Firestorm

'I think I'm in love,' he said, and gave me a professional smile to make sure I knew it was a professional sort of rapture. 'Take care, Miss Baldwin. It's nasty out there.' He wasn't talking about the weather in Phoenix; it was cloudy, but seemed stable enough.

I saluted him and retrieved my suitcase, then rolled it down the red carpet toward the entry gate. I resisted the almost overwhelming urge to throw myself to my knees and kiss the tarmac.

There was a trash can at the entrance, and I dropped the evidence of my weakness into it.

My journey was complete.

If the Oracle in the clouds had been my last hope, it was over in more ways than one. But maybe, just maybe… there was one more chance.

Chapter Eight

The first rental car agency didn't have a huge selection, and mostly it ran to sedate four-door sedans or cramped little economy cars. When I expressed that to the rental agent, a neat little redhead who was just cute as a bug in her dark blue suit, she looked conspiratorial and leaned forward to say, 'You should call these guys.' She handed over a brochure with the underhanded motion of someone completing a drug deal. I glanced down at the name on the glossy paper: Rent-A-Vette. Holy crap, I'd actually found somebody who understood. What were the odds?

'Thank you,' I said with heartfelt sincerity. 'You're a lifesaver.'

She winked and moved on to the tourist family behind me, who wanted a boxy four-door sedan.

I went to the phone bank and called the number on the paper. Did I have a driver's license? Sure. Major credit card? No problem. I almost wept over the choices the woman on the other end began to reel off: Viper SRT- 10, Mercedes SL-500, Porsche Cabriolet, Corvette C6, Porsche Boxster… I stopped her at the BMW Z4, mainly because I'd never driven one and always wanted to. If we were entering the end of days, I might as well indulge myself.

I had a shuttle within fifteen minutes.

Phoenix is pretty. Austere but pretty, in the way that only desert towns can be—the urban part looks pretty much standard, but it's surrounded by rugged country, upthrust hills and mountains, and three hundred days out of the year, it's dry and cloudless.

Unfortunately for the two million residents, I'd flown in dragging one of those not-dry, not-clear days along with me.

The shuttle driver chatted about things to do in Phoenix, which I accepted with a polite smile and a deaf ear. I had deadlines, emphasis on the dead. Hiking probably wasn't going to be on the agenda. Neither was a spa day, tempting as that might be.

Rent-A-Vette was a showplace of heart-stopping automotive delights. I could have wept at the gleaming ranks of muscle cars, but I managed to keep my cool and present myself at the rental counter to claim the keys to my Z4. It required me to pull out a driver's license and credit card, which I did, emptying my pockets along the way. While that was getting settled, I turned away and speed-dialed Sarah's cell phone.

A sleepy warm female voice answered. 'Hello?'

'Sarah,' I sighed. I managed to keep my voice low, somehow, although I wanted to shout. 'I heard from Cherise. Are you okay?'

'Of course,' she said, and laughed. It was a drunken, slow laugh, the kind you make right before you succumb to the anesthesia after counting backwards. 'Yes, silly. I'm fine. Eamon's taking good care of me.'

'Eamon?' I interrupted.

'Didn't I tell you?' Another slow throb of a laugh. 'I forgot to mention him. Silly me. But I know you don't like him—'

How had he found her? Oh God… 'Listen to me, Sarah. Please. Eamon is not a good man. I need you to start paying attention. You need to walk away from him.'

There was a long, long delay, and then she said, 'I don't understand.'

'Look, just tell me where you are!'

Another laugh. 'I can't do that. It's a secret.'

And then the phone changed hands.

Before he even spoke, I said, 'You fucking bastard. How dare you?'

'The rules were that I stay away from you and your daughter, Joanne,' Eamon said in that low, pleasant voice that was such a good disguise for him. 'Which I am doing. I love your sister. I told you that. And I'm not willing to give her up just yet. So please, do keep on with your no doubt important crisis, and let us have some time to get better acquainted. I'll see you at the next family picnic.'

'Eamon!' I hissed it, as much as you can hiss something without sibilants. 'You keep your hands off my sister!'

'Love, I can't keep her hands off me.' He laughed, and it sounded utterly unaffected. Villains didn't have the right to laugh like that, so infectiously. I could hear Sarah joining in.

I was glad I'd emptied my stomach on the plane.

I hung up without any good-byes before he could cut me off—a little control on my part, anyway—and went back to the counter. They looked happy. Apparently, my credit limit was stratospheric.

I pulled out of the parking lot in a sky-blue convertible Z4, hit the gas, and almost broke the sound barrier. Damn. The thing was little, light, and incredibly maneuverable. It smelled like rental cars smell, only newer; the interior wasn't roomy, but it seemed to make that an asset by cradling my body in an almost sensuous fashion.

I slipped on my sunglasses at the first stoplight and consulted the free map they'd given me. It looked easy enough—a straight shot up I-17 towards Flagstaff, with a quick jog off to the west at the Highway 179 exit. About a two-hour drive, if you obeyed the speed limit.

I was in a Z4, trying to save the world. Did I intend to obey the speed limit?

Hardly.

I've never really thought about why I like to drive fast, but it probably has to do with control. I like being in control, and I like pushing limits, and the adrenaline rush you get from hurtling down a clean, empty freeway—that's like nothing else. Driving felt especially good after the nauseating, disconnected trip in the plane. Not that I didn't have faith in the pilots, but I never liked being in the backseat. Or the passenger seat, for that matter.

The Z4 throbbed around me like a living thing, and we left the stone-and-glass caverns of Phoenix behind. The sun was a weak brass shadow behind gray clouds, and the rain fell in fits and starts. Not as determined as it had been to wash me away, but spitting its contempt nevertheless. The road looked black and shiny as it stretched out due east, toward Sedona and Flagstaff. I shifted gears as the traffic thinned, and felt something primal in my body relax at last. I might be flying toward disaster, but at least I was controlling the trip.

I felt the hair on my arms stir and come to attention, as if an electrical field had formed around me and I was static-charged. Something dark and shadowy formed slowly in the passenger seat next to me… too slowly. Djinn were masters of the now-you-see-them, now-you-don't, and this was way too gradual an appearance.

I backed off the gas, saw a scenic turnout up ahead, and took it in a hiss of tires on damp road, then braked fast as details came clear in the figure appearing next to me. Long black hair hanging limp, half-hiding the face. A shredded black leather jacket. Leather pants split in long cuts, showing pale-gold skin and blood.

There was blood on her hands.

'Imara?' I said, and felt my heart freeze solid in my chest. Part of me felt like it was falling backward. 'Imara, what happened?'

Her head slowly tilted back to rest against the leather seat, and I saw the blood spattered on her face. She looked far too pale. Her eyes were colorless, pale and clear.

'Help,' my daughter whispered, and slithered sideways into my arms. 'Mommy, help.'

I screamed, calling her name; she didn't answer. Her eyes were still open, and her chest still rose and fell, but that was all. I couldn't even begin to think what to do. Djinn could have human form, but it wasn't real in the