She didn't seem inclined to believe me. I waited a few seconds, then reached down and grabbed her elbow to haul her upright. She looked around, breathless.
"Wow," she said. "Okay, that was intense."
"Oh, I don't know. The hurricane was intense. This was just annoying."
"Jo, trust me on this one: Everything about what's happened since I met you is intense. Does this happen to you a lot?"
"You'd be surprised," I sighed. "Seriously. Bathroom, or you're going to be buying new seats for the Mustang."
We dashed off for the grubby-looking toilets. They were predictably scary, but I didn't care. It was a very happy few minutes, and if you've ever been stuck on the road without bathroom facilities for several hundred miles, you'll know what I mean.
We arrived back at the car at the same time. I held out my hand for the car keys, and a silent battle of wills ensued, but then Cherise had been driving the last stretch and what was she going to do? Argue with a woman who'd just stopped a tornado in its tracks? She dug them out of the pocket of her low-rise jeans and tossed them over.
"I'll try to keep us in the clear from now on," I said.
"I'd tell you not to scratch the paint, but—" Cherise rolled her eyes. Yeah, the hurricane and ensuing sand blasting had pretty much taken care of ruining the shiny finish. But the Mustang still ran, and that was the important thing.
While I'd been asleep, she'd put the top up on the car—sensible, with the intermittent rain—but I pressed the buttons to fold it back again. I wanted as much of a 360-degree view of the sky and surroundings as I could get. My version of a Doppler system.
I eased into the comfy seat of the Mustang—candy-apple red, a yummy little treat of a car, or at least it had been before I'd gotten hold of it—and adjusted the seat for my longer legs as Cherise slid into my vacated shotgun position. Not that we had a shotgun. Though thanks to recent events, I'd have been more comfortable if we had some kind of arsenal beyond our wits, good looks, and a turbocharged engine.
I had my work cut out for me as we eased back into gear and tore at top speed along I-295. The storm systems just kept piling up—there was a new supercell forming off the low-pressure system in Georgia, and it was bound to head our way. That wasn't good physics, but it was the way my generally crappy luck ran these days.
"That was a good trick with the tornado, Mom," said a voice from the backseat. Formal, female, and a little awkward. I jumped in surprise, and then I focused on a face in the rearview mirror that was eerily similar to my own, except for the eyes. Mine were plain blue. The ones staring back at me were an interesting shade of ruddy gold—I don't mean amber; amber's a human color. This was amber on acid. Amber taken up to insane saturation levels.
In short, the eyes were Djinn. And they belonged to my daughter.
They widened. "Did I frighten you?"
"Frighten?" I shot back. "Why should I be frightened if somebody pops out of nowhere into the backseat of my car? Let's see, half the Djinn are trying to kill the Wardens, and at least some of the Wardens are infected with Demon Marks, and let's not forget the weather's all screwed up… oh, and the Earth's about to wake up and destroy humankind. You know what? Being a little frightened is a pretty laid-back response, all things considered, and yeah, next time? Knock."
She smiled. Tentatively, as if she was still translating all of that into Djinn-speak. I felt an immediate stab of guilt; the poor kid had been alive for all of not-even-a-day. She seemed to lack the one characteristic that was common among all the Djinn I'd ever met: smugness. I'd thought it came coded in Djinn DNA, along with pretty eyes and the cool ability to pop in and out of existence at will.
"Although," Imara ventured, "you could have done it more efficiently. Do you want me to show you how?"
"Not right now," I managed to say between gritted teeth. "Any guidance you can offer beyond second-guessing my lifesaving abilities?"
She looked injured. So I wasn't good at this mom thing. I was still trying to get my head around the idea that the child I had carried inside me—and it wasn't a normal pregnancy, by any stretch of the imagination—had all of a sudden sprung up fully adult, with her own set of emotions unrelated to my own.
"Sorry," I said, more softly. "Imara, do you know anything? Anything about—" David, oh God, I'm afraid for you. And I miss you. "—about your father?"
She shook her head, holding my eyes in the mirror. Djinn, unlike human beings, spring out of death, not life. The greater the death, the greater the Djinn—that's the rule. Djinn don't like to acknowledge that a lot of them have very human histories behind them, but it's an indisputable fact. David—Djinn and lover and father of my child—had told me months ago that in order for our child to be born, it would mean he had to die. That was the normal order of things, in the Djinn world.
Only something strange had happened, and another death—a greater death—had stepped in to give my child life. David was still alive.
Just not himself, exactly. He'd become… different.
"Mom," Imara said. "Are you all right?" She waved a graceful hand in front of my face, which I impatiently swatted away and focused back on my driving. "I apologize," she said, and withdrew back into a dignified sitting position. "I thought you were in some kind of distress."
I can't describe how it feels to hear that word. Mom. Oh, I'd gotten comfortable with the idea of being pregnant, but being a mother was a whole different thing—especially mother of a grown young woman who dressed better than I did. I consoled myself that she wore couture because she was Djinn, and able to conjure up whatever clothes amused her, and plus she hadn't been through a hurricane. And a tornado. And a verylong drive.
"I was thinking about your father," I said. Which was an admission of distress in itself.
"He's all right," she said, leaning forward and laying her forearm across the top of my seat. "I would know if he wasn't. I just don't know where he is or what he's doing."
Cherise was watching all of this with bright, feverish eyes. I had no idea what she was making of it. Knowing Cherise, probably something very interesting.
"Should I go find out?" Imara asked hopefully.
"No!" I yelped, and grabbed her wrist. She looked startled. "You stay put. I want you where I can keep my eye on you."
She gave me a mutinous look. Why hadn't my own mother traded me in once I'd hit puberty? I remembered giving her loads of mutinous looks. It was hugely annoying from this side of the maternal fence.
"I'm serious," I said. "The last time we saw any of the other Djinn, they weren't in the best mood ever. I don't want you running into trouble. I can't bail you out of it. Not against David."
I tried to sound as if dealing with this, and with her, was all in a day's work. Probably didn't succeed, judging from the smile she gave me. It wasn't my smile. It was entirely her own, with a little lopsided quirk on one side.
"I'll stay," she said. "Besides, you may need me next time, if the weather gets worse."
Cherise blurted out, "Next time? Does there have to be a next time?"
"Not if I can help it," I said firmly, and pressed a little more speed out of the accelerator. The cool, damp air streamed over my skin like the ghost of rain. I could have done with a more substantial sort of shower, the kind that came with shampoo and soap, but this did feel good. There was heavier weather up ahead, but we were in a clear area for the time being. I could arrange for it to stay with us, at least most of the way. "Cherise, you'd better get some rest." She needed it, poor thing. She'd been too crazed to sleep before, so I'd let her take over after we were a few hours out of Fort Lauderdale, and then again seven hours later. She'd barely closed her eyes since, and now she was starting to show the effects. Cherise was a perky, gorgeous thing, all tanned and toned in the best tradition of Florida beach bunnies, but there were telltale dark circles under her eyes. (She'd actually been a bikini model. And the "fun and sun" girl back at the podunk, fourth-rate television station that had employed us both in Florida. I didn't like remembering my job, but it hadn't involved a bikini. Except that once.)