Ill Wind (6 page)

“Um . . . no.”

“No?” Martin's eyebrows levitated, making his gray eyes wider. “Is there no time when saving property might be preferable to saving lives?”

My heart was beating too fast; it was hurting my chest. I could hardly swallow for the lump in my throat. “No. I don't think so.”

“What if the property were, say, a nuclear reactor whose destruction might result in the deaths of thousands more?”

Oh. I hadn't thought of that one.

“What if the property were the central distribution center for food in a country full of starving people? Would you save the property, or the lives, if by saving lives you starved even more?”

“I don't know,” I whispered. My hands were shaking. I made them into fists when Bad Bob's laugh sawed the air.

“She doesn't know. Well, that's typical. This is what we end up with these days, a bunch of kids raised on free lunches who never had to make a decision in their lives more important than what TV show to watch. You want to trust
her
with the power of life and death?” He snorted and shoved my folder into the center of the table. “I've heard enough.”

“Wait!” I blurted. “I'm sorry. I didn't understand.”

Marion Bearheart looked at me from the other side of the table, her warm brown eyes full of compassion. “And do you understand now, Joanne?”

“Sure,” I lied. “I'd save the power plant. And—and the food.”

Silence around the table. Bad Bob stood up. Nobody argued with him; nobody moved so much as a muscle as he raised his hands at shoulder level.

A cloud started forming above our heads. Just mist at first, clinging to the ceiling like fog, and then getting denser, taking on form and shape. I felt humidity sucking up into that thing, fueling power.

“Hey—,” I said. “Um—”

Power leaped through the air, jumping from each one of the Wardens in the room and into that cloud. It was feeding on them, drawing energy. It was . . . It was . . .

. . . alive.

Bad Bob watched me with those eerie, cold eyes. “Better do something,” he advised. “Don't know how long it's going to be content to just sit there.”

“Do what?” I yelped. I didn't remember standing, but I was out of my chair, backing away. The power in that room—the uncontrolled, unfocused menace—the sense that the cloud overhead was
thinking
—

I felt it click in on me as if a channel had opened, and something hot and powerful tore out of the cloud at me. I didn't have time to think, to do anything but just
react
.

I reached up into the cloud and ripped it apart. No finesse to it, no control, just sheer raw power—and power that got loose, manifested in arcing static electricity from every metal surface. Glass shattered. The pitcher of water on the table hissed into steam.

I ducked into a crouch in the corner until it was all over, and the room was clear and silent.

Very, very silent.

I looked up and saw them all still sitting there, hands on the table. Nobody had moved an inch. Marion was the first to get up; she walked over to a covered cart and took out a thick beach towel, and went about the business of mopping up beads of water from the conference table. Somebody else—probably a Fire Warden—brought the lights back on-line. Except for a couple of burn marks around the power outlets, it all looked normal enough.

Bad Bob sat back down in his chair, slumped at ease, and propped his chin on his fist. “I rest my case,” he said. “She's a menace.”

“I agree,” said the snippy-looking librarian type
from Arkansas. “I've rarely seen anything so completely uncontrolled.”

Martin Oliver shook his head. “She has plenty of power. You know how rare it is to find that.”

They went around the table, each one putting in a comment about my general worthlessness or worthiness. Marion Bearheart voted for me. So did two others.

It came down to Paul Giancarlo, who stood and walked over to me and offered me a hand up. He kept holding my hand until he was sure I wasn't going to collapse into a faint on the floor.

“You know what this is?” he asked. “What it is we're deciding here?”

“Whether or not to let me into the Wardens,” I said.

He shook his head, very kindly. “Whether or not to let you
live
. If I say you can't be trained, you go into Marion's keeping, and she and her people try to take away your powers without killing you. Sometimes it works. Sometimes . . . not so well.”

If he was hoping to scare me, he'd succeeded brilliantly. I wanted to say something, but I honestly had no idea what to try. Everything I'd done so far was wrong. Maybe keeping my mouth shut was the best thing I could do.

He finally smiled. “Not going to beg, are you?”

I shook my head.

“That's something,” he said, and turned around to Martin Oliver. “I'll take her on. She can't cut it, it's my responsibility. But I think she's going to be a damn good Warden someday.”

Martin winced. “Not quite yet, though.”

“Yeah, well. Who is, at eighteen?”

“You were,” Martin said. “I was.”

Paul shrugged. “We're fuckin' prodigies, Marty. And neither one of us ever had half the power this girl does coming into it.”

“That's what I'm afraid of,” Bad Bob said. “That's
exactly
what I'm afraid of.”

It was four to three to make me a Warden.

 

Two hours later, I made it to Albany. Not a bad town, Albany—nice, historic, a little run-down but still the kind of kid-and-dog place that people boast about. Probably smaller than the residents preferred it be, considering it was the state capital and all. I'd hit it in pretty season—tulips bloomed in shocking rows of red and yellow, like velvet rings of fire rippling in the wind around trees and home gardens. I passed through the industrial area near Erie Canal, past narrow brownstones with soot-dark stoops, and turned toward the southend—up Hamilton toward the part of town called—appropriately—the Mansions.

Paul lived in a house that had to cost at least a cool quarter million . . . with spacious lawn, gracious styling, and a lacy white gazebo in the back overlooking a rose garden. I pulled into the drive and parked the Mustang, let the engine rumble to a stop, and took a little peek into Oversight.

I almost wished I hadn't. Paul's house was a castle in the aetheric, I'm talking
castle
here, with battlements and flags and arrow slits. Not too surprising, since Paul had always been a knight—in the warlike sense, the old-fashioned, bloody, mace-and-sword
kind. And his Sector was a fiefdom. Paul's world was heavy on the black and white. Bad news for Team Me, whose colors these days were gray and grayer.

I dropped back into tulips and Doric columns on the portico as the front door opened. Paul walked out to meet me. However knightly he might have looked in Oversight, in the real world, Paul was pure Italian Stallion . . . strong, muscular, with bone structure that bordered on godlike. He still had designer stubble, except I'd long ago learned it was really just a permanent five-o'clock shadow. Paul had turned forty a couple of years ago, but it hadn't slowed him down any, and
damn,
he was still gorgeous.

Also unfortunately mad as hell at me, at the moment.

“Outta the car,” he said, and jerked a thumb at me.

I rolled down the window with the hand crank. “Not yet.”

He glowered. “Why the fuck not? You don't trust me?”

“Check out the door,” I said. The marks of the lightning strike had certainly not done wonders for Delilah's paint job. “C'mon, somebody tried to fry me in my Stuart Weitzmans the last time I got out. I'm not falling for it twice.”

Some of Paul's anger melted as he looked at the evidence. But, being Paul, he didn't express any shock or sympathy or ask any touchy-feely questions, either. He said, “You're scared.”

“No shit. You'd be scared, too.”

“What? You don't think I could defuse a little lightning bolt?” he asked.

“Let's just say I'd rather you had four rubber tires between you and it when you give it a shot. C'mon, Paul, get in and we'll talk. Comfy vinyl seats—”

He grunted. “You know as well as I do that rubber tires won't do a damn thing against half a million amps.”

“No, but my car has a steel body. It won't melt like that plastic POS you're driving over there.” I jerked my chin at his late-model Porsche.

He looked wounded. “Don't badmouth Christine. She could give you a five-second start and still blow your doors off.” He let the smile come out, finally, and I felt it warm me like a bonfire. I'd lost count of the times we'd debated cars, discussed the finer points of auto repair, trash-talked about who'd win the fantasy drag race. “Jeez, Jo, it's good to see you. In spite of every little damn thing. Listen, come inside. I promise you'll be safe.”

“No offense, Paul, but I can't exactly trust you, can I? You're a little too far up in the food chain not to know the orders are to detain me for questioning.”

“Sure, I got the memo,” he said. “I'm willing to hear your side of it.”

“You'd be the only one.”

“Not the only one. You may think you're on your own, kid, but you don't have to be. You've got friends. Now's the time to count on them. Have a little faith in the system.”

I wanted to—dear God I wanted to—and if it were just a matter of a death and some questions, that would be one thing. The Demon Mark was something else entirely.

“Okay, if Muhammad won't come to the mountain, whatever,” he said. “Open up.”

I popped open the passenger door. He walked around the car and got in; the springs shuddered at the addition of his weight. Paul, not a small guy, looked uncomfortable squeezed into the shotgun seat, and we fiddled with adjustments until he had circulation, if not leg room.

The smell that filled the car was warm, sexy, and familiar. I sniffed closer to him and raised my eyebrows. Paul's face reddened. “Oh, for Christ's sake, it's just a little aftershave, okay? I got a date for lunch.”

“Lucky her,” I said. “So who's trying to kill me?”

“Wish it were that simple,” he said, and shifted uncomfortably. “Jesus, would it kill you to do a little reupholstering here? It's more springs than padding.”

“Yeah, your big fat ass is just used to that luxurious German craftsmanship.” But I knew that what was making him nervous wasn't the springs in the seat. “Come on, Paul, you have to have some idea.”

“There's a lot of folks that loved Bad Bob. Personally, I thought he was a gigantic pain in the ass, but that's just me. No question, he was one hell of a Warden.” Paul shrugged, looked down at his large, strong hands. “I know you two didn't get along.”

There was a lot I could say about that—a lot I wanted, desperately, to say—but it wasn't the right time or place, and I wasn't sure Paul could ever really understand anyway. Things were simpler in Paul's world. I wish I lived in it.

“You need to tell me what happened that day,” he said when I didn't start talking. “It's important. Unless you're planning on pleading guilty, you need to think about mounting some kind of defense. I can help you. I
want
to help you.”

“I can't.”

“Jo.” He twisted in the seat with a creak of springs and looked directly at me. Nothing soft in his eyes now, nothing but direct, unmistakable warning. “You
have
to. I'm not saying this as your friend, I'm saying it as a Warden. You don't give yourself up and start telling your side of the story, you know they're coming after you. You can't run around loose like this. One of the most powerful guys in the world is
dead
.”

“You're going to call the Power Rangers?” That was our own private joke. . . . Marion Bearheart's division of the Association had no official name, but they were the justice system of our screwed-up little world. Quietly took care of the problems. Calmly dispensed justice when required. No arrest, no jury, just the gentle, final judgment of the executioner.

He held my eyes. “I don't have to, and you know it. They'll find you. They're already on your trail.”

I had a very cold, cold thought. “You think the lightning bolt—”

“I think it's a warning, Jo, whether it came from the Rangers or not. This is a serious thing you're into. You don't want to laugh it off. Not this time.” He reached out and took my hand, and even in that gentle touch I knew he had enough physical strength to crush my hand like paper. If Paul wanted to restrain me, it wouldn't exactly be a challenge—unless I wanted to fight on the aetheric. Which made me
think of Bad Bob, and I felt a wave of sickness break over me. It left me shaking.

“Stay,” he said. Still a request.

“Thought you had a lunch date.”

“It can wait.” He was looking at me again, watching me in that half-lidded, intense way that carbonated my hormones. And worse, he knew it. If I stayed, I was going to get myself in trouble, one way or another. “I don't believe you did anything wrong. I think Bad Bob lived up to his reputation, things got out of hand—is that how it was?”

“I can't do this,” I said, and pulled my hand free. Paul was staring at me with big, calculating brown eyes. His eyebrows pulled together. The smell of aftershave reminded me that I wanted to kiss him, and I sank farther back in my seat, trying not to give in to temptation, trying not to notice the way sunlight slid warm across his cheekbones and turned his skin to gold. God, I wanted comfort. I wanted someone to make everything . . .
better
.

I knew better than to believe I could find it anywhere except inside myself.

“You need my help to stabilize the system?” I asked him. The lightning bolt would have torn his careful manipulations to shreds, sending the weather into chaos even if it wasn't yet visible to the naked eye. He shook his head.