The seats were lush and comfortable. Whoever had chosen the interior had gone with a dark chocolate leather, butter-soft to the touch. The row Yves and I occupied was midcabin, over the wing. I was on the aisle, away from the windows. That was fine with me.
The intercom came on. "Welcome to Hellride Airlines, folks; this is your captain, John Montague. It's not going to be a nice trip, since as you see, we have a Weather Warden flying with us today," the pilot's electronic voice announced. "We have no flight attendants on board for this trip, so if you want to eat, help yourself to sandwiches and drinks from the cooler. I do hope you enjoy them. You'll be throwing them up later."
The copilot's voice came on with the same cool competence overlaid with a veneer of humor. He had a British accent. I was instantly reminded of Eamon, with a cold flash and a shiver. "Also, should we survive this, donations toward our retirement fund are cheerfully accepted, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Bernard Klees— K-l-e-e-s, no relation to anyone in Monty Python, so please don't ask me for a rendition of the dead parrot sketch."
There was a ripple of laughter. Montague came back on. "Strap tight and hang on, people. We'll get you there."
Radio off. I heard a shift in the idling engine noise, and fumbled for my seat belt. My hands were shaking a little. God, I hatedflying; I'd done it a few times before, but only when the weather was firmly under Warden control, and only when circumstances required it.
Yves covered my fingers with his and gently held them as the plane taxied out onto the runway and picked up speed. "Relax," he told me. "They're the best pilots we have. Maybe the best in the world."
I didn't have to tell him how little that meant, if circumstances turned against us. Yves knew.
The plane lifted off with a bump and a sudden angular thrust of acceleration, and then it got eerily smooth. The force pressed me back into the leather, and I whimpered a little, thinking about the air around us, the fact that we were moving through it and drawing attention to ourselves. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to slow my rapid heartbeat.
"I heard you were—" I looked in time to see Yves's eyebrows doing an interpretive dance. "With a Djinn."
"Not just any Djinn," I said. "And yes. His name is David."
Yves lost his smile. "Something wrong?"
"You could say." I turned my head away and tried closing my eyes again. It didn't really help. I still saw David's face as the Demon's claws closed around him, that desperate, furious intensity.
He'd used power to break me free of the trap when he should have been using it to fight for his life. My fault.
"Hey." When I opened my eyes, Yves was holding out a copy of a magazine featuring shiny, glossy people doing stupid things for the cameras. "You used to like these, as I remember."
I needed to put it away. Bury the pain, and focus on something else. Self-pity wasn't my style.
I forced out a smile as though at gunpoint, took the magazine, and flipped it open to the first photo page. "Oh my God," I said, and pointed to the unzipped miniskirt and white stirrup leggings that the misguided pop star was wearing with low-heeled pumps. "Tell me that's not a sign of the end of the world."
Yves chuckled, shrugged, and opened his magazine: Mother Earth News. I wondered if he knew how funny that was.
For the first hour, at least, the trip was uneventful. Self-pity lingered, but Yves had succeeded in distracting me. The magazine's outrageous fashion mistakes occupied my mind, and I was almost feeling normal when something cold pressed against my arm.
I yelped and tossed the magazine into the air.
It was Cherise, with a can of soda. She offered it again. I took it, and she perched on the air of the empty seat across from me. "You okay?" she asked, and popped the top on her own can.
"Sure," I lied. "Why?"
She looked me over. "Jo, honey, you look pretty good, but don't kid a kidder. I saw what you looked like on the way to New York, and I'm pretty sure you've been through hell since then." She sipped daintily at the sweat-beaded can. Moisture dripped onto her lime-green raw silk capri pants, and she frowned at it, then found a napkin and wrapped the can.
I considered my answer carefully. "Um… yeah. I'm okay. I—you know how Earth Wardens can heal people? Has Kevin told you—?" She nodded. "Well, I got healed up, so I'm more or less okay. Just tired." And discouraged, and scared out of my mind. But other than that? Peachy.
She nodded again, looking down, and then suddenly those sky-blue eyes locked on mine. "I got a phone call. From your sister."
" What?" I didn't mean to yell it. It rang around the interior of the plane, bringing everyone to sharp attention. Even Yves, normally the least excitable of people, put his magazine down to look at me. "Sorry. Sorry, guys." I lowered my voice and bent closer to Cherise. "You got a call from Sarah? When?"
"A couple of hours ago. She couldn't get through to you this morning. She sounded—" Cherise's face turned just a bit pinker. "Okay, this is going to sound bad and all, but does she do anything? Heroin, maybe?"
"No," I said. I felt sick to my stomach, and it wasn't the altitude, or the overly sweet soda I was automatically sipping. "No, not Sarah."
Compassion didn't come naturally to Cherise; it made her look too young. "Sweetie, the family's usually the last to know. Listen, she sounded really spaced. Orbital. She said to tell you that she was okay, and that everything was going to be fine. She'd met somebody in Las Vegas. I asked her where she was staying, but she said not to worry about it."
I leaned forward, pressing the cold soda can against my forehead, fighting not to laugh. Or cry. "Yes. Thanks, Cher. That's Sarah all over, isn't it? Rescue her from one madman, she's off to find the next one—"
"She's not okay, is she?"
"No," I murmured. "I doubt she is. I really doubt she's going to be, either."
"She's not with what's-his-name anymore?"
"Eamon? No."
"Too bad," Cherise sighed. "Damn, he was cute. I lovedhis accent."
"He was an asshole, Cher."
"They're all assholes. But it's not every day that you find one that's really decorative."
"He tried to kill me," I snapped. "More than once."
She froze, deer in the headlights. Amazed. And then her face just filled with delight. "Oh my God! You go, Jo! That's so cool!"
"What?" There were times when I really didn't get life on Planet Cherise.
"You're still here," she said simply, and grinned at me with the unbroken enthusiasm of the truly weird.
I hugged her. Hard. "Staying here, too," I said.
"Oh, you'd better. You owe me for scratches on the Mustang."
She moved away, back to her seat. The gap between her white tank top and the green capri pants showed flawless tanned skin, and a tattoo of a big-headed space alien flashing the peace sign as she bent over to move something out of her way. Probably Kevin's feet. He was snoring.
He stopped snoring as the plane shuddered.
"Damn," Yves said quietly. "Here I was starting to think we'd make it without this."
Turbulence. The plane shuddered again, then dropped, a free fall that seemed to last forever. Outside, clouds were swirling. It was hard to get any sense of what was happening, but I could feel the hot energy consolidating itself out there.
Something had sensed me. A storm, maybe, one big enough to gather some elemental sentience. Or something else, and worse, like one of Ashan's Warden-killing Djinn. This would be a prime target. That was why I hadn't wanted to have others on the plane. My life—sure, I'll risk it. But there were a lot of lives at stake here. And I was the point of danger.