Rachel Caine: Cape Storm

Just courage.

Impulsively, I hugged her. “Thank you,” I said. She wiggled free and flipped her damp hair back.

“First grope is free, but after that, you pay to play,” she said. “I’m going to jump on your bed, for payback.” Halfway up the stairs, she stopped and turned back to look at me. Her face was very serious. “We’re not going to die, you know. You can smile every once in a while.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but I tried.

The Grand Paradise was a floating city. I studied the complimentary colored map as I paced the semi-spacious confines of the suite, occasionally stopping to stare out the large, very thick windows. Cher was fixing her hair, which I knew would be an hour-long epic struggle. I was content to air-dry. All the product in the world wasn’t going to make my upcoming day any prettier.

The rain had stopped. The room had a sliding door and a balcony, and when I stepped out on it, salty sea air closed in around me like a hand. I felt a little stupid standing in the open in my bathrobe, but at the same time, it was a damn nice robe, and who was there to gawk? Dolphins? Let them look.

I put my hands on the cool railing and let myself float up and out of my body, which remained motionless at the rail. I moved up into the aetheric, where the forces that work on the world can be more clearly seen.

The storm, from this view, was even more terrifying. Most storms glow in the darker spectrums of power, and the worst of them take on an almost photonegative sheen. This one was all that, and a hazmat bag of toxic purple. It was also hungry, and angry. The menace and fury of it stained the entire aetheric like lethal radiation.

Bad Bob wasn’t running the storm. He didn’t have to. These things were sort of like the weather equivalent of a cruise missile—point, shoot, walk away. Sooner or later, they’ll catch up to the target. He’d given it a taste of Warden power, and it wanted more. We were the best chance for it to indulge its cravings, and it would keep on coming.

It had a particular taste for me.

I studied the inner mechanics of the storm as I hung silently in the drifting pastel clouds far above it. I could see the bright flashes of other Wardens coming and going from the aetheric, and subtle smears of movement that I knew were Djinn, who were much more difficult to see. Humans barely registered, except as muddy outlines. The ocean itself lit up on this plane like a spiral galaxy, thick with auras and lights. All that rich diversity of life in it, trailing beautiful colors, pasts, emotions. Down at the bottom, the seafloor glowed with ancient history, steeped in bands of color and power.

Mesmerizing.

I floated weightless on the aetheric.

I felt a violent shove from behind, and turned just in time to be battered again—a flat force, like a moving wall hitting me. I bounced off and floated back. I saw nothing, but I could feel . . . something. A ripple. A breath of warning . . .

I twisted aside, and the shearing force just clipped me this time. That was worse, because it wasn’t distributed evenly over my aetheric form; it caught my ghostly leg instead, and a bolt of pain lanced through me, odd and blurry.

I shouldn’t be able to feel physical pain on the aetheric. And nobody should be able to attack like this. I’d never seen anything like it before, and I’d been around the block. Hell, I’d gotten body-slammed by the unexpected so often they’d probably named a whole wing of the Warden hospital after me.

I backpedaled, fast, and then dropped the concentration that held me so far up in the aetheric. My body was like a massive anchor, heavy without the use of power to hold me away from it, and gravity kicked in hard. I snapped and fell across thousands of miles of open water and air, and as I was pulled back toward my physical form, I saw something peculiar happen in the clouds.

I saw them turn a particularly poisonous shade of green, with jagged black edges. It was eerie and beautiful and alien, the green of a toxic emerald, and I wondered what kind of power could do that to a natural force.

Nothing I could wield, or would want to face.

I slammed back into flesh, and my knees gave way. The deck of the balcony was hard, and it hurt to hit it even though I grabbed the railing for support. That’s going to leave a mark, I thought, but I was used to that, at least. I was more focused on the green color of those clouds, and then, belatedly, on the lancing pain that ripped through my left leg, from heel up to hip. I rose and put my weight on it, thinking it was some kind of cramp; the entire limb spasmed, shook, and gave way as if my electrical system had just cut out like a bad engine.

I clung to the railing, waiting for something. . . . It reminded me of the sensation you get when your leg goes to sleep, but I didn’t feel any tingle or prickling of blood returning to feed the nerves.

It was just numb.

Come on, I thought, exasperated. The exasperation faded. The numbness didn’t. I kept trying to put my weight on my leg, and it kept folding up on me like cheap paper.

Okay, now I was scared. What the hell? I plunked myself down on the balcony deck, legs extended, and massaged the numb leg, starting at my thigh. It was eerie. My fingers touched flesh, but that was the only feedback there was. It could have been someone else’s leg entirely.

And then, with a snap, everything came back online, as if the nerve channels had just been switched on again. No slow awakening, just a sudden shock of pain and heat that made me cry out, and then it was all just . . . normal.

I stood up, clinging to the railing, and tested the leg.

It hurt, but it held.

I limped back into the living area and stretched out on the sofa, probing my leg for anything that seemed oddly shaped, broken, or otherwise bizarre. Except for the continued random firing of pain through my nerves, everything seemed intact.

It faded, after a few minutes. I stood and cautiously walked around the room, careful to stay within grabbing distance of major pieces of furniture. Walk it off, Baldwin. I’d had worse. Hell, I’d had worse just yesterday. But it bothered me, because it shouldn’t have happened. Nothing was supposed to hurt me in aetheric form, certainly not echoed down into my flesh-and-blood form.

Unsettling. It just didn’t feel right.

I didn’t want to, but I knew I had to mention it to Lewis. Every odd thing that happened to me increased the chances that I would end up confined to quarters, or tranquilized in the brig, if this floating casino had one of those. But this didn’t seem like something I should keep to myself.

I checked the clock. I was due at the Wardens meeting.

“Cher!” I yelled to her closed door. “I’m out!” I don’t think she heard over the aircraft-carrier roar of her blow-dryer.

I put on my sadly wrinkled, salt-stained, and badly-in-need-of-laundering clothes, grabbed the map, and went to wage war with evil.

The map was confusing. That was all right; there were plenty of staff members around. Seems that the cruise line and the Wardens had thrown around a hell of a lot of talk about triple pay and hazard pay and bonuses, and as a result, the current passenger complement was outnumbered by its service staff by about two to one.

Which I’ve got to say would have been potentially amazing had I not regarded every single one of them as another weight of guilt on my conscience.

Three staff members and three sets of directions later, I arrived at the ship’s movie theater. I was late, of course, but not very. The lights were up, revealing opulently layered velvet curtains in the traditional dark reds and purples on the walls, some lovely Art Deco sconces, and seats for a couple of hundred people and their snacks.