Then I took a look around. We were in a store. A shoe store, to be precise, and it was empty except for one store clerk who'd apparently been in the back, and now came around the counter, having missed the whole appearing-out-of-nowhere-dripping-with-ectoplasm floor show. "Hi, can I help you?"
"Sorry," I said, recovering whatever remained of my composure. "Give us a second."
He looked doubtful, but nodded and backed off. I turned to Cherise and dragged her off to admire a rack of shoes neither one of us wanted, at least right at the moment. "I have to find David!" I hissed. "We were together, but we got separated!"
"Oh my God, he's not still in there ... ?"
If he was, I'd just lost him forever. The enormity of it slammed in on me so hard that I literally lost my balance, and Cherise had to grab my arm to keep me from toppling into the size sevens. If you hurt him, I thought to the Air Oracle, if you kill him, I will destroy you. I don't know how, but I will.
"It couldn't," I said aloud, and tried to make myself believe it. "David's not just anybody.
It can't just kill him. Even Ashan wouldn't ignore that."
Presuming anything made sense anymore. Presuming Ashan, the leader of the Old Djinn, had an identity of his own, still, and was capable of making his own decisions. If the Mother was waking up, the Djinn were lost to us as individuals, and while she might notice and care about the Djinn David, the human David might not even be noticed.
"I'll go back," Cherise said.
"Are you mental? You're not going anywhere!"
"Well, you'd go back. And I'm kind of you, now."
"No, Cher, you're not! Just--I told you to stay in the car!"
"You'd be dead if I had!"
Well, she did have a point there. "I have to find David," I said.
"Yeah, what's your plan for that? Mall intercom?"
"No," I said. "Movies."
We headed out of the shoe store, which was inexplicably halfway across the mall, and made the best possible time back to the multiplex cinema outside the food court. The sign was no longer flashing ENTER HERE, or making dire threats. It was advertising a Disney film.
I turned a slow circle, taking in the standard mall view--tiled floors, towering indoor plants, escalators, elevators, stores, shoppers, food vendors with all their flashing neon.
Crying children and harassed clerks.
Someone in a black windbreaker and cheap uniform pants moved past us, walking fast. Mall security, talking on a brick of a walkie-talkie. She sounded tense, although she was keeping her voice down.
I zeroed in on her and followed.
"Where are we going?" Cherise asked. I didn't answer. "Because we really need to get out of here. This Oracle person wasn't fooling around, you know."
"The Air Oracle has no set space," I said. "It can go anywhere it wants. If it wants to get to us, it will."
"Oh, that's comforting. You could have told me that before I pissed it off."
Despite everything, I smiled. "Yeah," I said. "I could have. But it wouldn't have been as much fun."
"Bitch." Cherise fell silent, because the mall security lady was hurrying even more now, heading for a figure slumped on a bench with two more security guards around it. One pale hand was resting on the tiled floor, and I could see blood dripping.
As the security guards turned to look at the new-comer, I saw a glimpse of auburn hair.
"David!" I shrieked it, couldn't stop myself, and plunged for the knot of people without any regard for my own safety, or theirs. They sensibly got out of my way, and oh God, I was right. It was him.
David was lying on the bench, curled on his side, breathing shallowly. His face was shockingly pale, and he looked ... fragile. Terribly ... human. There was blood, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from.
He opened his eyes when I touched his face, and it took a few seconds for him to focus on me. When he did, relief flooded through him, and he tried to sit up. "No!" I said, and made him stop. "What happened?"
"I was right behind you," he said. "But you were gone. You were gone, and I was running--"
"You know this man?" one of the officers said. "Miss?"
"He's my husband," I said. My voice was shaking. "David, are you okay?"
"He ran into a plate glass window," the guard said. "He's got a nasty cut on his side.
Paramedics are on the way. Sir, have you been drinking?"
"What?" I sat back on my heels, staring up at him. I couldn't honestly understand what he was talking about. "Drinking?"
"He came out of nowhere and ran face- first into the glass," the guard said. "Usually that means alcohol or drugs. Maybe both."
"No. No, he just--he was looking for me." I looked down at David's pale face, at the red, human blood soaking his shirt. "He was afraid for me."
"Guess I had no reason to be," he said, and tried to smile, but it turned into a wince. "What happened?"
"Nothing."
"Liar," he whispered. His eyes closed for a few seconds, then opened again. "Cherise? I thought we told you to stay in the car."
She shrugged, back to her old self. "It's the mall," she pointed out, blankly mystified. "I thought you were kidding. Hey, and I saved your girl, so there."
He looked at me a little doubtfully, so I smiled. "She did," I said. "Although to be fair she almost got us both smashed, too."
"Sounds right. Help me up."
"Nope. You're staying down."
The security guards didn't quite know what to make of us now... . They'd pegged us as drunken troublemakers, but we weren't acting that way. A little giddy with relief, maybe but not intoxicated--though I admit, if somebody had passed me a bottle, I'd have taken a generous swig right about then.
All three of the guards' radios suddenly crackled, and a voice on the other end brayed,
"Get over here, guys, right now! South entrance, in front of the--"
It broke up into static. The three security guards exchanged a what now?
look, and then the most senior of them looked down at me. "Miss, you stay right here.
Paramedics will be here in a couple of minutes."
I nodded, and the three windbreakers hustled off into the milling crowd, heading for whatever trouble was brewing. I started to return my attention to David, but I heard something.
Screaming.
Coming from the south entrance, which was all the way at the other end of the mall. The screaming was dopplering our way, and as I stood up to look, I saw that at the long straight end of the hall, people had rounded the corner and were stampeding in full flight in our direction. Some were still carrying shopping bags, but I had the impression that it was only because it hadn't occurred to them to drop everything. They certainly weren't slowing down as they ran, and I wondered exactly what could have put a full hundred dedicated shoppers to flight. Terrorism? Fire? Ebola?
I felt a tremor through the floor, and felt a sick twisting in my stomach. "Change of plans," I said. "David, up. We'll help you get back to the car. "Cher--where's Kevin?"
"In the car."
"He let you go by yourself?"
"I told him I had to use the bathroom."
Well, that wouldn't hold him for long, if I knew Kevin. As I looked around, I saw that most of the mall crowd had taken alarm and was streaming for the exits--not yet running at this end, but certainly moving with purpose.
One tall, lanky, skinny figure was pushing through upstream, heading for us. "Jesus," he said, taking us in as he arrived. "When you chicks go to the mall, you really tear the place up."
He was looking toward the south, where the screaming crowd originated, and I said, "What do you see?" I felt frustratingly handicapped, as I helped David to sit up and got his hand firmly placed over the wound in his side. "Kev?"
"No idea," he admitted. "It's just a mass of-- something. I can't see what it is, except it's heading this way, and I think all these people running might have a real good idea."
He grabbed David's arm and hoisted him to his feet, taking most of David's weight, and we blended with the general exodus.
Behind us, something exploded. Kevin turned, staring back, and extended a hand to snuff out a ball of fire that was rolling through the broad tiled hall in a hellish, orange-black rush. He stopped it before it did more than singe the lagging runners. Before he could turn around again, another explosion rocked the building, prompting more screams and a mob of panicked, running people through the food court, sending tables and chairs flying.
"Let go," David said. "Go do what you need to do."
Kevin glanced at him, nodded, and spun away to plunge toward the danger. I quickly braced David as he wavered, and Cherise bit her lip and looked indecisive. "Should I ... ?"
"No," I said firmly. "Cher, if you want to help, look out for people who can't get out on their own." There were plenty of them--people in wheelchairs struggling to make headway through the sudden minefield of debris, people on walkers shuffling along at their best speed, a few who'd tripped and were trying to get up but kept getting knocked down.
Situations like this, people would get trampled.
I took a deep breath. "David, can you stay up?"
"Go," he said, nodding. His face was ghostly, but his eyes burned with determination. "I'll make it. You two help."
I headed for a grandmotherly type in a power scooter, who was stranded by a drift of fallen chairs, and kicked them out of the way as I offered a bracing arm to an older gentleman with a cane who'd been knocked off his feet. "Here," I said, and put them together. "Buddy system. Make sure you both get out, okay?"
They nodded, too scared to do anything but obey whatever order sounded official at the moment. It was a good partnership. The old guy shoved things out of the way, and kept one hand on her scooter for stability as they moved along.
I grabbed up a couple of screaming kids who were missing their parents and flagged down a lady with a stroller, who took the toddlers on. There was a teenage girl down near the Subway counter--out cold, with a swelling bruise on her head from where she'd fallen and knocked herself out on the tile. I dragged two teen boys to a stop and put them in charge of her. They looked shocked. It was probably the first time anybody had asked them to be in charge of anything. They grabbed her and towed her out.
By the time I'd made it close to the north exit, most of those able-bodied shoppers had cleared out, leaving a few injured, and one asthma sufferer who needed her inhaler, dropped somewhere back in the panic. Nothing I could do for her but send her on her way, and appoint yet another unwilling Samaritan to make sure she got to emergency help.
"Jo!" Cherise yelled from the other side of the food court. "Get out!"
I wasn't about to, because not only was Cherise still inside, so was David. He'd stopped moving, in fact, and turned to face the south entrance. The food court was unnaturally empty and full of discarded bags, purses, coats, and spilled food and drink. Neon buzzed and blinked. I smelled acrid smoke and burning food on a grill somewhere.
Then there was a sound like nothing I'd ever heard, and Kevin came flying from around the corner, driven back like a limp rag doll. He hit the ground unconscious, or dead, and rolled to a flopping, boneless stop against the far wall. Cherise screamed and did some broken-field running through the maze of debris, heading for him.
I headed for David. He was very still, tense, gasping in shallow breaths that told me he probably had cracked ribs. Or, God forbid, internal injuries. Blood was a thick, dark stain spilling down the side of his pants, dripping over his shoes, and spreading on the floor.
"Djinn," he said. "It's the Djinn."
"That's not possible."
Except it was.
A Djinn walked out of the smoke and darkness, and where she walked, flames broke out, concrete shattered, glass powdered, water gushed. She was the touch of destruction, neatly packed in an almost human form.
Tall, strong, dark-skinned, with a multitude of thick black cornrows that shifted like snakes on her head. She was wearing bright blood red, and her eyes had taken on a pure white shine.
Rahel.
But she was no friend of mine. Not anymore.
Cherise made it to Kevin's side and tried to drag him out of the way. A fireball blasted out of Rahel's hand, heading straight for them. Cherise screamed and shook Kevin to try to wake him, but he was out completely... .
Sheer instinct guided her, and desperation, and--I strongly suspected--love. She flung out her hand, and the fireball smashed down on them--and flared around them in a white- hot glowing blast, diverted to gouge steaming chunks out of the wall on either side.
Rahel stopped, cocked her head, and considered Cherise for a second before renewing the attack. Again, Cherise blocked it. Barely. When Rahel ended the fire stream, I saw Cherise collapse back against the wall, weeping, shaking, unable to summon up the energy to even put a brave face on it.
Rahel raised both hands.
"No!" I screamed, and flung myself forward, swinging my arms over my head and jumping up and down. "Over here! Fresh meat!"
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" David hissed. Rahel turned her head and locked on us with those white, blind, shimmering eyes, and I felt panic well up in my throat, strong enough to choke me.
I had no idea what I was doing. Except buying time for my friends to live another moment. And maybe that was enough. Right now, in this one instant, I had a kind of shining clarity of purpose that I didn't understand, and really couldn't have said was sane, exactly.
