ONE
Cloudy and cool, with an 80 percent possibility of moderate to severe thunderstorms by mid-afternoon.
Well, thank God this is about to be over, I thought as I drove-well, blew-past the sign that marked the Westchester, Connecticut, city limits. Traffic sucked, not surprisingly; rush hour was still in full swing, and I had to moderate my impatience and ride the brake while I watched for my exit. Calm down. Things will be back to normal in just a few more minutes.
Okay, so I was a little too optimistic. Also unrealistic, since me and normal have never really been on speaking terms. But, in my defense, I needed all the optimism I could muster right then. I'd been running on adrenaline and bad coffee for more than thirty hours straight. I'd been awake for so long that my eyes felt like they'd been rolled in beach sand and Tabasco sauce. I needed rest. Clean clothes. A shower. Not necessarily in that order.
First, I had to find the guy who was going to save my life.
I found the exit, navigated streets and annoying stoplights until I found the residential neighborhood I was looking for. I checked the scrap of paper in my lap, studied curbside house numbers, and finally pulled the car to a stop in front of a nice Colonial-style home, the kind of place a Realtor would describe as a "nice starter." It had flame-red tulips planted in mannered rows under the windows, and the lawn looked well behaved, too. Weird. Of all the places I'd have expected to find Lewis Levander Orwell, the most powerful man in the world . . . well, this wasn't it. I mean, suburbia? Hello!
I tapped chipped fingernails on the steering wheel, weighed risks and benefits, and finally popped open the door and stepped out of the car.
The euphoria I'd felt when I was pulling into town vanished as soon as my feet hit solid ground, crushed under a load of exhaustion. Too much stress, too little sleep, too much fear. Speaking of fear ... I felt wind on the back of my neck, and I turned to look east. A storm loomed like purple mountains' majesty, big cumulonimbus clouds piled on top of each other like a fifty-car interstate pileup. I could feel it noticing me, in the way storms had. No question about it, I needed to be out of Westchester before that thing decided to pounce. I'd been watching storms crawl along the coast, paralleling me all the way from Florida. The nasty part was that it might actually be the same storm, stalking me.
They did that sometimes. It was never good.
Nothing I could do about it right now. I had bigger issues. Up the concrete walk, up three steps lined with geraniums in terra-cotta pots, to a spacious white front door. I knocked and waited, rocking back and forth on three-inch heels that felt like something from the spring collection of the Spanish Inquisition. Bad planning on my part, but then I'd been expecting a pleasant little business meeting, not a two-day panicked flight cross-country. I looked down at myself and winced; the blue French-cuffed polyester shirt was okay, but the tan skirt was a disaster of car-accordioned linen. Ah well. It would have been nice for Lewis to swoon with desire on seeing me, but I'd definitely settle for him pulling my bacon out of the fire.
Silence. I cupped my hands around my eyes and tried to peer through glass not designed for peering. No movement inside that I could see. With a sinking feeling of disaster, I realized I'd never considered the possibility that my knight in shining armor could be away from the castle.
I knocked on his door once more, squinted through the glass again, and tried the bell. I heard muffled tones echoing through the house, but nothing stirred. The house looked normal.
Normal and very, very empty.
Out where I was, Westchester was enjoying spring sunshine. People walked, kids whooped around on bikes, dogs ran with their tongues hanging out. Inside the house, there was winter silence. I checked the mail slot. Empty. Either he'd been home earlier, or he'd stopped his mail altogether. No papers on the lawn, either.
I considered my options, but really I had only two: get some idea of where else to look, or lie down and die. I decided to do some scouting. Unfortunately, the grass was damp, and my three-inch heels weren't designed for pathfinding. With some cursing and tripping and excavating myself from spike-heeled holes, I clumped around the house.
The house had that don't-touch-me feeling that indicated strong wards and protections, but I circled it anyway, checking the windows. Yep, wards on every one, good strong ones. The yard was nice and neat as a pin, with the look of being maintained by a service instead of somebody with a passion for plants. Lewis had a very nice workshop in the back, which was devoted half to woodworking, half to magecraft; that half was warded up the wazoo, no way I could do more than just glance in the window before I had to retreat or get zapped.
Powerful stuff. That was good-I desperately needed a powerful guy.
I banged on the back door and squinted in the square of window. Still nothing moving. I could see the living room, decorated in Basic American Normal-looked like everything in it had come out of some upscale catalog. If Lewis lived here, he was a lot more boring than I'd ever imagined.
I had plenty of powerful tricks up my sleeve, but they didn't include breaking and entering. The kind of powers I possessed, over water and wind, could destroy a house but not open a door. I could have summoned a hailstorm-a small one, okay?-to break a couple of windows, but no, that would be wrong and besides, I'd probably get caught because it was pretty showy stuff. So I resorted to human tactics.
I tossed a rock at the window.
Now, I was pretty sure it wasn't going to work, but in a way it did; the rock bounced off some thick invisible rubbery surface about a half inch from the window, and the back door slammed open.
"Yes?" snarled the guy who blocked the doorway. He was big, and I mean huge-big, tanned, bald, with two gold earrings that twinkled in the sunny Westchester morning. He was wearing a purple vest with gold embroidery over rippling muscles. I had the impression of dark pants, but I didn't dare look down. Didn't matter, his chest was definitely worth checking out. Pecs of the gods, no kidding.
Just my luck. Lewis had left a Djinn at home-his own personal mystical alarm system.
"Hi," I said brightly. "Lewis around?"
He scowled. "Who wants to know?"
"Joanne Baldwin." I held out my hand, palm up; the Djinn passed his palm over mine and read the white runes that glittered in its path. "We're friends. Me and Lewis go way back."
"Never heard of you," he said brusquely. Djinn are not known for their chatty nature, or their sunny disposition. In fact, they're known for being difficult to handle and-if they don't like you-fully capable of finding some sneaky way to do you in. Not that I was an expert, exactly; Djinn were reserved for bigger fish than me, sort of the equivalent of a company car perk in the Wardens Association. I didn't even rate a reserved parking space yet.
The Djinn was still staring at me. "Go now," he rumbled.
I stood my ground. Well, it was really his ground, but I stood it anyway. "Sorry, can't. I need to talk to Lewis. Urgently."
"He is not here. Being that you are a Warden, I won't kill you for your lack of manners." He started to close the door.
"Wait!" I slapped my hand-coincidentally, the one with the rune-flat against the wood. It wasn't my upper body strength that made him hesitate, that's for sure. Even Mr. Universe couldn't have held a door against a Djinn, much less a five-foot-five woman with more attitude than body mass. "When will he be back?"
The Djinn just stared at me. Djinn eyes are colors not found in the human genome, specially formulated to produce maximum intimidation. Some of them are citrine yellow, some bright fluorescent green, and they're all scary. This guy's were a purple that Elizabeth Taylor would have envied. Beautiful, and cold as the colors in arctic ice.
"Look, I need to find him," I said. "I need his help. There are lives at stake here."
"Yes?" He hadn't blinked. "Whose lives?"
"Well, mine, anyway," I amended, and tried for a sheepish grin. He returned the smile, and I wished he hadn't; it revealed perfect white teeth that would have looked more appropriate on a great white shark.
"You stink of corruption," he said. "I will not help you."
"That's up to your master, isn't it?" I shot back. "Come on, he knows me! Just ask him. I know you can. He wouldn't leave you here without any way to contact him. Not even Lewis goes around abandoning Djinn like disposable pens."
The purple eyes were really, really getting on my nerves. I could feel the Djinn's power burning my skin where my hand touched the door, another spiteful tactic to get me to let go so he could slam it shut and ward me clear out to the street. There's nothing stronger than a Djinn on its home territory. Nothing.
The pain in my hand got worse. Smoke rose from my hand where it pressed against the white-painted wood door, and my whole body shook from nausea and reaction. But I didn't let go.
"Illusion," I stammered. The Djinn was still grinning. "Don't waste my time."
"My powers could not touch a true Warden," he said. "If you burn, you burn because you deserve it."
All right, I'd had about enough of playing with Mr. Clean gone bad. I took my hand away from the door and held it up.
The world breathed around me.
I might have stunk of corruption, but I still commanded the wind, and it slammed into the Djinn with force of a speeding Volkswagen. Djinn are essentially vapor.
I blew him away.
He was gone for about a half-second, and then he re-formed, looking ready to pull my brain out through my nostrils. So I hit him again. And again. The last time, he re-formed very slowly all the way across the room, looking pissed off but respectful. I hadn't made the mistake of setting foot across his threshold, so he couldn't strike back. All his awesome power-and it was truly awesome-was useless. So long as I didn't break the wards, I could stand out there all day and toss microbursts and katabatic gusts.
The Djinn muttered something unpleasant. I held my hand up again. A strong breeze shoved my hair around, and I felt the warm tingle that meant I had at least one more good Djinn-blasting gust at my command.
"I really, really don't have time to dick around with you," I said. "Give him my name. Tell him I need to see him. Or else."
"No one threatens me!" he growled.
"I'm not threatening, sweet pea." I could feel the white runes on my hand glowing. My dark hair whipped around my face in the wind, which I kept coiling around me, building tornadic speed. "Want to bet I can blow you all the way into a teeny little open bottle and stick a cork in you?"