sticky, cold sweat. In fact, I felt downright sick.
So did Lewis, clearly. He looked just as bad as I felt, if not worse, and when I touched him, his
skin was ice-cold.
Worse, his hands looked . . . burned, flushed bright red on the palms. He wiped them on his jeans
in a convulsive movement, as if there were something horrible on them that he wanted to get off,
but it was clear from the way he was shaking that it went deeper than surface slime.
''Christ,'' he said, and leaned his head back against the whiplash rest. ''What the hell?''
''And here I was hoping you'd have some bright, easy answer,'' I said. ''Because I've got no
clue, man. I've never seen anything like it before.''
''Have you shown it to David?''
I hadn't, and as he mentioned it, I wondered why I hadn't. And why he hadn't immediately
sensed it. Strange.
''No,'' I said slowly. ''And I-don't think I should. Don't you think?''
Lewis nodded, not looking at me. His face had gone the color of old newspaper, and his lips
looked gray. ''I don't, either,'' he said softly. ''Why is that?''
''What?''
''Why do we think that? Wouldn't we usually ask the Djinn to take a look?''
Usually, but this time . . . it just didn't feel . . .
I had no answer. I just stared at him, then shrugged. Lewis took a deep breath, started the
Hummer's engine, and pulled back out onto the road.
The rest of the trip was spent in silence.
''You're kidding,'' I said as Lewis negotiated the Hummer into a parking space built for a
Hyundai. ''We're meeting at Denny's? Was Chuck E. Cheese already booked for the
president?''
''Emergency meeting,'' he said. ''This was the closest place we could find where we could have
some privacy. Besides, I could use some food-how about you?''
Well, I supposed I could use a Grand Slam or a Moon Over My Hammy or something.
Getting out of the truck in the narrow space between two other vehicles proved to require moves
illegal in some Southern states. I managed not to scratch the other car, which was good, because
it was a Ferrari. Bright red.
Denny's had suffered little or no damage, as far as I could tell. Maybe they'd been outside of the
shake zone. Plate glass windows were intact; diners still sat at tables; waitstaff circulated with
trays and plates. Lewis and I walked in, out of the cloying humidity and into the frigid embrace
of air-conditioning. I shivered a little-still fighting off the chill I'd gotten on the aetheric, I
guessed.
Lewis led me back to a private room, one with sliding doors. Inside were four of the most
powerful people in the Southeast, never mind Florida, and they were all digging in to breakfast.
I half recognized Luis Rocha from his signature on the aetheric; he was medium height, medium
build, a bit broad in the shoulders. His skin was a dark, warm bronze color, and his eyes and hair
were black. The hair was long, trailing down around his face and past his collar. His sleeveless
gray muscle T-shirt revealed strong, defined arms inked up with flames and intimidation, but his
smile was warm and rather sweet.
He was the only Earth Warden in the room. Two of the others-Sheryl Brewer and Nicholas
Mancini– were both Weather Wardens, solid technicians, if not spectacular. Usually, trouble in
Florida came from weather, after all-it wasn't known as Hurricane Central for nothing.
The fourth was, of course, a Fire Warden. Nobody I wanted to see. She no doubt went with the
red Ferrari out front, and her name was Janette de Winter. Good at her job, but my God, didn't
she know it. We exchanged narrow smiles. She was eating a delicate little fruit cocktail thingy.
Even now, in the midst of crisis, she was perfectly put together-a tailored white suit, long
tanned legs, open-toed pumps showing a perfect pedicure. Her makeup had that airbrushed
quality of having been put on in layers, until she looked more like an animated magazine cover
than a human being.
Maybe I was just feeling catty because I was sweaty, bruised, and covered in dust.
She raised an eyebrow at my appearance, looking coolly amused. Nope. It wasn't because I
looked like crap. I felt catty because I just plain disliked the woman.
Lewis and I took seats at the table. He slid in next to the Weather Wardens, leaving me stuck
next to de Winter, but also next to Rocha, who winked at me as he shoveled syrup-drenched
waffles into his mouth.
The server appeared, and Lewis and I gave our orders-I went for waffles, after seeing Rocha's
evident happiness with his. Also, just so I could see de Winter look pained. Waffles were clearly
declasse. Hooray for waffles.
''First of all,'' I said as the waitress closed our doors, ''and just to get it out in the open, this is
not my fault. Ask Lewis.''
All eyes turned to him, if they weren't already there. He sipped coffee and nodded. ''She's in the
clear,'' he said. ''Whatever's going on, I don't think any Warden is behind it.''
Luis Rocha put down his fork. ''It wasn't natural. No way in hell. Did you see it?''
''We saw,'' Lewis said. ''And I agree. It wasn't natural. But it's nothing a Warden could be
powerful enough to do alone, either.''
There was a moment of silence. Brewer said, softly, ''Djinn?'' It was the question we were all
dreading and the reason, on some level, that Lewis and I hadn't wanted to go to David about
what we'd found. Because either he knew, which was bad, or he didn't know, which was worse.
Either way, it put him, as the leader of the New Djinn, in an impossible position.
''That's certainly a possibility,'' Lewis said. I knew what he was thinking: Ashan, and the other
half of the Djinn. The old, arrogant half. But the truth was, I didn't believe even for a second that
Ashan would have driven that evil black thorn into the skin of Mother Earth. In a curious sort of
way, he cared more for her than for himself, his people, and certainly humanity. He wouldn't
have done it, and he wouldn't have allowed it to be done, not by any of his people. Or David's, I
thought suddenly. There'd have been war first.
Nothing scarier than a war between the Djinn.
Been there. Had scars.
''Did you try to get it out?'' Rocha asked Lewis. Lewis nodded and held up his hands. They
were blistered. ''Madre de Dios. That happened on the aetheric?''
''Yeah.'' Lewis studied his palms with a frown. ''Shouldn't have.'' I knew that self-healing was
one of the toughest things for Earth Wardens, and so did Luis Rocha; he gestured to Lewis, and
the two of them went off to a side table to sit close together, backs to us. Healing was,
sometimes, kind of a private thing. Intimate. I sipped coffee and tried to ignore the fact that I'd
been left on my other side with Janette de Winter, who was shooting me looks that could kill.
''Any report on injuries?'' I asked the table at large. They all glanced at each other, and then
Sheryl Brewer took on the job.
''Minor stuff so far,'' she said. ''We've got some superficial cuts and a couple of broken bones,
but nobody dead or seriously injured. The damage was contained pretty quickly. Whatever you
guys did-''
''Wasn't much,'' I said, ''at least on my part. Rocha deserves the credit for containment,
definitely.''
Credit for more than containing the earthquake, apparently, because when he and Lewis rejoined
us– coincidentally, the same time my waffles arrived, all fluffy and begging to be drowned in