I must have sounded so miserable that even Whitney was moved, very slightly, toward pity.
"Someplace safe," she said. "You rest, now."
I didn't want to, but the Djinn reached out and past me, putting a hand over David's shoulder. David let out a sigh and slumped against the car door. The bleeding from his side slowed, and I saw his color start to return to normal. Whitney, working her magic through her supernatural surrogate.
The Djinn let go and reached for me. I knocked his hand away. "No," I said sharply. "I'll stay awake."
"Suit yourself," Whitney said, back to her old bad attitude. "Want me to pinch you if you drop off?"
"Bite me, Whit."
The Djinn made an unsettling teeth-snapping noise, and I looked sideways at him, scooting a couple of inches closer to David. When I was sure I was safe- ish, I looked back at Kevin and Cherise.
"You two okay?" I left it an open-ended question, and it was up to them whether that applied to injuries, mental instability, shock, or just plain hating the world.
"I don't want this," Kevin said, again. "I didn't ask for this. It feels--wrong." He licked his lips, his eyes haunted under the emo flop of hair. "It hurts when it comes out. I don't think it's safe."
That made sense. In fact, I thought it was a credit to Kevin's strength that it only hurt, because using the power of a Djinn Conduit would probably have torn apart most normal people. Even many Wardens. I wasn't sure what it had done to him, but Kevin didn't scare easily, and I felt for him.
"Sorry," I told him, and reached over to touch his arm. He jerked away. "We'll find a way to do this. I swear."
"Well, I don't mind," Cherise said. "Because controlling the weather is awesome.
I want to do more."
"Well, you're not going to," I said, which sounded sternly authoritative but was a wet paper sack, so far as enforcement might go. "Cher, you need to stay away from it as much as possible. It may not seem like it's hurting you, but it probably is. I don't want anything to happen to you."
She normally would have smiled in response to that, but instead she just looked away out the window. "You say that until you need me. Then it's all 'bring it.' " That didn't sound much like Cher, and it bothered me.
"Hey." I tried to catch her eyes, but she kept looking away. "Cher, you know I care about you. You know I don't want you hurt."
This time she did look at me, squarely and calmly. "I know," she said. "Until you don't have a choice, and then you'll do anything you have to do. It's what I always like about you, Jo.
That ruthless streak under all the girly polish."
We had that in common, I realized. Cherise was sweet and compassionate, funny and talented ... but she was also, deep down, a survivor, with a broad streak of ambition and a little bit of larceny baked right in. In another age, she might have been a charming criminal, holding up coaches at midnight on deserted roads and kissing all the pretty young men.
"We do what we've gotta do," she said. "Right?"
"Right," I said softly. "But until we've got to do it, don't. Please."
That won a smile, finally. "Sure," she said. "Have all the fun yourself, then. Now--" She yawned broadly and bundled herself more comfortably against Kevin. "Now I need some beauty sleep. And a shower. But I'll settle for sleep."
The experience must have been overpowering, I realized, because both she and Kevin dropped off in under a minute, dragged down by exhaustion. Made sense. Their bodies weren't made to take that kind of strain. I remembered how it had felt in the beginning, when my powers first began to surface--it was like hormones on crack. I'd been hungry and tired and bitchy all the time, prone to mood swings and fits of pouting, complaining about how hard everything was when I wasn't griping about how nobody ever trusted me enough to do things myself.
Cherise had a lot to handle. Kevin, even more.
I checked David's side. His wound was healed, but still red and inflamed; bruises were forming, and evidently Whitney had decided that bruises weren't anything requiring first aid. He was sleeping peacefully. Ahead of us, the road unspooled, lit by furious stabs of lightning and the glow of the headlights. The Djinn kept a machinelike precise grip on the wheel and a foot on the pedal.
And before I knew it, I'd joined the rest of them in sleep.
Chapter Five
I woke up with the sun on my face, which felt nice, but the good feeling faded fast as I blinked and looked around, out the car's windows.
We were still on the road--not a surprise--and I supposed with a Djinn at the wheel we didn't need to stop for gas. Cherise and Kevin were still deeply asleep. David, however, was awake, and as I moved my head off his shoulder, he reached out for my hand. That felt nice.
What wasn't nice was the world outside our speeding car.
We were traveling close to the coastline--I could see the gray smudge of the ocean through occasional hills--but what was most noticeable to me was the thick, gray pall of smoke that hung in the air. I could smell it, thick even through the filter of the car's vents. It gave everything outside an unreal, unfocused look. "It's snowing?" I said as flakes brushed across the windshield.
"No," David said quietly. "It's ash."
I swallowed. "Can you see the fire?"
"Not yet. But it's got to be huge to produce this kind of effect."
The radio suddenly slid channels. I expected more homespun passive-aggressive advice from Whitney, for which I really was not in the mood, but instead it landed on a news station. Even before I started getting the sense of what they were talking about, I could hear the tension in the broadcaster's voice.
"... continues with major flare-ups to the west of I-95, including the Cumberland State Forest area, the Amelia Wildlife Management Area, Masons Corner, Flat Rock, and Skinquarter. There are unconfirmed reports of a major explosion and uncontrolled burn near Chesterfield Court House and the Pocahontas State Park. If you are anywhere in this area, immediate evacuations are under way. Do not remain in your homes; this is an extremely dangerous situation that is overwhelming emergency services. It is only one of several emerging situations that are splitting the resources of our fire, medical, and police throughout the area. Reports are also coming in of significant damage in the Midwest due to torrential rains and flooding, as well as seismic activity along critical fault lines. The Red Cross is--"
Without warning, the voice dissolved into blank, white static. I waited. It didn't come back.
I reached out and switched off the radio. I couldn't help it; the feeling of doom was overwhelming. I could hear the suppressed panic in the reporter's voice; I could feel my own heart pounding uselessly, trying to trigger some kind of survival response.
There was nowhere to run. Not anymore. I was certain that if the broadcast had continued, we would have heard more. A lot more, from all over the country. It was starting in the rural areas, but moving toward the cities, and when it got there ...
"Faster," I said aloud, to the Djinn. "Whitney, if you can hear me, for the love of God--"
The radio clicked back on. "You brought this on yourselves," she said. "Don't go dragging God into it. You were warned a million times that if humanity got to be too much of a threat, it would get dealt with. Day of reckoning, Joanne. It's here. Should have spent more time listening to those preacher-men--not that any of that would have headed it off, I suppose."
She sounded annoyed, verging on pissed off, and I shut up. She was, indeed, the only real help I imagined we had in the bullpen, and it wasn't a very smart strategy to alienate her.
Satisfied by my silence, apparently, Whitney edged more speed out of the howling engine, and we fled into a dim, surreal day.
Judgment Day.
About an hour later, my phone pinged. It hadn't rung, but I supposed the connections were bad and getting worse as more and more panicked callers took to the cell phone skies to find their loved ones.
It wasn't a call; it was a text, from Lewis. It said LOST PARTS OF WASHINGTON STATE--WILDFIRES OUT OF CONTROL. LARGE LOSS OF LIFE.
I swallowed. He wasn't telling me to ask me to do anything; I knew that. He just had to tell someone. Lewis was, right now, the man at the top, listening to all the litany of horror. It had to go somewhere. I supposed it might as well come to me as bleed- off. We were all going to need counseling before this was over, provided there were any of us left, and of course provided there were any mental health professionals left standing.
The next text said, HEADING FOR SEATTLE. LAST STAND FOR FIRE WARDENS IN THE AREA. WILL UPDATE.
I stared at it for a long, silent moment, then texted back, UNDERSTOOD.
I did understand. I knew why he was texting me, what he wasn't saying to me, all those fragile and silent things that both of us knew would never be acceptable in the light of day. My fingers hovered over the keys, and I almost added, LOVE YOU, because I did, desperately, like the brother and friend he had been to me these past few years. But I knew what he felt was different, and stronger, and I didn't want to give him false hope and wrong impressions.
So instead I said, BE CAREFUL, and sent the message.
David, watching me, said, "It's bad."
"Lewis and the Wardens are trying to save Seattle," I said. "It's not good." I realized that the pixels on that phone screen might be the last thing I had to remember Lewis by, and a lump formed in my throat. I swallowed it, blinked away stinging in my eyes, and thought, No, it isn't. We'll get through this. We always find a way.
Looming up out of the misty haze in the distance was a tangle of metal. Some kind of crash, leaking black smoke, but no visible flames.
It was a bus, flipped on its side. It had collided head-on with a car--I think it had once been a car, anyway. Nothing was moving in either vehicle.
"Slow down!" I said. The Djinn ignored me. "Stop! You have to--"
We flashed by the wreck at the speed of light as the Djinn expertly drifted around the debris and found open road. Not enough time for me to get all the details, but enough, and it felt like my stomach was trying to crawl out through my throat.
"No survivors," the Djinn said, in that eerie chorus-like voice. "No stops."
Cherise and Kevin were wide awake now in the back, but neither of them said anything.
When I looked back, they were clutching hands and avoiding looking anywhere. David said nothing, either. His face was disturbingly blank.
"But--" I couldn't let it go.
David touched my cheek. "He's right. Wherever we're going, we have to get there. We can't stop. Not for anything. I know you can't accept that, so I'll take the responsibility, all right? We don't stop, not even if you scream and hate me."
I gulped. "I wouldn't--"
"Yes, Jo, you would. What if that had been a school bus? What if you'd seen crying children?"
I couldn't answer him. I knew he was right about me, and I knew he was right about everything, and it hurt. Badly.
"Whitney," I said. "Can you hear me?"
Her voice came out of the Djinn's mouth this time. "Unfortunately," she said.
"Put me back to sleep," I said. "I don't want to see this. I don't want to see any of it until I can do something."
David put his arm around me and pulled me close. I let my head fall against his chest.
I was just dropping off when I saw an old man stagger out of his car, which was half off the road, and fall on his side. We passed him by in a flash. Did I see that? Yes, I did. I know I did.
"Stop," I said. The Djinn once again ignored me. "Whitney, I'm not telling you again. Stop this car!"
"What for?" she asked, bored and resentful. "So you can go play Low- Rent Nightingale?
You said we need to get to the Oracle. I'm doing my best."
"Please," I said. "Please stop the car. I'm begging you."
Whitney was silent for a second, then I felt the Djinn braking the vehicle, whipping it around in a tight turn, and heading back. "You need to know when to let it go, Joanne. You really do." Thirty seconds later, he pulled the Mustang to a stop. The old man was feebly moving, trying to pick himself up, but he wasn't able to do much. I bailed out and ran to his side. He was in his seven-ties, maybe into his eighties, with a tight cap of silver/ gray curls over a face of great dignity--a patriarch, for sure. African American, and he'd probably been tall and broad in his younger days, but now he was lighter and more stooped, and I was able to help him up to a sitting position. More car doors slammed. The others were joining me.
"Hi," I said. "My name's Joanne. You looked like you needed some help."
He nodded breathlessly. He was wheezing, and his hands trembled badly. "I saw the devil,"
he said. "Back there on the road. It was killing people."
I exchanged a look with David, and knew he was thinking exactly what I was--Djinn.
"I'm not supposed to be driving, but I had to get Mindy out of there. The whole place was going crazy. I just started feeling sick. My chest hurts." His face was taking on an ominous gray color, and he made a pained expression and grabbed for his arm. "Damn."
He was having a heart attack.
"Sir, what's your name?" I asked. "Sir?"
"George," he finally panted. "George Templin Bassey."
"Nice to meet you, George. I'm going to help you lie down, okay? You take slow, deep breaths. That's right, slow, deep breaths." I sat back on my heels and looked at Kevin, then Cherise. "One of you is going to have to try to help him."
