Firestorm

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.'