Ill Wind (14 page)

I felt like I'd had the best sex of my life. But I hadn't. Had I? No, definitely no merging of body parts had occurred with David. But of course, today was another day, with endless possibilities. . . .

I was lying on my stomach. I rolled over, which should have been one of those graceful movie-star maneuvers, but ended up as a Three Stooges wrapped-in-the-sheets farce. By the time I'd clawed out of the cocoon and pushed tangled hair back from my face, I saw it was all wasted, anyway.

David was gone.

There was a cold hollow in the sheets where he'd been. I let my hand explore that for a few seconds; then I hugged the rumpled bedclothes to my chest and looked around. No sleeping bag on the floor. No backpack leaning against the wall.

I'd been dumped. Comprehensively dumped.

I got up and walked around the room, but there was little sign he'd ever been there, nothing but the outline of his head on the pillow and a single used towel on the counter in the bathroom. I stood there in the antique-white tiled chill and stared at myself in the mirror. The shower and night's sleep had done me good—still some dark smudges under my eyes, but I looked presentable. And dammit, even though he was gone, I was still humming all over with the aftermath. I closed my eyes and went up into Oversight. My body was glowing honey gold, with a flare of brilliant warm orange centered low, just over my womb. A flare in the shape of David's hand.

I put my own hand over it and felt something there, almost an electric tingle.
Dream well.
His whisper moved through me again, and I felt that stirring again, like my whole body wanted to answer.

Dammit. I didn't know whether I wanted to get on my knees and beg him to come back, or kick his ass from here to California. No, I knew, I just didn't want to admit it. Tears burned at the corners of my eyes, which was
ridiculous,
I didn't even know this guy, how could I possibly be disappointed in him? In myself?

And yet I was. Once again, I'd trusted a guy. Once
again, I was on my own, scared and desperate and lonely.

I sat down on the bed and tried not to let it take me over. My hands were shaking, my breath unsteady, and I knew if I started crying, I wouldn't be able to stop until I was screaming. Too much. The feelings weren't about David, not really, they were about
everything,
about the Mark, about Bad Bob, about the helpless sick feeling that I was no longer in control of anything in my life.

I
would not
cry. Not for this. Not over him.

I ripped the tags off a fresh pair of panties and dressed in my stretch lace shirt and purple velvet. I was going to be defiantly, look-what-you're-missing-you-asshole gorgeous. I spent time in the bathroom on hair and makeup, and when I was done, it wasn't like
Vogue
would be banging down the door, but I looked yummy enough to turn heads. And my hands were almost steady again.

I didn't have a lot to pack, just the one duffel bag. I jammed things in, zipped it, and was ready to go. I yanked open the door and started to leave, but something stopped me.

The room still felt like David. Still smelled like him. I couldn't shake the feeling, even though I knew it was crap, that he was still in there somewhere, just out of sight, hiding. But there was no place to hide, and no matter how much of a practical joker he might be, this joke just wasn't funny.

I'd been intending to slam the door, but instead I closed it quietly, the way David must have when he left me alone with my dreams.

Pretty Miss Delilah glinted and glittered in the parking lot. I unlocked the driver's side and tossed my duffel in the back and thought about breakfast. I could, I decided, have breakfast, since my stomach was rumbling like an unexploded volcano. And coffee. Thick truck-stop coffee that was more like day-old espresso.

I needed something to live for.

Waffles sounded like as good a place to start as any.

 

The Waffle House came in the usual yellow, brown, and orange color scheme, bringing back all that nostalgia for avocado appliances and rust-colored shag carpeting from my childhood. I suppose the fact they were still stuck in the '70s was lucky, all things considered, since their prices shared the same time warp. I ordered a large pecan waffle with powdered sugar and crispy bacon. The waitress poured me a gallon-size cup of generic black caffeine. I fiddled with silverware until the food arrived, then gulped down juicy syrup-rich bites, alternating with crunchy bacon nibbles, until I felt better about my world and David's absence from it.

Business was sparse. Just me and four tired-looking men all in grimy baseball caps, sporting the bouncy physique of guys who spent most of their time driving and eating Ho Hos. Everybody had coffee, straight up, nothing froufrou like latte or decaf; we were all here for the straight stuff, mainlined in big chunky ceramic mugs.

Three extra-large cups later, I was ready to rock ‘n' roll. I paid the tab to the ancient cashier and turned to look out the big picture windows. In
between Day-Glo advertisements for the manager's specials, I saw that the storm was crawling closer. Not hell-driven, but making a pretty good clip. Still, not a problem yet. I could still outrun it. I didn't want to do any manipulation; too much risk of discovery by either my secret stalking enemy or the Association, and I wasn't so sure which, at this point, would be worse. Paul's tolerance had probably expired at about the point his time limit had clicked off. By now, every Warden in the country might be looking out for me.

As I shoved my wallet back in my pocket, I accidentally knocked over a saltshaker sitting on the counter. The silver top spiraled off, made loopy progress to the edge, and spun in a circle.

I hardly noticed, because of the interesting thing the spilled salt was doing.

It was . . . talking.

It mounded itself into little white salty letters, which said,
Joanne
.

I looked around. The cashier had moved on; the waitresses were all making rounds with coffeepots. Just me and the talking salt.

“Um . . . yeah?” I asked tentatively.

The salt dissolved into a flat white heap again, then scattered wider over the counter. More words. These said,
South 25 mi, L on Iron Road
.

My heart started pounding harder. I stared at it and finally whispered, “Is this Lewis?”

A pause. The salt wiped itself into one snowy drift, then scattered back out across the faux-wood counter.

Ya think?

“Very funny. I have to get condiments with a sense
of humor.” Salt was, technically, of the earth. . . . Lewis would be able to control it. In fact, in a place as generally unnatural as this, it might very well be the only thing he
could
control enough to get his point across. I was just happy he hadn't tried to spell out things in runny egg yolks.

Got your attention?
the salt asked. Not only arrogant, but pushy, too.

“South twenty-five miles, left on Iron Road,” I repeated. “Got it.” I took in a deep breath and blew it out, scattering the words into tiny white random grains.

It didn't seem to like that, and sucked itself up into a pile, then flattened out again. A moving finger wrote one word:
Good.

It then made a little white smiley-face that immediately blew into randomized scatter as a waitress marched up,
tsk
ed the mess, and wiped the spill up with a damp cloth.

“You okay?” I must have had a bizarre look; she was staring at me.

“I'm talking to salt,” I said numbly. “What do you think?”

She shrugged and kept on wiping up. “Missy, I think you should've probably gone with the decaf.”

T
HREE

The National Weather Service has issued a severe weather advisory for a four-state area including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Hail, severe winds, and tornadic activity are possible. Please stay tuned to your local weather sources for more information.

Twenty-five miles down the road, there was a battered, shotgun-riddled sign for Iron Road. I slowed down and coasted to a stop at the side of the road, looking down the turn-off and wondering what exactly a smarter, saner person than me would do.

I inspected the place while my blinker clicked. Iron Road was a small two-lane affair that disappeared into some dense, overhanging trees, dappled with sunlight and shadow. Picturesque, which was another word for isolated. Why would Lewis want me off the beaten path? Why wouldn't he just show up in the diner and, say, order an eggs Benedict and chat about the good old days? Well, of course, he had reason to be careful, too. Lewis was, in many
ways, the most wanted Warden in the world. In comparison, I hadn't even made the top ten.

“What the fuck,” I said to Delilah, and eased her back into gear as I turned the wheel. She purred effortlessly down the hill onto Iron Road, into green shadow and smooth, deserted blacktop. I kept the speed down. On a rural road like this, anything was likely to jump out and present a road hazard, especially wildlife and farm animals. The last thing I needed was to end up picking cow out of my grille while a storm rolled up on me.

Fields stretched beyond the trees, sundrenched and extravagantly green. I rolled down the window and breathed in cool, clear air spiced with earth and new leaves. Lewis hadn't said how far to proceed down Iron Road; I could only guess there'd be another sign.

At the crest of the next hill, I saw a neat red farmhouse with a matching barn behind, the kind of thing people paint for craft fairs; I'd never really seen one that, well,
perfect
before. It even had a windmill and some paintworthy Hereford cows chewing cud in the fields, ringed with a tumbledown rock fence and a riot of new wildflowers in neon purple and buttercup yellow. Perfect Thomas Kinkade. Wind rippled the grass in long velvet waves, and I remembered one of my instructors—who knows which one—remarking how similar the seas of water and air were to each other.
We swim in an ocean of air.
Come to think of it, that probably wasn't a weather class. It sounded like English lit to me now.

Iron Road didn't change names, but it should have; after the pretty little farm, it turned into Dirt Road, rutted and uneven. I slowed Delilah to a crawl and
fretted about the state of her suspension. Nothing up ahead that I could see except a hill looming green and tan, more trees stretching out their arms over the road.

Delilah slowed down more, without my foot pressing the brake.

It's funny how you can just
know
these things, if you're true partners with your car. I could feel, as if it were my feet instead of Delilah's tires on the road, that something had gone wrong. Badly. It felt as if we were driving through deep mud, but the road was dry, the ruts hard-caked and laced with brittle tire treads. What was slowing us down?

I heard something hissing against the undercarriage of the car. I knew that sound. It sounded like . . .

Delilah shuddered, and I heard her engine take on a plaintive, unhappy tone. She was struggling to move, but it was getting harder, and harder, with every rotation of the wheels.

It sounded like loose sand.

The road was turning to sand, and we were sinking into it.

“Shit!” I yelped, and went up into Oversight. As soon as I soared out of body and above the car, I could see it; the earth was dull red, moving, churning like a living thing. The rough dry soil was being crushed into tiny, slippery grains. No, not sand . . . the road was turning to
dust,
finer than sand, and not just on the surface—this went deep, ten feet at least.

I yanked the wheel, trying to get Delilah off the road and into the trees, where roots and plants would slow the progress of liquefying earth, but it
was already too late, the wheel turned loosely in my hands, the tires spun without traction. Dust geysered into the dry air and puffed away on the waves of the ocean of air. The car settled about a foot, and I knew that there was nothing keeping it up now except an even distribution of weight over a large, flat undercarriage. That and possibly someone's goodwill.

We floated, me and Delilah, unable to escape.

In Oversight, I spotted my enemy before she ever pushed through the underbrush—a blue-green aura, laced through with pure white for power, gold for tenacity, cold silver for ruthlessness.

Marion Bearheart had found me.

I dropped back into my skin and saw her coming out of the trees to my left. She was just about as I remembered her from my intake meeting—middle-aged, dignified, skin like burnished copper and hair of black and silver hanging loose over her shoulders. Marion still had kind, gentle eyes, but there was nothing weak about her.

“Joanne,” she said, and her low voice seemed welcoming, somehow. “There's no point in trying to run. Wherever you go, I can dissolve the ground under your feet, tie you down with roots and grasses. Let's make this easy.”

Of course. I'd forgotten. Marion was an Earth Warden.

A rustle of underbrush on the other side of the car drew my attention to someone else—younger than Marion, male. I didn't know him, but he had Scandinavian white-blond hair, fair skin, and summer-blue eyes. Like Marion, he had on a plaid shirt and blue
jeans, practical hiking boots. Another Earth Warden. Their fashion sense—or lack of it—was unmistakable.

The third one, standing next to him, was so small I almost didn't see her—small, dark, delicate. Nothing delicate about her clothes, though, which featured a lot of leather and attitude. Her hair was cut pixie-short, streaked with unnatural greenish highlights, and she had face jewelry—a nose ring, to be exact, with a stud to match in the other nostril.

“You brought friends,” I said, turning back to Marion. She smiled faintly.

“Against you? Naturally.” She nodded toward them. “Erik and Shirl. If you're thinking of calling a storm, I'd advise you not to try it; Shirl is a damn fine practitioner, but she has a tendency to be a little heavy-handed.”

Pieces of the puzzle started to drop together. “Oh. The salt?”

This time I got a full, delighted smile. “I just wanted to talk to you, Joanne. It seemed like the best way to arrange it. I knew you were looking for someone. It stood to reason it was another Warden. I was only hoping it was someone with an Earth power, or that would have seemed a little odd.”

Since Lewis had the whole collectible set, nothing would have seemed odd to me . . . and didn't that just sum up the Wardens in a nutshell? We only thought talking salt was odd on a percentage basis.

Just my bad luck she'd gambled and I'd fallen for it.

I had a slightly darker thought. “The lightning bolt?”

Marion looked startled. “Of course not! We just
want to talk to you, not kill you. Shirl's specialty is not weather, in any case.”

I saw something flare bright out of the corner of my eye, and turned to see Shirl holding out a palm in front of her. Fire danced on her skin, flickering gold and orange and hot reds. It reflected in her dark eyes, and I felt a surge of dislike for the arrogance I saw there.
I know better Fire Wardens than you, sweetheart. Ones who don't have to show off for the boss.
Still, fire gave me the willies, always had. I'd seen what it could do, close up.

“So talk,” I said. “Or give me back the road and let me out of here. There's a storm coming.”

“I know.” Marion speared Shirl with a look, and Shirl put the fire back where it came from. “Let's take a walk, Joanne.”

She reached out and opened the car door. A square stepping-stone of solid earth formed in the shifting dust, just big enough for me to stand on. I eased out, feeling Delilah rock like a boat in a pond, and bent down to test what my car was sitting on top of.

My fingers passed into the dust with barely any resistance at all; it was so fine, so frictionless than I felt a second's dizziness. Fall into
that,
and you wouldn't be coming up.

“This way,” Marion said, and turned away. I put my hand on Delilah's dusty finish for a few seconds, trying to reassure her—and me—that things weren't as bad as they seemed, and then stepped off the square of solid ground and into the shadows of the trees.

It felt like another world. Marion's world. The Earth spoke to her, the way the sky did to me:
whispers of leaves, dry creaks of branches, the padding footsteps of living things, small and large and minuscule, that made up her realm. I thought about the farm back there, the picture-perfect setting. That had been Marion's equivalent of doodling, while she waited. Perfect grass, artistic dottings of wildflowers. Marion created beauty from chaos, or maybe just demonstrated how beautiful chaos could be when seen through the right eyes.

We came out of the trees into a meadow filled with knee-high grass stalks, silver tipped, that rustled and murmured and bent under the touch of a brisk northeast wind. Overhead, white cirrus clouds shredded into lacework. A plane crawled the blue and threaded a white contrail through the lattice. It all looked flat, but I knew the plane was barely above the troposphere. The cirrus clouds were at least twenty-five thousand feet, maybe higher, well above the level of even a weather balloon. And those peaceful clouds were scudding fast, dragging the storm behind.

Marion turned her face into the wind and said, “The Zuni always said, first thunder brings the rain. But we're far from Zuni country.”

“Everybody says something about the weather. Most of it's nonsense.”

“Most of it,” she agreed, and looked at me with those tired, patient, gentle eyes. “Murder's a serious charge, Joanne. Running from it makes no sense. You know you'll be found.”

“I didn't murder him.”

Her dark eyebrows rose, but her face stayed still and closed. “You argued, he's dead. Do we really believe this is an accident?”

Well, no. It hadn't been an accident. I'd been
trying
to kill Bad Bob Biringanine.

I just hadn't expected to
succeed
.

She took my silence at face value. “You were to wait for me in Florida.”

“I couldn't. I had things to do.”

“Such as?” She shook her head, brushed hair back from her face when the wind played it into a veil over her eyes. “Tell me what happened between you and Bad Bob. Maybe I can help you.”

I opened my mouth to tell her about the Demon Mark, but of course I couldn't; it would be suicide. And she couldn't see it—otherwise, Marion or a hundred other Wardens would have known about Bad Bob's condition long before he passed the infection on to me. Rahel had told me as much—they were impossible for humans to see, even Wardens, unless they asked their Djinn the right questions. I felt sick and trapped and more afraid than I'd been in a long time.
Help,
I wanted to say. But I didn't dare, because I knew there was no help, no cure, nothing but a long and terrible dying. If I didn't get a Djinn, I would never survive, and the Association would never give up one of their precious store to save my life. They were very firm on that point. One Djinn per customer, rationed strictly on rank, and I'd blown my chance before I got my own. Giving me a Djinn now would just be a waste of a good elemental. They certainly wouldn't sacrifice one just for little old me.

I hedged. Some of the truth was better than none.

“There was something wrong with him,” I said. “Bad Bob, I mean. I don't know what it was, but he
attacked me. I thought he was going to kill me. I had to do it.”

“You pulled lightning,” Marion murmured. She crouched down and plucked a weed out of the ground, held it lightly between her fingers. It sprouted a bud, which exploded into luxuriant color. Red, this one. Brilliant bloodred, with a black center like an eye. “You didn't try to, say, immobilize him instead, as you must have been trained to do.”

“Hey, this was
Bad Bob,
not some fifth-year apprentice with a bad attitude. The higher level a Warden is, the worse the consequences if he loses control—hell, Marion, you know that. Power and responsibility. Well, I had to fight him, and I had to use the big guns to do it. You want me to say I'm sorry?”

“No,” she said. The flower in her hands blazed brilliantly through summer, faded, withered into winter, and died. A life in less than a minute. Marion's little silent demonstration:
You control the weather. I control life itself.
“I want you to understand that you will have a chance to tell your side of it. But when the judgment comes, it is final.”

“Bullshit. You've already decided, all of you. You think I'm a danger. You want to—” To neuter me. Scrub my head with steel wool. Take away everything that I love.