Firestorm (14 page)

By my very nature, I wasn't good at taking in the big picture; for me, the whole world
was
that lost, scared little girl wandering in a field. Those college boys trapped in their wrecked truck. The world revealed itself to me one person at a time.

But I took in a deep breath and nodded. “Right. I'm focused. How much longer—?”

“About seven more hours,” Imara said. “I'll stay with you. There are things you can't do on your own. You'll need help. Father said—” She shut up, fast.
Father.
I wondered if David was as frightened by that as I was by the
Mom
thing. Or as delighted. Or both. “Is this still strange for you?”

“What?”

“Me,” she said softly, and turned her attention back to the road. “Human mothers carry their children inside them. They hold them as infants; they teach and guide them. I was born as I am. That's strange, isn't it?”

She sounded wistful, even sad. I'd been so busy thinking of myself and my reactions to her that I hadn't considered how odd this might be for her, too. That maybe she felt lost in a maze of human feelings she didn't understand. Wasn't even supposed to have, perhaps.

“Imara,” I said. “Pull over.”

“What?”

“Please.”

She coasted the car to a stop on the gravel shoulder, not far from a sign that warned of curves up ahead, and twisted around to face me. It was like looking in a faerie mirror—so similar that it made me shiver somewhere deep inside. There was an indefinable connection between us that I loved and feared in equal parts.

“You look so much like me,” I murmured, and took her hands in mine. They felt warm, real, and solidly familiar.

“I am you,” she said. “Most of me. I'm not so much your child as your clone—Djinn DNA doesn't mix well with human. So my flesh is mostly the same as yours, and my—my spirit is Father's.”

I shivered a little. How was I supposed to feel about that? And what was I supposed to say? “I—”

“I'm not really Djinn,” she said. “You know that, don't you? I can't do the things Father can do. I can't protect you.”

“Mothers protect children. Not the other way around.”

She tilted her head a little to the side, regarding me with a tiny little frown. “How can you protect me?”

Great question. “I won't know until I get there,” I said, and impulsively reached up to touch her cheek. “Sweetheart, I'm not going to pretend that you're not stronger than I am, or faster, or smarter, or—anything else that the Djinn part of you can give. But the point is that I'll protect you when I can, and I
do not
want you to put yourself at risk for me. All right?”

The frown grooved deeper. “That's not what Father said to do.”

“Then your dad and I need to have a talk.” What she'd said was making me curious. “When you say you're not fully Djinn—”

“What are my limits, do you mean?” she asked. I nodded. “Where you're strong—in weather and fire, particularly—I'm strong. I can move the way the Djinn do. But I'm bound to my body in ways they aren't. I can't change my form. I can't use other elements that you can't control, as well.” She continued to watch me carefully. Her voice was matter-of-fact, but I couldn't help but think that David and Jonathan and I had done something terrible, bringing Imara into the world. I couldn't tell if she resented the restrictions her half-blood birth had given her. If she did, that would be one hell of a case of adolescent angst.

“But,” she continued when I didn't jump in, “even so, I am one of the Djinn. They all felt it when I was born. I'm still a part of them, if a small one.”

I stayed quiet, thinking. She might not have been able to read my mind, but she could easily read my expressions—something I couldn't do to her.

“You're worried that if you keep me with you, they could trace you through me. A weak link.”

“A little. With the Djinn so unreliable…” I'd seen the Djinn turn on a dime, when the Earth called; even though Imara might seem immune to that, she was clearly a lot more vulnerable than I'd like. And I couldn't hold my own against a full-on Djinn assault, not for more than a few seconds. No human could, if the Djinn unleashed their full potential.

She inclined her head, just once. A Djinn sort of acknowledgement, fraught with dignity. “I don't think I could protect you against them if they came in force. Do you want me to leave you?”

“And go where?” I asked.

“Anywhere. I only just arrived. I haven't even begun to learn about the world for myself.” She smiled, but it felt like bravado to me. My kid was trying to make me feel better about rejecting her.

“Imara—”

“No, please don't. I want to help you, but I understand if you can't trust me—you only just met me. You'd be crazy not to be concerned.”

I wasn't about to break my daughter's heart. Not yet. “Let's take it slow on the assumption of mistrust, okay? I just don't—
know
you.”

“But I know you,” she replied quietly. “And I can see that it makes you…uncomfortable.”

I let that one pass. “If David can always locate you, I'm guessing you can always locate me, no matter where you are. Right? So it really doesn't matter if you're here, or learning how to spin prayer wheels in Tibet. And I'd rather have you here. Getting to know you.”

She smiled again. “What if you don't like me?”

It was a sad, self-mocking smile, and suddenly I wasn't seeing the metallic Djinn eyes, or the eerie copy of my own face; I was seeing a child, and that child hungered for everything that children do: Love, acceptance, protection. A place in the world.

She took my breath away, made my heart fill up and spill over. “Not like you? Not a chance in hell,” I said. My voice was unsteady. “I love you. You're one hell of a great kid. And you're
my
kid.”

Her eyes glittered fiercely, and it took me a second to realize that it wasn't magic, only tears.

“We'd better keep moving,” she said, and turned back to start the car. “So what do you think? Breakfast first, or apocalypse?”

She was starting to inherit my sense of humor, too. Hmmm. Breakfast sounded pretty tempting. Lots more tempting than an apocalypse, anyway.

Those hardly ever came with coffee.

I spent part of the drive napping, and dreaming. Not good dreams. Why couldn't my out-of-body experiences take me to a nice spa, with David giving me oil massages? Why did my brain have to punish me? I was fairly sure that I really didn't deserve it, at least not on a regular basis.

Unsettled by the nightmares, I kicked Imara out of the driver's seat as soon as I was sure I wasn't going to drop off into dreamland without warning. I always felt better driving, and the Camaro had a silky, powerful purr that welcomed me with vibrations through my entire body as I cranked her up. She needed a name, I decided. Something intimidating yet sexy. Nothing was coming to mind, though.

As we cruised along, switching highways about every hour because heaven forbid travel on the East Coast should be easy, I found myself longing for the endless straight roads in the West and South. Maine was beautiful, no doubt about it, but I wanted to drive fast. Responsibility and panic had that effect on me. Being behind the wheel gave me time to think, and there was a lot to think about, none of it good. All of it frightening.

I couldn't stop scrubbing my hand against my skirt, trying to get the phantom feel of the Demon Mark off me. I hadn't been infected. I knew that, intellectually, but it still made my stomach lurch when I thought about how close I'd come.

We stopped for breakfast at a truck stop, and I bought a couple of pairs of blue jeans and tight-fitting T-shirts. My shoes were missing altogether, so I added a sturdy pair of hiking boots and some feminine-looking flip-flops. Best to be prepared.

I paid extra to use the showers, rinsing off grime and mud and exhaustion under the warm beat of the massaging showerhead. Luxury. I wanted to curl up in the warmth and sleep for days, but instead I toweled off, blow-dried my hair into a relatively straight, shimmering curtain, and dressed in the jeans, T-shirt, and hiking boots.

It looked appropriate for Seacasket, anyway.

Back on the road, I fought an increasingly jittery desire to meddle with the weather hanging out to sea. Storms, of course. Big electrical storms, packing loads of wind and swollen with rain; I didn't sense any lethal tendencies in the front, but those were no fluffy happy clouds out there. Black thunderheads, trailing gray veils over the ocean, illuminated from within by constant pastel flutters of lightning. It was, as storms went, nothing more than a surly kid, but it could pack a wallop if it got aggressive. Right now, it was content to glare and mutter, out there at sea. Kicking the tops off waves. That was good; I didn't need more to handle.

Imara had my taste in music. That wasn't too much of a surprise, but it was gratifying. We both belted out the chorus to “Right Place, Wrong Time,” both aware of just how appropriate that song was in the radio playlist.

We cruised into Seacasket at just after 7 a.m.

It was one of those Norman Rockwell towns with graceful old bell towers, spreading oaks and elms. A few 1960s-era glass buildings that looked like misguided, embarrassing attempts to bring Seacasket out of the golden age. That was the only impression I had of it, because the one time I'd materialized in the center of town, I'd come as a Djinn, with an irresistible command to burn the town and everyone in it to ashes; that hadn't given me a lot of time for sightseeing, since I'd been desperately trying to find a way to short-circuit my own Djinn hardwiring and save some lives.

The main street was called…Main Street. The turn-of-the-last-century downtown was still kept in good repair, although the hardware stores and milliners had long ago turned into craft stores (“crap stores,” as my sister had always dismissively referred to them) and “antique” dealers whose stock-in-trade was reproduction Chinese knockoffs and things that got too dusty over at the craft stores. So far as newcomers, there were a few: Starbucks had set up shop, as had McDonald's down the street. I spotted a couple more fast food giants competing for attention, though sedately; Seacasket must have had one of those no-ugly-sign ordinances that kept things discreet and eye-level, instead of the Golden Arches becoming a hazard to low-flying aircraft.

There was a Wal-Mart. There's always a Wal-Mart.

I pulled into the parking lot toward the side—Wal-Mart had a crowd, of course—and idled the car for a moment, soaking in the atmosphere. When I rolled down the Camaro's window, birds were singing, albeit a bit shrilly, and there was a fresh salt-scented breeze blowing inland. The temperature was cool and fresh, and all seemed right with the Seacasket world.

Which was, in itself, weird.

Imara, in the passenger seat, was watching me curiously. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I thought you knew everything I did,” I said.

“Past, not present or future. Are you reading the weather?”

“Not exactly.” Because weirdly enough, there didn't seem to
be
any weather in Seacasket. Sure, the storm I'd been noticing was still out to sea, but there was an odd energy at work in this town. Something I hadn't felt before. As if the whole place was climate-controlled…which wouldn't have made a lick of sense even if there had been a Warden on-site, which I could tell there wasn't. The Ma'at, maybe? I didn't think so. The Ma'at, rival organization to the Wardens, had their own way of doing things, which mostly involved letting nature have its way while smoothing off the highs and lows of the excesses, under the theory that if you allow the system natural corrections—even costly ones—ultimately, the entire system is more stable, less prone to lethal swings.

There was a certain logic to it, and I wasn't sure I disagreed with the Ma'at in principle…just in practice. Because I simply wasn't cold-blooded enough to sit back and watch a disaster. I could easily prevent them from taking innocent lives. Not for a theory. It didn't surprise me that the Ma'at mostly seemed composed of older men, who'd cultivated the detachment of politicians and CEOs.

This wasn't the Ma'at, though. This felt more like Djinn work, except…

I turned in the seat and faced Imara. “What can you tell me?”

She cocked her head, looking interested but not committed. “About?…”

“You know what David knew, right? So? What can you tell me about Seacasket?”

She'd inherited more from her father than just knowledge; I saw that in the flash of secrets in her eyes. “Not very much.”

“I need to know where to find this Oracle thing. You're supposed to be my native guide, kid. So guide.”

“Maybe I don't know how to find it.” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, and kept her metallic Djinn stare straight on me. Intimidating, but it didn't hide the fact that she was being evasive.

“Yes, you do. Why are you being so—”

“Evasive?” she shot back, and ran her fingers through her long, straight black hair. My hair was curling again in the humidity. I resented her hair. Secretly. “Possibly because this is certain death for a human to attempt, and I might not want you to die just yet.”

“If you didn't think I could do it, why come with me?”

She smiled slightly, and those eyes looked entirely alien all of a sudden. “Maybe Father told me to.”

“Maybe you and your Father—” I reined myself in, unclenched my fists, and took in a deep breath. “Don't make me do this.”

“Do what?”

“Test whether or not you're really Djinn.”

She smiled. “If you're thinking about claiming me, that arrangement died with Jonathan. It won't work.”

“Something simpler than that.” I took in a quick breath. “Where do I find the Oracle?”

“Mom—”

“Where do I find the Oracle?”

Ah,
now
she got it. And she was surprised, and pissed off, too. I saw the flare of temper in her eyes. “The Rule of Three. You wouldn't.”

“Where do I find the Oracle?”

Three times asked, a Djinn has to answer truthfully. Of course, truth has a nearly limitless shade of interpretations; I probably hadn't framed my question closely enough to get a real answer from her, but she'd have to stick close to the subject…if the Rule of Three was still in effect.

Which it looked like it wasn't, as my daughter continued to glare furiously at me with eyes that were starting to remind me more of Rahel's than David's—predatory, primal, eternal. Not good to piss off any Djinn, especially now that humans had virtually no protection from them….

Imara abruptly said, “It's close.”

She didn't say it willingly, either; it seemed to be dragged out of her, and when she'd gotten to the end of the sentence she clenched her teeth tight and fell back into silent glaring.

Oh, I needed to be careful now. Very, very careful.

“Where
exactly
is the Oracle? Where
exactly
is the—”

“Stop!” She threw up her hand. “If you do that again, I'm leaving, and you won't ever see me again. Ever.”

I swallowed hard. She looked serious about that, and seriously angry. “I'm sorry,” I said. “But I need information. In case you haven't noticed, this is getting a little more important than just respecting your feelings, Imara. I need to do this. It all looks fine here, but believe me, it's
not
fine out there in the big wide world. If you ever want to see any of it, you'd better help me. Right now.”

She blinked and looked away at the gently fluttering leaves of the oak tree that spread its shade over the car. A couple of kids sped by on bikes, and another rumbled by on a skateboard. Nobody paid us much attention. Wal-Mart parking lots were anonymous.

“You don't understand how it feels,” she said. “Losing your will like that. Being—emptied out.”

“Don't I?”

“Well—maybe you do.” To her credit, Imara looked a little embarrassed about that. She had my memories; she knew the time I'd spent as Kevin's pet Djinn, forced into little French maid outfits, fending off his adolescent advances. “All right. Just ask. But don't do it again. Please.”

“I won't if you'll answer.”

“Fine.” She pulled in a fast breath and turned away, not meeting my eyes. “There are a few places—less than a dozen around the world—where the fabric between the planes of existence is paper-thin. Where the Djinn can reach up higher or down deeper. These are—holy places, would be the only way I know to put it. Conduits. Places where we can touch the Mother, where we can—” It wasn't that she was avoiding an explanation; she just couldn't find the words. “The Oracle can be reached there. But Mom, don't mistake me: The Djinn protect these places.”

Imara wasn't using the words
holy places
lightly. I hadn't known the Djinn had a religion, other than generic Earth Mother stuff, but if they did, they'd have kept it secret. They'd been a slave race for so long that they'd protect what was precious to them.

Especially against intrusions by humans.

“Seacasket,” I said aloud, and shook my head. Because Seacasket didn't exactly look like the kind of place you'd expect to find exotic spirituality. Or maybe that was just because I couldn't quite imagine something spiritual sitting in the Wal-Mart parking lot. “You still haven't told me where to go to find the Oracle.”

She looked deeply uncomfortable, and for a few seconds I thought that I was going to have to invoke the Rule of Three, even though that would break something fragile between us. “It's not far.”

“Yeah, so you said. Can you take me there?”

“No!” she blurted angrily, and pounded the steering wheel in a fit of fury. “It's not a place for humans. Even the Djinn sometimes get hurt there. You can't! I'm not even sure
I
can!”

Imara might know my experiences—might have been formed from parts of me—but she certainly didn't understand me on a very basic level. Oddly, that was comforting. She wasn't just a mirror image of me with some freaky-deaky eyes; she was her own person, separate from me.

And I could still surprise her.

“I'll find a way,” I said. “You just show me the door. I'll get through it even if I have to pick the lock.”

It sounded like bravado—hell, it
was
bravado. I wasn't some kick-ass Djinn babe anymore; I hadn't been entirely kick-ass even when I'd been a Djinn (though I'd been fairly smug about the babe part). My Warden powers were back up and running, however, and if anything, they were considerably stronger than they had been on the night Bad Bob Biringanine had give me a Demon Mark, the gift that keeps on giving, and generally screwed up my life for good.

But I was still just human. Body and soul. All of which I was hoping to keep together for a little while longer, apocalypse notwithstanding.

Imara was thinking about it, I could see, but finally she just sighed. Maybe she did understand me, after all.

At least enough to acknowledge that I wasn't about to take “no way in hell” for an answer.

She said, “There's a cemetery in the center of town. Which is convenient, because you're going to get yourself killed.”

 

In Seacasket, even the cemetery was photogenic. Norman Rockwell hadn't specialized in morbid art, but if he had, he'd have painted this place; it had a certain naïveté that begged for cute kids in adorable Halloween costumes to be playing hide-and-seek behind charmingly weathered gravestones. Or Disneyfied witches to be offering lemonade from a cauldron. It was the most wholesome cemetery I'd ever seen.

We parked on the street, near the town square, and walked across to the black wrought-iron fence. The gates were open, the paths in the place were fresh-raked clean white gravel, and the grass was almost impossibly green. Fat squirrels gamboled in lush spreading trees. Some of the dignified (and a few quirky) headstones were well-kept, and others had been allowed to grow with wildflowers and vines. Not messily, though. Even the neglect looked planned.