I shivered.
My cheeseburger was greasy but filling. I wasn't overly concerned about cholesterol; with the Demon Mark on my chest, I wasn't likely to live long enough to care. I felt it moving, and I flattened my palm over my breast. I wanted to squash it flatter than the tattoo it resembled, but it existed mostly in the aetheric, and there was nothing I could do. I felt its pulse against my fingers. Ick. I wiped my fingers on my blue jeans convulsively and tried a sip of Coke, aspirated down the wrong pipe, choked and coughed. Maybe it was my nerves, maybe it was something more, but I let the Mustang slip the leash a little too much.
I was blasting along at eighty miles an hour west on I-70, just passing Harrisburg, when I heard the wail of a siren start up and I looked in my mirror to see cherry lights popping blue and red behind me.
Well, that was just perfect.
No point in making the evening news by trying to outrun them; I gulped deep breaths and fumbled the Coke back into the cupholder. Downshifted. Pulled over to the side. Delilah's engine growled, frustrated at the delay, and I sympathized.
My hands were sweating as I waited. The cops didn't get out of their cruiser for a good three minutes, probably checking the car's registration and me for outstanding warrants . . . which, unless they were Wardens, I didn't have. I wiped my palms on my knees and watched as they got out, one on either side, and did a slow, menacing walk up toward me.
I had already rolled down the window, and the smell of early spring wafted in, sweet with wild-flowers. I knew I looked a mess, and I verified it in the mirror-yep, circles under dark blue eyes, no makeup, lank, needed-to-be-washed black hair. I smelled, too. I needed a shower and sleep.
The cop appeared at my window so suddenly I thought that, like Rahel, he'd planned it for effect.
His mirrored sunglasses reflected my pallid face and mooncalf expression.
"Hi," I said weakly.
"License, registration, and insurance."
I handed them over. He took them without comment, but didn't look at them yet.
"You from Florida, miss?" he asked. The plates on the Mustang were from the Sunshine State. It wasn't a psychic leap.
"Yes, sir. Saint Petersburg."
"Uh-huh." He made it sound suspicious. "You were pushing this beauty pretty hard."
"I'm sorry about that. It sort of got away from me." As if a car had ever gotten away from me in my entire life.
"You really have to watch it, a car like this. It's a lot of power for-" He had been, I thought, about to say such a little lady, but sensitivity training had paid off. "-for everyday driving."
"Thank you, sir, I will." Was that a dark cloud moving too fast overhead? I had only the reflection in his glasses to go by, but I could have sworn there was a cloud. . . .
"Just a minute, miss." He went away with my papers. I leaned over and tried to figure out what was going on above me. I let go of my body just enough to shift into Oversight, and saw myself flickering gold and violet and red, the Mark moving like a nest of worms above my heart. Then I looked up, through the crystalline roof of the Mustang, and I was staring straight down the throat of Hell.
What was happening up there wasn't obeying any natural laws. It was being forced to happen. I tried to reach for the clouds, the winds, the pressures, but I got shoved aside like a child. Something incredibly strong was manipulating everything from the exosphere on down, all the way to the friction layer. Red flickered in the clouds, and as I watched, it shifted spectrums, into photonegative.
Whatever was about to fall on me, it was going to fall very hard.
The cop popped back in my window, and this time I did flinch-in Oversight, he was a burly, twisted-looking bastard, probably neither good nor bad, but nothing I wanted to tangle with. He handed me a clipboard with something signable on it. I signed. He probably said something. I probably responded. He handed back my papers.
I badly wanted to scream at him to get back in his car, but it wouldn't have been a good idea; I clutched the ticket in one sweaty palm, fired up the Mustang, and eased it into gear. Carefully. The cops got in their cruiser and sat there, writing up records. I felt a lurch of relief. ... At least they weren't going to be fried like eggs on the pavement. Now all I had to worry about was me.
"Easy," I chanted to Delilah. "Easy, easy, easy." We drove, holding it to the speed limit, and overhead the storm grew and swirled and muttered its hatred. It followed. Again, I tried to defuse it, but whatever force controlled it had effectively shut me out. I had seven hours left to go. I wondered if Hell planned to wait that long.
The storm stayed with me into Pittsburgh, traveling like a balloon tethered to the antenna of my car. The weather channel was in a panic. Meteorologists, not being in the know or having Oversight, were unable to predict the consequences, but their outlook was grim. Hell, I knew the consequences, and they were right-the outlook was grim.
After five long hours of steering, I was sweaty and trembling; the Mustang practically drove itself, but I'd worn myself out, trying to get a grip on the factors that were driving the weather system overhead. I could feel other Wardens trying to work on the storm, but it laughed at us. Heavy magic. Big weather.
It was a special kind of torment. The person who'd created the storm knew I was trying to stop it, and the stress of my not knowing when and where it would strike was half the fun for the sick bastard. I thought longingly of Paul. Maybe if I called him . . . or Rashid . . . No, they were in this up to their necks already, and if they hadn't already solved this problem, they weren't going to be able to do anything for me. So who was doing this? Somebody had come along and brute-forced this thing together, and if it hadn't been broken up yet by the combined power of the Wardens, it had one hell of a power supply behind it. When I looked at it in Oversight, there was no clear identification, nobody lurking nearby to blame it on. Which meant it was somebody strong enough to do it at a great distance without traveling in Oversight to touch it. That was-incredible. And really, really scary. Who the hell could manage that kind of thing? Very few, I thought. Senior Wardens, World Council members . . . Lewis.
I had a very bad feeling suddenly.
The world slid by, shadowed by hovering clouds. Spring still tried to be cheerful but lost color as the sun disappeared. Birds fled with me, heading west. Other cars moved in formation, too, their drivers either oblivious or trying to make it despite the odds; I didn't have a choice. Stopping would be suicide. Driving on was just as bad.
I'd be out of gas by Columbus.
Think. I was a Weather Warden, dammit-maybe not holding on to the best possible reputation these days, but I was damned good at my work. My palms were sweating again. I wiped them, one at a time, and took another swallow of soft drink. My throat was so dry, it clicked. On the seat beside me lay the crumpled wad of ticket that I hadn't even bothered to read. If I survived this drive, I'd survive a fine from the Pennsylvania State Troopers.
Back at school, old Yorenson had always said there was no such thing as an unstoppable weather system. Weather was as delicate as a house of cards. Remove one card, and the structure would start to collapse; the trick was to plan the collapse. A perfect execution, he'd said, would negate the threat and create a beneficial environment at the same time.
Maybe I'd been thinking about it wrong. I'd been prodding at the storm itself, trying to loosen the magic that bound it together; maybe all I needed to do was change its location. I reached for my cell phone and dialed it one-handed from memory.
Paul's growling voice. "You've got to be kidding. Are you crazy, calling me? I thought we had an agreement."
"Listen. I know you're tracking this thing-"
"Yeah, I know it's centered right over you." He sounded depressed; I wondered if there was someone listening in. "You know what they taught you, Joanne. You fuck around with the weather, it will fuck around with you."
"This ain't a storm cell with a grudge, Paul. Somebody's driving."
"The brain trust thinks it's you. That you've gone over the edge."
"Brilliant," I sighed. "Just brilliant. You know better."
"I'm just sayin'."
I bit my tongue hard enough to taste blood. Blood and ozone. The storm was getting stronger overhead, rotating like a pinwheel. Other cars had run for cover. I was driving all alone now, and up ahead I saw another small town on the horizon.
"Listen, we're running out of time," I said. "Help me."
"We're trying, dammit, but if you didn't put this thing together, I don't know who the hell did. It's stronger than anything I've ever seen-"
"We need to do this together. I need you to create a cold downdraft over the top of this thing. You're going to do it fast and hard."
He grunted. "We tried that. Didn't work."
"You do it at the same time I create a hot-air mass underneath. We ought to be able to pop this sucker straight up about twenty miles and start kicking the crap out of it with an adiabatic process. I need it in the mesosphere, Paul. We have to rob it of the fuel or we can't pull it to pieces."
Paul was quiet for a few seconds, then said, "Give me two minutes."
"It's got to be precise."
"It'll be precise."
I sensed he was about to hang up and talked fast. "You got a line to Rashid?"
"Yeah."
"Apologize for me in advance, and tell him to watch out for the shears," I said, and hung up.
Basically, the plan was for me to drastically warm and expand the air underneath the entire storm, shoving it upward while Paul created a vertical process to drag it all the way up to the mesosphere, where we could work on it with much greater forces until it fell apart. The downside of it was that creating that kind of sudden, drastic updraft was going to rip apart the stability of this area. Wind shears were a distinct probability-the kind that knocked planes out of the sky. Hence, my warning to Rashid; it would be up to him to handle the devastating side effects.
I watched the digital clock on the dashboard. It took forever to flick over one minute. I felt something happening overhead, a kind of power gathering, and I couldn't tell if the storm was about to strike or if Paul was marshaling his forces. Either way, not a pleasant sensation seen from my perspective.
The digital clock finally flickered a new number. I reached up, grabbed air, and poured in heat . . . heated it so rapidly, the molecules had to expand, no matter what the cost. The storm pushed back, but it couldn't fight two fronts; I felt it being dragged upward by Paul's cold air funnel, sucked up through the friction layer, the troposphere, the stratosphere. Slowing as it reached the arid, chilly spaces of the mesosphere.
My enemy-whoever he or she was-would have to power that storm with the equivalent energy of fifteen or twenty nuclear reactors just to keep it together, and trying to bring it back down would be almost impossible, given the warm air column I'd created and was maintaining. Warm air beats cold air, given a short time frame. Elementary weather physics.
I felt the moment its creator let go of it. It was impossible for a storm that big to fall apart, but it did-blown apart, just like a puffball. Without the magic that sustained it, it was just random water and gas. I could feel the pressure easing inside my head.
Going, going . . . gone.
My phone rang. I flipped it open.
"Nice," Paul said.
"You, too."
"I can't change my mind, kid. Don't come back."
"I didn't think you would," I said. "Don't worry. I'm not your problem anymore."
Paul chuckled, a sound that left me warm inside. "That'll be the day."
I had just hung up the car phone when the first microburst slammed into the car with the speed of a bullet train and knocked me off the road. I fought the wheel, heard the Mustang scream as it grabbed for traction, but the road might as well have been ice and oil. I skidded. The world lurched. And oh, God, there was somebody in the way, somebody standing by the side of the road, I was going to hit him. . . .
I spun out in a spray of dust, felt a dull thump of impact. My tires caught the grassy edge of the shoulder, and physics took over, giving the car a sickening tilt.
Not the car, I thought in utter despair. Please, not the car.
And then something caught me and steadied me, and Delilah thumped four tires back on the ground. I had the breath knocked out of me, but apart from some tread loss, neither one of us had been hurt much. Delilah was shaking all over. So was I.
I turned off the engine and put my burning forehead on the steering wheel and gulped in air that tasted now as much of fear as of all the old ghosts of fast food, but it was still delicious.
"Sorry, baby," I whispered to Delilah. "Thought we were both headed for the junkyard."
It took me a second to remember the rest of it. The dull thump of impact.
Oh, Jesus, I'd hit somebody. . . .
I fumbled with the seat belt, frantic. Oh, God, no- let him be okay. . . .
Somebody tapped on the window. I gave myself whiplash coming around to stare, and saw a shadow... large, dark, and threatening. I sucked in breath to scream.
I blinked, and the shadow resolved into just-a guy. A guy with brown hair that needed trimming and some silly-looking round glasses that reflected blazing sunlight. A nice face, with smile lines around the eyes that said he was older than first glance would take him for. He was wearing a patched olive-green trench coat that for some reason reminded me of World War I-a vintage clothing enthusiast, or somebody who could afford only Salvation Army couture.
I rolled down the window.
"You okay?" he asked, and adjusted a backpack on his shoulder. Oh. I got it. He was a road dude, somebody who walked for a living, hitching when possible. Homeless by choice, maybe, instead of circumstance. A guy in search of adventure.
Well, he'd sure as hell found it this time.
"Fine. I'm fine," I croaked, and dragged lank, oily hair back from my face. "You're okay? I didn't hit you? No tire tracks on you or anything?"
He shook his head. An earring glinted. I tried to remember which ear meant he was gay, and then doubted myself; the earring thing might be an urban legend. I concluded it was either bullshit or the glint was in the heterosexual ear, because he smiled at me in a warmly nonacademic way.
"So, can you believe this weather? Some crazy stuff going on," he said. I could imagine ... a cloud levitating with the speed of a freight train, straight up, then blowing apart like God himself had smashed it to pieces. Plus Delilah roaring along at top speed and spinning out like NASCAR roadkill. Not something you see every day, even if you are a road dude. "Thought we were really in for it."
I hoped the we was a generic kind of thing, not a hello-I'll-be-your-stalker-this-evening warning sign. "Gee, bad weather? I didn't notice."
He hitched the backpack again, as if it were giving him some trouble, and nodded as he straightened up. "Well, be careful. Too nice a car to end up in some ditch. Not to mention too nice a lady."
Gallant, but he was a genuine guy-he'd put the car first. Somehow, that won me over. I wasn't getting any weird vibes from him, and even the company of some dude smoking grass and getting as one with nature might be better than talking to my car on a hell-drive like this. He even had a nice smile.
I looked at him in Oversight, just to be sure, but there was nothing special about him, nothing dark, nothing bright, nothing but plain old Joe Normal. I opened the passenger door and said, "Need a ride?"
He stopped walking away and looked at me. He had really dark eyes, but dark in a warm, earthy kind of way. If he were a season, he'd be fall.
"Maybe," he said. "Pack's getting kind of heavy. What's the price?"
"Nothing."
His eyebrows twitched like he thought about raising them. "Nothing's for nothing."
"Pleasure of your company."
"That can be taken a couple of ways," he said, and shrugged off the pack. It fit into the backseat like a second passenger. He didn't need as much leg room as Paul. "Not that I'm complaining or anything."
I felt strongly that that should offend me. "You really think I look like a chick who'd pick up some skanky guy on the side of the road?"
"No," he said with a sly, Zen-like calm. "And just for clarification, I take exception to the skanky. I have had a bath."
I waited until he'd strapped himself in safely before Delilah rolled again. Sunlight flickered through trees, tiger-striping the road. A gentle west-to-east breeze rustled leaves. I hadn't closed my window, and the smooth, cool scented air blew my hair back from my face. It felt good on my flushed skin.
"Not skanky," I agreed finally. "Rough?"
"You think I look rough?"
"Maybe a little grubby."
"I'll accept grubby."
When I looked over, he chuckled. I laughed, caught the edge of my hysteria, and blamed it on exhaustion and fear. I caught my breath and wiped my face.
He said, "My name's David, by the way."