Thin Air (14 page)

Kevin shot Lewis an utterly mistrustful look, then made it a group thing, because it was the same look he gave Marion, then me. Me, he seemed to trust least of all.

“Can I go with him?” Cherise asked in a small voice. She'd slipped her hand in his. “Please?”

“I don't see why not,” Dr. Lee said. “We'll see about getting you food as well. And some fresh clothing.”

I don't know if Kevin would have gone on his own, but Cherise's presence gave him an excuse to conform. He took her hand and followed Dr. Lee through the door and into what I presumed was a treatment area.

Leaving me with Lewis and Marion, who weren't saying much.

“Well?” I asked. “What now?”

“Now,” Marion said, “we see if we can determine the extent of your damage.”

“Here?”

“Here's fine. I don't need you to wear a funny open-back dress for this.”

Lewis walked away. I stared at Marion for a few seconds, frowning, and then nodded. “All right. What do you need me to do?”

“Relax and let me drive,” she said. “Eyes closed. I want you to focus on a sound.”

“What sound?” I closed my eyes and immediately felt drowned by darkness. I fought the urge to open them again.

“This one.”

For a brief second I didn't hear anything, but then I did, a low musical tone, steady and unchanging. Like the sound a deep-note chime makes. A sustained ringing.

“Do you hear it?” Marion asked. Her voice was soft and slow, blending with the sound of the chime. I nodded. “Concentrate on the sound. Only on the sound.”

It got louder, and the more I focused, the purer it seemed. It made me imagine things…a bright crystal, turning and reflecting rainbows. A flower slowly unfurling its petals. A chair rocking on a porch on a fresh, cool morning.

I could feel something moving through my body like a warm wave, but it wasn't alarming, and somehow I wasn't afraid of it. The sound compelled me to stay quiet, stay still, suspended in time….

“Hey,” said a new voice. I opened my eyes, or some part of me did; I could tell that my actual, physical eyes were still closed tight.

But part of me was somewhere else entirely. In another reality.

“Hey,” I replied blankly. I felt like I should know the man who was sitting across from me—there was definitely something familiar about him. Tall, lean, athletic; a little bit like Lewis, but more compact and certainly just as dangerous, if not more so. A graying brush of light brown hair cut aggressively short. A face that seemed harsh one moment, and amused the next. When he smiled, it seemed kind, but also mocking.

“You don't know me,” he said. “My name's Jonathan.”

“Um…hi?” It felt like the real world, but somehow, I knew it wasn't. Illusion, most definitely. So what was this guy? He smiled even wider, not giving me a clue.

“We don't have a lot of time for this little drop-in, so I'm going to be brief. You just acquired some skills that you're not ready for. Wasn't my choice, but hey, done is done.” He shrugged. “You're going to need them, no doubt about that, but your adjustment's going to be a little rocky. Just thought somebody should warn you.”

“Who
are you
?”

He laughed. Chuckled, really. “Used to be a lot of things. Human, then Djinn. Now—well, there's not really a word for what I am. But there's a word for what
you
are, kid. Trouble.”

This made no sense. It had to be a dream. I was sitting on a couch in a living room—stone fireplace, clean lines, masculine furniture. Warm throw rugs on the wood floor. A big picture window overlooking a field of nodding yellow sunflowers in full bloom, which was wrong, wasn't it? It should have been fall at least, or full winter. But here…here, it was summer. Bright, cloudless summer.

“Stay with me, Joanne. I'm going to bounce you back in a second, but first I had to tell you something.”

“What?” I asked.

“What's happening to you has never happened before. Never. That's a big word, in my world—it was big enough to make a whole lot of forces pay attention. David's right to look for Ashan, but you're going to have to do your part, too. If you screw this thing up, I can't help you. Nobody can.”

“Could you be a little less vague?”

“Yeah,” he said. He leaned back on the leather sofa to take a pull on the beer in his hand. Cold, frosty beer. It made me thirsty, and I didn't even know if I liked beer. “Do not, under any circumstances, think about throwing your life away. If you die—if you let her kill you—you have no idea what kind of hell will come calling.”

“So that's your big message? Stay alive?” I felt like pounding my head against the wall, only I wasn't sure the wall was real enough. “Great. Great advice.”

“Hey, don't blame me. Most people wouldn't have to be told, but you? You seem to want to martyr up when you lose a quarter in the soda machine.”

I didn't know Jonathan, but I wasn't liking him much. “Funny.”

“Not really, because it's true. My job is to take the long view, kid. And right now, the long view is that you need to be selfish and stay alive. Got it?”

I didn't, and he could see it. He shook his head, tipped the bottle up and drained it dry.

“Crap, you really are always a pain in my ass, Joanne. Not to mention the fact that if you keep on dragging David down, he's going to lose everything, up to and including his life,” he said. “You see that, right?”

“I—what? No! I'm not—” But I was. Lewis had said as much. Even David had hinted around at it. Which of course made me defensive. “David's free to do whatever he needs to do. I'm not stopping him. I never asked for any of this!”

Jonathan looked amused. Impatient, but amused. “Don't whine to me about it. I have nothing to do with it, not anymore. I'm just here to tell you to use your head for once.”

Which had the effect of completely pissing me off, even though I was pretty sure he was supernatural, powerful, and could crush me like a bug if he wanted. And besides, hadn't David said he was dead? I was pretty sure.

So of course I blurted out, “Great. You told me. If you don't have anything better than that to offer, butt the hell out!”

Jonathan's dark eyes met mine, and they weren't human eyes. Not at all. Not even
close
. I was pretty sure that even the Djinn would flinch from that stare; it froze me like liquid nitrogen, held me utterly still. There was something vast and chilly behind it, only remotely concerned with me and my problems.

“I will,” he said. “Too bad. If you'd been a little bit more on the ball, you could have avoided all the heartbreak that's coming.”

And then he opened his hand, dropped his bottle to the floor, and it shattered. The noise became a tone, a steady, ringing tone that grew in my ears until it was a shriek, and I jackknifed forward in my chair, hands pressed to my ears….

And then I was in the waiting room of the Wardens Health Institute Extension 12, gasping for breath, and there was no sound at all.

Until Marion put her wheelchair in gear and backed up a couple of feet. Fast. I looked up. She was staring at me, and her expression was distraught. “Oh,” she said faintly. “I see. I think I understand.”

“Understand what?” Something inside my head hurt, badly. I clenched my teeth against the pain and pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to massage it out. “What did you do to me? Who was that?”

She avoided that by simply wheeling the chair around and leaving me. I tried to get up, but I felt unexpectedly weak and strange.

A blanket settled warm over me. Lewis, my hero. “Stay there,” he said, and pressed a hand on my shoulder for a second before going after Marion. They talked in low tones on the far side of the room, careful to keep it under my radar. I didn't really care at the moment. Pain has a way of making you selfish that way, and this headache was a killer.

When they came back, Lewis looked as grim and strained as Marion. Which surely couldn't be a good thing. He stopped, but Marion continued forward, almost within touching range, and her dark almond-shaped eyes assessed me with ruthless purpose.

“How long have you had Earth powers?” she asked. I blinked.

“I don't know what you—”

“Don't,” she interrupted. “When did you first feel them emerge? Be specific.”

“I can't! I don't know! Look, I barely understand any of this, and—”

She reached out and put her hand on my head, and this time it wasn't a gentle, healing touch. It was a fast, brutal search, like someone rifling through my head, and I automatically slammed the door on it.

Whatever I did, it knocked her back in her chair, gasping.

“She's strong,” Marion said to Lewis. “But this didn't come naturally. Somebody put it in her.”

“I figured that. Who? How?”

“I don't know.” Marion visibly steeled herself. “I'll try to find out.” They were both acting like I wasn't even there. Like I didn't have any choice in the matter.

This time, when she reached out for me, I caught her wrist. “Hey,” I said. “At least buy me dinner first. I don't even know you.”

“Lewis, hold her.”

“No!” I shot to my feet, but Lewis was moving to block me, and he was bigger than I was, and stronger in a whole lot of ways. His hands closed over my shoulders and forced me back into the chair, and then touched my forehead. I felt an irresistible drag of sleep. “No, I'm not…You can't do this…I…Lewis,
stop
!”

But he didn't, and Marion didn't, either.

And out of sheer desperation, something came alive inside of me and struck, sinking deep inside of Marion's mind, and then I couldn't control it as the world exploded into the map of points of light, beauty, order.

I couldn't help it at all. It was sheer, bloody instinct.

I began to greedily grab for memories.

I'm going to have to kill her
, Marion was thinking as she watched a much younger version of me walk out of a conference room. I was defiant, I was gawky, I was just out of adolescence, and she thought I was the most dangerous thing she'd ever seen.

“This is a mistake,” said the old man sitting next to her. He had fine white hair, a barrel chest, fair skin with red blotches that spoke of a fondness for the whiskey barrel. “That bitch is trouble.”

“Bob,” Marion said, “give it a rest. The voting's over. You lost.” She said that not because she disagreed with him, but because she simply disliked the man.
Bad Bob
, her memories named him. There was something about him that set her teeth on edge, always had. He was, without a doubt, one of the best of the Weather Wardens in terms of skill, but in terms of personality…

He was staring at the door through which the earlier version of me had exited. He and Marion weren't the only ones in the room; there were three others involved in a separate side conversation, muttering to one another and casting glances toward Bad Bob that made me think he wasn't exactly well loved, though obviously he commanded respect. Or fear. “I'm telling you, she's trouble,” he said. “We haven't heard the last of her. One of these days you'll be hunting her down.”

It was eerily like what Marion herself had just thought, and not for the first time she found herself wondering if Bad Bob had some latent Earth powers. But she'd never seen any trace of it, and she'd looked.

It was her job, looking. And it was a job she hated, and loved, and realized was perhaps the most important job of all.

“Maybe,” she said quietly, “someday I'll be hunting you, Bob. It could happen.”

He turned toward her and met her eyes, and she couldn't suppress a shiver. There was something about his eyes, she decided. Cold, arctic blue, soulless eyes. He had charm, she supposed, but she'd never felt it herself. She'd seen its effect on others. She knew how much loyalty he inspired in those he commanded, and so she was cautious, very cautious indeed.

She'd gone against him on this vote, to save Joanne Baldwin's young life, and she knew he wouldn't forget.

He smiled. “That'll be a treat, won't it? You and me?”

She said nothing, and she didn't break the stare. It was a gift of her genetic heritage that she could look so utterly impassive when emotions inside were roiling. She knew he saw nothing in her dark brown eyes or in her face. No fear. No anticipation. Nothing to feed from.

Bad Bob Biringanine shook his head, smiled, and walked away, and Marion took in a slow, steadying breath. She was aware, on some level, that she had just passed a test nearly as dangerous as the one the young girl had almost failed. Would have failed, had it not been for the strong support of one or two others on the intake committee.

Marion gathered her paperwork and walked out to her car, in the parking lot of the hotel. It was another oppressively warm day in Florida, one she had not dressed for, as she'd flown in from the cooler Northwest; she was wearing a black silk shirt under a leather jacket stitched with Lakota beadwork. A gift from a friend who produced materials for the tourist trade, but saved the best for her fellow tribal leaders. Marion had recently been in the mood to emphasize her heritage.

She started her rental car and did not bother with the air-conditioning; it was a simple matter to adjust her own internal body temperature down to make herself comfortable. She waved to Paul and two of the other Wardens, who stood locked in conversation near Paul's sporty gold convertible. No sign of the girl in the parking lot; maybe she'd already left.

“So,” Marion's Djinn said, misting into reality in the passenger seat next to her. “Are you on vacation now?”

“Do I ever get vacation?” she asked, and smiled slightly. “I assume you're here for a reason.” Her Djinn's name was Cetan Nagin, or Shadow Hawk in English. She'd given him the Lakota name, since he'd refused to admit to one of his own. Proud, this one, and not above trickery. Djinn appeared as the subconscious of their owners dictated, and it had disturbed her a great deal that Cetan Nagin had taken the form of a Native American man, with long braided hair and secretive black eyes. His skin was darker than her own, and it shimmered with a phantom copper tint that did not seem quite…human.

And she had realized for quite some time that she was falling in love with him. No doubt he realized it as well. They did not speak of it.

“A reason,” he repeated, and looked at her directly. “You asked to be informed if any of the Wardens violated protocol.”

“Substantial violations, yes.”

“Define substantial.”

Ah, the Djinn. They did love specificity. “Use of powers for personal gratification or gain. Use of powers without adequate provision for balancing of the reactive effects.”

“How very scientific,” Cetan Nagin said, and slouched against the seat at an angle. He was wearing blue jeans and a long black leather coat, and he must have known how good he looked to her. His eyes were half-closed, and she knew he could feel the sparks burning inside her. It was as if he fed on it at times. “Thank you.”

“Did you have something to report?” she asked. Her heart was hammering, and she concentrated on driving, on the feel of the steering wheel beneath her palms, the vibration of the road. The cars around her on the busy street.
Real world.
Sometimes she felt only half in it.

“The Warden you dislike,” Cetan Nagin said. “He crosses those lines regularly. Did you know?”

Bad Bob. Of course he did. She had no proof, but Cetan Nagin could provide it, of course. He could provide whatever she required, but then it would be her own responsibility to bring the case before the senior leadership of the Wardens, and Bad Bob had many friends and allies there.

“I know,” she said quietly. “I choose battles I can win.”

Cetan Nagin shrugged and looked away. “The girl you were testing today.”

“What about her?” Surely she was too young to be corrupted already.

“He hates her,” the Djinn said. “Perhaps she's a way to entrap him. If he kills her, you will have a case to bring forth, won't you?”

As much as she felt heat for Cetan Nagin, as much as she wanted him, she feared him at moments like this. The Djinn were game players, politicians, and even at the best of times it was never clear whose side they were on.
If they ever get free…
It was a thought she didn't want to linger over.

“If that happened, I would have a case,” she agreed.

“Then all you have to do is wait,” he said, and smiled. “Now. As to that vacation…”

She glanced at him, and his smile grew warmer.

And so, reluctantly, did hers.

“I was thinking I might go with you,” Cetan Nagin said. “If you're willing.”

She tried not to be, but there were some things that were simply meant to happen.

 

Blur.

I lost my hold on the memory; Marion was fighting me, trying to keep her private life private. I released and sped past other memories. It wasn't just the cold calculation of her leaving me as a stalking horse for Bad Bob that chilled me; it was more than that. Marion had hunted me at the behest of the Wardens. She'd trapped me and tried to kill me more than once.

Lewis had let me believe she could be trusted, but she couldn't. Marion was a zealot. She would follow her ethics past any personal considerations, past likes or dislikes.

Still, there was something more.
Cetan Nagin
. Her Djinn had been taken from her, and I'd gotten him back. And she hadn't forgotten that I'd saved his life.

The richness of Marion's inner self was mesmerizing, and I wanted to experience it, know more, know
everything.
The soft touch of her Djinn's hand down her back. The white-hot presence of the Earth filling her like liquid light. The cold fear that drove her when she was forced to destroy other Wardens who'd misused their powers, or couldn't be trusted…

I wanted it all. I wanted a
life.
Even someone else's.

Something knocked me out of Marion's head with the force of a car crash, and I slammed back into my own body. I jackknifed forward in the chair, cradling my throbbing head. The pain was crushing. Every sensation felt more intense; every sound rang louder. I curled up in a ball in the chair, gasping for breath.

“Marion!” Lewis was shouting, his voice as loud as a bell in my head. “Oh, God. God, no. Lee! Get your ass back here
now
!”

When I tried to run, Lewis grabbed me, slammed me down on the floor, and tried to restrain me. And all of a sudden I felt a surge of utter terror.

I couldn't let this happen to me. Not again.

So I lashed out, the whole world dissolved in chaos, screaming, and pain, and then I was gone.

 

I woke up alone, in a cell.

Technically, maybe not so much a cell as a hospital room, but it might as well have been a cell. There were bars on the narrow window, plain ugly walls, and I was cuffed with leather restraints to the metal bars on the bed. They'd stripped me and put me into a nasty-colored hospital gown.

I was all alone.

“Hey!” My voice came out a frightened croak. “Hey, anybody! Help?”

There was a button next to my hand. I pressed it, and kept frantically pressing it until I heard a buzzing sound, and the cell door clicked open.

It admitted the doctor who'd gone off with Kevin earlier—Dr. Lee. He came back up with not one but
two
security guards, along with a small flying wedge of nurses.

No sign of Marion or Lewis.

The crowd stayed well out of reach, even though I was restrained.

“Hello,” Dr. Lee said. He sounded like he was making an effort to be cheerful. “Feeling better?”

“Peachy,” I said, and swallowed. My mouth felt like it had been upholstered in fur. “Water?”

A nurse poured me a cup, added a sippy straw, and held it for me. The effort of lifting my head seemed exhausting. I drained the cup and collapsed back to the pillow, gasping for air.

“You're lucky,” Lee said. “You nearly fried your entire central nervous system. If Lewis hadn't been here, you'd be hooked up to a ventilator right now, and we'd be transferring you to permanent care.”

I let that sink in for a second, then asked, “Marion?”

Silence. Lee stared at me for a long moment, then checked the monitors. “She's in a coma,” he said. “We can't wake her up.”

Oh, crap.
Crap!

“I didn't mean—”

“It doesn't matter,” he cut me off, but I could hear the anger under his veneer of calm. “I need you to rest. Your scans are still far from normal. We'll talk about all this later.”

I jerked at the restraints. “Can you take these off?”

“No,” he said. “As soon as you're able to be moved, you'll be transferred to a facility where you can be properly examined and controlled.”

Meaning I was under arrest. The security guards, grim and well-armed, more than confirmed that. I didn't like it, but there was really nothing I could do about it.

And really nothing I
should
do about it.

“Can I talk to Lewis?” I asked, very respectfully. Lee shot a glance toward the security people.

“I'll let him know you're asking for him,” Lee said. “I'm going to give you a sedative now, all right? Just something to help you sleep.”

He used drugs instead of the Earth Warden–patented hand-on-forehead; I wanted to do something to stop him, but I controlled the impulse. Clearly, it wasn't going to be a good idea for me to start fighting, not with the odds as they were.

David
, I thought.
David will help me.

I wondered where the hell he was, but before I could do more than wonder, the fog swept in, rendered my mind cool and blank, and I drifted away.

When I woke up, it was dark, and there was someone sitting in the chair next to me, snoring. I blinked and tried to rub my eyes, and remembered the restraints only when they clicked and rattled the bars.

Which cut off the snoring. A light clicked on, and I saw Lewis's tired but freshly shaved face in the pale glow.

“Hey,” he said, and reached out to wrap his fingers around mine. “How do you feel?”

“Pissed,” I said. “I'm tied to a bed, in case you hadn't noticed.”

“I noticed,” he said, and yawned. “Trust me, the restraints are there for a reason.”

“What reason?”

“Your protection,” he said. “I know you. If you had half a chance of breaking out, you'd already be blowing the door and running for the exit, and that will get you killed right now. I'm trying to help you, Jo, but you've got to help yourself.”

“Fine,” I said. “What exactly did I do?”

He blinked a couple of times. “You don't know?”

“Look, I know that Marion's in a coma, but—”

“You screwed around with things that you weren't ready for, and you put her in that coma. Then you went after me.”

“I—I what?”

Lewis didn't change his expression, not at all. “You heard me. If I hadn't put you down, hard, you'd have ripped my brain apart like a piñata.”

“But—why would I do that?” I felt bewildered, alien in my own skin.

“Post-traumatic stress, I'm guessing. The point is, you were a danger to everybody around you.”

“But…not now.” I said it like I believed it. Lewis didn't grace me with agreement, but he didn't disagree, either. He just sat, gently providing reassurance through the contact of our hands. “Lewis, I don't want to hurt anybody. Really. You have to believe that.”

“I do,” he said. “But the best thing right now is for you to rest and get your strength back. I had to put you down pretty hard. Harder than I'd have preferred. You need to heal.”