Thin Air

trying to put out a fire in Florida, right next to Alligator Alley, that had been burning for three days.

Never off duty, that was me. Weather Warden by first choice-if a world-ending storm blew up without notice, I was the go-to girl. Second choice: Fire Warden, which was what was occupying me at the moment. Acting as an Earth Warden-something that I could do, but didn’t want to do-was a distant, cautious, still-weird third.

I was standing on the balcony of my apartment building, staring at the smudge of smoke on the horizon. It didn’t look like I was doing much of anything, and truthfully, I probably could have gone inside, picked up the ringing phone, talked to whatever cold-caller was on the other end…but I was feeling frustrated, and I needed to do something positive. So I was concentrating on rendering the burnable underbrush less burnable, at the cellular level-changes that would have to be undone later, for safety, but made dandy firebreaks in the meantime.

Of course, I was interfering with Fire Wardens and Weather Wardens who were already doing their assigned jobs. Well, that was why I was the boss, right? That was what bosses did. Interfere. (My bosses always had, anyway. Although, come to think of it, I hadn’t liked it much.)

The glass door behind me rumbled back on its track, and a man’s hand dangled the phone over my shoulder. I turned, eyebrows raised in silent question, and David just shrugged his own shoulders in response.

David was always lovely to look at, but he was especially pleasing at sunset, when the red sky picked up bronze tints in his skin and highlighted the supernatural sparks in his eyes. Which were currently the color of old pennies, but taking on a brighter hue as I watched.

He waggled the phone again, significantly. I sighed and took it. “Hello?”

I wasn’t prepared for the volume that erupted out of the phone. “Joanne, would you please butt out already? Jeez, woman, we can save the world without you! Just go relax!”

The voice on the other end was Paul Giancarlo, and the tone was a Jersey bellow, barely contained by the phone’s speaker. I held the phone farther from my ear. “Oh, hi, Paul,” I said. “So, how’s the fire going?”

“The fire is going fine, and you need to quit screwing around. You are not on duty. I have coverage on the damn fire, and you need to stop-”

“Helping you? Because three days is kind of a long-”

“Kid. Stop already. We’re on top of it!”

“Let me talk to Lewis.” Lewis being the only guy in the entire Wardens organization who had the right to tell me what to do, a fact that had made me a little smug and-yes, I could admit it-a little insufferable.

“Lewis doesn’t want to talk to you. Lewis wants me to tell you to butt out. Get it? You’re on vacation. Vacate.”

He hung up on me. I stared at the phone, surprised and a little wounded. David took it from my fingers, put it on the patio table behind me, and said, “I assume he told you your assistance isn’t required. No, actually I don’t assume that. I overheard.”

“Eavesdropper.”

“People three doors down heard it,” he said. “Not a great feat of supernatural detection.”

Busted. I glared at him for a second, but honestly, I couldn’t stay angry at David. Especially when he gave me that look.

But I glanced toward the fire again, anyway, and I heard him sigh. “Jo. Let go. I know how hard it is for you, but you need to let other people handle their jobs.”

“Three days!” I said, pointing an accusing finger toward the smoke. “Come on, you don’t think they could have been a little more aggressive about it?”

“You know as well as I do that sometimes managing a fire is more important than putting it out,” he said, and stepped between me and my view of the conflagration. Not that he wasn’t, you know, burning hot. Because he definitely was, and I felt myself inevitably getting distracted.

“Stop that,” I said. Not with a lot of strength.

“Stop what?” He reached for my hands, and I shivered as a breeze moved across my back, which was left mostly bare by the sky blue halter top I had on. Florida had been kind to me, for a change; lots of sun, lots of untroubled cloud-free beaches. It was as if the Wardens themselves had conspired to make my vacation uneventful, at least on the weather front.

And that had been okay, for the first couple of days. And then I’d gotten a little bit…bored.

Not that David couldn’t make that go away; he was promising to, just with the gentle pressure of his fingers moving up my bare arms.

“Stop making me want you,” I said. That got the eyebrows again, and a slightly wounded frown.

“Making you?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t, actually. You think I’m manipulating you?”

“You’re Djinn,” I said. “Manipulating people is basically built into your DNA. But-I didn’t mean that. I’m just-I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m thinking. I just-”

“You want to be taking action,” he said. “Yes. I know.”

“What I don’t need is a vacation.” I stepped back from David and dropped grumpily into a deck chair, stretching my long, bare legs out in front of me. The tan was coming along nicely. Great accomplishment. Everybody else is saving the world, you’re golden-browning.

“Oh, I think you definitely do,” David said, and draped himself over the other chair, curled toward me, chin propped on his fist. “I have never met anyone who needed to learn to relax more than you.”

And that was saying a lot. I still didn’t have any clear idea of how old David really was, only that his birth date was so far back in history that the idea of calendars had been newfangled. He’d been around, my lover.

The fact that he was hanging around here, letting me be bitchy to him, was kind of amazing, now that I thought about it.

Before I could apologize to him, the phone rang again. I picked up the cordless extension, pressed the button and said, “Yes?”

A businesslike voice on the other end said, “May I speak with Joanne Baldwin?”

“Speaking.” I rolled my eyes at David. Another attempt to sell me flood insurance or steel hurricane shutters. I readied the I’m in an apartment speech, which usually served to put a stop to these things.

“Ms. Baldwin, hello, my name is Phil Garrett. I’m an investigative reporter with The New York Times. I’d like to speak with you about the organization known as the Wardens.”

I blinked, and my expression must have been something to behold, because David slowly straightened up in his chair, leaning forward. “You-sorry, what? What did you say?”

“Phil Garrett. The New York Times. Calling about the Wardens. I have some questions for you.”

“I-” My voice locked tight in my throat. “Got another call, hold on.” In a panic, I hit the END button and put the phone down on the table, staring at it like it had grown eight legs and was about to scuttle. “Oh my God.”

“What?” David asked. He looked interested, not alarmed. Apparently, I was amusing when panicked.

The phone rang again. I didn’t move to pick it up. David took it and said, pleasantly, “Yes?” A pause while he listened. “I see. Mr. Garrett, I’m very sorry, but Miss Baldwin can’t speak to you right now. What’s your deadline?” His mouth compressed into a thin line, clearly trying not to smile at whatever my face was doing now. I could hardly breathe, I felt so cold. “I see. That’s fairly soon. Miss Baldwin is actually on vacation right now-maybe there’s someone else you can-” Another pause, and his eyes darted to mine. “You were referred by the New York office of the Wardens.”

I mouthed, blankly, What? David lifted one shoulder in a half shrug.

This could not be happening.

“I’ll have her call you back,” David said, hung up, and put the phone back on the table. He leaned forward, hands folded, watching me. “You’re scared.”

I nodded, with way too much emphasis. “Reporters. I hate reporters. I hate reporters from little weekly papers in One Horse, Wyoming. How much do you think I hate somebody from The New York Times?”

“You don’t even know him. Maybe this is a good thing.”