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We left the harbor before the storm made landfall, which was lucky for nearly everyone except, obviously, us The Grand Paradise was a pretty massive vessel, but she also had considerable speed at her command Ships didn’t use old-fashioned screws anymore, but propulsion pods, and she was a lot more maneuverable than I’d suspected; we ation channel and out toward the open sea

It was a good thing the ship was fast That was all that allowed us to exit the man-made cut in time; otherwise, we’d have been boxed in, trapped like a ship in a bottle And the bottle would have been s port didn’t h Not even close The stor after us, brushing Mia another aneurysh it was nowhere near the destruction that could have rained down on therowled and throbbed, louder than I iined they normally would be for pleasure-cruise speeds, and we took on extra speed, crashing through the choppy seas as fast as the captain dared

The storlass s in the first-class lounge and watched the trouble unfolding The storh the driving rain I could see the lights of the towers Poas still on, and that h It would make it

I wasn’t so sure, now that ere sailing full speed ahead, that the same could be said of the Grand Paradise

After a quick Weather Warden reed that ould attack the storm as one unit, but we’d wait until we’d lured it out well away from thewith it Deeper, cooler waters would slow it down, too, which was to our benefit The Grand Paradise was fast enough to keep ahead of the storin of safety would be steadily eroding The winds inside the eyeere ferocious

Effectively, that meant I had an hour off,that ere sailing off on a potentially lethal sort oftheship in a very long ti I hadn’t even dreahed Except for the imminent threat of total destruction, another part warned

Yeah, so, this is n of Cherise, but the downstairs shoas running I hadn’t brought any luggage, soupstairs to the second level, and slipping off hed, and so did I The carpet felt like clouds exported froreement I tried out the bed, and it was definitely fro mattress to the silken sheets

Then I sniffed ht It wasn’t right, subjecting this kind of luxury to the stench ofa shower for days now, and being caught in the cold, pounding rain hadn’t exactly counted

The small bath proved to have a very nice shower, complimentary robes and slippers, and a variety of expensive shampoos and soaps

Score I spent a blissful half hour naked and slippery beneath theaway the sticky exhaustion When , I finally shut down the water - honestly, it was better than a ride at Disney - and belted the robe as I walked down the curving stairs to the first floor

The rooer than ood stuff even the any, fine carpets, luxurious furniture Genuine artwork on the walls I was taking a disbelieving inventory when Cher ca robe, toweling her blond hair dry

"Dude," she said This particular inflection of that many-shaded word ht out of Titanic I’m surprised they didn’t pipe Celine Dion into the shower or soet that song out of h "How’s your rooet the downstairs room? Because I’m the sidekick?"

"Because you’re shorter I didn’t think your little legs could ue out at me So attention, she’d had it pierced A tiny diahting "Are you and David going to be love bunnies and keep ht?"

"Maybe"

"Oooh, promise? Because the porn’s all pay-per-view" She fluttered her eyelashes Cher was silly and goofy and endearing, and her silliness had a point; she kne serious all this was How dangerous She’d signed up to go withback from it, and she didn’t even have any superpowers

Just courage

Iled free and flipped her darope is free, but after that, you pay to play," she said "I’ to jump on your bed, for payback" Halfway up the stairs, she stopped and turned back to look atto die, you know You can smile every once in a while"

I wasn’t so sure about that, but I tried

The Grand Paradise was a floating city I studied the complimentary colored map as I paced the se to stare out the large, very thick s Cher was fixing her hair, which I kneould be an hour-long epic struggle I was content to air-dry All the product in the world wasn’t going today any prettier

The rain had stopped The roo door and a balcony, and when I stepped out on it, salty sea air closed in aroundin the open in my bathrobe, but at the saawk?

Dolphins? Let the and let myself float up and out of my body, which remained motionless at the rail I moved up into the aetheric, where the forces that work on the world can be more clearly seen

The storlow in the darker spectruative sheen This one was all that, and a hazry The menace and fury of it stained the entire aetheric like lethal radiation

Bad Bob wasn’t running the stors were sort of like the weather equivalent of a cruise missile - point, shoot, walk away Sooner or later, they’ll catch up to the target He’d given it a taste of Warden power, and it wanted s, and it would keep on co

It had a particular taste for me

I studied the innerpastel clouds far above it I could see the bright flashes of other Wardens co from the aetheric, and subtle smears of movement that I kneere Djinn, ere istered, except as muddy outlines The ocean itself lit up on this plane like a spiral galaxy, thick with auras and lights All that rich diversity of life in it, trailing beautiful colors, pasts, eloith ancient history, steeped in bands of color and power

Meshtless on the aetheric

I felt a violent shove froain - a flat force, like a, but I could feel so

I twisted aside, and the shearing force just clipped me this time That orse, because it wasn’t distributed evenly overinstead, and a bolt of pain lanced through me, odd and blurry

I shouldn’t be able to feel physical pain on the aetheric And nobody should be able to attack like this I’d never seen anything like it before, and I’d been around the block Hell, I’d gotten body-slammed by the unexpected so often they’d probably na of the Warden hospital after me