The vote seemed to be on the side of killing me, but it was too late to reconsider, and besides, I meant it. If I had to die, I would. Hell, I'd done it before, and I would again, at least once. Might as well make it count.
Apparently there was a third alternative I hadn't considered, because the rope around my throat suddenly dissolved into cool white fog, and the Oracle's teeth flashed in what could only be interpreted by my brain as a smile, and… it simply misted away. Back up through the ventilation system.
Gone.
My gasping breaths hung white on the ice-cold air, and I sat there shivering for a few more minutes before I felt a shudder through the deck.
We were out of the clear air and heading back into turbulence.
I unlocked the bathroom door. It unsealed with a snap-crackle of ice, and I walked on shaky legs back to my row, lurched past Yves, and strapped myself back into my seat.
" Mon Dieu, you look as if you've seen a ghost," he said, and touched the back of my hand with his fingers. "You're freezing."
Lightning flashed hot in the sky, changing black to smoke gray, and there was something floating outside the plane in a drift of mist and curves, with the eyes of eternity.
I flattened my hand against the window in a reflexive gesture, trying to reach it, trying to push it away, maybe both, but then the lightning failed and there was nothing there.
Nothing.
I felt my stomach churn and grabbed for the airsickness bag.
Yves, alarmed, pulled away as I retched, and looked relieved when I stopped, wiped my mouth, and closed up the bag. "Okay?" he asked, and patted me awkwardly on my shoulder. I nodded, throat still working. I felt drained and exhausted, as if I'd been through hours of Warden work. "We're almost down. We're going to make it."
He was right. Even as he said it, the clouds swirled from black to gray outside the windows, and then there was free air and the sight of desert under us. The rest of the passengers spontaneously applauded. I clutched my airsickness bag in both hands and tried not to weep.
The Learjet touched down with barely a bump—smoothest landing I'd ever seen—and taxied sedately toward a terminal. The engines powered down to a purr. "Right," said the copilot crisply. "I won't tell you to stay seated because you won't anyway, passengers never do, so I'll just say that it's your bones—break them if you will. Miss Baldwin, thank you for flying with us, you certainly gave us a nice diversion from the boredom, and you're now on the ground in Phoenix, Arizona. Good luck to you."
I sucked in deep breaths and managed a weak smile in return for Yves's delighted grin. I managed to get myself loose from the safety straps and kept the airsick bag because I didn't know what to do with it—they never tell you these things—and air-kissed Yves on the cheeks because I wasn't sure he'd want vomit-mouth on his lips. He hugged me. That was nice.
Cherise hugged me, too. Kevin just gave me his patented too-cool-for-this shrug and waved a limp-wristed good-bye. Everybody else seemed relieved when I made my way to the door.
Nobody else was getting out in Phoenix.
Captain Montague appeared to open the door and let down the steps for me. He looked just as starched and together as he had at the beginning of the flight. I, on the other hand, was trembling, clutching a sloshing airsick bag, and had my shirt plastered to my skin with sweat.
"Good flying," I said. "I think I owe you one."
He lifted his silvery eyebrows and moved his uniform jacket enough to show me damp patches of sweat on his shirt, under the arms.
"Not at all," he said. "First time I've broken a sweat in three years. I haven't had so much fun since I flew a planeload of drunk Weather Wardens from a convention in Tahiti in hurricane season."
I offered him the hand that wasn't holding the sloshing bag. "I'll never fly with anyone else."
"I think I'm in love," he said, and gave me a professional smile to make sure I knew it was a professional sort of rapture. "Take care, Miss Baldwin. It's nasty out there." He wasn't talking about the weather in Phoenix; it was cloudy, but seemed stable enough.
I saluted him and retrieved my suitcase, then rolled it down the red carpet toward the entry gate. I resisted the almost overwhelming urge to throw myself to my knees and kiss the tarmac.
There was a trash can at the entrance, and I dropped the evidence of my weakness into it.
My journey was complete.
If the Oracle in the clouds had been my last hope, it was over in more ways than one. But maybe, just maybe… there was one more chance.
Chapter Eight
The first rental car agency didn't have a huge selection, and mostly it ran to sedate four-door sedans or cramped little economy cars. When I expressed that to the rental agent, a neat little redhead who was just cute as a bug in her dark blue suit, she looked conspiratorial and leaned forward to say, "You should call these guys." She handed over a brochure with the underhanded motion of someone completing a drug deal. I glanced down at the name on the glossy paper: Rent-A-Vette. Holy crap, I'd actually found somebody who understood. What were the odds?
"Thank you," I said with heartfelt sincerity. "You're a lifesaver."
She winked and moved on to the tourist family behind me, who wanted a boxy four-door sedan.
I went to the phone bank and called the number on the paper. Did I have a driver's license? Sure. Major credit card? No problem. I almost wept over the choices the woman on the other end began to reel off: Viper SRT-10, Mercedes SL-500, Porsche Cabriolet, Corvette C6, Porsche Boxster… I stopped her at the BMW Z4, mainly because I'd never driven one and always wanted to. If we were entering the end of days, I might as well indulge myself.
I had a shuttle within fifteen minutes.
Phoenix is pretty. Austere but pretty, in the way that only desert towns can be—the urban part looks pretty much standard, but it's surrounded by rugged country, upthrust hills and mountains, and three hundred days out of the year, it's dry and cloudless.
Unfortunately for the two million residents, I'd flown in dragging one of those not-dry, not-clear days along with me.
The shuttle driver chatted about things to do in Phoenix, which I accepted with a polite smile and a deaf ear. I had deadlines, emphasis on the dead. Hiking probably wasn't going to be on the agenda. Neither was a spa day, tempting as that might be.
Rent-A-Vette was a showplace of heart-stopping automotive delights. I could have wept at the gleaming ranks of muscle cars, but I managed to keep my cool and present myself at the rental counter to claim the keys to my Z4. It required me to pull out a driver's license and credit card, which I did, emptying my pockets along the way. While that was getting settled, I turned away and speed-dialed Sarah's cell phone.
A sleepy warm female voice answered. "Hello?"
"Sarah," I sighed. I managed to keep my voice low, somehow, although I wanted to shout. "I heard from Cherise. Are you okay?"
"Of course," she said, and laughed. It was a drunken, slow laugh, the kind you make right before you succumb to the anesthesia after counting backwards. "Yes, silly. I'm fine. Eamon's taking good care of me."
"Eamon?" I interrupted.
"Didn't I tell you?" Another slow throb of a laugh. "I forgot to mention him. Silly me. But I know you don't like him—"
How had he found her? Oh God… "Listen to me, Sarah. Please. Eamon is not a good man. I need you to start paying attention. You need to walk away from him."