Rachel Caine: Firestorm

"Eamon!" I hissed it, as much as you can hiss something without sibilants. "You keep your hands off my sister !"

"Love, I can't keep her hands off me." He laughed, and it sounded utterly unaffected. Villains didn't have the right to laugh like that, so infectiously. I could hear Sarah joining in.

I was glad I'd emptied my stomach on the plane.

I hung up without any good-byes before he could cut me off—a little control on my part, anyway—and went back to the counter. They looked happy. Apparently, my credit limit was stratospheric.

I pulled out of the parking lot in a sky-blue convertible Z4, hit the gas, and almost broke the sound barrier. Damn . The thing was little, light, and incredibly maneuverable. It smelled like rental cars smell, only newer; the interior wasn't roomy, but it seemed to make that an asset by cradling my body in an almost sensuous fashion.

I slipped on my sunglasses at the first stoplight and consulted the free map they'd given me. It looked easy enough—a straight shot up I-17 towards Flagstaff, with a quick jog off to the west at the Highway 179 exit. About a two-hour drive, if you obeyed the speed limit.

I was in a Z4, trying to save the world. Did I intend to obey the speed limit?

Hardly.

I've never really thought about why I like to drive fast, but it probably has to do with control. I like being in control, and I like pushing limits, and the adrenaline rush you get from hurtling down a clean, empty freeway—that's like nothing else. Driving felt especially good after the nauseating, disconnected trip in the plane. Not that I didn't have faith in the pilots, but I never liked being in the backseat. Or the passenger seat, for that matter.

The Z4 throbbed around me like a living thing, and we left the stone-and-glass caverns of Phoenix behind. The sun was a weak brass shadow behind gray clouds, and the rain fell in fits and starts. Not as determined as it had been to wash me away, but spitting its contempt nevertheless. The road looked black and shiny as it stretched out due east, toward Sedona and Flagstaff. I shifted gears as the traffic thinned, and felt something primal in my body relax at last. I might be flying toward disaster, but at least I was controlling the trip.

I felt the hair on my arms stir and come to attention, as if an electrical field had formed around me and I was static-charged. Something dark and shadowy formed slowly in the passenger seat next to me… too slowly. Djinn were masters of the now-you-see-them, now-you-don't, and this was way too gradual an appearance.

I backed off the gas, saw a scenic turnout up ahead, and took it in a hiss of tires on damp road, then braked fast as details came clear in the figure appearing next to me. Long black hair hanging limp, half-hiding the face. A shredded black leather jacket. Leather pants split in long cuts, showing pale-gold skin and blood.

There was blood on her hands.

"Imara?" I said, and felt my heart freeze solid in my chest. Part of me felt like it was falling backward. "Imara, what happened?"

Her head slowly tilted back to rest against the leather seat, and I saw the blood spattered on her face. She looked far too pale. Her eyes were colorless, pale and clear.

"Help," my daughter whispered, and slithered sideways into my arms. "Mommy, help."

I screamed, calling her name; she didn't answer. Her eyes were still open, and her chest still rose and fell, but that was all. I couldn't even begin to think what to do. Djinn could have human form, but it wasn't real in the sense of mortal flesh; if they got hurt badly enough, they could let go of it, mist away. Their real injuries were metaphysical ones—energy depletions. Had Imara been attacked by an Ifrit? No, that would show up in other ways, not as physical wounds…

I remembered Rahel, coming up out of the surf in Florida not so long ago, looking ragged and half-killed. Who—or what?—had she been fighting? I'd never really had the time to find out. Could it have been a Demon? Imara shouldn't have even tried; our child didn't have the experience of a full-fledged Djinn, or the endurance. Or the powers.

I could barely breathe. When I felt for a pulse I found one, weak and unsteady under my fingertips. Not that a pulse mattered, but as long as she was manifesting physically, it was an indicator of how strong her life force might be.

"Imara, can you hear me? Imara!" It was crazy, but I shook her. Her head lolled. No reaction. She was like a living corpse.

Ashan had allowed this to happen. If he hadn't done it himself. My cold terror turned hot. Incandescent. If he's laid a hand on my daughter …

I cradled her in my arms—she was heavy and warm and oddly human—and braced her head against my shoulder. I pressed a kiss against her temple, and tried to think what to do. If David was… I couldn't let myself really think about David, where he might be, what he might be suffering. Too frightening. If Imara had been human, I could have driven her to a hospital, hooked her up to machines and tubes, let doctors take care of her. But an injured Djinn, even half of one, couldn't be so easily handled. If she couldn't do it on her own, I had no idea how to do it for her.

The Ma'at . The Ma'at had demonstrated some arcane knowledge that the Wardens certainly didn't possess; they'd been able to heal Rahel, for instance, when she'd become an Ifrit. So they had some kind of resources I didn't. The only problem was that, so far as I knew, the Ma'at were off handling things with the rest of the Wardens, or else they'd be hunkered down at their cushy Las Vegas headquarters, safe within the glass and faux-Egyptian sleekness of the Luxor hotel. Probably playing cards. They liked playing cards while things burned down around their ears.

I reluctantly moved Imara, got her upright in the passenger seat and strapped in place. Blood dripped from her hand in a steady rhythm onto the leather seat, but I had no idea whether it was real blood or metaphorical—if I bound up her wounds, would it make her better? Or would it just not matter, one way or another? Dammit. No signal on the cell phone. I had no way to contact Lewis until I got to the next town.

Or I could turn around, go back to Phoenix…

It hit me in a sudden rush of comprehension. I was meant to turn back, wasn't I? There was a reason Imara had appeared here, now. She was a vivid, unmissable distraction, an emotional roadblock I couldn't help but consider.

I turned off the engine of the roadster, set the brake, and stepped out onto the crisp gravel of the roadside. The wind was cool and cutting, sharp with the scent of rain in an area that had little of that kind of thing in the normal course of events. I breathed deeper and got an aroma of wet sage. "You might as well come out. I know you're here."

Ashan was as gray as the clouds, and he seemed to just appear out of them, gliding down like some Hong Kong wire artist, landing with perfect poise and walking toward me without hesitation. A perfectly tailored suit around a perfectly proportioned body. Expensive, shined shoes that disdained little things like rain and wet sand. Ashan was twenty feet away, then ten, then five, and he wasn't slowing down.

"You bastard," I said, and I called the wind. It came as if it was waiting, as if it was more than willing. A hard wall of air hit him hard, shoved him back on his heels and dragged him ten feet. He stayed upright, staring at me with fierce colorless eyes. "You did this to my daughter."

He shrugged. "Don't take that tone with me. I could have ripped her into nothing. She's barely Djinn, and yet she's inherited all your arrogance."

He waved a hand. That was all it took to turn the wind around, and it hit me with the force of a sandblaster, driving me back against the car. I instinctively shielded my eyes and gasped for breath as pressure tried to compress me flat. He was playing with me. If Ashan really wanted to, he'd introduce my ribs to my backbone with shattering force and leave me a ruptured bag of meat.