Rachel Caine - Ill Wind

I broke through the underbrush and found myself in a plowed field. Neat dark-brown rows of earth, jewel-green seedlings just pushing out of the soil. A farmhouse sat at the far end, lit up like a kitschy craft fair painting. On the other side of the field, a grassy fenced area with brown, placid cows.

And a round metal stock tank for water.

I made for the fence, jumped it, felt air burning in my lungs and didn't know if it was the fire coming for me or an overload of panic. I fell into the cow pasture. As I rolled back to my feet, I got a look back.

The underbrush was burning. No sign of Rahel. There was nothing left of the Land Rover but a sizzling metal skeleton.

I ran for the stock tank. Cows trotted out of my way, amiably uncertain, and I hoped they wouldn't end the day as barbecue, but I couldn't do anything about that just now. I spared a look over my shoulder.

Fire boiled out of the underbrush in a straight line, burning a path straight for me. It hit the fence and blew a blackened hole in it. Somehow, I knew—felt—it was Star. I forced myself faster, faster, got both feet on the ground and jumped.

I dived into the ice-cold water of the stock tank and found the slimy metal bottom. My skin took the shock hard, and it was all I could do not to gasp in a big drowning breath, but I held on, and the icy slap of it wore off in seconds, leaving me numbed.

Something hit the stock tank hard enough to rattle through the metal, and I saw a brilliant flare of orange and white sheet across the water, felt the temperature go up several degrees, and the thought came to me that if it went on for long, I'd boil like a lobster in a pot. Quite a lot of deaths to choose from, all of a sudden—burning, drowning, boiling— none of them really attractive.

I sucked oxygen molecules out of the water and made a breathable bubble, got my lips into it and refilled. I crab-walked backwards to the farthest part of the tank from where the fire was centered, and peered through algae-murked water to see the metal glowing on the other side. Pretty soon my stock tank was going to become a stockpot. Did I have a chance of getting to the surface and hauling myself out of the tank and making it all the way to—where? — before getting fried? No. No, I did not.

Mastery over air and water didn't mean a damn thing right now, except that I could probably keep breathing right up until my skin boiled off and my eyes popped. Maybe I would lose consciousness before that. I hoped so.

It got dark all of a sudden. I wondered if my eyes had failed, but then my brain slowly crawled to the conclusion that the fire had stopped.

Somebody had hold of my hair and yanked. It hurt. I opened my mouth and yelled, or tried to, but all I got was a lungful of murky water, and then I was coming out of the water and into chilled air and I was on the ground, my face in the dirt, vomiting out green ooze.

I sucked in air, coughed, and felt the linings of my lungs burn like they'd never be clean again. Could you die of disgust? I coughed until I was shaking and weak, smeared wet dirt all over my face, and rolled over to look around. Hard to tell if anything else had been baked or fried—it was too dark—but I didn't smell barbecue, and I could hear the cows mooing in panic at the far side of the pasture.

Rahel stood over me, fresh and neon as ever. She stared down at me and said, "I'm out of patience, Child of Demons. Do you love him?"

I coughed again, wiped my mouth, and gasped, "What?"

"Him." She waved her hand, and David was standing in front of me. David in Djinn form, hot bronzes and golds flickering along his skin, pooling in his eyes. "Do you love him?"

"Yes!"

Rahel snapped her fingers again, and we were standing somewhere else. Or no… I could still feel the wind on my face, feel the uneven stumpy grass under me.

But what I saw was a cellar. Dark, stacked here and there with boxes. There was a wooden worktable against the far wall, and on it…

On it lay the book from Cathy Ball's store.

Estrella stepped from the shadows behind me. I jumped out of the way, ending up next to the sheer primal heat of Rahel, and I was grateful for the warmth because this place was cold and my heart was getting colder.

I sat up. Rahel helped me to my feet.

Estrella went to the book and opened it.

"No," I whispered, and looked at Rahel; her face was impassive, but her golden eyes glowed like jack-o'-lanterns. "Stop her!"

"I can't," she said. "I can't interfere in the claiming process."

"The fuck you can't! Hell, set her house on fire… blow it down… anything!"

She rounded on me, gripped both my arms with talons hard as steel. "If I could stop her, don't you think I would? Do you think I'd waste my time chasing after a filthy corrupted little witch like you?" She shook me hard. "You stop her."

I fell out of my body, zoomed up into Oversight, and hurtled myself toward Oklahoma City. Star's house was somewhere around here…. Where was she? She wasn't in the aetheric, wasn't using her powers… needle in a haystack… other Wardens appearing and disappearing like sparks in a fire, but without getting close to them, I couldn't see which was which, couldn't find her. I rocketed down the lifeline back into my body and screamed at the Djinn. "Show me where she is!"

"I don't know. I can see, but I no more know where this is happening than you do. It's within your powers. Find her."

I felt a blind, anguished surge of panic. Sure, I could find her, if I had time… if I didn't have the Demon Mark eating me from inside out… if Star herself wanted to be found. No, there was nothing I could do, nothing my powers could pull up that would help me now. I needed something else.

My hand brushed something hard and angular that had made a whopping bruise on my left hip. I dug in my pocket and came up with…

… a cell phone. Star's cell phone. I punched buttons, and it lit up like a Christmas tree. Memory… memory… I paged through numbers I didn't recognize, names I didn't know.

Stopped on one I did. Star had called home to check her messages.

"Here goes nothing," I said, and hit the connect button.

In Rahel's illusion, Star was standing there with the book in her hands, mouthing words. I might be too late…

… and then she looked up, irritated, with exactly the same expression I knew I got when the phone rang at dinner. She shook her head, shrugged it off, and went back to the book.

"Pick it up," I whispered. "Come on, Star, please. Answer the phone."

On my end, the call went to voice mail. I hung up and redialed.

Star was reading the book. Lips moving.

There was a flash of intense blue-white light, and when it faded…

When it faded, David was standing with Star, facing her across the book. Frozen. Rahel spat out words I didn't know, but the vicious anger in them was universal.

Star handed him the book. He took it without any change of expression.

"Too late," I whispered. The phone was still ringing, a dull buzz in my ear. "Oh, God, no."

"Not yet. She has not claimed him yet, only trapped him." Still, Rahel didn't sound overly optimistic. She reached out with yellow-tipped claws toward David, then let her hand fall back to her side. "He fights."

He would, I knew. He'd fight to the limits of his ability, and beyond, to stay free. The same as I would.

Star smiled at him and reached over to pick up something lying on the corner of the worktable. She put it to her ear.

"Digame," she said. I watched her lips move in the illusion and heard her voice over the phone.

"Don't do it, Star," I blurted. "Please. Let him go. We've been friends a long time—it has to count for something. Don't do this to him."