Gale Force (5 page)

Down we went, sliding through what felt like molten glass, and then I saw the black otherworldly glitter below and pulled on Lewis’s hand to let him know. He nodded, and we touched down on something that wasn’t ground, wasn’t surface, wasn’t anything really except a shadow of reality.

And there it was: the black thorn of glass, driven deep.

Lewis mimed that he was going to grab it. I shook my head. He mimed again. I shook my head again.

Fat lot of good that did. He grabbed it anyway.

Lewis held on for longer than I had—long enough that I began to think he was actually going to manage to yank the damn thing out—but then was thrown back, just as I’d been. Well, more violently. And he hit and bounced and drifted, seemingly unaware of anything until I grabbed on and began hauling him upward, away from that . . . thing. I couldn’t explain why, but it gave me the serious creeps. It
glittered
. It looked deadly sharp, no matter what angle you looked at it; there was a sense of purpose to it that made my skin crawl.

It meant to be there. And it meant to defend itself.

Lewis came awake again, thrashing, and broke free of my hold. I fumbled for him, but he was already swimming away from me, heading back down.

Crap.
This wasn’t going well.

I couldn’t yell on the aetheric, but I damn well felt like shouting. I pushed after him, feeling sick from the pressure, and grabbed hold of his ankle. He shook free of my grip and kept going, arriving back in front of the black shard. He didn’t touch it this time; he just drifted slowly around it, taking in every detail.

And then he went up, into another aetheric plane higher than this one. I tried to follow, but I slammed into a glass ceiling that no amount of trying would get me past. I was anchored in the real world, and that line stretched only so far.

I had no idea how Lewis was able to do it, but then that was why he was at the top of the Warden food chain, and I wasn’t.

I waited impatiently, and in a matter of minutes he was back, falling back down. He grabbed my hand and we plunged through the aetheric levels, back down to the real world . . . into our bodies.

I coughed, gasped, and felt my head pound in time with my rapid heartbeat. I was covered in sticky, cold sweat. In fact, I felt downright sick.

So did Lewis, clearly. He looked just as bad as I felt, if not worse, and when I touched him, his skin was ice-cold.

Worse, his hands looked . . . burned, flushed bright red on the palms. He wiped them on his jeans in a convulsive movement, as if there were something horrible on them that he wanted to get off, but it was clear from the way he was shaking that it went deeper than surface slime.

‘‘Christ,’’ he said, and leaned his head back against the whiplash rest. ‘‘What the
hell
?’’

‘‘And here I was hoping you’d have some bright, easy answer,’’ I said. ‘‘Because I’ve got no clue, man. I’ve never seen anything like it before.’’

‘‘Have you shown it to David?’’

I hadn’t, and as he mentioned it, I wondered
why
I hadn’t. And why he hadn’t immediately sensed it. Strange.

‘‘No,’’ I said slowly. ‘‘And I—don’t think I should. Don’t you think?’’

Lewis nodded, not looking at me. His face had gone the color of old newspaper, and his lips looked gray. ‘‘I don’t, either,’’ he said softly. ‘‘Why is that?’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘Why do we think that? Wouldn’t we usually ask the Djinn to take a look?’’

Usually, but this time . . . it just didn’t feel . . .

I had no answer. I just stared at him, then shrugged. Lewis took a deep breath, started the Hummer’s engine, and pulled back out onto the road.

The rest of the trip was spent in silence.

‘‘You’re kidding,’’ I said as Lewis negotiated the Hummer into a parking space built for a Hyundai. ‘‘We’re meeting at
Denny’s
? Was Chuck E. Cheese already booked for the president?’’

‘‘Emergency meeting,’’ he said. ‘‘This was the closest place we could find where we could have some privacy. Besides, I could use some food—how about you?’’

Well, I supposed I could use a Grand Slam or a Moon Over My Hammy or something.

Getting out of the truck in the narrow space between two other vehicles proved to require moves illegal in some Southern states. I managed not to scratch the other car, which was good, because it was a Ferrari. Bright red.

Denny’s had suffered little or no damage, as far as I could tell. Maybe they’d been outside of the shake zone. Plate glass windows were intact; diners still sat at tables; waitstaff circulated with trays and plates. Lewis and I walked in, out of the cloying humidity and into the frigid embrace of air-conditioning. I shivered a little—still fighting off the chill I’d gotten on the aetheric, I guessed.

Lewis led me back to a private room, one with sliding doors. Inside were four of the most powerful people in the Southeast, never mind Florida, and they were all digging in to breakfast.

I half recognized Luis Rocha from his signature on the aetheric; he was medium height, medium build, a bit broad in the shoulders. His skin was a dark, warm bronze color, and his eyes and hair were black. The hair was long, trailing down around his face and past his collar. His sleeveless gray muscle T-shirt revealed strong, defined arms inked up with flames and intimidation, but his smile was warm and rather sweet.

He was the only Earth Warden in the room. Two of the others—Sheryl Brewer and Nicholas Mancini— were both Weather Wardens, solid technicians, if not spectacular. Usually, trouble in Florida came from weather, after all—it wasn’t known as Hurricane Central for nothing.

The fourth was, of course, a Fire Warden. Nobody I wanted to see. She no doubt went with the red Ferrari out front, and her name was Janette de Winter. Good at her job, but my God, didn’t she know it. We exchanged narrow smiles. She was eating a delicate little fruit cocktail thingy. Even now, in the midst of crisis, she was perfectly put together—a tailored white suit, long tanned legs, open-toed pumps showing a perfect pedicure. Her makeup had that airbrushed quality of having been put on in layers, until she looked more like an animated magazine cover than a human being.

Maybe I was just feeling catty because I was sweaty, bruised, and covered in dust.

She raised an eyebrow at my appearance, looking coolly amused. Nope. It wasn’t because I looked like crap. I felt catty because I just plain disliked the woman.

Lewis and I took seats at the table. He slid in next to the Weather Wardens, leaving me stuck next to de Winter, but also next to Rocha, who winked at me as he shoveled syrup-drenched waffles into his mouth.

The server appeared, and Lewis and I gave our orders—I went for waffles, after seeing Rocha’s evident happiness with his. Also, just so I could see de Winter look pained. Waffles were clearly déclassé. Hooray for waffles.

‘‘First of all,’’ I said as the waitress closed our doors, ‘‘and just to get it out in the open, this is not my fault. Ask Lewis.’’

All eyes turned to him, if they weren’t already there. He sipped coffee and nodded. ‘‘She’s in the clear,’’ he said. ‘‘Whatever’s going on, I don’t think any Warden is behind it.’’

Luis Rocha put down his fork. ‘‘It wasn’t natural. No way in hell. Did you see it?’’

‘‘We saw,’’ Lewis said. ‘‘And I agree. It wasn’t natural. But it’s nothing a Warden could be powerful enough to do alone, either.’’

There was a moment of silence. Brewer said, softly, ‘‘Djinn?’’ It was the question we were all dreading and the reason, on some level, that Lewis and I hadn’t wanted to go to David about what we’d found. Because either he knew, which was bad, or he didn’t know, which was worse.

Either way, it put him, as the leader of the New Djinn, in an impossible position.

‘‘That’s certainly a possibility,’’ Lewis said. I knew what he was thinking: Ashan, and the other half of the Djinn. The old, arrogant half. But the truth was, I didn’t believe even for a second that Ashan would have driven that evil black thorn into the skin of Mother Earth. In a curious sort of way, he cared more for her than for himself, his people, and certainly humanity. He wouldn’t have done it, and he wouldn’t have allowed it to be done, not by any of his people.
Or David’s,
I thought suddenly.
There’d have been war first.

Nothing scarier than a war between the Djinn.

Been there. Had scars.

‘‘Did you try to get it out?’’ Rocha asked Lewis. Lewis nodded and held up his hands. They were
blistered.
‘‘
Madre de Dios.
That happened on the
aetheric
?’’

‘‘Yeah.’’ Lewis studied his palms with a frown. ‘‘Shouldn’t have.’’ I knew that self-healing was one of the toughest things for Earth Wardens, and so did Luis Rocha; he gestured to Lewis, and the two of them went off to a side table to sit close together, backs to us. Healing was, sometimes, kind of a private thing. Intimate. I sipped coffee and tried to ignore the fact that I’d been left on my other side with Janette de Winter, who was shooting me looks that could kill.

‘‘Any report on injuries?’’ I asked the table at large. They all glanced at each other, and then Sheryl Brewer took on the job.

‘‘Minor stuff so far,’’ she said. ‘‘We’ve got some superficial cuts and a couple of broken bones, but nobody dead or seriously injured. The damage was contained pretty quickly. Whatever you guys did—’’

‘‘Wasn’t much,’’ I said, ‘‘at least on my part. Rocha deserves the credit for containment, definitely.’’

Credit for more than containing the earthquake, apparently, because when he and Lewis rejoined us— coincidentally, the same time my waffles arrived, all fluffy and begging to be drowned in syrup—Lewis’s palms were smooth and blister-free again. ‘‘Surface damage,’’ he said to our questioning looks. ‘‘Looks like the thing’s hot.’’

‘‘Hot hot, or radioactive hot?’’ Brewer asked. It was an excellent question, and not the one Lewis had been hoping to answer.

‘‘Radioactive,’’ he said reluctantly. ‘‘We need to find this thing in the real world and contain it. Fast. Jo, I want you to talk to Paul, figure out if we’ve got anybody who specializes in radioactivity. We’re going to need somebody who knows what they’re getting into.’’

I nodded and dipped my first bite of waffle into syrup. It never made it to my mouth, because my phone rang. I stepped away from the table to answer it—it was a number that didn’t pop up with a name, but it was a New York City area code.

‘‘Ms. Baldwin? Phil Garrett here,
New York Times.
I hope you weren’t injured in the disturbance down there?’’

I was surprised first of all that he’d gotten a cell signal through; the Wardens had priority on connections in a crisis, along with various emergency services and governmental agencies, and I was pretty sure reporters weren’t on that list. After that surprise wore off, though, a big, ugly ball of black stress formed in my stomach where my waffle was going to go, and my knees went a little weak. I felt light in the head for a second, and braced myself against the wall.
So not cut out for this.

‘‘No, Mr. Garrett, I’m fine,’’ I lied, and was pleased that my voice sounded steady and almost welcoming. ‘‘What can I do for you?’’

‘‘Well, I don’t know if you remember, but a couple of days ago I tried to reach you when you were on vacation. . . . I wanted to talk about the Wardens organization that you’re part of.’’

My heart trip-hammered, thanks to a sudden dump of adrenaline into my bloodstream. I supposed as an Earth Warden I ought to be able to take care of that stuff, but no, not happening. I struggled to keep my voice calm and light. ‘‘Mr. Garrett, I’m ashamed of you. A journalist, ending a sentence in a preposition?’’

He laughed.
He
sounded at ease. I supposed this was fun for him. All in a day’s work, terrifying the people on the other end of the phone. ‘‘Ms. Baldwin, if dozens of English teachers and journalism professors couldn’t beat it out of me, I think you’ve got a lost cause on your hands.’’ The amusement fell away like a discarded carnival mask. ‘‘Let’s talk about the Wardens. What would you say if I told you I had a credible source telling me that not only are the Wardens real, and acknowledged by every government on Earth, at least in secret, but they also function as a kind of shadow governmental agency? One that fundamentallyaffects and controls the lives of ordinary people?’’

‘‘I’d say you need to call Spielberg,’’ I said. ‘‘Bet it would make a great movie. Your source is a mental case, Mr. Garrett. If you actually have one. Which I notice you didn’t actually say. So, in theory, I didn’t actually answer the question, either.’’

He ignored that, although it at least deserved a chuckle, I thought. ‘‘This is serious stuff,’’ he said. ‘‘I take it seriously. I’m not convinced about all this talk of paranormal events and controlling the weather, but there’s got to be something behind it. Maybe you guys have technology we’re not aware of, something classified; we can get into the details later. What I want to know is the structure of your organization. I understand it’s worldwide. Do you report up through the U.S. government?’’

‘‘I’m not having this conversation.’’ I kept it simple this time. Garrett waited for me to blurt out something else; silence was pressure. I held on to my tongue and turned to see the entire table of Wardens watching me. Lewis put down his fork and got up, walking toward me. Whatever he saw in my expression, it couldn’t have been reassuring.

‘‘So the organization is independent of national interests? A shadow government of its own?’’

‘‘No!’’ One-word answers were going to land me in trouble; he’d box me neatly in. ‘‘I’m afraid I can’t confirm any information for you, Mr. Garrett. I really have no idea what kind of fiction you’ve been fed by your source, but—’’

‘‘I have videotape,’’ he said. ‘‘Television footage of a woman stopping a tornado in the Midwest last week. The more I searched, the more I came up with— strange events caught on tape here, surveillance camera video there. Put it all together, and it confirms everything my source has told me.’’