Текст книги "Firestorm"

Автор книги: Rachel Caine

Соавторы: Rachel Caine
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Firestorm
(The fifth book in the Weather Warden series)
A novel by Rachel Caine

For Jenny Griffee, NaNoNov winner of 2004,

who provided a hellof a good idea for a new class of magical being,

not to mention a slam-bang character

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the following:

My absolutely incredible editor, Liz Scheier, for her patience and help during my personal crisis that fell right across the deadline for this book.

My equally incredible agent, Lucienne Diver, without whose support and encouragement none of this would be happening (or ever would have, for that matter).

The Stormchasers, all five hundred-plus of them, who are some of the most enthusiastic and wonderful folks I could ever hope to know.

My LJ friends, nearly as numerous as the Stormchasers, every single one of them a gem.

Kelley, Maria, Claire, Laurie, Katy, and Becky: the Time Turners. Goddesses all.

Independent booksellers Edge Books and Bakka-Phoenix.

ORAC, especially P. N. Elrod, Joanne Madge, and Jackie Leaf.

My husband, Cat, for supporting me at every step of the process, and being my cheering section.

Tory Fuller, who has given me immense help by vetting the weather content of these books…

Mistakes are all mine, mine, mine.

And as always, the great Joe Bonamassa, who makes this writing process so much more fun by turning out incredible music. Come back to Texas more often.

We love you.

PREVIOUSLY…

My name is Joanne Baldwin, and in case you haven't been keeping up with current events, we're in big trouble. The world, I mean. As for me, I've been in trouble since… well, always… but this is big. The Wardens—the folks who are supposed to be protecting all of youfrom the dangers of raging fires, floods, earthquakes, and natural disasters of all kinds—have been compromised. Slowly but surely, they've lost their way and become corrupt and ineffective.

I used to be one of them, until I acquired a Demon Mark and fell in love with a Djinn, but that's another story altogether ( Ill Wind, actually, if you're taking notes). The point is that now, the Djinn—who should be the allies of the Wardens—aren't playing by the rules that have held for millennia. A Djinn named Jonathan set up those rules, and now that Jonathan's gone, all bets are off.

And the Djinn's new leader? My lover, David. What that bodes for a stable relationship is still up in the air, but confidentially? I'm worried.

The human race has one chance to keep its place at the top of the food chain: make peace with the Djinn, and that means somehow, some way, making peace with the Earth itself. Which ain't gonna be easy, because Mother Nature is pissed off.

And apparently, I may be the only one able to do something about it.

Lucky me…

Chapter One

I was thinking that the Wardens needed a new motto. The old one, the one on the seals on my diploma, was Defensor Hominem, Latin for "Defender of Mankind," but sometime in the past twenty-four hours, I'd become convinced that I had a more appropriate motto: We're So Screwed.

Yeah, that pretty much covered it.

"Duck!" I yelled as another piece of debris came flying toward us, and grabbed for whatever order I could manage in the chaos of the weather around us. Not the easiest thing in the world, considering that the whole eastern seaboard's system had been destabilized by a gigantic killer supernatural storm—now mysteriously vanquished, through no doing of mine—and all kinds of random, unpleasant, potentially fatal problems were presenting themselves.

Currently, those included a rather large and very aggressive tornado plowing its way across some unoccupied farmland and tossing pieces of broken fence ahead of it like shrapnel.

Cherise—my traveling companion, mainly because she had a kick-ass fast Mustang and I needed wheels—squeaked and hit the dirt, covering her pretty blond head with both hands. I remained standing. It wasn't heroism, exactly, more that I didn't want to dirty up what remained of my clothes. I think about things like that during the more garden-variety apocalypses.

This is what happens when someone like me—a Weather Warden—stops for a bathroom break in the middle of a crisis. And dammit, I hadn't even gotten bladder relief out of it. I had a very personal reason to hold my ground: the tornado was threatening to flatten the only roadside public restroom in forty miles.

I reached out for the wind currents and grabbed hold of the ones that would do me the most good. A sudden gust of wind, generated by a big push of heat in the right area, deflected an oncoming piece of fencepost—a nice big chunk of jagged wood, the size of a fire hydrant—off to the side, where it smacked into an unlucky wind-lashed tree, which it uprooted with a crash. Dirt flew, adding to the general chaos and mayhem.

I studied the tornado, ignoring gusts that tried to push me over; I was standing in a bubble of more or less calm air, but the wind was getting through in fits and spurts. Whatever good hair day I'd been having was a distant memory. We were into the scary fright-wig territory now.

Yes, I worry about things like hair, too. Probably more than I worry about world peace, mainly because at least I can usually control my hair.

Unable to do anything about my ruined look, focused on the tornado. They're relatively fragile things, for all the scary woo-woo attitude and screaming freight-train soundtrack. Oh, they're terrifying enough if you don't have the power to do anything about them, but luckily, I was well-equipped for this particular challenge. The twister reeled like a drunken top, right, then left, and headed straight for me with fresh enthusiasm, chewing up crops as it went. I hate it when they come straight for me. What did I ever do to them?

Cherise looked up through the gate of her fingers and shrieked, then went back to hiding her eyes. I ignored her and let myself slowly slide out of my body and up into that strange state—partly mental, partly physical, all weird—that the Wardens refer to as the aetheric plane.

It was only one of several planes of existence, but it was the highest one available to me as a human being (even one with, finally, a working set of weather powers). The world took on strange neon swirls, candy-colored sparks, and currents of power. The landscape altered around me into unknown territory.

The tornado was a glittering silver funnel, physics in its most potentially deadly form and given an instinctive menace, like a baby cobra. Fully as deadly as the more mature version, but with less experience. I had to step in before it learned where and how to strike.

I waited another few seconds, reading the patterns, then reached deep inside of the eye of the tornado and rapidly cooled the air into a heavy, sluggish mass. The energy exchange bled off in the form of a sudden burst of cable-thick lightning that snapped from the low-hanging clouds, and the wall of the tornado expanded and lost its coherence. In seconds, it was a confused mass of wind, moving too slowly to form much of a threat. It dropped its load of debris and wandered off at an angle, swirling petulantly.

"Okay," I said to Cherise as I sank back into my body and the comfortable solidity of three-dimensional space. "You can get up now. Show's over. First one to the bathroom uses all the toilet paper."

She didn't seem inclined to believe me. I waited a few seconds, then reached down and grabbed her elbow to haul her upright. She looked around, breathless.

"Wow," she said. "Okay, that was intense."

"Oh, I don't know. The hurricane was intense. This was just annoying."

"Jo, trust me on this one: Everything about what's happened since I met you is intense. Does this happen to you a lot?"

"You'd be surprised," I sighed. "Seriously. Bathroom, or you're going to be buying new seats for the Mustang."

We dashed off for the grubby-looking toilets. They were predictably scary, but I didn't care. It was a very happy few minutes, and if you've ever been stuck on the road without bathroom facilities for several hundred miles, you'll know what I mean.

We arrived back at the car at the same time. I held out my hand for the car keys, and a silent battle of wills ensued, but then Cherise had been driving the last stretch and what was she going to do? Argue with a woman who'd just stopped a tornado in its tracks? She dug them out of the pocket of her low-rise jeans and tossed them over.

"I'll try to keep us in the clear from now on," I said.

"I'd tell you not to scratch the paint, but—" Cherise rolled her eyes. Yeah, the hurricane and ensuing sand blasting had pretty much taken care of ruining the shiny finish. But the Mustang still ran, and that was the important thing.

While I'd been asleep, she'd put the top up on the car—sensible, with the intermittent rain—but I pressed the buttons to fold it back again. I wanted as much of a 360-degree view of the sky and surroundings as I could get. My version of a Doppler system.

I eased into the comfy seat of the Mustang—candy-apple red, a yummy little treat of a car, or at least it had been before I'd gotten hold of it—and adjusted the seat for my longer legs as Cherise slid into my vacated shotgun position. Not that we had a shotgun. Though thanks to recent events, I'd have been more comfortable if we had some kind of arsenal beyond our wits, good looks, and a turbocharged engine.

I had my work cut out for me as we eased back into gear and tore at top speed along I-295. The storm systems just kept piling up—there was a new supercell forming off the low-pressure system in Georgia, and it was bound to head our way. That wasn't good physics, but it was the way my generally crappy luck ran these days.

"That was a good trick with the tornado, Mom," said a voice from the backseat. Formal, female, and a little awkward. I jumped in surprise, and then I focused on a face in the rearview mirror that was eerily similar to my own, except for the eyes. Mine were plain blue. The ones staring back at me were an interesting shade of ruddy gold—I don't mean amber; amber's a human color. This was amber on acid. Amber taken up to insane saturation levels.

In short, the eyes were Djinn. And they belonged to my daughter.

They widened. "Did I frighten you?"

"Frighten?" I shot back. "Why should I be frightened if somebody pops out of nowhere into the backseat of my car? Let's see, half the Djinn are trying to kill the Wardens, and at least some of the Wardens are infected with Demon Marks, and let's not forget the weather's all screwed up… oh, and the Earth's about to wake up and destroy humankind. You know what? Being a little frightened is a pretty laid-back response, all things considered, and yeah, next time? Knock."

She smiled. Tentatively, as if she was still translating all of that into Djinn-speak. I felt an immediate stab of guilt; the poor kid had been alive for all of not-even-a-day. She seemed to lack the one characteristic that was common among all the Djinn I'd ever met: smugness. I'd thought it came coded in Djinn DNA, along with pretty eyes and the cool ability to pop in and out of existence at will.

"Although," Imara ventured, "you could have done it more efficiently. Do you want me to show you how?"

"Not right now," I managed to say between gritted teeth. "Any guidance you can offer beyond second-guessing my lifesaving abilities?"

She looked injured. So I wasn't good at this mom thing. I was still trying to get my head around the idea that the child I had carried inside me—and it wasn't a normal pregnancy, by any stretch of the imagination—had all of a sudden sprung up fully adult, with her own set of emotions unrelated to my own.

"Sorry," I said, more softly. "Imara, do you know anything? Anything about—" David, oh God, I'm afraid for you. And I miss you. "—about your father?"

She shook her head, holding my eyes in the mirror. Djinn, unlike human beings, spring out of death, not life. The greater the death, the greater the Djinn—that's the rule. Djinn don't like to acknowledge that a lot of them have very human histories behind them, but it's an indisputable fact. David—Djinn and lover and father of my child—had told me months ago that in order for our child to be born, it would mean he had to die. That was the normal order of things, in the Djinn world.

Only something strange had happened, and another death—a greater death—had stepped in to give my child life. David was still alive.

Just not himself, exactly. He'd become… different.

"Mom," Imara said. "Are you all right?" She waved a graceful hand in front of my face, which I impatiently swatted away and focused back on my driving. "I apologize," she said, and withdrew back into a dignified sitting position. "I thought you were in some kind of distress."

I can't describe how it feels to hear that word. Mom. Oh, I'd gotten comfortable with the idea of being pregnant, but being a mother was a whole different thing—especially mother of a grown young woman who dressed better than I did. I consoled myself that she wore couture because she was Djinn, and able to conjure up whatever clothes amused her, and plus she hadn't been through a hurricane. And a tornado. And a verylong drive.

"I was thinking about your father," I said. Which was an admission of distress in itself.

"He's all right," she said, leaning forward and laying her forearm across the top of my seat. "I would know if he wasn't. I just don't know where he is or what he's doing."

Cherise was watching all of this with bright, feverish eyes. I had no idea what she was making of it. Knowing Cherise, probably something very interesting.

"Should I go find out?" Imara asked hopefully.

"No!" I yelped, and grabbed her wrist. She looked startled. "You stay put. I want you where I can keep my eye on you."

She gave me a mutinous look. Why hadn't my own mother traded me in once I'd hit puberty? I remembered giving her loads of mutinous looks. It was hugely annoying from this side of the maternal fence.

"I'm serious," I said. "The last time we saw any of the other Djinn, they weren't in the best mood ever. I don't want you running into trouble. I can't bail you out of it. Not against David."

I tried to sound as if dealing with this, and with her, was all in a day's work. Probably didn't succeed, judging from the smile she gave me. It wasn't my smile. It was entirely her own, with a little lopsided quirk on one side.

"I'll stay," she said. "Besides, you may need me next time, if the weather gets worse."

Cherise blurted out, "Next time? Does there have to be a next time?"

"Not if I can help it," I said firmly, and pressed a little more speed out of the accelerator. The cool, damp air streamed over my skin like the ghost of rain. I could have done with a more substantial sort of shower, the kind that came with shampoo and soap, but this did feel good. There was heavier weather up ahead, but we were in a clear area for the time being. I could arrange for it to stay with us, at least most of the way. "Cherise, you'd better get some rest." She needed it, poor thing. She'd been too crazed to sleep before, so I'd let her take over after we were a few hours out of Fort Lauderdale, and then again seven hours later. She'd barely closed her eyes since, and now she was starting to show the effects. Cherise was a perky, gorgeous thing, all tanned and toned in the best tradition of Florida beach bunnies, but there were telltale dark circles under her eyes. (She'd actually been a bikini model. And the "fun and sun" girl back at the podunk, fourth-rate television station that had employed us both in Florida. I didn't like remembering my job, but it hadn't involved a bikini. Except that once.)

Right on cue, Cherise yawned. "How much longer?" she asked. Actually, she said, " Ow uch onger?" but I got the point.

"About another four hours," I said. "I'll wake you when we get close."

She yawned again and wadded up a blue jean jacket to serve as a pillow against the window, and in less time than it took to whip past six billboards, she was sound asleep. I thought about turning on the radio, but I didn't want to wake her.

"So," I said, and looked in the rearview mirror. My daughter met my gaze, lifting her eyebrows. There was something of David in the expression, and I felt a sad little stab of recognition and longing.

"So," she replied. "This is strange for you, isn't it?"

"Little bit, yeah."

"Would it make it better if I told you it was strange for me, too?"

"It might," I said. "You're sure you can't tell what Dav—what your father's up to?"

Her eyes took on a distant glitter, just a second's worth, and then she shook her head. "No. I can't tell. He's shut me out. They've all shut me out." She sounded wistful. "I think he did it for my protection. This way shecan't get to me."

She, meaning Mother Nature. The Earth. One very ticked-off planet, who was coming slowly out of an eons-long slumber and wondering Wearily what the hell had happened with the human race while she wasn't looking. After all, in the tradition of surly teens everywhere, we'd taken the opportunity to throw loud parties and trash the place while she'd been out. It's not nice to fool Mother Nature. It's even worse to fool withher.

I focused back on Imara. "So… you're not connected to the Earth? The way the rest are?"

She looked away, and after a few seconds I realized that she was embarrassed by what she was going to say.

"It's a little like hearing music coming from the car next to you—you can hear the bass notes, but you can't make out the tune. It's not all Father's doing. There's a lot of you in me, and it holds me back." Her eyes flew back up to meet mine, stricken. "I didn't mean—"

"I know what you mean," I said. "I'm a handicap."

Even though I was, of course. I'd worked out fairly quickly that Imara wasn't fully Djinn… Right now, that was an advantage, with the other Djinn more or less susceptible to control by the waking Earth, and pretty much unreliable in the free-will department. But what did it mean for her, long-term? How would she be accepted by the other Djinn? And what would happen if—God forbid—she ever had to go up against them in a real battle?

I couldn't think about that. I couldn't stand to imagine her going up against someone like Ashan, who had the morals and kindness of a spider.

She was watching me steadily with those bright, inhuman eyes. I had a cold flash. "Can you tell what I'm thinking?" I asked.

Her eyebrows rose. "Will it make you angry if I say yes?"

"Yes."

"No."

"You're lying to me."

"Why would I do that?"

"You really are David's child, you know that?"

She smiled. "He really loves you, you know. I can feel that, too. It's the warmest thing in him, his love for you."

"I thought you said he'd cut you off."

"He has. But short of killing me, he can't cut me off completely." She shrugged. "He's my father."

I felt my throat heat and tighten, and tears prickled my eyes. I swallowed and blinked and drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. "Right. So, am I doing the right thing here? Heading to New York?"

In the absence of any other ideas, I was heading for the relative safe haven of Warden Headquarters, where those of us who'd survived the last few days were sure to gather. All hell had broken loose among the Wardens, with wholesale mayhem from the normally compliant and subservient Djinn. I just hoped that I wouldn't be coming back to find… nothing. The last thing I wanted was to be the last Warden standing, with the Earth waking up and Djinn running crazy. Granted, it would be exciting. It would just be a very short story, and a very ugly ending.

"I don't know if it's the right thing to do or not," my daughter replied solemnly. "I'm only a day old."

Great. I had no idea whether I was doing the right thing, I had a smart-ass immortal kid, and Cherise for a wingman.

Yeah, this was going to end well. No doubt about it.

Four hours later, it was dark and I was exhausted. Twenty-two hours in a car, even a Mustang, will do that to you. The Mustang purred around me like a contented tiger. Not the Mustang's fault that I was so tired that I wanted to weep, orthat my world was falling apart, or that I was driving where my head sent me instead of my heart. My heart was back in Florida, where I'd last seen David. Where I'd last seen my sister Sarah, who was now officially a missing person, last seen being carried off by a British madman named Eamon. (I'd made use of my cell phone to report the abduction to the FBI. If that didn't screw up whatever escape plans Eamon had made, I couldn't imagine what would.)

Nope. None of it was the Mustang's fault. I liked the Mustang just fine. I was wondering how exactly I could arrange to get it as a permanent lease, once it was repainted, of course.

The Mustang's real owner stirred and smacked her lips the way people do when they wake up with monster morning breath. Cherise blinked at the pastel wash of late-night lights as we came out of the Lincoln Tunnel, and she stretched as we cruised to a halt at a stoplight a few blocks later. Guys in cars all around us watched, even though Cherise wasn't at her well-groomed best at the moment. Some girls just have it. Cherise had so much of it, the rest of us needed time-shares just to get by.

"Nurgh," she said, or something like it, then dry-rubbed her face and threw back her hair and tried again. "Whatimesit?" Or a mumble to that effect.

"Almost one a.m.," I said. Since we'd traveled directly up the eastern seaboard, the Mustang's dashboard clock hadn't been fazed by our twelve-hundred-miles-in-just-under-one-day jaunt. I eyed it with the numbed disbelief of someone who couldn't quite fathom where all the hours had gone. Straight into my ass, it felt like. "We should be there soon."

Cherise turned and peered over the leather seat at Imara, who was stretched out like a cat over the backseat, comfortable and indolent. "Oh. You're still here?"

"Obviously."

"I was kind of hoping you'd gone back to the mother ship by now."

I smothered a chuckle. "Cher, she's not an alien."

"Right," she said. "Not an alien. Glowing eyes, disappears at the drop of a hat. But not from another planet, got it." Cherise, needless to say, was a fervent devotee of The X-Filesand alien invasion stories in all shapes and Jerry Bruckheimer sizes. She had a little big-headed gray alien tattoo to prove it, right at the small of her back. "Is Pod Girl going with us all the way?"

Imara raised a single eyebrow, in imitation of either everybody's favorite Vulcan, or at least a popular former wrestler. "Going all the way? Is that a euphemism for something else?" she asked.

"Honey," Cherise said, "you're not that cute. Well, okay, maybe if I was really drunk and your eyes didn't glow, but—"

"Hey!" I snapped. "That's my kid you're talking to." And besides, my kid was pretty much the spitting image of, well, me. So I was a little weirded out. "Are you going with us, Imara?"

I She looked frankly astonished. "I have a vote?"

"Of course."

"Then I'll go with you. As a dutiful child." She still looked too grave and self-contained, but I could see a twinkle of humor in there, buried deep.

Cherise responded to that with a dubious snort for both of us. "Whatever. So, tell me again where we're going?"

"You remember how I told you about the Wardens?" I asked.

"Organization of people like you, with all kinds of superpowers, who control the weather and stuff. Speaking of, weren't we in the middle of a hurricane that was about to kill us about twenty-four hours ago? If you could control the weather, what was up with the hundred-mile-an-hour winds? I meant to ask earlier, but I was, you know, dealing with my trauma."

"It's not as easy as just waving a hand!" I protested. "And anyway, I wasn't supposed to interfere right then.—Oh, fine. Maybe I was having an off day. In answer to your original question, we're going to my office. Warden Headquarters."

"In New York City."

"Midtown, to be exact. First and Forty-sixth." She had a look of incomprehension. "In the UN Building."

Her expression didn't change.

"You have heard of the UN, right? United Nations? Bunch of guys who get together, talk about world peace?…"

Imara murmured, "Even I know what the UN is, and I really wasborn yesterday."

Cherise shot her a dirty look. "Shut up! I know what the UN is!"

"Sorry."

"But… the UN controls the weather? Because I thought they were all about that whole world peace thing."

I reclaimed the conversation from the bickering—ah, children. "No, they don't control the weather. They lease office space to the Wardens, who do."

Cherise didn't bother to say, "You're insane," but the expression on her face was pretty clear, and considering this was coming from a girl who half believed aliens had abducted Elvis, that was special. She even edged a little bit more toward the passenger-side window. I was wishing that I'd left Cherise at any of the various gas stations we'd blown past along the way, but it would take only one unhappy phone call from her claiming I'd stolen her car to end my trip real quick. Hadn't seemed prudent, given the priorities.

"You weren't kidding," Cherise said, studying the building as we got closer. "We really are going to the UN. Is it even open?"

"Trust me, the Wardens never close." My whole body ached, and I really, really needed a shower. I'd scrubbed cleanish in a truck stop restroom a lifetime ago, because I just hadn't been able to stand it anymore, but I wasn't what you might call business-meeting ready. My eyes ached and watered from the glare of streetlights. I was grateful that at least it wasn't full daylight. That would have been much, much worse.

I made the turn to the special security-controlled parking garage, which was locked up like Fort Knox. There was a scanner on the driver's side. I rolled down the window and extended my hand. A green laser jittered over my exposed skin, and the door silently rolled up. I gunned it, because in seconds the door reversed course and began its downward journey. Down a corkscrewing Habitrail of a parking ramp, to a floor marked only with the sign AUTHORIZED PARKING ONLY. I was authorized. I slid into the first available parking slot.

It worried me that there were so many parking spaces unoccupied.

"Come on, we have a special door."

"We do? A special door? Cool." Cherise scrambled out of the car. Imara emerged after her, elegant and tall, tossing long black hair back from her face as if she were ready for a photo shoot. I decided she didn't look like me at all. I'd never looked that glamorous. Well, I'd never feltthat glamorous, anyway.

There was supposed to be a special guard on the special door. There was certainly a special-made guardpost, and as far as I knew it was supposed to be manned 24-7. Only nobody was there. Maybe the guard had gone for a call of nature, but I doubted it. I tried the steel door to the hut. Locked. Lights glowed on panels inside, but the windows were covered with steel mesh. That left us standing in a hot white wash of light, looking suspicious. I looked around, and sure enough, there was a surveillance camera—as ubiquitous as houseflies in the modern world. I waved, then turned to the door again.

"There's no lock or handle," Cherise said. "Don't they have to open it from in there or something?"

"Or something."

I held up my hand and concentrated. A faint blue sparkle moved across it, lighting up the stylized sunburst that was the symbol of the Wardens. It was magically tattooed into my flesh, and it couldn't be faked.

I ran it across a scanner inset next to the door. I waited, but nothing happened. If there'd been crickets around, they would have been chirping. I sighed, looked at Cherise and Imara, and shook my head. I ran a hand through my tangled hair and pushed it back from my face, back over my shoulders, and wondered what my chances were of bluffing the regular UN guards into granting me admittance.

I didn't wonder very long. They'd raised paranoia to an art form around here, and for very good reasons.

"Right," I said. "I guess we'll have to wait until someone decides that we look safe."

"Yeah, and when will that be?" Cherise asked, with a significant look at our generally less than presentable turnout, Imara notwithstanding.

The door let loose with a thick metallic chunkand swung open about a quarter of an inch.

"Now." I grabbed the edge and moved it wider. It was heavy. Bombproof, most likely. I ushered the girls inside, grabbed the inner handle, and pulled it tight behind me as I entered the building. The lock engaged with a snap and hum of power.

"Um… Jo?" Cherise sounded spooked.

When I turned, there were two people standing in the industrial concrete-block hallway facing us. Both were in blue blazers with a logo on them—UN Security—but with the additional graphic touch of the sun-shaped Wardens symbol pinned to their lapels. Man and woman, both tall and capable-looking. I didn't know them.

I'd seen guns before, though, and they had two great big pistols pointed right at us.

I put my hands in the air. Cherise followed suit, fast, and laced her hands behind her head without being asked. Too many episodes of police shows, I was guessing, or some indiscretions that I didn't want to know about.

Imara didn't raise her hands at all, just looked at the guards with those ruddy-amber eyes and raised her eyebrows, as if they amused the hell out of her.

"Djinn!" the woman in the blazer yelled to her partner, and took a step forward to get an angle on Imara. She had a nice two-handed shooting stance, and a voice hard enough to shatter diamond. Her eyes darted rapidly from Imara to Cherise, and then landed on me. "Warden, put your Djinn back in the bottle. Now!"

I looked at Imara, wide-eyed. She looked back. "Back in the bottle," I said. I didn't own Imara, and she wasn't bound to a bottle anyway, but she was bright enough to realize that this might not be the time to debate the issue. She misted away, off to someplace safer, I hoped. The Wardens were a little paranoid these days. Love me, hate me, want to kill me… it all depended on the mood of who I was talking to, seemed like.