Rachel Caine: Chill Factor

I felt strength flooding back into me as David stopped his draw. I snapped into the aetheric to gather up the shattering chains of control. It was like playing marbles with a dump truck, chaos dancing in gleeful abandon. Ican't. Panic threatened to overwhelm me, make me lose what control I had.

And then I felt him, on the aetheric, wrapping himself around me, supporting me, steadying me. You can, he whispered through that silent, strong connection between us. Trust yourself.

And something inside me went still, and the chaos no longer looked like chaos. There were patterns, beautiful sparkling patterns, life, life everywhere, in the wind, in the ground, in me, in David.

There was no chaos. For an instant I saw it, knew it on a level that only the true Djinn could perceive, and I reached out and took control.

And the wind obeyed. Tamed its fury with a sigh, dropped its coating of dust, coiled around us like a pet.

Mona touched down gently on hot asphalt that shimmered off into the distance like a black mirage.

I opened my eyes, blinked away the lingering euphoria, and felt Mona's engine still purring and trembling through the grip of my hand on her steering wheel. I was holding on to David, or he was holding on to me, or we were holding on to each other.

I had to let go to ease Mona back into gear. My hand shook violently on the gearshift, but I just held on until the shakes went away.

He'd just shown me how the Djinn see the world. A sight I'd had, and lost.

I hadn't realized until this moment how deeply I mourned it.

We played cat and mouse with earthquakes all the way to the Nevada state line. I could only imagine how nuts it was making the normal world, not to mention the poor Earth Wardens who were supposed to be keeping the world safe for regular folks; my cell phone kept ringing, but I didn't have the time or energy to answer it. The caller was Paul Giancarlo, who was temporarily acting National Warden for the U.S. -our previous fearless leader having been corpsified in the line of duty just about a week ago. Another thing I hadn't been able to stop, even as a Djinn. I could only imagine how worried Paul was, but it wouldn't reassure him to hear my status reports. His Djinn would tell him we were alive. That was about all the good news there was.

"Highway Six," I said. I was shuffling maps, which was something I could do while David drove. He wasn't as good a driver as I was, but I tried not to hold that against him. He was holding Mona to the road, and we were burning rubber, trying to get as far as we could before Kevin and Jonathan locked onto us again. I knew that anytime now, Kevin would just lose patience with the game and say something unequivocal, like, Smash that car into junk, right now. At which point it would be Jonathan versus David, in the battle for my life, with the winner a foregone conclusion.

"Highway Six turns into Highway Fifty," I said, following the route with my finger. "Loneliest road in America." Which was all to the good, for us; I didn't want to be on a congested highway with the wrath of Jonathan coming down on me. "Unfortunately, it doesn't take us where we need to go. On the upside, maybe that means they won't come after us for a while. I don't know about you, but this crap is getting ridiculous."

He made a noise that could have been either agreement or indigestion, except that I didn't think Djinn could get indigestion.

"It also means we could pull over for the night," I said slowly. I'd lost count of how many hours we'd been in the car. The little sleep I'd been able to catch had left me grainy-eyed, subject to nervous caffeine-sponsored tremors, and having post-traumatic stress flashbacks to the last soft mattress I'd slept on. Of course, that had been a hospital bed, and I'd been recovering from a gunshot wound to the back. Hence, the PTSD.

"We could stop," David agreed. Nothing in his voice. Not looking at me for a long beat, and then cutting his eyes over at the last second. "You should rest."

"Start fresh in the morning."

"There's nothing more we can do now."

"Probably true. Wouldn't hurt to catch some sleep while I can."

We were both quiet for a few seconds, and then I let out a slow, tired breath. "I can't. I can't just sleep while they're out there doing God only knows what, to God only knows who…" We hadn't been able to see anything beyond the wall of Jonathan's power. For all I knew, they'd turned Las Vegas into one giant beach party, like eternal spring break. That would be about Kevin's speed.

"We would've heard if there had been anything spectacular," he pointed out. "There's been nothing on the radio so far; it's business as usual for the regular mortals out there. And even if Kevin is doing something, you can't stop it by burning yourself out like this."

"David, they've killed Wardens." At last count, while I'd been lazing around in my hospital bed, two Wardens and their Djinn had gone into the no-man's-land around Las Vegas, and hadn't returned. Plus, there'd been no contact from either the Wind or Fire Warden in Nevada. The Earth Warden, probably feeling like the only target left on the shooting range, was justifiably nervous. "Jesus, I can't just… relax!"

David's voice was low, warm, and gentle. "I know." And he reached out with one hand and brushed his fingertips against my skin. "Sleep now." And before I could protest, I was gone.

My dreams were haunted.

I was standing in the desert, staring off to a limitless flat horizon. Sand drifted lazily around, but I couldn't feel any wind… couldn't feel anything.

No, that wasn't right. I could sense the external pressure of the breeze against my skin, feel it ruffling my hair… but I couldn't feel it. Not inside.

I had no sense of the weather at all.

Blind. I was blind. Panic ripped through me, and it felt both overwhelming and weirdly unreal, the way things do in dreams… intense and disconnected.

This is what is.

But it wasn't. I was a Warden; I had powers; I was alive and kicking despite the odds.

This is what is coming.

"It's beautiful," a voice said. I turned my head, and there was a woman standing next to me-tall, glorious, with waves of white-gold hair and amethyst eyes. Her pale, diaphanous robes whipped in the wind I couldn't feel, and she raised her face to the sun and drank it in like a happy child.

I knew her. She'd saved my life not so very long ago, just before she'd given up her own existence, damaged and flawed as it was. She'd once been a Djinn like David, but her love for a human had undone her. Made her into an Ifrit, a creature built of shadows, manifesting in its Djinn form only when it had drawn enough power out of another. Ifrits were vampires at best. Cannibals at worst.

She'd clung to that half-life for hundreds of years, to stay with the one she loved. And she'd given it up for me.

I still didn't really know why.

"Hey, Sara," I said, like seeing her was the most normal thing in the world. She didn't open her eyes, but her smile deepened and a dimple appeared on her cheek. "Where are we?"

"At the end of the world," she said, and took my hand. Her skin was Djinn-hot, pale and perfect as ivory. "Where all the rivers run."

There weren't any rivers. I pointed it out. Her Mona Lisa smile didn't diminish.

"Figure of speech, love," she said. "For now… how is David?"

"I burn for him all the time," I said, in the obscure honesty of dreams. "If I lose him I'll die."

"You won't."

"I will." Just the idea of it brought on a massive, black wave of grief that threatened to cripple me. Sara squeezed my hand, as if she knew, as if she could feel what I felt. I gulped down a hot, acid breath. "Where's Patrick?"