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When I looked over, the dying chih I just love nature

"There’s ," Rahel said quietly She had dropped all hint of being ahly acadeest you find a way out"

My car was roof-deep in the road out there, and I didn’t think it was ever co out, or that it would be in any way drivable if somehow it did It was for damn sure that three of us wouldn’t fit on the s--these chimeras--which would rip anyone apart in seconds once they were at ground level Even Cassiel Two Djinn couldn’t carry three of us to safety without taking us through the aetheric, which would likely kill us anyway

"Right," I said "Rahel, take Rocha David, take Cassiel Get theas if you have to David, you can coical one to re that outclassed Luis Rocha’s not inconsiderable talents, and even Cassiel’s, which was limited by her connection to him I could pull Earth, Fire, and Weather to defend s were killable, I felt confident I could hold out

David looked as if he wanted very, very badly to say no, several tiht Luis and Cassiel were vulnerable here, and they’d saved our lives before They deserved our help now

He gave old blaze up in his eyes Truly a Djinn, in thatto metallic bronze "Don’t die," he said flatly

"Promise me"

"I promise," I said "Get out of here I’ll wait"

He kissed ry, desperate kind of kiss that leftand alive, my lips sunburned with the force of his emotion My husband I touched his cheek and said, "I will always love you, David"

He kissed my palm "There is no force in creation that will keep me away You know that"

"I know"

"Then wait for me"

He turned, fury in his movements, and threw his arms around Cassiel

Then he launched hian to fly

Rahel watched hio, then turned her attention to me "Until later, my sistah" She blew me a kiss, put her arrade froh at the discomfort on his face, and then she flexed her knees and they were gone, too

Another e of the roof

Tio to work

David didn’t come back

Neither did Rahel

I paced lare of the Vegas sun I had ulped down as the chi Mother Earth must have run out of bears and mountain lions, because around noon, a new breed ca

And these used to be hu at first, because my brain refused to process the infor I had to face it once the first of them scaled the wall, way

too quickly, and used its human hands to pull itself up over the lip and its scorpion’s feet to race toward , foa driven mad clearly hadn’t affected its razor-sharp reflexes I dropped the juice box I was sucking on and pulled down lightning--overkill, but this thing was co, and my skin craith the idea it could even exist in the same time and space with me

I zapped it into a blackenedwith the blast, and I felt singed and disoriented, but oddly better for ridding the world of it

That was before I heard the clattering, and realized that there were a lot of thesein steady, relentless strea, I saw that two e on one side, and at least three on the other At least the damn bear/lion creatures had been slower

The roof wasn’t going to work any longer

I started fires around the roof line to giveThe fire should have slowed them down, and maybe it did, for all of fifteen seconds or so, but then they ran shrieking--huh the walls of flaers upraised and ready

No ti fancy I had to evacuate

I levitatedupdraft, and--apprehensively--over the fla up the building This wasn’t so; short bursts of this kind of thing were fine, but if I faded now, I’d be dropping s at the base of the wall I had to keep going I had to hope that it would take theone and to find , sweaty work, and ht froasping breaths, holding dia the forces in delicate balance as I sped along, ski over the desert at the speed of maybe thirty miles per hour Not exactly fast, but I didn’t dare push faster Every bit of forward motion I added made it harder to coies I’d never done this for longer than a minute, at best

I held it for almost fifteen minutes before my concentration snapped, and I tumbled out of the sky toward a razor-sharp stand of brush cactus At the last second, I altered course and landed in sand instead, and hit the ground running It was good I did, because when I looked back I saw thatdark

Fire ants My very touch on the ground was bringing the to the surface

Not just fire ants, either The desert’s defenses were on high alert, and I had to dodge swarms of smaller, nonchi out of their holes ahead ofeven less so, but I didn’t have a choice When I reached out with Earth powers to try to clear s worse, as if the entire wildlife was sensitized to the presence of a Warden in their s, and I knew I’d have to stop soon, or at least slon

But I wasn’t sure how I could, considering the fierce antibody reaction to e Not only that, but as I looked back over my shoulder I saw movement about a thousand feet behind as was a long, long way off It looked drab and overbuilt in the desert shi in or out, and although there was a road up ahead, about a half a mile out, there were no cars on it It was eerily quiet

No sound except for the overhead shriek of hunting birds, which made me realize how vulnerable I was to attack from that avenue I didn’t want to have to kill