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He wasn&039;t kidding about the car It was pretty much the Holy Grail of cars, and I had the keys

It was parked in the secured, boe downstairs--the one reserved for only the most senior diplomats and Warden staffers Well, ith the death and destruction, there were bound to be plenty of parking spots open It had a fabulous exotic glea unsuccessfully in a field of pebbles The conservatively styled BMWs and Infinitis looked drab in contrast, though somebody had spiced up his love life with one of those kicky little BMW Z4 Roadsters in sleek, polished silver Very James Bond

I ran a hand reverently over the Camaro&039;s silky finish It was a 1969really elegant about it, none of that designed-in-a-wind-tunnel slickness of newer cars I opened the door and popped the hood, leaned in for a look, and felt ive that extra-double-thump reserved for true automotive love It wasn&039;t just a COPO--a Central Office Production Order h No, it was one of the rarest of the rare: a 9560 with an all-aluhtest, quickest, fastest Camaro ever made Also, the rarest and most valuable I winced to think how much cash Lewis had laid out for this beauty It was in perfect condition,care Not soit out into the field, where things were bound to get ugly but then again, it ht just save my life Speed counted

I closed the hood and stood there for athe latent power of the car It wasn&039;t a replace, but that would be like saying that Secretariat wasn&039;t a replacehbred, born to run

And Lewis had bought it for me

Huh

I wasn&039;t sure I liked the inificant as hihtly skeorldview--but then again, I needed fast transportation

A moral quandry I hated those And no question, the Camaro was seductive I could always return it, I told myself Sell it Pay him back later I didn&039;t have to think of it as so ain, the Cahts, all on its own It just had that kind of aura Sweaty bodies and sotten lucky in this car a lot

Dammit I opened the door and slid inside It was as perfectly maintained inside as out Not a speck of trash or dust in it I closed ht to take a walk around it, aetherically speaking

Oh, God, it glowed There was power in this machine It was infused with love and dreas a kind of reality on the aetheric, even though there was no life in inani act of maintenance, every brush of the cloth on the dash or the chamois over the finish had rubbed a kind of power into this car along with polish

I&039;d never seen anything like it I wondered briefly hoould have looked to my eyes if I&039;d still been a Djinn; I&039;d have been able to unroll its past like a carpet, if I&039;d wanted As it was, I illing to bet this was a one-owner car, until now

And that answered the question of why Lewis had bought it, too Things like this, infused with this much power and substance, were rare and precious It would have drawn hih and inserted the key in the ignition The engine fired up with a lol, then purred so smoothly that the tiny fine vibration under my body was almost unnoticeable

"God, you&039;re beautiful," I said, and ranmy emotion to what armored the car "And you know it, don&039;t you, baby? You know it"

I shifted gears, and it responded perfectly to ate, where uard, and then I was out Bright--though unfocused and cloudy--day outside, and love box and discovered an ancient, still-cool pair of Ray-Bans that cut the glare to so less nuclear It wasn&039;t a short drive to Maine, and I didn&039;t have a lot of tiht I felt a pulse of alar Ea about that; I couldn&039;t even begin to try I pictured Sarah, crying and afraid, hurting I had to believe that he wouldn&039;t hurt her After all, I&039;d seen him with her, and I knew that on some level, Eamon did care for her He wouldn&039;t torment her to make a point unless I was there to witness it

It was all no good without an audience

I hoped

Even with the dark thoughts, it felt good to be in the world again, andunder my own control I didn&039;t think I could stand to be trapped inside the headquarters building for long, cut off from the hum of the wind and the whisper of the sea

Okay, so New York hummed more froood

The Caerous beast not feline, the way it was built More wolf than cat It turned heads, except for the cabdrivers, who ignored me to the point that I had to look sharp not to add yellow paint to the Cao up into Oversight, not in heavy traffic, but I could sense an electric crackle in the air, potential energy heavy as ioing to ground itself soon, and in a particularly uglywasn&039;t done

Well, the good side of things was that I no longer had to worry about other Wardens second-guessing s like this, and for the first tie and sent the Ca the systee, invisible tornadoes of power Unstable Charges clicking together in chains, whipping wildly, then breaking when the stresses got too great This was a reaction proble a myriad of disasters; there were bound to be consequences

And here was a big one

The sky was surly overhead, soggy with thick, darkening clouds that blew in froe heaved and breathed on its own, a secret life most of the millions in the city would never even sense, much less understand Water had memory, of a kind Blood had DNA, and water had a similar structure that existed only on the aetheric plane That DNA had been badly daed over the years, but it still purified itself, renewed itself, struggled continually against the assaults of mankind to corrupt it

We were damn lucky, the human race Damn lucky that the earth&039;s systems protected us as a side effect of its own survival h to do it for ourselves

I considered what to do about all that restless energy upstairs Lightning would be the ical plan, but it was risky; it was notoriously difficult to control lightning, and discharging it around the city could cause blackouts Blackouts caused panics Panics caused deaths Deaths were, after all, what I was in this to try to avoid

Then again, there was going to be lightning, sooner or later, and it was going to be worse if nobody controlled its strikes

I drove for two hours That sounds like a respectable driving distance, especially in the horsepower-rich Camaro, but unfortunately, traffic wasn&039;t exactly cooperative Two hours later, I was still within sight of the city I&039;d hoped to be well out of range before the prickling at the back ofhad to be done, because then it would have been so that some Good Warden Samaritan would jump in and have at it, but no such luck not that I bla of a full plate at the naled and pulled over to the side of the road in a spray of gravel, e I settled o up to the world above, where the landscape washed away into a surreal swirl of fog and color Brilliant, up here, and a unique bird&039;s eye view of a gorgeous city Wo York was charged with hurowing and changing, by passions and hopes and dreaedies I couldn&039;t see as much detail as I&039;d once been able to, when I&039;d been a Djinn, but the city was still h as hell to look away

I forced myself to focus on the job at hand, and turned my attention upward, to the disturbance

The force patterns up there slipped like oil in water, incandescent and rainbow-colored Beautiful, in their oay Scary as hell, the way they were blending and ether When lines of force connected, I saw the ultraviolet zaps of enor channeled

As I reached out to try to build a stable channel for it, I felt so sensation I&039;d ever had in my weather career, a shock to the systehtning had a brain and an intent So The Mother? Was that what it was like?

I lost control of the chains They broke into rando over I wanted to reach out again, but so me back my own fear I was a tiny little field le shadow overhead, just waiting for me to make a move If I tried to run, I&039;d die--crushed, devoured, destroyed

Soht I opened er in the car, though the doors were still locked

David was back, and he wasn&039;t disguised as hu, he looked old skin on display, because he earing only a pair of tight leather pants and an open leather jacket, with no shirt beneath His hair was longer, down nearly to his shoulders, and it held a vivid, ht sources I stared at thee ofin a blast furnace

His hand was hot enough to be uncoainst my skin

"I came to warn you," he said He was inattraction that had gripped"You have to stop"

"Stop what?"

"Trying to fix this It can&039;t be fixed"

"You know me better than that Or at least, I hope you do And by the hat&039;s with the bad-boy makeover?"

He brushed hair back frouratively as well as literally "You don&039;t like it?" "The leather? Um" I&039;d have to have been blind and insane not to like it, not to ood on you"

"Not as good as you would"

Oh God My pulse started fluttering and racing, and as if his heat had crawled inside me, I started a bonfire ofthat there wasn&039;t ti around just now Not now And not in a confined space with a Djinn who ht just flip out and kill me

I wasn&039;t sure that sex with him in this state wouldn&039;t kill h to eat" He licked his lips There was soht, I couldn&039;t look for long It was as if he were staring at my naked soul

"Um--David--" His hand slid down the curve of ers trailed down the line of er explored the notch of my collarbone, and then dipped lower He hooked it in the neck of ?"

"Don&039;t you know?" he asked

Oh boy The energy piling up and swirling overhead The hot crackle between us The heat of his skin, the restless flare insidepresent, up there

So

He leaned forward, and his lips touched mine Liquid silk, warm and soft and insistent Whatever defenses I had, they didn&039;t exist against hi like ice under a summer sun His hands seemed to be everywhere, soft little touches onup underthe undersides of my breasts

I think my mind whited out for a while When it returned froainst the driver&039;s side , braced, withbetween hs, and I had no idea how that had happened The rational part of my brain insisted that this was not the tih and slid inside asped into the hot cavern of his ers sank into the lapels of his leather jacket to pull hi cracked the sky, blue white Hotter than the surface of the sun It raced fro tributaries It covered the entire bowl of the sky, as if the whole thing had shattered

The pulse of power that shot throughfro on," I blurted He pulled back, and in a way that orse, because now I could look at hiolden skin flushed with peach He could single-handedly destroy the entire concept of celibacy, ide

"Stop?" he asked He took ainst his naked chest, under the leather jacket Solid, velvet-soft skin Real as it could possibly coo, and go" I scraht place--"

"If you&039;re worried about people seeing us, they won&039;t" he said, and his fingers were at the botto flesh I was having serious proble my breath, especially when he leaned closer, and I couldn&039;t stop ainst him We were still dressed--barely--but I was certainly in a coht as well have been a belt, and he was one fast tug ona Djinn, he didn&039;t even have to struggle to peel those leather pants off He could just will theone I couldn&039;t keep my hands off him, and there was such an intensely powerful sensation, strokinghihtning laddered across, a hissing curtain of force traveling nowhere The air s now It would find a ground target

Oh, crap

I nity, pushed David back--not so far as all that--and when he tried to lean in again, gotin between us, my foot on his chest to hold him in place "No," I panted "David, you told me not to trust you And this--this isn&039;t like you I don&039;t think you&039;re--yourself" Not that the whole new David didn&039;t have soood qualities

"I&039;rabbed ed forward to pin ainst the door, knees apart Vulnerable He was far stronger than a h for so like this "You don&039;t knohat this is like, Jo, having this, being this close to her--feeling every breath of the world flowing through you--every heartbeat pounding inside--" He was babbling Quivering "It&039;s new I&039;m new"

"I like the old David," I said shakily "Can I have hilass with a hand on either side of , inhuman, unreadable I could barely breathe If David wanted to take me, it wasn&039;t like I could say no; it wasn&039;t like anyone had any control over what the Djinn did, maybe not even the Djinn the hih the sky and, for all I knew, through the ground, as well This was the consciousness of the planet, slowly coanise that the rest of us were just dustits skin

Desperation was driving him Desperation and intoxication and the need to feel

I could see a pulse racing under his skin, feel the vibration of his aching, near-painful need It was echoing insideheartbeat

I dared an indrawn breath "David, if you love me, back off"

He leaned away, and then shifted abruptly into a sitting position, braced on the far side of the car against the passengerNo , in that position, that those leather pants were very tight and he was, as the artists like to say, in a state of interest

But he was sitting on the other side of the car

And his hands were shaking

When he finally spoke, so was his voice "I&039;m sorry," he said "This is--it&039;s--she&039;s never felt like this before It&039;s--I don&039;t kno to--" Apparently, it was indescribable, because he just shook his head in frustration and looked away "It influences us Seduces us Makes us--"

"Crazy? Horny? Aggressive?"

The relieved se David "Yes"

"I like to knohat I&039; you lose control"

"I wouldn&039;t be over on this side of the car if I wasn&039;t in control" Yeah,inside hi breath and deliberately flexed his hands, then laid the me"

"Is she awake?"

He parted his lips, not in answer but in surprise So left his eyes, and sanity came back The bronze swirl hts "Ah," he finally said "No Not exactly But she&039;s--in the process of waking up And the feelings are especially powerful right now"

"Like a hypnagogic orgasht when you&039;re in that gray area betaking and sleeping Really deep"

"Hypnagogic," he repeated "Have I told you recently how much you baffleto feel me up"

"Sorry"

"Don&039;t be"

David lost the slight sed to acquire "The problem is, I can&039;t tell when it&039;sto say &039;hard,&039; weren&039;t you?"

"No"

"Liar"

"Stop distracting ood ti him, especially not if his self-control was all that stood between the iht sobered s folded into so like propriety and curled the bolt unzipped the sky overhead, broad as a superhighway--this one didn&039;t fork It was like a solid cable of light and power overhead Forget about the surface of the sun, that had about as much heat in it as the entire nuclear core If it had hit a plane, there&039;d have been nothing left but a floating sabout that," I said

"Not a good idea"

"Maybe not, but I have to try soerous" "It&039;s still not a good idea"

"Right Can you helphu hi to rip him apart I watched his bare chest fill and empty of air he probably didn&039;t even need, ht on , he looked almost as he had the first time I&039;d met him In a heartbeat, his clothes re-forray T-shirt, with an open blue checked shirt on top Hiking boots His habitual olive drab ankle-length coat

And glasses Round John Lennon glasses that caught the flare in flat white circles, hiding his eyes completely

"I&039;ll try," he said faintly "I&039;m not Jonathan I can&039;t--I don&039;t have the experience to handle this kind of thing"

"I doubt Jonathan would have had the experience to handle this, either You&039;re doing fine, David Just fine" I had no idea if it was true, but I wanted it to be I reached out to hi-hot--more of a muted warmth, like someone who&039;d just come in out of the summer sun

"I can feel the to so beyond the constant, restless ru the hub at the center of a huge wheel, all of the at me No wonder Jonathan kept himself apart Itas that was, I had more practical concerns "Can you help esture up at the sky just as another painful burst of lightning exploded, racing spidery legs overhead

He took a deep breath, nodded, and twined his fingers with o, to drift up into Oversight David washed into an alht and heat--the Djinn didn&039;t shoell in the aetheric, not to hulow of the city behind the car was different up here, but no less intense, but what dwarfed it--what dwarfed everything--was the loo power in the sky It eather, and yet not The swirls and frantic updrafts were caused by the power, not spawning it, and while there were fronts forine driving this particularon that wasn&039;t immediately obvious, and it wasn&039;t the work of any Warden, no uided

I reached out to try to stabilize the syste exploded, down in the real world, expending i it down like a pile driver into the ground on the other end There was so y involved that it literally knocked me for a loop in the aetheric The roar in the physical world was devastatingly, deafeningly huge

I felt the pulse of alar happen on the aetheric that I&039;d never witnessed Never heard of, either

An enorround in a thick,for the sky What the hell was that?

I stared at it, stricken, and willed myself to move closer Movement happens fast on the aetheric, unless you&039;re careful, and I wasn&039;t careful enough I zipped forward, realized that I was er--than I&039;d thought, and fought to slow myself down

That should have been easy It wasn&039;t

I could feel the suction This thing was ht train It looked stable, but it was really a wildly speeding colu into the sky, an uncontrolled bleed as if the plane of existence itself had popped a blood vessel

I dropped back intospeed, landed in flesh and jerked from the psychic i David&039;s grip on my hand steadied me I opened my eyes and looked at him "You saw it?" I asked He nodded "What is it?"

"There&039;s too round," he said "It&039;s not the only fissure that&039;s opening Just the closest"

"What do I do to stop it?"

He looked grim as he said, "I don&039;t think you can"

"And?"

"And bad things are going to happen," he said "Very bad things Look, this proble for the Djinn, for that matter You have to accept that you can&039;t--"

"No I don&039;t accept that What, you wantand say, Oh well, some casualties are expected? You know me better than that! David, tell ht have persuadedto do, that there were so bolt shattered the sky and struck a light pole about fifty feet away, across the road

The actinic flash seared across h I squeezed ainst the car door; I felt David fling hiht covered , but it was nice that he had the instinct

When he let me up, I blinked back Day-Glo sht pole was halfover within the forest I yelled and pointed It picked up speed, groaning, and sla thu hot wires that hissed and jumped

Missed us by ten feet

The traffic was relatively light, but hardly nonexistent; an SUV squealed brakes and skidded sideways, banging into the fallen pole Then a car hit it Then another

Then a minivan plowed full force into the snarl of metal

"Oh my God," I whispered, and fumbled for my door latch I ravel to the road It was littered with hot glints of broken glass, and power lines were sliding wildly over the crushed metal The minivan barely even looked like a vehicle, and it was about the size of a Volkswagen, posti, and a radio was blaring Liquids dripped

"Help me," I said, and looked around for David

He was gone

I couldn&039;t believe it, honestly couldn&039;t He&039;d left me? In the middle of this, when people needed help? What the hell?

No ti about it I cliot to theof the SUV Two college-age boys in there, steroid-puuys okay?"

Their air bags had deployed, and they both had bloody noses, but they seeave me a wordless, shaky thumbs-up as he unbuckled his seat belt

"Get out of your car and off to the side of the road," I said "Watch the power lines, they&039;re live"

I moved on to the next car A wo power lines nervously; they were cos went Power calls to power Sooner or later, they&039;d be drawn to me I could control fire, but I wasn&039;t exactly skilled at it yet, and this was hardly the final exam I wanted Power lines were notoriously difficult to deal with, because of the continuous streay

I put that problem aside and concentrated on the wo her in the car orher If she had any kind of spinal injury

I made the hard decision and left her where she was So for help in the minivan

The power lines suddenly swerved, blindly seekingtheed around to the back bumper of the wreck of the van I tried the door Locked, or jammed The back as broken I leaned in to have a look

There was alimp and at the very least dead to the world, if not dead in fact The wo She was pinned; I could see that even from the back The dashboard had deformed and locked her into the seat like the safety bar on a particularly scary amusement park ride Broken bones, no question about it, and a lot of blood

No way I could get her out alone

I eased around the wreck to the passenger side and slid along the crulass and metal as for the power lines, which had whipped craftily out of sight

"Hey," I said, and risked a look into the shattered passengerat the woed, pleasantly pluht have been pretty; stress and injury had reduced her face to a er screaer than the other

"Help irl"

I hadn&039;t seen any kids in my quick survey "In the back?" I asked She nodded "Okay You hang on Help is coe of ten had a cell phone, the 911 operators had probably been flooded with calls

I tried to see into the back, but it was an inkyNot that I knehat I was going to do when I found her

A slender black shape hissed from the shadows under the van and struck at my feet I screamed and skipped backward, and the power line rolled and writhed at the lih my flesh

Daht it, I sensed another surge, this one coht The lines looked like neon whips up there, and there were at least four of theed left One rolled to cut o If I tried to run, I was dead If I stayed where I was

I tried, hopelessly, to break the flood of power through the metal, but I was out of my element Badly Worse, every eles worse

I jumped The power line hissed over the paveain, coiled over on itself and ca to avoid it twice

I ju to work; I&039;d tioing to coe

Except that I didn&039;t

I didn&039;t come down at all I hovered

Good move, I told myself, and then realized that I hadn&039;t actually done the deed So ently back to clear pavement

A Djinn walked around in front of me and inclined her head in a delicate cold click of beads She was tall, dark-skinned, with hair in delicate and elaborate corn-rows Neon yellow clothes and ernails Eyes as hot and predatory as a hawk&039;s

"Rahel," I breathed "Thanks"

"Don&039;t thank me" She said "David&039;s orders"

The power lines struck for rabbed them in midair and held them They writhed and hissed their fury, but she didn&039;t seehtweight, Rahel And sometimes, as much as Djinn can be, she was my friend