Firestorm

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