Weather Warden - Chill Factor Part 32

Five seconds left.

Two.

Oh, G.o.d ...

I felt myself lifting on the surge of the wave, and waited for the fall, the impact, the end.

I kept rising.

Rising out of the water.

Someone was holding me from behind, arms clasped around me under my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and I felt a wild and burning heat that turned water between us to steam.

"Rahel?" I asked, and turned to look.

Not Rahel.

It was David.

He smiled at me with so much love and relief that it broke my heart, and said, "You think I'd let you go, after all this?"

I cried out and turned in the circle of his arms, and held him as we floated over the foaming, churning flood.

At the top of the canyon we had a welcoming committee. It consisted of Rahel, Lewis, and Marion. Rahel, of course, was spotless; Marion and Lewis were sweaty and dirty and breathless.

We touched down, and I winced at the burn of hundred-degree sand on my bare feet, but then David was collapsing in my arms and I forgot all about the discomfort. My shoulders couldn't take the strain.

I had to let him fall.

"David?" I hovered anxiously over him. His eyes were flickering copper, turning brown. "David-"

"He's too weak," Lewis said, and fumbled the blue gla.s.s bottle out from his pocket. "David, back in the bottle."

He faded into mist. I rounded on Lewis in a fury, but he held up a hand to stop me. "If we leave him out, he'll fade again. The bottle is all that's keeping him alive right now. Djinn life support."

"And you called him out?" I didn't know what made me more angry. "Do me a favor-don't help, okay?"

"I was supposed to let you get smashed to pieces?"

"You were supposed to take down Quinn!" I yelled. "Did you?"

They looked anywhere but me. Rahel said, "We will."

"We will," I mocked. "Yeah, fine, whatever. Just let me find him and do this thing." I staggered when I tried to get up. Marion took my arm and hauled me upright, frowning.

"You're in no shape to take on anything more dangerous than a week in bed," she said. "You've torn muscles, damaged your shoulder-"

"I don't care." I bit the words off furiously and wiped wet hair back from my face, wishing that I were still a Djinn so I could clean myself up and smite somebody with a truly righteous amount of smiting.

"He's got Jonathan, and he's got G.o.d knows how many bottles, and he's not getting out of this without a fight, and where exactly is Kevin?"

I ran it all together, alarm sharpening my voice, and saw Marion and Lewis look around in shock.

"He was right here," Marion began, but I wasn't watching her. I was caught by Rahel's expression. Alone among us, she wasn't surprised by his absence.

"Let him do this," she said. "It's his right."

"Do what!"

She shrugged. I shook free of Marion's hold and turned around, looking down the edge of the canyon. It couldn't be that far, a few sand dunes in the way, maybe a thousand yards of desert in the way. .

Something blew up out there.

Something very, very big.

The shock wave rippled over me, and the noise whited out my eardrums; a fireball the size of a blimp rose up into the air, curling in on itself in reds and crimsons and ropes of hot yellow, in waves of smoke like tattered silk.

A shattered metal frame rose up off the ground, powered by another explosion. The ma.s.sive steel monster, turning end over end, sailing out over the canyon and dropping down to smash into the foaming water with a hiss of superheated steam.

"That was a Hummer," I said numbly.

"And I think that was Kevin," Lewis said.

The kid had finally found a decent use for his powers over fire.

Then we were running.

The explosion had left a crater the size of a meteor strike, black in the center. Sand had turned to gla.s.s.

Quinn was down near the edge of it, bleeding from ears and nose, coughing up mouthfuls of red. The second I saw him, memory clicked into place: baseball cap, windbreaker, the same lean, whipcord body.

Sun-gla.s.ses hiding his face.

Quinn. Orry. One and the same, not that I'd had any doubt.

Jonathan was standing over him, staring down. When we pelted over the sand toward him, avoiding the burning sc.r.a.ps of what used to be a hugely expensive SUV, I saw Kevin kneeling nearby. He looked ... blank. Exhausted. That explosion had taken everything out of him.

No time for him now. I fixed my attention on Jonathan, and held out one hand in a calming motion. "Easy. Let's not get crazy here. We come in peace."

"No, you don't," Jonathan said absently.

"Okay, I lied, we don't. But it looks like Quinn's not going to make it, so let's not increase the body count, okay?"

"I don't have a choice." Ouch. The bleak fury of that was painful. "I thought since he wasn't a Warden, I'd have more chances. But he's good. He knew exactly what to say, what to do. ..."

The first command you give is to restrict them from using any power without your express order. The second is to order them to protect your life unless you expressly countermand it. The third . . .

I'd told Quinn how to do it. I'd screamed it out in the dark, under his knife.

I'd taught him everything he needed to know.

I'd told all that to the Wardens, of course, during the debriefing, and they'd said, It doesn't matter. He's not a Warden. He'll never be able to use the knowledge.

Except he had, hadn't he? Quinn was nothing if not ruthless and resourceful.

But I hadn't told him the most critical things, even so.

"Can he talk?" I asked Jonathan. It came out cold and even.

Quinn's eyes rolled toward me, wild and rimmed with white.

"No."

"Then his last commands to you remain in force."

"I'm supposed to protect his life," Jonathan said. He was watching Quinn, not us, but I knew that he'd have no choice but to act if we moved. "The kid was clever. He went for the car, not Quinn. Took the bottles out at the same time. I didn't have to stop him."

I felt a flashover of hope, hot as the sun beating down on us.

"Where's your bottle?"

Jonathan gestured down at the kneeling man. "On him. In his jacket pocket."

I looked at Lewis. He made a little after-you gesture.

I snapped my head around, lifted a hand and gathered the wind like a hard coil, and sent it arrowing for Quinn.

It slammed into him hard. A microburst, containing a wind shear not strong enough to do him any harm- physically-but plenty strong enough for just what it had to do.

Break a bottle in his front jacket pocket.

I felt it pop, like a sudden change in air pressure.

Quinn flopped down on his back, twisting silently in agony. For a few seconds Jonathan didn't move, and then he slowly bent down and reached in Quinn's pocket.

He took out a handful of broken gla.s.s and sifted it onto the sand.

"You don't own me anymore," he said, and crouched down next to the dying man. "Do you have any idea how much this is going to hurt?"

Quinn managed to choke out a few words, after all. ". . . ordered . .

. defend . . . life . . ."

"I didn't let her kill you," Jonathan said, and smiled. It was the most princely, evil smile I could imagine ever seeing. "It'll probably take you days to die. I'll watch over you the whole lime, maybe remind you of all the good things you've done in your life. It's the least I can do."

Quinn's eyes widened. Whether it was mercy or luck, something inside his body snapped. Blood gouted out of his mouth and nose, and he arched his back once, for an aching ten long seconds. . . .

Then collapsed.

"Is he dead?" I asked quietly.

Jonathan leaned over and studied him closely. Then he reached down, hauled him up by the arm, and before anyone could stop him, pitched Quinn limply over the cliff into the swollen, rushing floodwater.

"Yep," he said, and walked away. He called back over his shoulder, "I'm going home. Take care of the kid. Keep him out of trouble."

"Wait!" I yelled it, desperately. "What about David?"

He stopped walking, but he didn't turn back. His shoulders tightened, and then slowly relaxed.

"You broke him," he said. "You fix him."

He vanished before I could get out more than half a curse.

The Wardens agreed to a meeting back at our old stomping grounds, the Holiday Inn outside of White Ridge. I'd spent an entire day showering, bathing, showering, and sleeping with David's sealed bottle resting in my arms; when I came downstairs the next day I looked rested, relaxed, and heavily abused. Bruises up and down my body. Wrecked fingernails. Sunburn on my face, not to mention the muscle tears and sprains that made holding on to a smile an effort.

Thank G.o.d for aspirin and Vivarin.

Paul was waiting, along with Marion, Lewis, and a few others.

Wardens all, at least in name.

"Jo." Paul tried to put his arms around me. I backed him off with a look and took a seat on the couch. After a pause, he followed suit. He glanced from me to Lewis, me to Marion. "I guess we can call this a qualified success."

"Qualified," I repeated. "What did we qualify for? Bonuses? Free parking?"

"Look, it's just . . ." Paul fidgeted, then fixed me with a steady stare. "The kid's missing-Kevin. Jonathan's gone, and I don't have to tell you what kind of a loss that is for us. We're just lucky that things are moving back toward normal."

"Normal?" I sounded like a parrot.

"The earthquake thing, it's better. There's going to be a couple of big ones, but in remote areas and not too much damage. The warming trend's slowing down. We're still heading for an ice age, but I don't see that we can do s.h.i.t about it without-"

"Without Jonathan." I rested my aching, torn hands in my lap. I was wearing jeans again-hip-huggers, in memory of Siobhan-and I'd gone for open-toed flip-flops, considering the state of my cut and bruised toes. "Jeez, sorry about that. Guess we'll just have to hope for the best."

Paul clearly wasn't liking my polite, nonconfrontational att.i.tude.

"What's up with you? I'm telling you that you failed. If you'd stayed out of things like we agreed-"

"Then we'd all be dead," I said sweetly. "But hey, next time? I'm booking a spa, getting a ma.s.sage. Wait for the end in style, you know?"

He didn't respond. I dropped the sweetness from my tone. "Fine.

Let's get to the important parts. What's the damage?"

"You've been lying to us, sweetheart."

No kidding. Where to start? "About what?"