the Mother."

The vote seemed to be on the side of killing me, but it was too late to reconsider, and besides, I meant it. If I had to die, I would. Hell, I'd done it before, and I would again, at least once. Might as well make it count.

Apparently there was a third alternative I hadn't considered, because the rope around my throat suddenly dissolved into cool white fog, and the Oracle's teeth flashed in what could only be interpreted by my brain as a smile, and… it simply misted away. Back up through the ventilation system.

Gone.

My gasping breaths hung white on the ice-cold air, and I sat there shivering for a few more minutes before I felt a shudder through the deck.

We were out of the clear air and heading back into turbulence.

I unlocked the bathroom door. It unsealed with a snap-crackle of ice, and I walked on shaky legs back to my row, lurched past Yves, and strapped myself back into my seat.

"Mon Dieu, you look as if you've seen a ghost," he said, and touched the back of my hand with his fingers. "You're freezing."

Lightning flashed hot in the sky, changing black to smoke gray, and there was something floating outside the plane in a drift of mist and curves, with the eyes of eternity.

I flattened my hand against the window in a reflexive gesture, trying to reach it, trying to push it away, maybe both, but then the lightning failed and there was nothing there.

Nothing.

I felt my stomach churn and grabbed for the airsickness bag.

Yves, alarmed, pulled away as I retched, and looked relieved when I stopped, wiped my mouth, and closed up the bag. "Okay?" he asked, and patted me awkwardly on my shoulder. I nodded, throat still working. I felt drained and exhausted, as if I'd been through hours of Warden work. "We're almost down. We're going to make it."

He was right. Even as he said it, the clouds swirled from black to gray outside the windows, and then there was free air and the sight of desert under us. The rest of the passengers spontaneously applauded. I clutched my airsickness bag in both hands and tried not to weep.

The Learjet touched down with barely a bump—smoothest landing I'd ever seen—and taxied sedately toward a terminal. The engines powered down to a purr. "Right," said the copilot crisply. "I won't tell you to stay seated because you won't anyway, passengers never do, so I'll just say that it's your bones—break them if you will. Miss Baldwin, thank you for flying with us, you certainly gave us a nice diversion from the boredom, and you're now on the ground in Phoenix, Arizona. Good luck to you."

I sucked in deep breaths and managed a weak smile in return for Yves's delighted grin. I managed to get myself loose from the safety straps and kept the airsick bag because I didn't know what to do with it—they never tell you these things—and air-kissed Yves on the cheeks because I wasn't sure he'd want vomit-mouth on his lips. He hugged me. That was nice.

Cherise hugged me, too. Kevin just gave me his patented too-cool-for-this shrug and waved a limp-wristed good-bye. Everybody else seemed relieved when I made my way to the door.

Nobody else was getting out in Phoenix.

Captain Montague appeared to open the door and let down the steps for me. He looked just as starched and together as he had at the beginning of the flight. I, on the other hand, was trembling, clutching a sloshing airsick bag, and had my shirt plastered to my skin with sweat.

"Good flying," I said. "I think I owe you one."

He lifted his silvery eyebrows and moved his uniform jacket enough to show me damp patches of sweat on his shirt, under the arms.

"Not at all," he said. "First time I've broken a sweat in three years. I haven't had so much fun since I flew a planeload of drunk Weather Wardens from a convention in Tahiti in hurricane season."

I offered him the hand that wasn't holding the sloshing bag. "I'll never fly with anyone else."

"I think I'm in love," he said, and gave me a professional smile to make sure I knew it was a professional sort of rapture. "Take care, Miss Baldwin. It's nasty out there." He wasn't talking about the weather in Phoenix; it was cloudy, but seemed stable enough.

I saluted him and retrieved my suitcase, then rolled it down the red carpet toward the entry gate. I resisted the almost overwhelming urge to throw myself to my knees and kiss the tarmac.

There was a trash can at the entrance, and I dropped the evidence of my weakness into it.

My journey was complete.

If the Oracle in the clouds had been my last hope, it was over in more ways than one. But maybe, just maybe… there was one more chance.