Firestorm (9 page)

Lewis nodded silently, clearly worried at Paul's state. “Do you want me to—?”

Paul waved it aside irritably. “I'll live, and you've got better things to do with your power than heal my booboos. Listen, kids, we need to decide some things.”

Lewis glanced at me, then at Paul. “Maybe this isn't the best time.”

“It's the only time,” Paul sighed.

“You need rest—”

“No. I need to retire,” Paul said bluntly. “The thing is, I can't handle this anymore. It's out of control, and I'm not the guy for the job. I couldn't get their attention out there earlier, Jo, and you know it. You did.”

“Not me,” I replied, and held up my hands to push the implied offer back his direction. “I can't stay. David gave me some ideas on how we might be able to solve this without a lot of further bloodshed, but I need to do it alone.”

“Yeah? How do you know you can trust him?” Paul demanded.

I met his eyes and held them. “I know. And I have a plan, which is more than anybody else has right now.” Well, more or less. At least, I had a place to start. Didn't seem to be the moment to worry him with details, frankly.

Paul sighed and turned his gaze to Lewis, who straightened up fast. “Oh, no,” Lewis said. “I'm not going to take command. That's your job.”

“Hell, kid, I inherited the damn job, and I never wanted it in the first place. I'm a field guy. Now I'm a field guy treading water. I want you to take it, Lewis. I
need
you to take it. You're the one guy everybody trusts around here, because you're the one guy who walked away from all this rather than play the games.”

“He's right,” I said quietly. “It should be you.” I bit my lip, because it felt like being a traitor to say so—a traitor to Paul, who deserved my support even if he didn't want it, and a traitor to Lewis, who patently didn't want the responsibility. Especially not now. “This is what you were born to do, Lewis. We all knew it, right from the start. And—there might be something else.”

“What?” That had both of them looking at me. Paul looked as if he really couldn't stand another dangerous surprise.

“David once told me that Jonathan used to be like you, Lewis. He had all three powers. And in some way, he was more…connected. To the Earth. So maybe you can work on that angle.”

Paul nodded. “The sooner the better. If the Earth wakes up, takes a good hard look at what we've been doing to her this last ten thousand years without anybody to do some explaining, there won't be enough left of us to form a decent fossil record.”

“Who says she won't like us?” Lewis murmured.

Paul raised his eyebrows. “Do
you
like us?”

“Some of us are pretty winsome.” I could have sworn Lewis looked toward me, under those long lashes.

“Wow, thanks for the compliment,” I shot back, largely sarcastically. He gave me a look that meant he was getting a particularly interesting mental picture, probably nothing suitable for public consumption. He shook it off with a rueful smile.

“Where are you going?” Lewis asked, back on track again.

“Seacasket.”

“Where the fuck is Seacasket?” Paul cut in, eyes closed. “Sounds depressing.”

“It was someplace I was sent when I was a Djinn.”

“When Yvette and Kevin had you?” That had caught Lewis off guard. “That business with Yvette wasn't my finest hour, sorry. I got a little distracted—”

“Distracted?” I let out a laugh that really wasn't much amused. “The way I remember it, you were pretty focused, Lewis. Somewhere south of your belt buckle.”

“Yeah, thanks for the memories.” He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Anyway, I was pretty much out of commission for most of that. You want to tell us about Seacasket?”

Not really. I sat and crossed my legs, then my arms. Defensive body language. Remembering Yvette gave me a seriously sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, because I couldn't think about her slinky, skanky sexiness without also remembering how she'd looked at the end, when Jonathan had remorselessly carried out her stepson's orders and crushed her skull.

“Okay.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Kevin, Yvette's stepson, was my master while I was a Djinn. She didn't want me. She wanted David. She had a whole kinky-sex-and-bondage thing going for him.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Seacasket,” Lewis prompted.

Oh, I
so
didn't want to remember. “She wanted David, and he wasn't showing up for her to claim the way she'd intended. She figured the way to get him was…to make him come and stop me from doing something terrible.”

“In Seacasket.”

I nodded. “It's a little town in Maine. I didn't know why she picked it, I only knew that she had every reason to believe that David would show up to defend it. It was a trap. For him. So she could…” I couldn't go on. I didn't want to remember that part, didn't want to think about her getting her hands on David and doing the things she did. Lewis looked away again, as if what was on my face was too private to witness.

I'm okay with what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms, and David's not my property (in any sense anymore), but dammit, David hadn't been a willing participant, then or ever. He'd hated it. Loathed it. And she'd taken great pleasure in the rape of his will, not to mention his body. I could never stop hating her for that. Never.

“I remember something Jonathan said once,” Lewis said contemplatively. Jonathan wouldn't even give the time of day to most humans, but Lewis was no doubt on Djinn speed dial…. “There are other things out there. Things even the Djinn are afraid of.”

Paul was watching us the way you'd watch a tennis match, and there was a bit of a spark in his eyes again. Not quite out of the game yet. “There's something in the Warden records,” he said. “Early writings. Nobody thought the translation was correct. There was a reference to some kind of higher form of Djinn. Nobody's ever found any trace of one, though.”

“Think that's what Jonathan was talking about?” I asked Lewis. He shrugged.

“Don't know. I think you're right. You've got the best shot of anyone, especially if David's at least trying to help you.” He paused to look at Paul inquiringly—a formal gesture, and a kind one.

Paul nodded. “You do work best out there, kiddo. Go do your stuff. I'll stick with Lewis, help manage things here. And Jo?”

I looked up at him, and was caught by the intent focus of his eyes.

“I don't care how into him you are, you be careful of this Djinn of yours,” Paul said. “Don't trust him.”

“Funny,” I said, and opened the office door to leave. “He said pretty much the same thing himself.”

 

The last time I'd seen Lewis, back in Florida, he hadn't been alone, and so it didn't come as that much of a surprise to run into his traveling companion out in the hallway.

Kevin Prentiss had started out a dangerous, disaffected kid with a grudge and a rogue Djinn, and had ended up a surprisingly solid citizen, at least so long as Lewis exerted a good influence on him. Lewis had appointed himself Kevin's guardian and mentor. I wasn't too shocked by that, either; he'd always been the kind to take on wounded birds and outlaws. But it was still a pretty brave thing to do, considering that Kevin's last official guardian had ended up really, really dead, and Kevin hadn't been all that sorry about it, either.

Not that I could blame Kevin. I couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of terrible life the kid—seventeen, maybe?—had had with the psychopathic Yvette before David and I had come along to receive a short, radioactive burst of that horror.

Still, the first thing I thought when I saw Kevin was that I'd never seen him smiling before, at least not like that. It was a full, charming, sweet kind of smile, one that lit up his eyes and changed his normally surly expression into something that would melt the heart of any teen angel. Oh, he still looked slacker-chic, all longish tangled hair and sallow skin and slouching body language.

But that
smile.

One instant later, the smile made sense, because Cherise was with him.

She looked freshly scrubbed, and she was restored to her usual glossy perfection—hair artlessly tousled (but perfectly ordered), makeup flawless. She wore a tight little top that showed off a tanned midriff, and low-rise jeans that were so low, she ought to be handing out referrals to her bikini waxer. A real pocket-size bombshell, from her head to her newly enameled toenails.

Kevin was—of course—enthralled. Cherise didn't seem to mind that, but frankly, I didn't understand why. Kevin was a bad boy, just not in the generally accepted attractive way. He was trouble in faded baggy jeans, with slouched shoulders and an attitude that sneered in the face of authority. Okay, so that was exactly what most girls Cherise's age—younger than mine, okay?—found sexy. But still.
Kevin?
Cherise could have literally any guy she wanted. I was perplexed by her sudden turnaround on the issue of quality date material.

And then I thought,
She wanted to get back in the door.
Being with Kevin did the job nicely, because he wasn't accustomed to taking no for an answer, and besides, he had the long arm of Lewis to back him up. Lord, I hoped she wasn't quite that manipulative, to come on to a guy just to get an invitation back in through the front door, but I wouldn't put it past her…

Or myself, come to think of it.

“Hello, Kevin,” I said with a reasonable degree of welcome in my voice. The sweetly angelic smile twisted in on itself.

“Hey,” Kevin mumbled at the floor. “Seen Lewis around?”

“Yeah, he's in there. He'll be out in a minute.” I couldn't bring myself to the point of small talk. I mean, I appreciated that Kevin was a complete and total jerk sometimes, but it was hard to get over having been his Djinn. Even that, I could have gotten over, if it hadn't been for the stupid French maid outfits he'd forced me to wear, the better to ogle me by.

He must have taken my silence for accustion, and looked up to glare. “Lewis brought me. I didn't just show up or anything.”

“I'm glad he did. We need you here,” I said. I meant it. Kevin had a pretty impressive talent, when he wasn't trying to be a jerk about it, and we couldn't afford to be choosing only the nice people with good personalities.

Lewis, who'd come up behind me, nodded. I could see his face out of the corner of my eye. He was standing just a little too close, and I could feel the feedback burn of our powers responding. He didn't move away. “Kev, they could use you in the last conference room. They're talking about fire control. You can help.” He looked at Cherise, glanced over to me. “And—you can—?”

“Cater,” she said brightly. “Gotta feed all these people. Bottled water, coffee, sodas, ice—I'm hell on wheels with logistics. Um, as long as somebody has a credit card to use. Any volunteers? I'm looking for something with a platinum limit…”

“Cherise,” I said, and reached out to take her hand. “You really don't need to be here. You should go home. I mean it. Everything's okay.”

She studied me for a long few seconds. “I never knew you were so good a liar,” she said. “Everything's not okay. Kevin told me. I saw a lot of it for myself anyway. Things are all screwed up, and you people are the ones who can set them right again. I want to help.”

“You're not—look, this isn't about you. It's just that you don't have the kind of skills that this needs to—”

“Give me a credit card and phone line, I'll show you some skills. Step off my thing.” She stared me right down, turned to Lewis, and gave him the same treatment. “Wow, you guys just don't get it, do you? This isn't your planet. It's
our
planet. And you may be all kick-ass powerful superheroes, but that doesn't mean you don't need our help. Well, my help, anyway. Because I
am
the goddess of getting food delivered, and don't you forget it.”

Lewis quirked an eyebrow and half a smile, and looked at me. I shrugged. “Girl's got a point,” I said. “Maybe we need somebody with a little…practical perspective.”

Kevin shot Cherise a thumbs-up. “Hey, let me know when you get the munchies ready. I could eat.”

She made a shooing motion. Kevin ambled off in the direction Lewis had indicated…slowly enough to assert his independence, of course. He really was a gifted kid. I couldn't exactly call him a
good
kid. Maybe he'd turn out all right—he certainly had been given the chances. But I couldn't quite get the memories out of my head of what he'd been like when he'd had power over me. What he'd been like when he'd had power over his stepmother.

He'd liked using it. Dangerous, for a Warden.

I nudged Lewis with an elbow once Kevin was out of earshot. “You're keeping tabs on Teen Psycho, right?”

“He's not that bad.”

“Lewis…”

“Yes, I'm keeping tabs on him.” He sounded resigned. “Somebody needs to. Listen, I hate to rush you, but I can handle things here. What do you need?”

“Need?…”

“To make it to Seacasket and check things out.” He gave me that not-smile smile. “Fast car?”

“Oh, you think? Maybe I can borrow Cherise's. She's got a cherry Mustang that pretty much rips up the road…. Well, it used to be cherry. I think the last drive put a few dents in it.”

“No need to do that,” he said, and dug in the pocket of his blue jeans for a set of keys that he flung my direction. I caught them out of the air.

“This better not be an SUV,” I warned. Because Lewis had an affinity for that sort of thing. I was an on-road kind of girl.

He flashed me a full grin this time. “How about a vintage SS Camaro? Midnight blue and black? I bought it in Jersey just for you. Somehow, I just knew you were going to need wheels.”