Rachel Caine - Firestorm

For answer, he reached out and folded his arms around me, holding me. He smelled of smoke and sweat, real and human, and I wanted nothing but to be somewhere else with him, somewhere free of chaos and responsibility. Somewhere I could hold him against my skin, and we could wash each other clean.

If we could ever be clean again.

"I know you didn't kill them," I whispered against his neck.

"I'm responsible," he said again, and his lips touched the sensitive skin below my ear, a delicate benediction. "That's all you need to know."

Lewis and Paul would shrug it off; fifteen more dead Wardens? A tragedy, sure, but we'd already lost more than we could count. And Demon-infected Wardens weren't an asset to anyone. I knew all the logical reasons, and none of them touched the black, oily guilt that continued to seep into my heart.

I took a deep breath and pulled back enough to look him in the eyes. "Where are these things coming from? What do they want?"

For a second he didn't react, and then his pupils narrowed as he comprehended what I was asking. "The Demon Marks? They're destined to produce adult Demons. They reproduce at will, once they hatch. The Marks—the eggs—are drawn through rips in the aetheric, and they're pulled to the nearest source of power. Djinn or Warden."

"Is that all?"

"No. They're drawn to us because we're part of her , in greater or lesser measure. What they want—especially the adults—is to get to the Mother."

"Like I do." Oh, the irony.

"Not… like you do," David said slowly. "If they can get to a place where she's vulnerable, they could kill her. Demons are a disease, Jo. And we have to fight them however we can, especially now. She's vulnerable. And she's hurting."

"The Oracle. The one in Seacasket. He was infected with a Demon Mark—"

"What?" He pulled back, completely back, eyes wide. "No. That isn't possible."

"I—I think it might have been my fault. I got it off him, but I don't know how much damage it did first."

His face went stiff and blank. "I have to go," he said carefully, with exquisite care. "Don't—don't go back to the Oracle. Don't try."

"But—"

"If you go back," he said tonelessly, "I'll have to kill you. Don't even think about it."

I swallowed hard. He'd shifted from the warm, comforting lover to the leader of the Djinn, and the change was terrifying. "Then what do I do? David, you're the one who said—"

"I know what I said. But it's out of my hands now. And yours. Go home, Jo."

I stood there, stunned. He walked away, toward the fire.

One of the other Djinn was standing next to me—the big one, his pale white ponytail fluttering in the wind. He raised an expressive eyebrow.

"You can go," he said.

Something occurred to me, late and hard. "I forgot—there's a Demon down in the fire—"

"We know, love," he said. "That's why we're here. Go."

When I didn't move, he just picked me up and effortlessly carried me back to the SUV, and plumped me into the driver's side. This time, the engine started with a throaty roar. I looked over at Emily, who was firmly buckled in, and fingered the shredded remains of my own seat belt.

"Oh, sorry," he said, and reached in to touch it with a fingertip. It knitted together with dizzying speed. Good as new. He solicitously buckled me in and patted my shoulder. "You do what he says, now. You go home."

I hardly even remembered driving away. I remember staring into the rearview mirror, at the smoke and flame and the battlefield of dead Wardens, until the next hill hid it all from view.

I cried for a while. Tears of fury and anguish and bitter, bitter disappointment. Disappointment in myself, mostly. If I'd stayed in Seacasket… if I'd gone back instead of going into the fire with Emily, maybe things would be different. Maybe those fifteen Wardens wouldn't be dead. Maybe…

Maybe it would all be the same, only I'd be dead, too. No way to second-guess it. I knew only that the path I was on wasn't the right one, not at all.

Emily continued to sleep, and snore, as I piloted the broke-down Jeep back down dirt roads, heading for civilization.

The first sign of which was a paved road, black and level, at right angles to the road I was on. I turned left.

It's so strange, how quickly you can go back to normal life. The first shock came as the tires of the SUV hit blacktop. The sudden lack of vibration felt weird and unnatural, and for a second I had a nightmarish vision of myself as a backwoods four-wheeling fanatic like Emily, wearing oversize work shirts and thick-waisted jeans and clunky steel-toed boots. With a collection of trucker gimme caps.

Behind us, the forest fire was a lurid red fury, pouring blackness into the clouds. I felt sick, remembering how I'd left things with David. It already seemed more dream than reality.

I wiped tears from my grimy cheeks and thought longingly of a shower. A long, hot shower, followed by a deep, drug-induced sleep.

Paved road or not, I still had a half mile or so to go before we reached the actual highway. Not out of the woods yet. The fire had turned back, consolidated itself—fighting the Djinn now, instead of the Wardens. It might give us just enough breathing space.

Home. Where was home? Sure, I'd drop Emily off at her house, but where did I belong? Back at Warden HQ, helping Lewis oversee the end of the world? Back in Florida, salvaging whatever was left of my apartment after the big storm, and waiting for the next one to hit?

My home was David, and I couldn't be with him.

I fought the tears again—self-pitying bullshit tears, and I wasn't going to give in—and decided to go with the one-crisis-at-a-time theory. First, get Emily home. I'd saved her, at least. That was something. Not much, but something.

From the backseat, Imara said, "Where are you going?"

I yelped and flinched, and the Jeep veered wildly, tires squealing. I got it under control again and looked behind me in the rearview. Imara was sitting there, black hair blowing liquidly in the wind.

"Isn't this supposed to have doors?" she asked.

"Upgrade," I said hoarsely. "Where were you?"

"Trying to get help." She closed her eyes and rested her head against the upholstery. "I ran into Ashan. I wasn't very successful."

"Help," I repeated. "Wait, Ashan!…"

"I'm fine. It doesn't matter," she said. "But at least you're safe."

I laughed. It turned into a racking, smoky cough and ended up in a sob that I controlled with an effort. "Yeah. Safe," I said. "How's the fire doing back there?"

She didn't even open her eyes. "Father and some of the other Djinn are there, trying to hold it, but it's hard. The Mother's… I suppose the closest description is that she's having a nightmare. He's trying to shelter the Djinn from it, but it's getting stronger. He won't be able to keep it from them indefinitely."

"A nightmare," I said. "About what?"

Her eyes opened. Amber-brown. Very human. "About humanity."

Sorry I asked. I remembered the dead Wardens, the suffering on David's face. My responsibility , he'd said. If he'd been trying to hold the Djinn back from whatever bad vibes the earth was trying to send out, maybe he'd slipped. Lost himself.

Maybe I was still trying to make excuses for him, and it had been a cold-blooded choice. Lewis had warned me, not so very long ago, not to underestimate the alien nature of the Djinn. Even the ones I loved.

Of course, the same could be said for people…

"You're thinking about Father," she said. "Right?"

"Why do you say that?"

"You look sad," she said quietly. "He'd hate that he makes you sad."

Oh, dammit . I was going to cry, wasn't I? No. I wasn't. I gulped enough air to make myself belch instead. "Are they going to be able to contain the fire?"