wrath of the Sea Queen (146 page)

"
I
wi
ll try, but I
have not had much
luck
so far
.
"
  Vin tried to shake
off
the fuzziness
in
his head.

"
Whatever you can do, Vin.
"

Vin closed his eyes and immediately regretted it.  The room began to spin again.  When he opened them to stop the spinning sensation, he noticed that Scott and Apela's sister
were no longer within
his direct line of
sight.  Vin felt
a pang of regret
for Apela because he
was
certain that
Lorrie
was
a
willing
participant
in whatever
devious
game
Scott
was playing.

Vin tried to focus his thoughts on the air in the room.  He condense
d
the smoke, allowing the little bit of remaining good air to expand further throughout the room. 
T
his did not provide the desired
relief
.  Instead, it gave the flames a more direct route to the oxygen, and they greedily devoured it.  Vin was not helping their cause.  In
fact, his efforts were making the situation
worse.  He had to stop, not only for that, but also because
of the effects of his new injury
.  Perhaps it was because of the head injury or maybe because the air was now so thin in the room, but
Vin
found
himself
barely able to stand. 
He needed to rest for a minute.

He
sat down in a chair and leaned his head on a table, hoping
not
to
pass out as he waited for the unsettled
feeling to pass
. 
Vin
wished
that
C
a
eli could hear him as he tried one last time to call out to her.  Neither
Vin
nor the others in
the ro
om heard the sirens on the streets below.  They had no idea how close help might be, if it was on its way at all.
  None of them
could see
the storm clouds break away from the main cloudbank
a
nd move, almost deliberately, toward the burning hotel.

CHAPTER
35

C
a
eli woke with a start.  She heard a loud, distant rumbling that caused the stone beneath her to vibrate.  She was
on the wet floor of
an interior room
in
what she assumed to be
the cave Max had shown her. 
She
must be
further
inside
than she
went
with Max
because the
surroundings were
unfamiliar
.  The floor of the large room
looked like a huge swimming pool about
ten
feet deep
and thirty feet long
.  She was lying at the bottom
of that pool
in a few inches of water. 

She
could not remember how she got there,
though
she knew she fought her way back from something terrible.  If the tattered clothes and the bruises on her body were a testament to the struggle she
went
through, it
definitely
had
not been easy.  She tried to stand, but her legs and feet would not respond. 
After several tortuous attempts
,
C
a
eli
was
finally
able to move herself into a sitting position with her back against
a
wall. 
She closed her eyes and rested after the exertion. 

S
omething nagg
ed
at
the back of her mind
, but
C
a
eli
could
n
o
t re
call
what it was.  It fel
t
like forg
etting
to turn off the stove before leaving the house.  As she sat there, C
a
eli noticed that the water level in the cave was rising.  It was
only
a small change, but enough that she could detect it.  It would take several hours to reach a level that would cause her any
concern
, but she would get up long before then.

"
C
a
eli!
"

She heard her name
as if shouted
from a distance.  The voice calling her seemed familiar, but everything c
a
m
e
to
C
a
eli
through a haze, and she could not clear her head.  She tried to focus on the voice, but it did not call again.  C
a
eli reached up and fiddled with the knotted pendant hanging on the chain at her neck. 
The
habit brought her comfort and
,
with
that comfort
,
came the sudden clarity she
sought
.

Vin g
ave
her th
at
necklace. 
It was his voice
calling her!  She sat up
straighter
with a
sudden
determination to reach him,
feeling
clearly
, for the first time, how much
abuse her
body
had taken.
 
It was worse than she could have imagined
, but
C
a
eli
ignored the pain and
forced her mind to focus
.  It took several minutes
to
locate Vin. 
He
and the others were trapped in a conference room
several stories up
. 
F
lames were engulfing the
room
, burning off the limited oxygen that
they
desperately needed. 
And
Vin was hurt
.  That was why it
was
so difficult to hear and reach through to him.  He
was
using his gift
to hold back the poisonous smoke and give the people a few extra minutes of breathable air.  His efforts
, however,
were
rapidly
draining the room of
its good air.

"
Vin, don't move the air
inside
.  Push the clouds overhead.
"
  It took all of her will to
reach
him, but she finally made the connection.

Vin heard
C
a
eli's
voice
and redirected his efforts to a
stream
of air he was able
to
follow outside.  He
began
to co
mbine
the air currents around the top of the building,
using them to
push the
approaching
storm clouds
closer to the building
.  Vin
recognized
C
a
eli's presence
as she took
hold of the
engorged
clouds
hovering over the burning building
.  She condensed the
water within the
clouds and
heavy
rain
drops
soon began to fall.  Within
seconds
, the rain c
a
m
e
down in torrents and the clouds thickened to such an extent that the
emergency crews
on the streets below
required
lights in order to
maintain visibility in
the
storm's
engulfing
darkness. 

C
a
eli
connected to
the water
both
in the cave
and in the clouds above the building.  She
was aware of
the water
as it ran
into the building's pipes
and
swell
ed
through them.  Water burst forth from the sprinkler system
, overwhelming its useless trickles,
and poured into each of the rooms
.
  It
continued to rain down within the hotel for almost fifteen minutes.
  The early arrival of the dreaded storm turned out to be a welcome relief
for those trapped within
.