by Rachel Caine
I must have yawned, because David smiled and pulled me close. He felt better than one of those memory foam mattresses.
“Do you want to sleep somewhere more comfortable?” he asked, and touched his lips gently to the skin just beneath my ear. I couldn’t work up much in the way of sexual excitement, but I shivered a little and gave him a weary smile of my own.
“I’m going to dream about hotels. Fancy ones, with the nice fluffy bathrobes and slippers and expensive soaps. None of this window-unit air conditioner crap.” I stopped and thought about it for a second. “Does that sound self-absorbed, given the ending of the world and all?”
“Maybe a little,” he said. “But I understand. And I wish I could give it to you. The best I can do is the backseat, for now.”
I sighed. “That’ll do.”
And truthfully, a fabulous hotel would have been wasted on me, because after I’d climbed over the seat and pulled David’s warm, long coat over me, I was asleep before a mile passed under the fast-turning wheels.
I’d like to say I didn’t dream, but I did. It was vivid, and shocking, and it felt, well, real.
It felt like I’d stepped out of a dark place and into a bright, harsh sun, and I raised my hand to block out the glare. Only it wasn’t the sun at all.
It was a giant, vaguely man-shaped form stalking toward me, and everything it touched in its way—rock, trees, fleeing animals, a car full of people—burst into instant and immediate conflagration. It was the Fire Oracle, but pulled out of his hidden sanctuary and made subject to the will of the Mother.
It was burning everything.
I watched from my frozen, helpless spot as it stalked toward a town in the tree-lined valley below me. That was when I got a sense of scale, and realized that this glowing, terrifying creature was towering hundreds of feet in the air, taller than any building in the modest downtown. I could hear the screaming coming up out of the town, like birds sounding an alert. I could see tiny forms of people running, but there was nowhere to hide. The Oracle walked, and everything, everything turned to slag and ashes. It left behind nothing alive. This was what the Djinn and the Wardens had feared for so many thousands of years.
The extinction, without mercy, of the entire human race, done systematically and thoroughly.
I was watching tens of thousands of lives end, and I knew it would happen over and over and over, and it was so neat, so clean. Nothing left to bury. The charred land would heal itself, as it so often did; nature would take over the abandoned ground. Animals would return, free from being hunted out of existence by humans.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and turned to face . . . myself. No, it was my daughter, Imara. She looked haunted, the way her father did. The way my own face appeared now, seeing this horror unfolding in front of me.
Imara’s face was mine, but her eyes were different, more like David’s. She was dressed as she was when I’d seen her in Sedona, in a dress made of shifting red sand. It flowed around her, constantly in motion, and flashes of her bare skin showed through. It might have seemed somehow flirtatious, but instead, it was stunningly beautiful. There was a peace and power that radiated from her the same way that heat radiated from the Fire Oracle, or menace from the Air Oracle.
She silently put her arms around me, and I felt the sand move around both of us, whispering secrets.
“Baby,” I said, and felt the hot pressure of tears. “Oh, sweetheart. Thank you. I wanted to see you.”
“I know. I wanted to see you, too.”
I looked back over my shoulder. The town was still dissolving in flames and screams, and my entire body ached with the intensity of the horror I felt. Imara’s arms tightened around me.
“No, Mom, don’t try. You can’t stop it. You can’t help it. This is why it’s so important for me to stay where I am, and not let anybody close. I know you didn’t mean to do it, but you breached the Fire Oracle’s barrier when you broke out of there. You weakened it. And once you did, the Mother’s influence got through to him. He lost himself. That’s why I need you to stay away from Sedona, and I’m so sorry—I know that sounds terrible, and I wish—I wish—” Imara took in a deep breath. “I wish I could keep you safe with me. But I can’t.”
“Is all this happening now?” I asked. The smoke and flame and screams kept rising, and now I started dreading the moment when the screaming would stop. “Is this a dream, or is this really happening?”
“Mom—”
“Tell me.”
Imara looked at me with pity in her eyes, and said, “It’s why the Wardens needed you to distract those of the Djinn you could. And you did; you took out some key players. But it’s not going to be enough.”
My fists clenched, and my nails dug in deep enough to burn and cut. “The Wardens have to do something!”
“They are. But this isn’t something Wardens can fight. It isn’t even something the Djinn can fight, although if you command them, they’ll try. Elemental powers are walking the planet now, and there’s no reasoning with them. No clever tricks or last-minute reprieves. The game’s over. Humans have lost.” She said it so gently, and with so much compassion; I knew she’d lost her humanity when Ashan had killed her, but I liked to think that through me, she retained some memory of it. Some sense of the magnitude of what was happening right in front of us.
But what I saw in her was a distance that I couldn’t cross anymore. She was part of the Earth, and the Earth had rejected my species as flawed and failed. So no matter how much Imara still felt for me, she couldn’t bring herself to feel it for all those suffering and dying below us.
I swallowed a hard lump in my throat and managed to ask, “Then why are you here?”
“Because I can help you, Mom,” my daughter said. “I can help you become something else.”
“A Djinn? Been there, done that, not doing it again. I’m human. I like being human.”
“But you’ll be alone. The only human left. I can keep you safe, but only you. No one else. Is that what you want?”
“No,” I said, and then said it more loudly, because the screaming down there was drilling into my head like a vicious power drill. “No! Dammit, Imara, you have to help us!”
“I’d like to,” she said, and it sounded genuine. “I wish I could. But I don’t have any way to do that, and even if I did, maybe it’s for the best, Mom. Maybe this is what needs to happen, so things can start over. Cleanly.”
“I don’t believe that.” I backed away from her and stood several feet away, fists clenched. “I will never believe that.”
“When things die, you have to let them go,” Imara whispered, and I saw eternity in her eyes. “You let me go, didn’t you? You accepted it. You have to accept this, too.”
I couldn’t even speak. My mouth had gone dry, my throat tight, and all I could manage was a violent shake of my head.
Imara sighed and folded her hands together. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Now I have to go.”
“You saved my life! You can save theirs, too!”
“I did,” she said. “But life isn’t a permanent condition. You know that.”
And the sand hissed up over her, whipped into a blinding ball, and then it blew apart in all directions, stinging my skin as it landed.
Imara was gone.
I looked down at the valley. The Oracle was reaching the far edge of what remained of the town. There was a large building there. I could just make out the word HOSPITAL in lights at the top before the power failed.
I grabbed hold of a tree that fluttered its leaves in the hot wind, and watched with dry, aching eyes as the building melted and burned. I thought about the patients in their beds, the babies in their cribs, the doctors and nurses staying at their posts despite the destruction coming at them.
Then I held up my arms and summoned storms. Not the carefully constructed sort that Wardens are supposed to wield, oh no. I slammed together air and water with careless disregard for the balance, the consequences, for anything that I’d
ever been taught. I needed rain, a lot of rain, and I needed it fast.
I put together one mother of a hurricane, and I did it in under ten minutes. The clouds were thick and black and stuffed with death, and I unleashed it right over the Fire Oracle as it reached the borders of the town. Water poured down with a vengeance, and I saw steam rising from the Oracle’s body. The destruction of the town cooled, but the Oracle kept burning, and burning, and burning, no matter how much rain I threw at him.
Then the Oracle turned and looked at me, really saw me, and I woke up as suddenly as if someone had slapped me across the face. I jerked upright, and realized I wasn’t standing halfway across the country watching that terrible march; I was in the backseat of the Mustang. I was sweaty, hot, fevered, and scared, and fumbled for some of the supplies that Cherise and I had bought what seemed liked ages ago. Water. I needed water.
David said nothing. He didn’t even ask me what I’d been dreaming about. Maybe he knew.
I choked on the lukewarm liquid, but got it down, and gasped, “It’s true, isn’t it? The Fire Oracle. He’s walking.”
David slowly nodded.
“Can’t you stop him?”
“No,” he said, and I heard the infinite regret in his voice. For the first time, I also heard resignation. “Oracles can’t be stopped—not by you, not by us. Once they’ve been unleashed, they won’t stop until the Mother tells them to stop.”
“There has to be something we can do. David, I saw it. I saw a town—I saw people—I saw—”
He grabbed me and held me as the Mustang plunged on into the night. Stars overhead, cold and precise and uncaring. David didn’t try to tell me it would be all right, and he didn’t try to promise me that we’d find a way to survive. He didn’t promise anything at all.
I sensed desperation in the way he was holding me. He didn’t believe that we could make it.
“No,” I said shakily, and swiped at my eyes with my hands. “No, we’ll make it. We’re going to find a way to stop this. We have to. We can’t give up.”
“It’s not about giving up; it’s about facing facts,” David said. “You think we can fight the Mother. We can’t. She’s judged, she’s made up her mind, and there’s no changing it.”
I couldn’t accept that, I just couldn’t. It didn’t make any sense to me that we couldn’t somehow fix this, make the Earth understand and see humanity as her own.
I pushed it aside, because there wasn’t any point in arguing with David about it. “Where are we?” There was a glow on the horizon, a big one, and since it was due west of us, I didn’t think it was sunrise.
“Las Vegas,” he said. “Lewis brought the unassigned Wardens here. They’ve been working with the Ma’at to fortify the town.”
Vegas would be a prime target, I realized, purely for the fact that it existed in such defiance of the natural order in the desert. So many people, so much artificial water, so much energy being consumed.
I remembered the town I’d seen destroyed, and multiplied that times the huge population of Vegas, and felt shaky all over again. “All right,” I said. “It’s as good a place as any to make a stand. Plus, we might get in a Cirque show and some time at the roulette tables.”
“I didn’t think they let Wardens play roulette. Or slot machines.”
The casinos in the know certainly didn’t. An Earth or Weather Warden could jinx a roulette wheel as easy as snapping fingers, and put a Fire Warden near a slot machine and forget about it. “Look, if the world is going to end, I’m going to win all the money I can. Just because. They say you can’t take it with you, but really, has anybody tried?”
Vegas sounded good to me for another reason—accommodations, and shopping. I desperately needed a shower and new clothes, and even though I could ask David to magically clean me up, it wasn’t the same thing at all as sinking into velvety hot water, scented with lilacs, and floating. . . .
I was fantasizing about a peaceful afternoon and a hot bath the way perverts fantasize about porn.
Hell, maybe I’d throw in some shopping. I’d always loved the clothing stores in the big casinos. Nothing like hitting couture when you’re depressed, and if you’re going to certain death, why not go out wearing Valentino or Prada?
Even the best fantasies have to end, and mine didn’t last long. I went up into Oversight and got the lay of the land. It was unnaturally still, locked down on all fronts. I could see the restless fury of the land and the air, but the Wardens were keeping tight controls on everything, for now. With the amount of energy building, though, it was going to be impossible to hold it off forever.
I checked the rearview and found that Cassiel and Luis Rocha were still behind us, keeping a steady, patient distance. I supposed they’d also received their orders to join up with the other Wardens, or else they had business of their own, though what could possibly be more important than the end of humanity was impossible for me to guess. I supposed it was a matter of perspective.
Suddenly, the Mustang gave a surprised little cough and sputter, and the engine . . . died. We had just crested a hill and gotten a view of the incredible display of Vegas lights shimmering below, like some opium dream about living jewels.
“Please tell me that we threw a rod or something,” I said as the Djinn glided the car off to the side. I heard the harsh blatting of Cassiel’s motorcycle catching up to us, and then it, too, cut off without warning. She coasted the bike to a halt behind us and set the kickstand, and she and Rocha jumped off and got ready for trouble.
The Djinn behind the wheel said, in Whitney’s voice, “Oh, hell, I should have known this wouldn’t go so easy.” She sounded deeply annoyed. “Everybody out of the car, right now. Get whatever you want to keep.”
I bailed out, and David followed me; we each grabbed a bag full of supplies, and I unzipped one bag and found the shotgun and pistol that I’d liberated from the motel where we’d lost Kevin. I loaded the shotgun with shells and tossed it to David without looking; he caught it the same way. “What are we shooting?” he asked, quite reasonably.
I loaded up my pockets with ammunition for the shotgun and the pistol, checked the clip, and shook my head. “No idea,” I said. “But I hate to be underdressed in the event of an attack—”
I didn’t have time to finish, because a silent missile dropped down out of the dark sky and sliced razor-sharp claws at my face. I’d been extending my Oversight out, not up, and the only warning I had of the huge bird’s approach was the sudden cool breeze on my face as it backwinged to slow itself. It shrieked as I fell backward, and I rolled, trying to avoid its next dive.
David turned on a lantern, and I saw the biggest damn bird I’d ever seen gliding low over our heads, angling for another strike. It was a freaking bald eagle, and it was utterly magnificent. I’d have been transported with its beauty if it hadn’t just taken a swipe at my eyes. The wingspan was enormous, probably at least six feet, and it was an expert hunter.
Cassiel suddenly stepped into the circle of light, lifted her arm, and made a sharp, whistling sound.
The eagle glided in, and for a second it looked as if it was going to land tamely on her leather-clad arm—not that the leather would be any kind of defense against those incredible claws. They’d punch through even the toughest hide like it was rice paper. Cassiel’s pale green eyes were watchful, totally focused on the bird as it made its approach.
She barely had time to dodge out of the way as it spilled air from its wings at the last second, altering its trajectory, and let out an ear-piercing shriek as it thrust its claws forward. It raked her leather jacket from neck to waist, shredding it, and with mighty flaps of its wings, it gained altitude again and disappeared into the sky.
“I can’t hold it,” Cassiel said. “And there are others coming. Many others.”
“Birds?”
“Large birds,” she confirmed. “Owls, eagles, hawks. And on land, other things. Bears, wolves, mountain lions. They will catch us. We have to run.”
“Do you think you have enough bullets for the world?” she asked. “Don’t be a fool. You can’t make a stand here.”
Cassiel was right, but we were still far out from the relative safety of the lights of Vegas. Out here, there wasn’t much—but down the hill about two miles there was some kind of hotel, clearly shut down, all lights off. “Down there!” I said, and grabbed up the bag I’d dropped. “Come on, let’s move!”
“Wait,” said Whitney’s voice from the car radio. “I can’t start this thing, but I can push it. Get in. Might as well ride.”
Cassiel shook her head. “I will take my motorcycle. I can coast it down the hill after you.”
“Not a great plan, Cass; that bird isn’t going to give you a pass just because you used to be a Djinn.”
“I know,” she said, not bothered at all. “But I’m not leaving the motorcycle. I like the motorcycle.”
“Well, I’m taking the car. Have fun,” Rocha said, and got in with me and David. Cassiel shrugged and straddled the bike, kicking up the stand, and pushed off. She must have had damn good balance, because the heavy machine hardly wavered at all.
Whitney’s push- method for the car worked just as well; it started slow, but picked up speed on the downhill grade, and we ate up the distance fast enough.
As we got closer I saw why the hotel was closed. Some kind of fire; the six-story pink stucco exterior was blackened around the windows and doors, and its plastic exterior wall-mounted sign was half melted. There were one or two cars, but they looked like derelicts and had signs of fire damage. The giant parking lot was deserted except for tumbleweeds and trash.
The road grade was evening out, and the car was slowing down. I made a command decision and said, “Whitney, how far can you push us?”
“All the way to where you want to go,” she said. “If you insist.”
“Get us to the Vegas strip. This doesn’t look like a very safe—”
Our tires blew out—at least two, from the separate bangs I heard, and the lurch of the frame first right, then left. Oh perfect. Somebody really didn’t want us getting to the other Wardens.
