Total Eclipse

general exodus.

Behind us, something exploded. Kevin turned, staring back, and extended a hand to snuff out a ball of fire that was rolling through the broad tiled hall in a hellish, orange-black rush. He stopped it before it did more than singe the lagging runners. Before he could turn around again, another explosion rocked the building, prompting more screams and a mob of panicked, running people through the food court, sending tables and chairs flying.

“Let go,” David said. “Go do what you need to do.”

Kevin glanced at him, nodded, and spun away to plunge toward the danger. I quickly braced David as he wavered, and Cherise bit her lip and looked indecisive. “Should I . . . ?”

“No,” I said firmly. “Cher, if you want to help, look out for people who can’t get out on their own.” There were plenty of them—people in wheelchairs struggling to make headway through the sudden minefield of debris, people on walkers shuffling along at their best speed, a few who’d tripped and were trying to get up but kept getting knocked down. Situations like this, people would get trampled.

I took a deep breath. “David, can you stay up?”

“Go,” he said, nodding. His face was ghostly, but his eyes burned with determination. “I’ll make it. You two help.”

I headed for a grandmotherly type in a power scooter, who was stranded by a drift of fallen chairs, and kicked them out of the way as I offered a bracing arm to an older gentleman with a cane who’d been knocked off his feet. “Here,” I said, and put them together. “Buddy system. Make sure you both get out, okay?”

They nodded, too scared to do anything but obey whatever order sounded official at the moment. It was a good partnership. The old guy shoved things out of the way, and kept one hand on her scooter for stability as they moved along.

I grabbed up a couple of screaming kids who were missing their parents and flagged down a lady with a stroller, who took the toddlers on. There was a teenage girl down near the Subway counter—out cold, with a swelling bruise on her head from where she’d fallen and knocked herself out on the tile. I dragged two teen boys to a stop and put them in charge of her. They looked shocked. It was probably the first time anybody had asked them to be in charge of anything. They grabbed her and towed her out.

By the time I’d made it close to the north exit, most of those able-bodied shoppers had cleared out, leaving a few injured, and one asthma sufferer who needed her inhaler, dropped somewhere back in the panic. Nothing I could do for her but send her on her way, and appoint yet another unwilling Samaritan to make sure she got to emergency help.

“Jo!” Cherise yelled from the other side of the food court. “Get out!”

I wasn’t about to, because not only was Cherise still inside, so was David. He’d stopped moving, in fact, and turned to face the south entrance. The food court was unnaturally empty and full of discarded bags, purses, coats, and spilled food and drink. Neon buzzed and blinked. I smelled acrid smoke and burning food on a grill somewhere.

Then there was a sound like nothing I’d ever heard, and Kevin came flying from around the corner, driven back like a limp rag doll. He hit the ground unconscious, or dead, and rolled to a flopping, boneless stop against the far wall. Cherise screamed and did some broken-field running through the maze of debris, heading for him.

I headed for David. He was very still, tense, gasping in shallow breaths that told me he probably had cracked ribs. Or, God forbid, internal injuries. Blood was a thick, dark stain spilling down the side of his pants, dripping over his shoes, and spreading on the floor.

“Djinn,” he said. “It’s the Djinn.”

“That’s not possible.”

Except it was.

A Djinn walked out of the smoke and darkness, and where she walked, flames broke out, concrete shattered, glass powdered, water gushed. She was the touch of destruction, neatly packed in an almost human form.

Tall, strong, dark-skinned, with a multitude of thick black cornrows that shifted like snakes on her head. She was wearing bright blood red, and her eyes had taken on a pure white shine.

Rahel.

But she was no friend of mine. Not anymore.

Cherise made it to Kevin’s side and tried to drag him out of the way. A fireball blasted out of Rahel’s hand, heading straight for them. Cherise screamed and shook Kevin to try to wake him, but he was out completely. . . .

Sheer instinct guided her, and desperation, and—I strongly suspected—love. She flung out her hand, and the fireball smashed down on them—and flared around them in a white- hot glowing blast, diverted to gouge steaming chunks out of the wall on either side.

Rahel stopped, cocked her head, and considered Cherise for a second before renewing the attack. Again, Cherise blocked it. Barely. When Rahel ended the fire stream, I saw Cherise collapse back against the wall, weeping, shaking, unable to summon up the energy to even put a brave face on it.

Rahel raised both hands.

“No!” I screamed, and flung myself forward, swinging my arms over my head and jumping up and down. “Over here! Fresh meat!”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” David hissed. Rahel turned her head and locked on us with those white, blind, shimmering eyes, and I felt panic well up in my throat, strong enough to choke me.

I had no idea what I was doing. Except buying time for my friends to live another moment. And maybe that was enough. Right now, in this one instant, I had a kind of shining clarity of purpose that I didn’t understand, and really couldn’t have said was sane, exactly.

David took my hand in his, and Rahel turned to face us. Pieces of the mall were falling apart behind her, smashing and shattering. Choking dust and smoke flooded the hall, and the neon lights—no, all the lights—went out.

We were going to die in the dark.

I could still see Rahel’s eyes in the dim glow of the distant skylights overhead—unblinking and predatory, the eyes of something with no purpose but destruction.

She’d lost herself to the madness of Mother Earth, who was lashing out against what had hurt her, with no rational thought. There was nothing David or I could do to reach her. I thought about Rahel lying in the hospital bunk on board the ship, and I felt tears burn in my eyes that weren’t due to the smoke and dust. I’d thought we’d lose her then, but at least she would have died as herself.

I wished I was dying as myself. My old self. That would have been . . . better.

Rahel’s lambent eyes blinked.

She didn’t fry us.

“David?” I whispered. “Is that her, or—?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered back.

Whatever internal battle went on, Rahel lost it. She raised her hand, palm out, and I knew we were going out not in a blaze of glory, but just in a blaze.

Fire streaked at her from her left and slammed into her with overwhelming force, knocking her sideways and to the floor. In the sudden lurid light, I saw that Kevin was turned on his stomach, still flat on the floor, but holding up a hand and burning the holy hell out of the Djinn. She flailed, trying to get up; he kept up the attack, not letting her get her balance or counterattack.

“He can’t,” David said. “He can’t do that!”

“What, act like a flipping idiot? He does it all the time!” I yanked on David’s arm, trying to get him to move with me. “We need cover—come on!”

“No, he can’t do that,” David said, and I watched as Kevin continued to pour more and more power through his body, crushing Rahel down. “Jo—”

I knew, in a blinding flash, what he meant. Oh crap. No freaking