She hung up before I could tell her that the castle had called and wanted its princess back. She was right, actually. I had the keys. I was the point person for this little expedition.
“Stay here until I get everything open,” I told David, and tossed a towel over my head as I opened up the door. The wind promptly blew the wood back against the wall with a crash, and knocked me back two steps by sheer force before I got control and leaned into it.
Then I stepped outside, into the teeth of the monster.
I didn’t dare look up, or around, or anywhere but at the Boss, sitting there with its chrome blazing in the flashes of lightning. Water was running off it in silver strings, and I lunged for the driver’s-side door, got in, and manually unlocked the passenger side before diving out again, honking the horn. Cherise’s door opened, and Kevin ran out, heading for the other side of the car.
Cherise followed him, staggering in the buffeting wind like a post- happy-hour drunk on her clunky platform shoes. The wind definitely made that flirty little South Beach dress not safe for anywhere, but in seconds rain had flattened it securely down against her body. It was the next best thing to a swimsuit, really. Not that my shirt and jeans weren’t waterlogged and streaming.
I didn’t feel it coming the way I would have as a Warden. I felt the hairs rise on my arms, as if trying to escape my body, and for a blank second I wondered, What the heck is that?
And then a pure white bolt of power hit Cherise.
The force of it blew me over, and if it made a sound I don’t remember hearing it. The shock lasted for at least three heartbeats, and then the cold rain brought me back around and I realized that Cherise had just been struck by lightning.
I staggered up. Cherise was still standing there, exactly as she had been. Wisps of steam curled off her bare arms and legs, up from her hair, and I screamed and closed the distance fast, waiting for her to collapse into my arms.
Instead, she opened her eyes, looked at me with a drugged, blissful expression, and said, “Wow. That felt . . . great.”
I stopped, fighting for balance in more ways than one. She looked utterly relaxed. Unafraid. Maybe it was some weird side effect . . . ?
No, I realized. No, it wasn’t, because over the two of us, the rain had stopped falling. It was running off a clear shield that enclosed us in a warm, still cone of air.
I knew what that was. I’d done it myself, many times.
Not Cherise. Cherise doesn’t have Warden powers. . . . She can’t . . . She never . . .
The shock was slowing me down, obviously, because I should have known already. David did, as he threw open the door of the Mustang and got out again. I saw the sudden, rigid set to his body, and the way he went completely still, even pounded by the rain.
Kevin got out, too, and in the next lightning flash his face looked ghostly and haunted, his eyes gone huge as he stared at Cherise. He looked empty. No, he was empty, I realized; he had gone up into the aetheric, and for a few seconds his body was just a waiting shell. Then he flinched and shook his head. “It can’t be,” he said. “She’s—she’s—”
“She’s got Warden powers,” I said flatly. “What are the odds that they came from someone else but me?”
Cherise smiled, warm and sweet and lovely, and said, “And it is awesome, by the way. Just so you know. It feels so—big! Like I’m part of everything, everywhere in the world—there’s all this energy, and—”
“Cher!” I grabbed her by the shoulders, hard, and shook her until the bliss faded from her eyes. “Cherise, listen to me. You’re not trained. You have no idea what you’re doing. Don’t—”
Electric shocks zapped through my hands, straight up my arms, and knocked me back with a stunning blow all the way to the Mustang. I found myself on the ground, skin tingling and aching, shaking all over. My muscles were buzzing.
David no longer moved at Djinn speed, but he was just as fast as any man seeing a threat to someone he loved, and as I tried to shake off the shock he did a classic cop roll over the hood of the car and went for her.
Kevin summoned up a fireball and dropped it neatly between David and Cherise, sending my husband stumbling back. “Don’t try it, man,” Kevin said. “It’s not her fault.”
I wasn’t the only one in shock. Cherise hadn’t moved since she’d given me the zap, but now, as the fire flamed unnaturally high between her and David, she let out a sharp, horrified cry and dropped to her knees next to me in the filthy water. “Oh my God, Jo, I didn’t mean—I just—I just wanted you to let go of me, I—” She reached out to touch me, then hesitated, staring at her hands.
I coughed and sat up. My ribs ached. I could feel residual trembles in all of my long muscles, but my heart seemed to be ticking along, if rapidly, and I was in control enough to be able to push dripping hair back out of my eyes. Even if it felt like a lot of effort to do so. “I think that proves my point,” I said, and then had to pause for a racking round of coughing.
David tried to get to me. Kevin moved the fire in front of him, and I saw David really get angry—angry enough to do anything. He was only human now, but that kind of anger was nothing to fool around with. There was still a trace of Djinn in there somewhere; I could just feel it—even if it was only a memory of power. It made him fearless, and a little bit crazy.
He plunged through the fire.
Kevin yelped, surprised, and damped the flames down quickly—including the ones that had taken hold of David’s clothes even in that brief instant of contact. David ignored the burns. He grabbed Kevin and slammed him back against the car with a hand around his throat, and I saw his muscles tighten. Kevin’s eyes widened, and he clawed at David’s hand, wheezing.
“David, don’t,” I managed to gasp, and got my coughing under control. There was something unpleasant in my mouth. I spat it out and tasted blood, but not a lot. That was good, right? Not a lot? Some part of my brain was grasping desperately for good news. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Don’t,” David said, attention still locked on Kevin’s face, “ever do that again. Do you understand me?”
Kevin managed to nod. David let go, shoved him away, and knelt down to gather me in his arms. The look he turned on Cherise was black with fury.
“It’s not her fault,” I told him. “Kevin’s right. She got slammed with a ton of power, and she has no idea how to use it. She’s like a baby with a nuclear bomb and a big shiny red button.”
“Hey!” Cherise said, in almost her old tones. “I’m right here! Have a heart.”
“No offense,” I said, “but Wardens get trained. They get trained a lot. And even then, we make massive mistakes, and people die. You don’t have that luxury, Cher. You’re too powerful, all at once. Your learning curve means death tolls. Now take down the shield.”
“What?” Cherise seemed blank. I pointed up at the invisible umbrella she was holding over us. Rain was pouring off of it in silver sheets. “I’m not—oh. I guess I am, huh?”
“Instinct. It’ll kill you. Or actually, other people,” I said. “Drop it. I’ll show you how to build it right.”
“I—don’t think I know how to drop it. I mean, I didn’t know how to put it up in the first place.”
“Talk later, flee now,” Kevin said, rubbing his throat and glaring at David. “Seeing as how we’re going to die if we hang around here in Lightning Central.”
I looked up at David, and saw his fierce love and anger and desire to lash out. And protect me. He was taking this being human thing harder than I was, after all. “Kevin has a point,” I said. “Let’s work it out in motion.”
He didn’t like it; I could see that, but he nodded and helped me to my feet. I was shaky but serviceable. Wetter than a sponge on the bottom of the ocean, but maybe I could get Cherise to dry me off as a training exercise. Then again, she’d probably desiccate me completely and leave me a dry, dead husk, so maybe not such a great plan after all.