I caught sight of something in the aetheric. No, caught sight ofwasn't exactly accurate—I sensed something, although everything looked just about as normal as an unsettled higher plane could look… The fire was a gorgeous lavalike cascade of colors, pouring out over everything in its path, but there was something going on that didn't belong. I couldn't pin it down, exactly. I just knew something wasn't right.
Then the fire arrived at the first human structure, a luxurious hunting lodge that was, luckily, empty of inhabitants, and set to work industriously licking at the propane tanks in the yard as if it had made straight for them.
That hadn't been a natural progression. That had been a choice.
"Crap," Emily said from her post at the window. She sounded matter-of-fact, but she was pale and shaking with strain. I didn't have an up-close-and-personal relationship with fire—well, not until recently—but I understood that the stress of being a Fire Warden was unique. I could see that she was caving under the pressure, and there was nothing I, could really do to help. I had my hands full already; lightning was jumping around in that storm, struggling to find new targets. My newly discovered Fire powers were too raw to be of any real use in a situation like this. Fire Wardens, even more than Weather, needed fine control.
I had no idea how long it had been since my call to the Crisis Center; time is funny when you're in the middle of something like this. It can make minutes crawl, and hours fly; there wasn't a clock in easy view, and I was too busy to consult one anyway. Any little slip in my attention meant the fire gained new ground against the rain I was directing over it. Janelle, my remote support, was weakening further; she wouldn't be able to last long, and when she was gone, the weather system would swirl out of control out to sea, and the winds whipping in would spread this fire far and wide. I remembered how it had happened at Yellowstone, the day Star had gotten burned. The day so many Wardens had paid the price. Once a wildfire took control, it would be coming after anything and everything it sensed might be able to fight it.
This one was right on the edge. You could feel it thinking, and, boy, not nice thoughts, either.
The propane tanks at the hunting lodge blew with movie-spectacular effect. It bloomed white-hot at the center, curling yellow petals toward the sky on a stem of black smoke.
The deafening roar rattled the glass a couple of seconds afterward.
It was warm in the cabin. I realized that I was sweating, and it occurred to me to take a look around; we'd been staring out the front window at the advancing blaze working its way up to slop toward us, but it was still a good half a mile away and moving slowly, thanks to the rain I continued to pour on it.
But I hadn't checked behindus.
I stayed where I was in the real world and turned on the aetheric plane to take a look.
Oh, lord.
It was advancing like a lava flow, rolling downthe hill; it had crested the mountain, and was eating everything in its path. No wonder it was hot inside the cabin.
The fire had outflanked us.
We were trapped.
"Em!" I yelled. She didn't answer, transfixed on what was going on in the front window. Focused to an extent that was going to get her killed. This was why Fire Wardens died so often; fire could turn so fast, and it required so much concentration. I lunged over, grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, hard. Her eyes rolled back in her head. She collapsed against me, heavy and loose, and I had to let her slide down to the floor. If she was unconscious, not just entranced, we were so screwed, because the fire would lunge straight for this cabin like a tiger for a staked-out goat. Like called to like, power to power, and fire didn't like being caged.
I grabbed Emily under the arms and began dragging her across the dusty wood floor to the cabin door.
Oh my God. This wasn't happening. It couldn't happen this fast…
I felt a wave of heat across my back, and heard glass shatter; the back window had just blown out. I gritted my teeth and heaved—dammit, why couldn't I get some willowy little girl who was easy to rescue?—and Emily's workboot-clad feet scraped another two feet of board on the way to the door. I was seeing stars. My pulse was hammering, and the air I was sucking in tasted burned and hot and nearly unbreathable.
The cabin was burning. Smoke was flooding in, heavy and black. I tested the doorknob and found it not quite burning hot, so I grabbed it and yanked. The door flew open, letting in a wave of hot air thick with smoke. I crouched down low and grabbed Emily's heavy form under the arms and started pulling. There were four steps to the ground. I wasn't too careful about how gently I was pulling her down them, and then I had to dump her in a heap on the gravel as I opened the back door of the SUV. Her turn to suffer being scraped over broken glass, but I figured she'd rather that than the alternative.
Fire took hold of a tree on the left side of the ranger station with an unholy bright-blue flare and snap. Sap exploding. Everything was superheated, ready to go up at a spark. My clothes were drenched with sweat, plastered to my skin as if I'd been swimming, but I was shivering; the intense heat was evaporating the sweat too fast. I needed water. Badly. The inside of my mouth tasted like dirty cotton, and I was feeling light-headed. I couldn't smell anything anymore; it was all just the same overwhelming smell of things dying.
A hugely antlered buck burst out of the burning forest, plunging past me, head down, blind with pain and terror. No way I could help it. I wasn't even sure if I could help myself.
I shoved Emily the rest of the way into the backseat of the SUV with the strength of the truly desperate. I turned to glance behind me, like Lot's wife, and saw the eeriest, most beautiful thing: fire flowing like heavy syrup down the hill, sliding over every charred, twisted thing its path. This was fire at its most elemental, its most powerful. No wonder Emily had collapsed, if she'd been trying to hold this back.
The stuff was going to roll right over the ranger station, and then right over us.
Cinders blew in my face. I slapped sparks from my clothes, jumped in the driver's seat, and started the truck. The situation called for a fast exit, and I gunned the engine, fishtailed on the loose gravel, and then found enough traction to leap forward down the bumpy fire road.
I was going too fast for the terrain. Gravel banged and rattled on the windshield and grille, and the suspension bounced me around like a toy inside the cabin. Emily was a rag doll in the backseat. The temperature inside the car was like a kiln, and I tried to pull in short, shallow breaths to spare my lungs. I could barely see ten feet ahead, as black smoke swirled across the road, but I kept my speed up. No time to slow down.
In my rearview mirror, fire was flowing down the road like lava.
"Damn, damn, damn," I chanted, and reached for anything to hold it back. I was nowhere near the caliber of someone like Emily or—hell—Kevin. I managed to slow it down, just a little. Or maybe it just did that on its own. Hard to tell, with the chaos on the aetheric.