It was the Kappa Kappa Psi party, which was a music fraternity . . . for some odd reason, the band geeks always knew how to throw a bitchen party. Four of us from the Program crashed the scene- Lewis, who came on the arm of some miniature brunette flute player; and Paula Keaton, Ed Hernandez, and me, who came looking for free drinks and the slim possibility of getting charmed out of our underwear. I glimpsed Lewis early on, talking to his flute player but not looking very comfortable; he didn't drink much, and the party was rolling pretty well.
Flute Girl eventually got swept away on a tide of Everclear punch, and Lewis was left to ramble around on his own. He knew I was there-I think- but we didn't hook up. If we had . . . well. Water, bridges, et cetera.
Sometime around 2 a.m., he knocked over a guy's drink. Pretty stupid reason for what happened, but the reason ceased to matter after the third or fourth round of insults, and suddenly there were six of them and one of him, and punches started flying. Two of them held him down, the others took turns kicking him when he went down. Like everybody else standing around at the party, I was frozen in shock, cold beer in hand. Violence happens so quickly. Unless it's you taking the beating, it takes time for it to sink in, especially when alcohol's involved. If you're an onlooker, reaction comes later, when you're asking yourself why the hell you didn't do anything to help.
It couldn't have been long as serious beatings go, maybe less than a minute, but a guy can get really fucked up in sixty seconds when it's a free-for-all, six on one. About the time some of the other guys at the party realized they should be doing something and I opened my mouth to scream, Lewis got kicked in the head and he rolled on his side toward me, and I saw his face.
Bloody. Scared to death. Desperate.
He reached out to me. No, that's wrong; he reached out toward me. He reached for power, as unconsciously as a child reaching for its mother.
The Mother Of Us All reached back.
I felt power sweep over-out of me-in a storm of pins and needles, felt the air gasp around me, felt water drops pulled off my skin and my beer bottle by the sheer power of his call.
The wind hit with the force of a freight train. It was targeted, specific, and it was hungry. I felt its tugging passage, but it barely ruffled my hair; it slammed into the six frat boys and picked them up and swept them across the parking lot, into the side of a brick building, and pinned them there thirty feet off the ground.
Nobody except those who study weather really understands the incredible nature of wind. A fifty-mile-an-hour gust is brutal, but a seventy-five-mile-an-hour gust is more than twice as powerful as that because of the increased pressure per square inch. A ninety-mile wind, three times worse.
These college boys were crushed by, at minimum, a wind of above 120 miles per hour. Enough to fracture bones from the sheer force of the impact. More bones broke from the pressure acting on them as they were held up against the wall. I remember thinking, as I looked at this incredible display of power, My God, he's going to squeeze them into jelly, but in the next second Lewis blinked and the wind died and they fell thirty feet to the grass.
Chaos followed. Lewis lay on the ground, gasping for air, staring at me. I stared back in total shock. After what seemed like ages, I hurried over to him, hunkered down, and put my hand on his forehead. He felt burning hot.
"Jesus, Lewis, you called the wind," I blurted. "You've got everything. Everything."
He just managed to nod. He probably didn't understand exactly what it meant, the state he was in. The Association got there before five minutes was out, and he was loaded into an ambulance accompanied by three of the most powerful Wardens in the entire world, all of them arguing furiously about what had just happened.
He looked afraid. And woozy. I keep thinking that if I'd done something then, said something to him, tried to stop them from taking him away, maybe things would have been different.
But, realistically, probably not.
I drove for about half an hour before I decided the radio wasn't going to make any more mystical-musical pronouncements. I fished the cell phone one-handed out of my purse and checked the battery level. Two bars. No chance of recharging; I hadn't had time to pack for basic hygiene, much less handy phone accessories. I paged through the numbers in memory- Mom, Sarah, my dry cleaners, my massage therapist... Ah. Estrella Almondovar. Just who I was looking for.
I punched the speed dial and waited through the clicks and rings, lots of rings, before a sleep-mashed voice mumbled, "This had better be important."
"Kinda," I said, with as much fake cheer as I could pack into my voice. "Gooood morning, my little jumping bean."
She cleared her throat. I could just see her dragging a hand through midnight-black hair, trying to rub away the dreams.
"I got your salsa right here, bimbo," she said. "Jesus Maria, what time is it?"
"Eight a.m. on the East Coast."
"Yeah, that's like six here. You know, big hand on the six, only you can't see it 'cause it's dark? What, they don't teach you time zones in Florida?" I heard sheets rustling. Static clawed the line. "I guess you want something."
"Great sex," I sighed. "With a gorgeous man, with a great big-"
"Bank account," she finished. "Some things never change, eh? Sad thing is, you'll probably get it. Meanwhile, I get to listen to your wet dreams at you've-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me in the morning."
I downshifted and drafted behind a semi tractor-trailer hauling ass in the fast lane. With cars like my lovely Delilah, and ever-rising gas prices, it pays to conserve all the fuel you can. The Mustang shuddered from the buffeting before we settled into the slipstream, then purred out her pleasure.
Somewhere in the wilds of Oklahoma, Estrella banged what sounded like metal around, dropped the phone, picked it up. "It's your dime, Jo. You've got until my coffeemaker fills up the first cup, and then I'm gone whether you're finished or not."
"Places to see, people to do?"
She snorted. "Chica, you ought to cut down on the crack. I got no place to be and nobody to do, as usual." That was closer to the truth than either of us wanted to explore.
"Then this would be good news: I'm headed your way."
"Seriously?" Her tone turned guarded. "What's wrong?"
"Wrong? Why would it be wrong?" I thwacked myself on the forehead. Estrella-Star, to her friends- knew me too well.
"You're kidding, right? You-leave a life of topless beaches and hot hard bodies to vacation in Oklahoma?"
"Dying to see you!"
"Right." She dragged the word through three syllables. "How long has it been?"
"Um ..." I couldn't remember. "A year?"
"Try two."
"Hey, I keep in touch. Don't forget the phone calls. Or the Christmas cards."
"The Christmas cards show up in February," she said. Okay, she had a point, I wasn't exactly the most reliable friend in the world. "So what's the deal, Jo? You need crash space?"
"Maybe. Well. Yeah." I heard her pouring liquid into a mug. "I should be there in a couple of days. You think I can stop in, maybe just catch a shower and some rest? I may not need it. I'm just saying, maybe. I'll pay for dinner, honest. And at someplace good, not the local roach factory."
Star sipped coffee. I was desperately jealous; my mouth watered at the thought. "Tell you what, you maybe show up, I'll maybe let you in. That's if you swear there's not going to be any trouble, like you were in last time."
"That was so not my fault. Tornadoes are a perfectly natural phenomenon. Not my fault you live where they go for vacation."
"Hey, we live la vida loca around here, girlfriend. So. Why are you really coming out to the ass-end of nowhere?"
"It's not the ass-end of nowhere. And besides, you're there." I winced again. That sounded suspiciously like what my buddy Andy had said when I asked him if I was getting fat. You're not fat- you're my friend! Well, at least it had made me go on a diet.
"Actually ... I wasn't being completely honest before. Something's kinda wrong. I have to find somebody. It's important."
"Somebody around here?"
"Last I heard, he was somewhere close." I was reluctant to say the name, but hell, Star was right; she knew everybody and everything that went on in that part of the world. "Um, it's . . . Lewis."
"Que?" she blurted. "You know, I was only kidding about the crack, but seriously, are you high? You got any idea how many people have been looking for him since he disappeared?"
"Yeah, I know. Pretty much everybody in the upper circles."
"What the hell you gonna do when you find him?"
Not anything I could admit to, certainly not to Star. "Look, let's not get into it, okay? Let's just call it catching up on old times."
"Sure. Okay." She banged more metal-probably skillets. Star was a hell of a cook. "So I'll watch for you, then."
I sensed something on her end, something she wanted to ask, so I waited. She finally said, "Hey, you haven't heard anything, have you? About me?"
"From who?"
"Forget it."
"No, really? From who?"
Another long hesitation. It wasn't like her. Star was a do-it girl. "I just get worried sometimes, you know? That they'll change their minds. Come and finish the job."
That hit me hard, in unguarded places. I hurt for her. "No, baby, that's not gonna happen. Everybody agreed, you deserve to hang on to what you have. You know that. Why would they change their minds?"
"Why do they do anything?" She forced a laugh. "Hey, no worries, I'm just freakin' paranoid-you know that. I listen to the little voices in my head too much."
I would, too, if I were Star. Which led down paths of speculation where I didn't want to follow. "Well, now I'm all jealous. I wish I had little voices in my head. Guess I'll just have to settle for people really being out to get me."
"Bitch," she said cordially.
"Bimbo."
Three or four uninspired insults later, we mutually hung up. I tossed the phone back in the passenger seat. Star would give me shelter, and she'd never rat me out to anyone looking for me, but she was really, really vulnerable. A few years ago, Star had taken a tremendous hit, both physically and emotionally, and she'd been forced to leave the Wardens. Usually, when people leave, they get blocked-a kind of magical lobotomy, to ensure they can't go rogue. It had been a close thing with Star, but they'd let her keep what little she had left. Provisionally.
And Star was absolutely right-that didn't mean that somebody wouldn't show up on her doorstep with official sympathy and orders to rip the essence of power out by the bloody roots. They'd damn sure hop to it if they found me conspiring with her, what with me bearing the Demon Mark and all. God. I shouldn't be dragging her into this, but there were only a few people in the world I could trust with my CD collection, much less with my life. In fact, there were only three.
Lewis and Star and Paul.
It'll be okay. If I found Lewis, if he did as I asked, if everything worked out okay ... I wouldn't need to put her at risk.
If. If, if, if.
It was a small word to hang the rest of my future on. Star's, too.
When I was fifteen, my mother fell in love with a guy named Albert. First of all, I ask you-Albert? I guess it could have been worse. He could have been named Cuthbert or Engelbert, but at fifteen it was still a crushing horror to me. Albert the Bear. Big, hairy guy, with a laugh that sounded like a rusty chain saw and a fashion sense second only to Paul Bunyan for addiction to flannel.
Albert wanted us all to get closer to nature. Even then, knowing next to nothing, I knew it was a really bad idea, but Mom thought he not only hung the moon but painted it, too, so we all packed our outdoorsy equipment and flannel shirts and hiking boots, and headed off into the Big Empty.
Actually, it was Yellowstone National Park, but same diff.
All right, it was beautiful-breathtaking, even to a disaffected fifteen-year-old girl who didn't want to be pulled away from the mall and her friends for the summer. Beautiful and wild and powerful.
But mostly I was bored, and I wished for TV and MTV and boys. Awesome geysers: check. Incredible vistas: check. Crushing ennui: gotcha.
We hiked. And hiked. And hiked. I wasn't much for that, and when my boots rubbed blisters on the first day, Albert the Bear wouldn't let me rest; he told me it would toughen my feet. I sulked and snapped at Mom and wished desperately that I would fall and break my leg so that a good-looking rescue party of tall, dark-haired men would come carry me away. Occasionally I wished Albert would get eaten by a bear, but that was before I actually saw one; once I had, I didn't wish anybody to get eaten by a bear.
Somehow, we got to the top of whatever ridge we were trying to climb, and while Mom and Albert were admiring the downhill view, I was looking up.
"It's going to rain," I said. The sky was a perfect ocean-deep azure, the sun a hot gold coin glittering like sunken treasure. I sat down on a rock and started to take my shoes off.
"Don't take 'em off," Albert advised me in his rumbling bass voice. "Feet'll swell. And I think you're wrong, Jo. It doesn't look like rain."
I craned my neck, shaded my eyes, and looked up at the thick black bulk of him standing over me. Nice to be in the shade. Not so nice to be in Albert's shade.
"See that?" I pointed to the thin, wispy clouds in perfect waves. "Cirrus clouds, coming out of the east."
"So?" For some granola-chewing, tree-hugging forest nut, Albert wasn't very weather wise.
I smiled. "Look." I grabbed a stick and drew a circle in the dirt. "The planet spins this way, right? East to west."
"Just figured that out, did you?"
I ignored him and drew an arrow the opposite direction. "Wind moves west to east, against rotation. So why is the wind coming out of the east?"
This time he didn't say anything. That was fine; I wasn't listening anyway. "It's coming out of the east because there's something rotating-" My stick drew a spiral somewhere over where I guessed we were. "-that's changing the direction of the wind. Rotation means a storm."
He looked over at my mother. She looked back. I figured the silent conversation had something to do with what a freak I was, what the hell were they going to do with me, and on and on and on. Not like I hadn't already said it and wondered it myself.
I drew some wavy lines in the sand next to the spiral. "Cirrus clouds form way up high-ice crystal clouds, running ahead of a pressure system. So. It's probably going to rain. Based on how fast they're moving, it'll probably be here before dark."
A freshening eastern breeze frayed my hair out of its braid and plastered strands to my sweating face.
Somewhere out there, beyond the trees, beyond the place where morning started, I could feel it growing, pulling energy from the collision of warm and cold air, condensing water and energy, sucking micro-drops together to form mist, mist to form clouds, clouds to form rain.
I closed my eyes and I could almost taste it, cloud-soft on my tongue, the taste of brass and ozone and cool, clear water. God, it felt good. Tingles all the way inside, deep down. I'd never been out in the open before to a storm forming. It had a raw, wild power I'd never expected.
"Bullshit," Albert said bluntly, and laughed. "Pretty good try, Jo. Hey, you've got quite the con artist there, Nancy."
My mother wasn't smiling, and she wasn't laughing. She looked at me gravely, thumbs hooked in the straps of her backpack, and shifted from one foot to the other. Mom wasn't used to hiking, either, but she hadn't complained, hadn't talked about blisters or being thirsty or being tired.
"Are you quite the con artist, Jo?" she asked me. I didn't say anything. She turned back to Albert. "We'd better start back."
"Oh, come on, Nancy, you don't buy this stuff, do you? She's fifteen years old, she's not some damn weatherman. You can tell the weather around here for days around, anyway. Clear as a bell, that's what this is."
"There's high pressure to the south," I said, lacing up my boots. "Wall cloud forming over the horizon to the east. It'll be bad by nightfall-it's moving fast. Warm air always moves faster than cold."
"We should start back," Mom repeated. "Now."
And that was that. Albert the Bear grumbled and muttered, but we started back down the ridge. The first darkness edged over the eastern horizon, like early night, at just after three in the afternoon, and then it flowed like spilled ink, staining the sky. Albert shut up about coddling my fear of nature and devoted his breath to making good time. We scrambled down sheer slopes, jogged down inclines, edged carefully past crumbling paths over open gorges. People talk about nature as a mother, but to me she's always been Medea, ready and willing to slaughter her children. Every sheer drop we navigated was an open mouth, every jagged rock a naked tooth.
I wasn't attuned to the land, but even I could sense the power in it, the anger, the desire to smash us like the intruding predators we were. I felt it from the storm, too; the storms that made it into cities were less self-aware, more instinctual. This one pulsed with pure menace.
Warmer air breathed through the trees, rattled branches, and fluttered leaves. The breeze picked up and it carried the sharp scent of rain.
"Faster," I panted as we hit easier terrain. We ran for it as the storm clouds unfurled octopus tentacles overhead and the rain came down in a punishing silver curtain. Overhead, lightning forked purple white, and without a city to frame it, lightning was huge and powerful, taller than the mountain it struck. Thunder hit like a physical body blow. It rattled through my skin, my cartilage, bones. We're mostly water, our bodies. Sound travels in waves.
Above us on the ridge, a tree went up like a torch.
