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It was like hitting a bed full of the softest down feathers It exploded up in a fluffy cloud, and I sank, slowly
Drifted I felt weightless, floating
I felt oddly giddy, and realized I was holding htly shut When I opened theasped in tasted dusty
It was dark
I reached out and felt loose, drifting particles, fine as talcu round in a shower of powder-fine quicksand
Oh The other Warden had been an Earth Warden Not to mention favorably inclined I’d have to thank so-time
I took one step forward, and keeled over toSo dust clouds
I looked up to see the face of my savior
" Marion?"’ I paused to cough up some more of the desert "Jesus-"
"Breathe," she advised me
Marion Bearheart looked pretty much exactly as she had back at the Denny’s, before I’d been driven off to die and go to Vegas even down to the black-fringed jacket Her hair was still neatly braided, tied off with turquoise-beaded accents She looked untroubled by the stor overhead, or the fact that I’d just plunged a couple of round like the stupidest Acapulco cliff diver ever
"Thanks," I finally rit Uck I so needed a toothbrush She gaveup into the clouds "Can you stop that thing?"
"Not really" I wiped led up to my feet Bare feet Damn My clothes were in tatters I looked like a reject from Les Miserables "The Djinn up there has a Demon Mark"
She nodded, as if she already knew that It was always hard to tell just what Marion knew, because nothing really seemed to surprise her all that much She took out a bottle froh to survive lass She held it balanced on her palm and looked up into the storm
"Keep it busy," she said "Keep it off of ed"
The clouds boiled, as if they sensed what she was about to do I heard the wind start to howl, and kneas co for us I braced myself, but even so, the sheer fury of the blast that hit ed coat flapped and belled, and her braid frayed into waving strands of gray hair Sand whipped away froht on the other side of the fence, where Las Vegas really began, I saw streetlights pop and transfor?
I felt the stor its attention on us, and shook the residual haze away to focus on the aetheric I couldn’t do ht its effects flip polarities, break up the wind shears The lightning continued to flare, but I was able to keep it in sheets, high up in the ionosphere
"Be thou bound to"Hang on!" I screamed, and threw up a wall of still air around the two of us, a lame-ass attempt at a shield that shattered under the fury of the Djinn’s attack Marion clutched the bottle and held on tonice and solid for ust that hit us even throughknocked us back at least ten feet, lifted us off the ground, and flung us flat on our backs I irabbed for Marion She still had the bottle
"Be thou bound to"-the wind hit us again, lashing, and I felt the hot ozone burn of a lightning strike trying to form I focused hard on it Marion sed a mouthful of wind and choked out-"ht, but I didn’t have enough ti clouds and headed straight for me, accompanied by a curtain of sideways-blown rain that felt like tiny silver nails on my cold skin
It opened its ry for warm, fresh screams I had another flashback to the black, slick taste of a de itself into ain
The Djinn whirled in the wind, picking up a lethal dose of rocks, sand, thorn-spiked branches, tin cans
It was going to strip the skin right off of us
I hit it with the strength of panic, co it backward and into a shredding minitornado that trapped the Djinn inside
"Finish!" I screamed I didn’t know if Marion could even hear me; I couldn’t see her, in the confused darkness withwildly over my eyes
Whether she could hear me or not, I definitely heard her
"Be thou bound toout, loud and clear, and there was a sudden sense of indrawn breath and a pressure drop so sharp it , I saw blackness strea into the mouth of the bottle in Marion ’s hand
She sla in convulsive gasps There was blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, and as she slipped the bottle into her coat pocket, she hugged her right arm close to her ribs
The wind blew on for another few seconds, then faltered and began to calm down Overhead, the bruise-colored clouds, stained by sodiuainst each other
"You okay?" I asked her My legs were shaking, and I realized how cold I was My heart galloped on, ignoring theover Hearts are funny that way Prove it, it was saying
"Yes," she said She sounded faint and exhausted
She had reason, I supposed-she hadn’t been blown a couple of ht down, but she definitely had carried her weight Not toon the desert floor "Broken rib, I think It’ll mend The boy did this, you know Broke the bottle, freed the Demon Marked Djinn He has to be stopped"
I extended a hand She needed a lot of help getting up With her hair blown into a wild tangle, she lookedMarion I knew and feared
"How did you get here?" I asked The faint se of pain to it
"Never mind that now" She probed her side, and winced "You need to getfor you, and I’d rather not take on anyone else just now, if you don’tto stay here, we could use your help The boy needs to be neutralized Soon"