by Rachel Caine
I was already typing in alerts, ringing pagers and cell phones with the necessary codes to let people know the situation. Within ten minutes, there'd be a Situation Team convened, with Weather and Fire Wardens, maybe even Earth Wardens to help organize the rescue of trapped animals and energize the forest itself to fight the fire. But that wasn't going to help Estrella.
"Can you make a path through?" I asked. I could hear things popping loudly in the background, like gunshots. "Jesus, what is that? Is somebody shooting?"
"No, it's the trees. Trees exploding. Sap boils—" She coughed again, deep aching coughs that made my chest hurt in sympathy. "Shit! Can't do it. Too hot. Can't get the fire down long enough to get out. Dammit. I'm toast." Her laugh was rich and thick with phlegm. "Burnt toast."
"Hold on," I said. I pulled up the Wardens Map, overlaid Fire Wardens on top of it and got Estrella's location. Once I had it firmly fixed in my mind, I went up into Oversight. My body receded and I flew straight up, arrowing as fast as I could through gray ghostly layers of concrete and steel and wiring, up into hot summer air, up higher where the layers cooled and storms were born. There was disturbance up here, caused by temperature shifts. I oriented myself and moved toward Yellowstone. As I did, I had to buck the currents; force lines were vibrating, bending under the strain. A lot of heat being generated up there. Pushing hard, I flew against the currents until I could see the whole of Yellowstone laid out in front of me.
It was boiling. Not in the physical sense, but in the aetheric; something had gotten the land stirred up, all right, and the turbulent, angry pulses were enough to make me want to drop back into my safe, secure little cubicle far from the danger. Fires were combusting everywhere…. It didn't take much, in such an angry mood, for a forest to start self-immolating.
I pinpointed Estrella's location—she was broadcasting desperately in the aetheric—and went up, way up, until daylight gave way to twilight, which gave way to the false night of the highest levels of the mesosphere. Fifty thousand feet above it, the disturbance was more like a gentle current; I could start to manipulate things to my advantage.
Within a minute, I had formed a cold arctic-fed breeze by tunneling a channel for it through the superheated Yellowstone air. When I had it flowing where I wanted it, I let it collide head-on with a column of heat, controlled the agitation of the molecules to keep it localized, and dropped halfway back into my body in Chicago.
"Star, listen to me, I'm about to drop a very heavy cloudburst right on top of you, understand? It'll hold the fire down long enough for you to make a hole and get out of there. Star?"
Her croak barely sounded human. It was hard to make anything out over the roar of the fire. "Fucked up, Jojo. Damn. We all fucked up."
"Star, stay with me. Hey, you remember the rhyme? Star light, star bright—"
"You crazy?" A bare whisper of air.
I kept going. "First star I see tonight—come on, you know this one…." It was hard, so hard to move the clouds into the right position. I could feel her there, reaching out to me. I could feel the despair and fear. "Wish I may—wish I might—"
I flipped the switch on the storm, and I heard the roar of rain pour down. I hoped the hiss I heard was steam, not fire.
And then I heard Estrella laughing. "Say a prayer, say a Mass… keep this fire off my ass!" She collapsed into a coughing fit. Then whooped.
I let myself relax. Fatal mistake. I felt—heard—saw the aetheric boiling back, rebounding at us like a snapped rubber band. "No, Star, listen, don't yell, run! Now!"
She didn't hear me. She was still whooping in celebration.
The line went dead.
I sat tensely, answering lines and connecting up Wardens with each other—it was a big coordinated response, and my little cloudburst ended up as the anchor point for six other Wardens to form a true stormfront, driving down temperatures and dumping nature's fire extinguisher at volumes rarely seen in this country. Meanwhile, the Earth Wardens were trying their best to protect fleeing animals and build up earthen firebreaks, and the Fire Wardens… Well, you can guess the hell they were in.
Six minutes later, I had an incoming line light up, and a brisk British voice said, "You're looking for a Fire Warden coming out, right?"
"Estrella Almondovar," I said. "Did you get her?"
A brief, pregnant pause. "Got her. We have one of the best Earth specialists with her right now, seeing to her."
"How bad—?"
"Bad," he said flatly. "Third degree burns over thirty percent of her body. Lucky."
"Lucky?"
"Twenty Fire Wardens in the Park today," he said. "Sixteen dead so far."
Say a prayer, say a Mass, keep this fire off my ass. You did it, chica. Otherwise, I'd be a pile of ash in hell.
It was the first thing she'd said to me when she'd gotten healthy enough to call from rehab. I'd held her hand that day in the hospital when Marion had broken the news to her that her powers had been shattered, that she'd never again be able to control fire. She still had her life. After a fashion, she had her health. After everything the Earth Wardens and doctors could do for her, she even had a passable face.
I'd never shaken the feeling that I should have done more and done better. And yet Star had never complained, never second-guessed, never blamed me. I only, ever, blamed myself.
I must have fallen asleep again. When I woke up, we were still driving, and Estrella was singing under her breath to a Madonna song. She couldn't carry a tune worth a damn.
I realized—finally—that we were back in the Land Rover. No wonder I could stretch out in the backseat. "Hey," I croaked. "Water?"
"Sorry," Star said cheerfully. "Can't stop yet. We want to make sure they're not on the trail."
"They?"
"You know." She gestured with her left hand, and something about it caught my attention. It was skeletal. Leathery. Scarred. God. I'd forgotten for a second about the damage to her body. "Marion and her merry men. You know they tried to kill you, right?"
I tried sitting up. My body ached like I'd come down with the mother of all flu viruses, but everything seemed to still function right. Toes and fingers wiggled. My nose reported the unpleasant lingering smell of burnt hair.
"You're one lucky girl," Star continued. "My money would've been on that polyester crap you're wearing melting all over you. You got only a couple of spark burns, that's all."
I took a deep breath and asked for the worst of it. "Delilah? My car."
"She's a real fixer-upper. Time to trade up to something made in the last twenty years, I'd say. Hey, what do you think about this one?" Star gestured out at the hood of the Land Rover. "Marion, pretty good taste, eh? I always wanted one of these. Weird that she left the engine running, but our gain."
David was in the passenger seat of the truck. Left the engine running, my ass. I wondered how he'd managed to do it without her noticing.
Then again, I had a better question. And a more pressing one.
"How'd you know where to find me?" I asked. Star grinned and steered around a cattle truck; the smell of scared beeves and cow pies overrode my burned hair, at least for a minute.
"You're kidding, right? I get your message, I see the aetheric get all fucked up, and I think… Jojo! And there you were. I got to the parking lot just about the time the freaking sky started falling. Man, that was one big lightning bolt. Biggest I ever saw." Star shook her head. "Like I said, you're lucky."
"You should let me out somewhere," I said. "Ditch the truck before you get home. This is serious, Star, I don't want you in the middle of it."
"Yeah, no kidding it's serious, La Quinta looks like a hurricane hit it." She looked over her shoulder at me. "Yeah? Did it?"
"Sort of." I rested my elbows on the seat backs and leaned closer. "I really don't want you in this."
"Hey, Queen of the Universe, nobody asked what you wanted. I don't ditch the girl that saved my life." She glanced over at David. "Or her verdaderamente lindo boyfriend."<
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"Star!"
"What? You don't think he's cute?"
"He's sitting right there!"
"And so grateful I am." She flashed him a half-crazy grin, which seemed to have no real effect on David. "Chica, you always did have good taste."
I sighed. No way to reason with her when she was in this kind of take-no-prisoners mood, and besides, it was nice to hear somebody was enjoying themselves at my expense. "Okay, right, he's definitely lindo. Um, where are we, exactly?"
"Exactly?" Star punched the GPS keyboard.
I rolled my eyes. "Come on."
"Aw, you're no fun. Okay, approximately, we're about two hours outside of OKC. Back roads. I didn't want to stop too long, 'cause, you know, you're on the run."
I looked at David, who hadn't said a word. He shrugged. "I didn't think it was worth the argument," he said. "You needed help. She offered. And she said she knew you." And, I sensed, he'd been in no position to refuse. Probably out of it himself. That power surge had been enough to knock the stuffing out of a Djinn as easily as any Warden.
I agreed. "Oh, she knows me. Too well." David didn't look reassured. In fact, now that I was getting a look close-up at his expression, it looked guarded and worried. "It's okay. Star's a friend. A longtime friend."
She muttered something that might have been bet your ass and changed lanes, whipped around two eighteen-wheelers and back before another truck blasted by. Wherever we weren't going, we were getting there awfully fast.
David captured my hand in his. "You okay?"
"You know me, Energizer Bunny." The feel of his skin was distracting. I wanted to feel the rest of it, all over me. "Hungry, though. And I think I mentioned thirsty. And in need of a pit stop, so if you see any convenient gas stations…"
Star checked the rearview mirror. I got the sense that she was checking out the aetheric, too, in Oversight, but I was too tired to try to rise up there with her; I leaned my cheek against David's shoulder. He felt real, and human, and warmly male. Hard muscles under soft skin.
"We're about forty miles from the next town," she said. "I don't like it out here—too open, too much room for ambush—but hey, if you've gotta go, you've gotta go." She fumbled in a fringed leather purse lying like roadkill in the space between the seats, fished out a small metal square, and handed it over. "Cell phone. Hang on to it. Yours was probably toasted, right?"
"Right." Cell phones had gotten smaller and cooler since the last time I checked. Hers flipped up like a Star Trek communicator, complete with color screen and more controls than a 747. "Thanks."
"Just to be safe. If we're gonna split up, even for a few minutes, you got the 911 security blanket." She applied brakes and eased the Land Rover over to the shoulder in a hiss of gravel; the cattle truck she'd passed blasted by us with a car-shaking gust. Star aimed off the road, into the flat grass prairie and toward a stand of scrub trees. "Hope you're not picky about accommodations."
"You're kidding."
"Hey, you said pit stop, I'm getting you a pit stop. Besides, drivers have to pee, too." Star put the truck in park and hopped out to the cheery accompaniment of warning bells for leaving the engine running. On the passenger side, David did the same, then opened the back door for me and handed me out like a gentleman. Good thing he did; my legs felt like water balloons. I clung to his hand for a few seconds until muscles firmed up and informed me they were ready to take my weight.
Star turned, and the sunlight fell down full on her face.
Even though I'd seen it dozens of times, it was still a shock. Half her face gleamed bronze gold, perfect; the other half was seared and scarred the color of old liver. They'd given her a left eyelid, after a fashion. Her lips twisted into a curl on the burned side, and the scar continued down into the neck of her white peasant blouse. I knew it dripped down past her waist on the side and back. It looked like melted wax.
"Still gorgeous, huh?" she asked. There was no hurt, no surprise, no disappointment in her voice. Certainly no embarrassment. "Looks worse instead of better, I know. Not everything improves with age."
She turned on her heel and limped her way toward the scrub trees. I realized I was still holding David's hand, almost crushing it, and I kept my eyes on her as I asked, "What did she see?"
He shrugged. "At the hotel? I don't know. I blacked out when the lightning hit. When I woke up, she was there, pulling you out of the car." David was watching her, too, and I couldn't mistake what was in his eyes for anything but worry. "She kept the car from catching fire until we were both out. Otherwise I think you'd be dead."
I took a breath, let it out, and nodded. "Does she know about you?"
"I don't think so. I've been careful."
That didn't unknot the tension from my shoulder blades. "Yeah, well, keep it up. I love her, but—you be careful."
I went after Star toward nature's Porta Potti. She was already taking advantage of the lack of facilities, and she looked absolutely comfortable doing it, but then she was the outdoorsy L.L. Bean type. Me, I circled around, looking for a comfortable piece of ground free of any hint of fire ants, wasps, or other hazards to my exposed behind. Star finished up and went back toward David. I skinned down my pants.
"Is this a bad time?" a voice asked me when I was halfway to a crouch. I yelped and scrambled back up, tripped over my pants and almost fell. "Over here, Snow White."
I turned while I yanked up my waistband. Paul's Djinn, Rahel, still in her sunshine yellow suit, sat primly on a tree stump, inspecting her nails.
"Please, go ahead," she invited. "You're not bothering me. I have all the time in the world."
"What do you want?" Although I figured I knew…. This was what I'd been dreading. Marion, for whatever reason, hadn't used her Djinn against me, but there were plenty of Wardens willing and able to do so—Paul, for one. I couldn't take Rahel in a straight fight. Nobody could, except another Djinn.
Which was why there weren't a lot of territorial disputes at the upper levels of the Wardens. I was worn out, maybe David—no, it would be suicide for David to get into this. He was depleted, and he was masterless; she'd break him with a snap of her well-manicured fingers.
"Your attention, please," she said, and clicked her nails together. They looked glossy and sharp. Her hundreds of braids rustled as she turned her head toward me, a dry sound, like bones rattling. "You're going the wrong way."
Not what I'd expected. I was braced for a fight, and the lack of one threw me. "Excuse me?"
Rahel hopped down from her perch and slinked in my direction. I fought the almost uncontrollable urge to back up; my heels were already sinking into damp ground. "I said… you're going… the wrong… way. Snow White. Go back where you were told to go."
I was feeling difficult. "Or?"
She lunged at me, caught my arm in one hand, and leveled the other right in front of me, claws out an inch from my eyes. "There is no or, fool. You do what I tell you, when I tell you."
I kept my chin up and looked past those razor-sharp, carefully manicured nails to her beast-yellow eyes. She was doing something with her lips, but it had only a superficial resemblance to a smile.
"Death lies ahead," she said. "Certain and unforgiving. Behind you lies opportunity."
"Opportunity for what?"
"To choose as you wish."
I didn't get it. "Did Paul tell you to be deliberately obscure, or is this just a personal preference with you?"
No answer. Just that steady, predatory stare.
It clicked together in my head. Duh. "You're not Paul's Djinn at all, are you? I just assumed you were, and you never told me different. Right?"
"Yes." Teeth flashed. "Now you can decide which question I've answered."
"Doesn't matter, I didn't ask any of them in ritual. Let me try again. You're not Paul's Djinn at all, are you?"
"You can't outrun what's coming. Go back. You must make a choice."
"Third time's the charm, sunshine. You're not Paul's Djinn at all, are—?"
Before I could finish asking the ritual third, her hand was around my throat, choking the question off. I gagged, tried to pull free, and couldn't. Her eyes were full of fury.
"Ask me no questions," she purred, "and I'll tell you no lies, Child of Demons. Go back the way you came."
She let the pressure ease enough for me to gulp in a breath and ask, "Why should I?"
Rahel let go of my throat and snapped her fingers. "You have two paths ahead of you. One lies down. One goes up. Choose."
"Which one gets rid of you?" I croaked, and rubbed my throat. "Look, enough with the Sphinx act. Just tell me what I'm supposed to do. Are you Marion's Djinn? Did she send you to get me to surrender? Well, I'm not giving up. Not yet."
Rahel stopped and became utterly still. If I'd thought her eyes were unnerving before, they were downright creepy now.
"You are a fool," she said very softly. "I have done all I can. You have been set on the path, you have been given signs."
"Yeah? Like what? The radio in Westchester, telling me to come here?" Oh, boy. Her silence had the weight of a confession. I swallowed hard and kept going. "The salt shaker back at the diner? Why send me into a trap?"
This time, she shook her head. "If you can't see the yellow brick road, little Dorothy, then you are a fool, and there is no saving a fool. I only wish you weren't taking him with you."
Him? Too many persons of the male gender involved in this. I didn't know which one she was talking about.
Before I could ask, brush crackled behind me. Rahel's eyes jumped from me to the person coming through the trees. It was David, and he didn't look surprised to see her. Or happy. He said something to her in a language I didn't understand, liquid and warm and beautiful as stars; her reply was long and sparked with harsh accents.
They glared at each other, stiff with tension, and then Rahel just—vanished. No showy exit, this time. She just went.
David stared for so long at the place where she'd been, I wondered if she'd really gone. "Rahel," he said finally. "Here."
"I'm guessing that's bad? Look, who's Djinn is she?"
He didn't answer me. Didn't look at me. "Hurry." He turned and walked away, back toward the truck.
