Thin Air

I didn’t even think; I just hit the snow face-first. The fireball sizzled over my head right where my midsection would have been had I been caught flat-footed, and rolled away, hissing into open snow, where it quickly melted drifts in a five-foot radius to the bare dirt.

That caught Lewis’s attention. He whirled just as Kevin stepped out of the trees. The teen looked grimy and scraped, but there was a burning light in his eyes, and as I wondered what to do he held up his hand, palm up, and formed another ball of fire in it.

Apparently my dive-for-it tactic was Warden-Approved, because Lewis did the same thing; he waited until Kevin threw the fireball, and then threw himself flat in the snow. Kevin’s fireball streaked through the air and exploded like a bottle of napalm against a tree on the far side of the clearing-he’d thrown that one with a lot more fury. Lewis rolled, brought up the gun, aimed…

And didn’t pull the trigger. I held my breath, horrified, because Kevin was already reloading, forming fire in his hands and snarling in rage.

No. Dammit, why didn’t Lewis shoot?

Kevin threw the plasma straight at Lewis, who was helpless and prone on the ground, and Lewis still didn’t pull the trigger.

He also didn’t try to avoid the impact of the flame.

It hit and erupted in white-hot fury, sizzling the snow around him into an instant spring thaw, and then Lewis was on fire. I screamed and started toward him, then stopped, because Lewis-burning all over, fire clinging to him like a second skin-calmly pushed himself up to his feet, brushed a hand over his chest like a man flicking away dust, and the flames just…died.

Not a mark on him.

Kevin’s eyes went wider, but then he shut down, went hard and cold. “You cold-blooded son of a bitch,” he spit at Lewis. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Good luck with that,” Lewis said. “I think the waiting list is into double digits by now.”

“Where’s Cherise? What did you do to her?”

Lewis took a step toward him. He was still holding the gun, but carefully, at his side. I doubted Kevin could even see it. “Kevin, relax. She’s all right.”

“No. No, she’s not, or she’d be here. She’d be with me.” Kevin’s fingers, consciously or not, were dripping with fire. “You’re lying. You hurt her.”

“I’ve got no reason to lie to you,” Lewis said. His voice was still and quiet, very gentle, and he continued moving toward the boy without seeming to be in any hurry at all. “She was hurt, Kevin, but she’s better now. You’re hurt, too. I need you to stop fighting me. Can you do that?”

“No!” Kevin screamed, and extended both hands toward Lewis. Fire erupted in a hot, incandescent wall that swept toward Lewis at a frightening rate, searing the snow into instant steam, leaving everything dead and smoking behind it…

And I caught a flash of pink, and Cherise ran out in front of the advancing flames, and stopped just in front of Lewis.

“No!” I screamed, and lunged up. “Cherise, no! He can’t see you!”

Kevin’s view was blocked by the flames. Maybe he could see Lewis, I didn’t know, but he couldn’t possibly have seen Cherise, and he was going to kill her.

And she wasn’t going to move.

Lewis put out one hand, palm out, and stopped the wall of fire cold. His fingers curled down, and so did the blaze, collapsing into a confusion of hot streamers and flickering out of existence a bare two feet from Cherise’s pale, terrified face.

When he saw her, Kevin’s mouth opened, a dark O of horror, and he lurched forward at the same time she started toward him. I climbed up to my feet, brushing away the snow, as the two of them collided to form a frantic pile of arms and legs.

Kevin was talking as he kissed her, but the words were only for Cherise, and besides, the noise of the approaching helicopter was rattling around the valley like thunder. I moved back toward Lewis, feeling tired and achy and even more anxious than before. What if Kevin was still possessed? What if we had to kill him? Oh, God.

Lewis was ready for that; I could see it in the way he was standing, watching the two of them. Nothing but calculation in his eyes. If he thought it was adorable, the slacker and the beach bunny reuniting, he kept it well hidden behind a blank, empty expression.

“Stay behind me,” he said as I approached. I nodded and obeyed. “Watch for the helicopter. Signal it when you see it.”

I risked a glance over his shoulder and saw that Cherise had taken Kevin’s hand and was leading him over toward us. “Cherise,” Lewis called. “Let go and step aside.”

“But-”

“Do it.”

I’d have done what he said, too; that tone didn’t leave any room for negotiation. I scanned the skies-still nothing but low, gray clouds-and peeked again. Cherise let go of Kevin’s hand and moved away-not far, but far enough for Lewis’s purposes, apparently.

Kevin glared at him. The kid looked ill, pale, frostbitten, and on his last legs. As Lewis took a step forward, fire began dripping from Kevin’s fingers.

“Stop fighting me,” Lewis said, voice dropping low. He was using some kind of power, something that made me feel sleepy even in the corona effect; I saw Cherise yawn and stagger. “Cherise is fine. Let us take care of you now. I know what happened. You have to stop fighting, Kevin. I’m not your enemy.”

Kevin swayed. His hands fell to dangle at his sides, and fire dripped and smoked from his fingertips, hissing into the snow. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t touch me. You shouldn’t touch me. In case.”

“I know,” Lewis said. He was nearly within grabbing range. “It’s okay. It’s gone now. You’re going to be all right.”

Kevin staggered and collapsed to his knees in the snow. Where his hands met the white powder, the snow sizzled into steam. “I tried,” he mumbled, and shook his head angrily. Fire flew like drops of sweat. “I tried to stop it. It came out of the forest fire; I’d never seen anything like that before; I didn’t know what to…I couldn’t protect her. I thought I could, but-”

Lewis was there by then, and without any hesitation at all he grabbed Kevin and pulled him upright. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “There’s not a Warden alive who could have done any better. Including me. You survived. That’s the important thing.”

Kevin was barely conscious, and Cherise moved to help support him, casting looks at Lewis that silently pleaded for him to make things right. I heard the thump-thump-thump of rotors overhead growing clearer, and finally spotted a shadow moving through the mist.

I started scissoring my arms. The color of my down jacket-green-might not be enough for them to pick us out, but I did some jumping up and down and yelling, even though I knew the yelling was useless. The helicopter headed toward us, hovered overhead, and started circling in for a landing.

As I lowered my arms to shield my eyes from blowing snow, I saw someone standing in the shadows across the clearing. She was tall, and she had long, dark hair that blew in a silken sheet on the wind. She wasn’t wearing a coat, just a pair of blue jeans, some not-very-practical boots, and a baby-doll tee in aqua blue. I had that disorientation again, the same as when I’d been watching myself through Cherise’s eyes, but this was different. For one thing, it wasn’t a memory. She was there, facing me, in real time.

It took exactly one second for the full implications to hit me, hard, and run me down like a speeding train.

“Imara?” I whispered. Or tried. My voice was locked tight in my throat. I glanced desperately at Lewis, but he was occupied with the kids, and besides, he couldn’t possibly have heard me over the roar of the descending machine. “Oh, God. Imara, is it you?” Because it had to be my daughter, didn’t it? She looked just like me-the same height, the same curves, the same black hair, although hers looked better cared for at the moment.

And the wind blew her hair back, revealing her face fully. She smiled, and my whole skin shivered into gooseflesh, because that smile was wrong. I felt the dark impact of it all the way across the open snowy space. She was not my daughter. There was a crawling, sticky sense of evil to it. There was also an overwhelming feeling of danger, even though she wasn’t