Olympic Cove 2-Breaker Zone
Evernight Publishing ®
Copyright© 2014 Nicola Cameron
ISBN: 978-1-77233-171-4
Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
Editor: Karyn White
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or
distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters,
and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
For Colby,
Karl, and Cameron—my Baltimore boys.
BREAKER ZONE
Olympic Cove, 2
Nicola Cameron
Copyright © 2014
Chapter One
Ian West, God of Storms, stared at the
cloudless blue sky over the cove. He hefted his trident, sighting up the shaft
as he aimed the dark grey tines upwards, and concentrated.
Nothing happened. He concentrated some
more.
Still nothing.
There was a small sigh behind him. “I
believe the human phrase is, put your back into it,” an urbane voice said.
“I’m
trying
.
It’s not working.”
Another sigh.
“Three days ago
you were able to disable a hurricane with no focusing agent or any sort of
training. And now you expect me to believe you can’t condense a single small
cloud on a bright day?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I expect you
to believe.” Ian jammed the butt of the trident into the sand, turning to glare
at Poseidon, God of the Seas. “I don’t know how I disabled the hurricane, all
right? You want to know how I did it, go ask Gaia. She’s the one who gave me
the ability to do it in the first place.”
“I did ask her,” Poseidon said calmly. “She
was quite mystified. According to her, you shouldn’t have been able to touch
complex energy like that, much less control it.”
Ian repressed a shiver at the thought of
the Earth Mother’s attention. “Maybe it was instinctive.”
One auburn eyebrow rose at that.
“Instinctive?
For a former mortal to control the weather?
Another human phrase just came to mind—‘Pull the other one, it has got bells
on.’”
Ian swallowed a few choice curse words.
Telling the father of his mates to go fuck himself wasn’t the smartest thing to
do, no matter how satisfying it would be. “I know you don’t believe me, but it
was instinct,” he said instead. “I knew how hurricanes worked, knew I had to
shut it down, and just did what felt right. I don’t know how else to describe
it.” He pointed his free hand at the turquoise cove. “This is something completely
different.”
The other god studied him,
then
finally shrugged. “Perhaps we’re approaching this from
the wrong angle,” he said. “Whereas it would simply be an effort of will for
me, it seems to be more of an intellectual process for you, most likely due to
your common origins.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“It’s the truth,” Poseidon said,
unperturbed.
“So.
Do you know how a cloud forms over
water?”
Still annoyed, Ian thought about the
meteorological processes he’d researched for his eco-thriller
Greenstrike
. “Sunlight warms water and
causes it to evaporate. That creates a layer of warm, moist air. Since heat
rises, this gets boosted up into the atmosphere. When the layer reaches a
certain point, it starts to cool, and some of the water vapor molecules start
clumping together. Get enough of them condensing, and you get a cloud.”
“Simplistic but accurate enough for our
purposes,” Poseidon said. “And of course when large amounts of water vapor
condense, you get rain or snow. And if that warm air mass meets a cooler, drier
mass, it can precipitate water vapor condensation over a large area, causing
widespread cloud formation that, under the right circumstances, can become a
storm.”
“Thank you, Bill Nye.”
Poseidon frowned.
“Who?”
Ian repressed the urge to roll his eyes.
“Never mind.
So what am I trying to do?”
“Focus on the surface of the water.
Gather the vapor and force it to coalesce as it rises into the air.”
Grimly, Ian turned back to the water and
pointed the titanium trident at the space directly over the waves, narrowing his
concentration. One of the more useful things about his new powers was the
ability to zoom in and out on objects down to the atomic level. Within moments,
he spotted shimmering spheres of water vapor separating from the tops of the
waves, dancing up into the sky.
He tried to gather the vapor droplets
together as they drifted upwards. It felt like herding fireflies, but he
finally managed to shove enough of them together to form a wisp of cloud over
the cove. Pulling back his concentration, he discovered he was breathless and
dripping with sweat.
“Shit. Is it always going to be that
hard?” he panted.
“No. You’ll get better with practice.”
Poseidon studied the small drift of water vapor. “Not bad, not bad at all. Now
dissolve it.”
“What? Why?”
“You can’t create weather and then just
leave it to its own devices. That’s how natural disasters get started.”
Ian boggled at the idea. “I’ve made
bigger steam clouds than that cooking spaghetti. What the hell is that tiny
puff going to do?”
“At the moment, nothing,” Poseidon said.
“But it could drift further inland, gathering water vapor and increasing in
size as it goes. It’s a warm, sunny day—plenty of moisture in the air for it to
feed on. Next thing you know, it’s grown into a cloud bank, sucking in more
water and expanding even more as it drifts over the land.”
He cupped a hand, bringing it to the one
holding his golden trident. “And then it meets a cooler, drier mass of air, and
tries to rise to get over it. But it reaches its expansion point and starts to
cool. Its load of water vapor condenses, turning into rain. The masses of air
also create charged ions, so now you have a thunderstorm. The storm moves even
further inland, meeting yet another mass of cooler air.”
The trident was shifted to the crook of
his elbow and both hands now drew parallel circles in the air. “The masses
churn, violently shearing over each other. A rotating vortex of air is created
this way, and one end slowly falls to earth. When it reaches the ground, it
begins to suck up dirt and debris, turning the vortex dark and visible. The new
tornado proceeds to rip apart trees, throwing cars around like toys, erasing
homes from their foundations. It kills people and animals, demolishes property,
and leaves a raw scar of destruction in its wake.
All because
you couldn’t be bothered to stop it when it was just a tiny puff.”
Ian flinched at the description of
disaster. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“I wish I was.” Poseidon leaned on his
trident, studying the frail wisp of cloud over the cove. “I’m not teaching you
how to control the weather for the fun of it, you know. I’m here because the
weather is one of the most important planetary control systems Gaia has, and
since you now have control over it you
must
be taught what you can and cannot do. For all their size, weather patterns are
actually quite fragile, and can be changed in monumental ways by relatively
small things. I assume you’ve heard the phrase ‘the butterfly effect’?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s quite apt. A small waft of
vapor here can spawn into a killer tornado a hundred miles away.
Which is why I’m now asking you to dissolve that cloud.
Please.”
Dry-mouthed, Ian concentrated on driving
the vapor particles apart. Slowly, the cloud melted away, leaving nothing but
clear air. “Okay?”
“Perfect,” Poseidon said, hefting his
trident. “Well, I think that’s enough for today. You need a shower, and I’m in
the mood for a drink.”
The god started towards the blue and
white Craftsman cottage up the beach. Ian slung his weapon over his shoulder
and followed. “Okay, now I’m worried. Don’t you think I should practice some
more?” he asked.
“Not really,” Poseidon said, handing his
golden trident into mid-air as if giving it to an invisible servant. The
trident disappeared, which reminded Ian to put his own away. “You just learned
the basics, how to create and destroy a cloud. Almost all planetary weather
develops from that. We’ll work on theory next—when and where you should modify
weather.”