Gale Force (30 page)

Lewis, Kevin, and I were bundled into an FBI helicopter—not my favorite form of transportation— and flown to the Miami field office, where we were left in a severe-looking room for a few more hours.

Dinner was served, and apart from its being warm and edible, I don’t remember much about it. We barely talked. There didn’t seem to be all that much to say.

When David reappeared, he came with reinforcements—six Djinn. One of them was Venna, which made me smile in relief; one was the tough-looking specimen David had identified to me as Roy, when we’d seen him earlier—he’d been Rahel’s hypothetical backup. I wondered where he’d been when he was needed the most.

Zenaya was the third. I didn’t know the other three, but they all had the otherworldly grace and glitter that I associated with the most powerful of the Djinn, Old or New.

‘‘The Oracles are protected,’’ David said. ‘‘Ashan’s taking care of it, and Wardens we trust have been assigned alongside them as backup.’’

‘‘He won’t like that,’’ I noted.

‘‘He doesn’t have to like it. I’ve explained the necessity. ’’ There was a cold, angry shimmer in David’s eyes, and I wondered exactly how civil
that
discussion had been. ‘‘We intend to go and get Rahel.’’

‘‘You can’t,’’ I said. I was calm about it, and authoritative, but all too aware that David might not be in any mood to listen to reason. ‘‘She’s bait. You go charging in there, that’s exactly what they want— especially you, Conduit Boy.’’

He didn’t answer me, but he didn’t argue, either. He was biding his time. I knew I couldn’t get him to just stand by and risk Rahel’s life, not under these circumstances. Time was running out. If I wanted to avoid watching David throw his life away, I needed a plan, and a damn good one.

And all of a sudden, looking at him, I had one. Granted, I was operating on little sleep, too much adrenaline, and next to coma-levels of caffeine imbalance,but it
sounded
good. I bit my lip, running it over in my head, and made a
hold on
gesture to David as I beckoned Lewis toward a convenient corner of the room.

‘‘What is it?’’ he asked. He sounded just as stressed as I felt.

‘‘I think I know what will bring them out in the open. We need to get the Sentinels to come after us again, not the other way around. If we allow them to choose the ground—’’

‘‘Yeah, I get it. The Djinn don’t even know how much of a disadvantage they have.’’ Lewis leaned closer. ‘‘It’s crazy, isn’t it? Your idea?’’

‘‘Pretty damn crazy.’’

‘‘Tell.’’

I did.
Crazy
didn’t really exactly cover it, as I listened to the words tumble out of my mouth.
Insane,
that was closer. Also,
stupidly suicidal,
but that was par for the course with me. At least it would be consistent.

Lewis stared at me as if he couldn’t quite believe what I’d said, and in truth, I wasn’t sure if I was believing it, either. Then he said, slowly, ‘‘It could work. It allows us to assemble all the Wardens in one place, choose the ground, protect the Djinn, offer the Sentinels a target they can’t afford to pass up. . . .’’

Oh God, it actually
was
a good plan. Damn. I’d been half hoping he’d shoot it out of the air. Instead, it looked as if I was going to have to kick my shopping into high gear.

‘‘Right,’’ I said, and turned to David. ‘‘How do you feel about getting married tomorrow?’’

I had no idea Djinn could look so blank. Venna turned to David and said, with the perfect blend of alarm and puzzlement, ‘‘Are you sure she isn’t insane?’’

David continued with the blank look for a few more seconds, and then the light dawned warm in his eyes, and he slowly smiled.

‘‘Actually,’’ he said, ‘‘I’m fairly certain she is, and that is exactly why I’m marrying her.’’

Chapter Thirteen

One nice thing about having the Djinn Conduit on your side was receiving no arguments from the rank and file—no arguments of any substance, anyway. The other Djinn still thought we were crazy, but generally decided that was our personal business.

What they weren’t so wild about was the idea that we weren’t going to charge off to Rahel’s rescue, but I knew they weren’t tactically inept; they knew if we played the game the Sentinels had set in motion, we would all pay the price.

I also knew how hard it was going to be for them to stand by and sacrifice Rahel for a tactical point. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. I knew David, and I knew that making those choices was just as impossibly hard for him as it was for me.

Part of what we planned was, again, complete insanity. Lewis carried out the first part of it at four o’clock, on the steps of the Miami FBI field office.

We called a press conference. To say it was well attended would be to say that the hottest club in LA had a bit of a wait to get in. I’d expected to draw attention, but as we walked through the lobby with a flying escort of FBI agents, Homeland Security, and anxiously hovering, nameless other governmental representatives, I could hear the roar of the crowd outside.

One of the no-name governmental types, nattily turned out in a nicely tailored suit and a two-hundred-dollar haircut, pushed in front of us and physically threw himself against the glass doors leading out, facing us down. ‘‘Wait!’’ he blurted. The parade trickled to a halt, and Lewis and I glanced at each other. We’d had bets on how long it would take for the cold feet to manifest. I was about to make a cool twenty bucks. Sweet. ‘‘Are you sure about this? You’re sure there’s no other way? The chaos—the fear—’’

‘‘Let me put it this way,’’ Lewis said. ‘‘You had half the news media covering the meltdown out at the motel earlier today, and every phone line to every possible agency has been jammed ever since, demanding an explanation. Do you want to try to coordinate some big lie that won’t get found out, at this point? Because I’d be happy to put your name forward as the guy in charge.’’

No-Name Nice Suit Guy swallowed and lowered his arms. He straightened his lapels with an unconscious gesture and stepped out of the way.

‘‘Damn,’’ Lewis said. ‘‘Kind of hoped he’d go for it, actually.’’

Fat chance. This wasn’t a hot potato; it was the entire state of Idaho, fresh out of the microwave.

‘‘Here goes,’’ Lewis said, and opened the door.

The noise washed over us in a wave, and we walked out into a whiteout of flashbulbs and video spotlights. It was like hitting a psychic wall, and if I’d been on my own, I’d have caved fast and hard.
God.
I couldn’t focus on anything; the crowd was a faceless mass of shouting faces, all blurring into a snarling, hostile entity. I transferred my probably shell-shocked stare to the buildings on the far side of the street. Somebody was in an office, backlit, looking out at us. Nice to have that kind of distance.

The FBI special agent in charge stepped up to the bank of hastily taped-together microphones and made some brief remarks, nothing incriminating for the agency, and introduced Lewis by name, adding that he was with ‘‘a special branch of the United Nations known as the Wardens.’’ That was it. He got out of the way, ignoring the shouted avalanche of questions.

Lewis took a deep breath and stepped up. He was tall, imposing, and had the kind of personal aura that made people take notice, when he deigned to use it. He used it now. I saw ripples of quiet move through the crowd, and reporters lean forward to catch every word he had to say.

‘‘Earlier today some of you witnessed a battle between two opposing sides in a conflict,’’ he said. ‘‘As you reported, there were casualties on both sides. I’m here to explain to you what that conflict is, what it’s about, and how you can help.’’

I expected a torrent of questions, but the crowd stayed still in the pause. Maybe they were stunned that they were actually going to be given information. Or maybe Lewis had sneakily exerted some Earth Warden influence on them. I used some myself,
on
myself, to slow my racing pulse and get myself ready for the inevitable.

‘‘The Wardens are part of the United Nations,’’ Lewis said, ‘‘in the sense that we are a worldwide organization, independent of governments but working in cooperation with them whenever possible. There is a world around you, a world you see every day without knowing the truth behind it. At its most basic level, the forces at work in the universe, or at least on this planet, are real and tangible.’’ He paused again and took the leap. ‘‘We are the ones who help control and shape that world. Without the Wardens, the disasters you report on, the floods and hurricanes, forest fires and earthquakes—all these things would be far, far worse.’’

Somebody laughed. A few others took it up, and it grew in a ripple through the crowd. ‘‘You’re kidding. This is what you have to tell us?’’ somebody shouted from beneath the glare of a video spotlight. ‘‘Where’s Gandalf?’’

That was pretty much my cue, although I would have preferred Galadriel. I stepped forward. The FBI had furnished me with a change of wardrobe—not my normal style, but workable. It included a navy blue pencil skirt, a severely cut jacket, a white shirt and serviceable granny pumps. I’d put my hair up in a bun, to complete the image of competence and authority, sexy-schoolteacher style.

I pointed up at the sky, which was full of lightly scudding altocumulus clouds—nothing out of the ordinary for Miami.

Lewis waited, patient as a stone, giving them absolutely no indication what was going to happen. We’d agreed that it needed to be big, spectacular, and easily captured on videotape.

I slowed the progress of the clouds and began packing energy into the system, careful to balance the forces as I went. I knew the Ma’at were standing by in case I screwed it up, but it was a point of pride not to need them to clean up after me. The shape of the clouds began to change, from sheer and wispy to solid white, then gray as the moisture condensed. Altocumulus.

Then nimbocumulus.

Once I had the system packed as full as I dared, while still remaining in control, I opened both my hands, palms up. I could feel the dawning sentience in the clouds above, as the energy accumulation granted it some very basic level of awareness, of hunger. Of
anger
.

What I was about to do was dangerous, and not just to me. If I got it wrong, there could be a lot of collateral damage.

Easy,
I heard David whisper on the aetheric.
I’m here.

I called the lightning.

Florida is the lightning capital of the U.S. With the daily, constant interaction of wind, water, sandy soil, and marshland, every reporter in the crowd had probably seen close lightning strikes.

None of them had ever seen
this
.

The bolt streaked down out of the clouds, long and purple, crackling with energy, and broke into two jagged prongs. It hit my outstretched palms exactly on target, and for a long, long second, I kept it there as the video cameras and photographers documented the event.

Then I clapped my palms together, and the lightning vanished. Thunder rolled loud enough to rattle windows, but there was no other visible damage, apart from a slight reddening on my skin. I’d deliberately kept the lightning to the bare minimum voltage necessary to stage a visible demonstration—about forty kiloamperes.

But
damn,
it ached inside me. I kept my smile in place with an effort, and hoped I wasn’t sweating too much under the lights.

Lewis said, in the same dry, calm tone, ‘‘This is Joanne Baldwin. She is a Weather Warden. The demonstration you’ve just seen is one of several we’ll conduct for you over the next few days. The rest will be under controlled conditions, and you can provide your own scientific experts if you’d care to do so, to document and question the experiments. But ultimately, you’re going to find that what we’re telling you is the real thing. We can control the weather. We can control the land. We can control fire. The problem is, all these things
fight back
.’’

Nobody seemed to know what kind of questions to ask, exactly. Already, they were scrambling to find a logical explanation for what they’d seen—some kind of magic trick would be the most likely one they’d land on. I was sure whoever was the most outrageous street magician
du jour
would be calling in to debunk what I’d already done.

But what gave it weight was the silent presence of the FBI behind me, and the fact that we were standing on the steps of a government building.

Eventually, somebody found a question that made enough sense to voice. ‘‘How do you control the weather? Is it some kind of machine, or . . . ?’’ He sounded as if he couldn’t quite believe he was even asking the question. I understood that, too. An entire street full of very logical people had just been tipped over the edge of a cliff, and were still trying to figure out which way was up.

‘‘That’s the other part of the story,’’ Lewis said. ‘‘The simple answer is magic. The more complicated answer is that the world around you is not how you imagine it to be—it’s deeper and stranger than you know. For many thousands of years, the Wardens have guarded humanity, and we’ve done it in silence, in secret. But it’s time to come out in the open, because now we have a very serious threat to deal with.’’

‘‘What kind of threat? Does this have anything to do with what happened at the motel?’’

I wondered if the question was a plant. Lewis wasn’t exactly above that kind of thing, bless his soul. He wasn’t particularly worried about our impartial image.

‘‘Let me tell you,’’ Lewis said, ‘‘about the Djinn, and the Sentinels.’’

David and his strike team misted into view at the bottom of the steps, right in front of the cameras.

All hell broke loose.

We’d intended to grab the world stage, and we did. The feverish speculation occupied every news channel, every broadcast on the local level. Experts talked about a massive hoax; scientists sneered; magicians explained how all we’d shown on television could have been done by mirrors and illusion.