Up there on the aetheric, once I'd achieve it, things were serene, too; glowing bands of brilliant color, swirling and moving together, everything lazy and calm. Out toward the sea there was energy, but it was carefully balanced, sea and sun and sky. No storms on the way at the moment, and no rain, regardless of Marvelous Marvin's bogus predictions. Poor Marv. Statistically, he should have been right about eighty-six percent of the time just by predicting sunny and warm in Florida, but no, he had to try to be dramatic about it...
Speaking of which, how exactly did he beat the odds? He shouldn't. I'd looked at him a dozen times up on the aetheric, though, and he was nothing but what he appeared: an obnoxious normal guy. Blessed with the luck of the entire nation of Ireland, apparently, but a regular human being, not a Warden, no matter how deep-cover. And certainly not a Djinn.
As I floated there, basking in the beauty, I felt something coming around to mess it up. Not weather. People. I blinked and focused and saw three bright centers of energy approaching me on foot across the parking lot. In aetheric-sight, you learn a lot about a person. The one in the center was male, tall, stooped, and comfortable with himself-he wasn't trying to make himself look bigger or better or scarier than anyone else. The other two, though... different story. One of the women saw herself as a warrior, all steel and armor that was designed more from a book cover than actual practical necessity-steel push-up bra and an impractical metal bikini bottom to match, a sword too big for someone her size to draw, much less swing.
The third was also a woman... elegant, wispy, a little unsettling.
I knew two out of three of them. Ghost-woman was a mystery.
I dropped down into my physical form as footsteps approached, and turned with a smile firmly in place. "John," I said. "It's really good to see you again."
"You, too," John Foster said. It was a friendly beginning, but really, there was no reason for my former Warden boss to show up this early wanting a word, especially flanked by muscle. In no way could this not be a bad sign.
John wasn't much different in the real world than he looked in the aetheric-tall, well dressed, a little professorial if such a thing could be considered a downside. He liked tweed. I regretted the tweed, but at least he'd gotten past the sweater vests of earlier years.
My eyes drifted over to the shorter, darker, punker woman standing next to him.
Knew her, too, and the welcome wasn't so welcome-y. She was glaring at me through dark-rimmed eyes. Shirl was a Fire Warden, powerful, and the last I'd run into her she'd been assigned to Marion's Power Ranger squad, rounding up renegade Wardens for that ever-looming magical lobotomy. She wasn't exactly top of the list of people I'd wished would drop in. We hadn't bonded, back when she had been chasing me across the country.
She'd added some additional facial piercings since the last time I'd seen her, her dyed-black hair was tipped with magenta, and she'd taken up a close, personal friendship with leather. Not an improvement.
The third woman remained a mystery. We'd never met, and I couldn't tell what her specialty was; but if Shirl was here to cover fire, she was likely an Earth Warden.
"A little early for a social call," I said, trying to keep it pleasant.
John nodded and stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. Awkward with conflict, John. I wondered why they'd stuck him with the job. Maybe the more senior Wardens were busy. Or maybe they knew I had a soft spot for him and wouldn't be quite so difficult.
"You already know Shirl," he said, and gestured to her with an elbow, offhandedly, with a flat tone to his normally warm voice. Ah. He didn't like her either. Nice to know. "This is Maria Moore, she's come over from France to help us out."
Maria, the ghost-girl, was a wispy little thing in the real world, too. Older than she'd looked, up a level, but still a twig. I hoped she wasn't a Weather Warden; a good strong breeze might blow her out to sea. She looked more like a Djinn than most Djinn I'd ever met.
"Takes three of you to say good morning?" I asked.
"I need you to take a ride with me, Joanne," John said. He had an interesting voice, blurred with a North Carolina drawl; it always made him sound like he was in no particular hurry or distress. So I couldn't tell if this was a big deal, a little deal, or a consultation he thought I could help out with... or whether I was taking a ride that would end up with me dead or permanently disabled.
I decided I didn't really want to find out.
"Sorry," I said, not as if I in any way meant it. "I really need to get home. I have some appointments-"
"You're coming with us," Shirl said flatly. "Whether you like it or not. Get used to the idea."
I met her eyes. "Or what, Shirl? You'll get all skinhead on me?"
She'd been kind of hoping that would be my attitude, I could tell. Her hand cupped at her side, and a fireball ignited in her palm. "Or this is going to start loud and end badly."
I didn't want to fight. Really. Especially with John Foster in the middle, not to mention the French Ghost, who might or might not be someone I needed to piss off.
I glanced at John, who was stone-faced, and said, "Whoa, there, Sparky, I'm not picking a fight. I just would like a little warning if you're going to drop in and disrupt my day."
"Get in the car."
She wasn't taking any crap from me. That might have been because I'd kind of kicked her ass the first time around, and she was worried about a repeat; she needn't have been, as I'd been running on Demon-Mark Power then, and now it was just plain ol' me, and plain ol' me was tired and drained and really not up to a big, magical, hand-to-hand battle to the death.
Plus, I wasn't dressed for it. Stains would never come out of this top.
Maria Moore silently gestured me to a smoky silver Lexus, which I knew for a fact wasn't John's; Lexus wasn't his style. Must have been Maria's, and come with the ghostly self-image. She was probably aspiring to a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. After just enough hesitation to let them know that I wasn't always going to be so easily handled, I turned and walked to it, opened the back door and got inside. It was cramped, but then I had longer legs than most women. Maria got in the driver's seat. I got Shirl as my companion in the back. Joy.
"You want to tell me where we're going?" I asked.
Maria and John exchanged a glance. "It'll take us a while to get there," he said. "I'd suggest you call and cancel your appointments. You're going to be out most of the day."
It was a little late to bitch about it, now that the car was moving. I pulled out my cell phone and postponed Mall Day by twenty-four hours, much to Cherise's disappointment, and settled in for the long haul.
Which, in a Lexus, wasn't a bad thing.
It was a quiet drive. I dozed, part of the way, because I'd been up since four A.M. and besides, talking to Shirl the Human Pincushion didn't make for entertaining conversation. She had all the power of someone like Marion Bearheart, and absolutely none of the charm. I missed Marion and all her centered, Native American, Earth Mother attitude. At least she'd threatened me with style and class, and she had a clear moral center. Shirl... well, I wasn't so sure about any of that. Especially the style and class.
Maria the Ghost sporadically nattered on with John in bright, liquid French.
John was multilingual, which surprised me for some reason. They seemed easy together. Old friends? Current lovers? Couldn't get a read. I made up dramatic scripts in my head, in which John flew over the Atlantic to sweep Maria off her feet in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower and the two of them ran around Europe getting into wacky, farcical mistaken-identity bedroom adventures.
Hey, I was bored.
Three and a half hours later, the Lexus made a right turn off the highway, and I started seeing signs of damage. We were entering the area where Tropical Storm Walter had blown in two nights ago. It had been a really bad hurricane season, and even though we were winding down, nobody felt very secure about it. The damage was mostly superficial, it looked like-shredded palm fronds, blown-down fences, the occasional busted sign or toppled billboard. Cleanup crews were out.
Power had already been restored, for the most part. The beach looked clean and fresh, and the surf curled its toes in calm little foaming wavelets over the sand.
We drove about another fifteen minutes, and then John pointed off to the left.
Maria slowed the Lexus, and we passed a partially downed sign with construction information on it. PARADISE COVE, it proclaimed, presented by Paradise Kingdom LLP. With a whole bunch of subcontractors, like the special effects cast of a big-budget movie. The artist's rendering on the sign was of a hotel about fifteen stories tall, avant-garde in shape.
It was a hell of a lot more avant-garde now, because what lay behind the sign was a mass of twisted metal and slumping lumber. Looked like a war zone.
Construction materials had been scattered around like Legos after playtime for the emotionally disturbed.
Maria put the Lexus in park.
All three of them looked at me.
"What?" I asked. I was honestly puzzled.
"Tell us what you know about this," John said.
"Well, I'm no expert, but I'd have to say that between this and the Motel 6 down the road, I'd have to choose the Motel 6..."
"I'm serious."
"Hell, John, so am I! What do you want me to say? It looks trashed." I suddenly had a flash. It wasn't a pleasant one. "This is what they were talking about on the news. The freak damage from Tropical Storm Walter."
"This is it."
"Okay... and you think I know about it because... ?" They all exchanged looks, this time. Nobody spoke. I rolled my eyes and said it for them. "Because you think I did this. Grow up, guys. Why would I? The Wardens have made it really clear that if I screw around with the weather, somebody like good old Shirl here will come around and put me on Drool Patrol. I mean, I don't really like the architectural styling, but I don't feel that passionate about buildings."
Predictably, it was John who jumped in. "Right at the present time, there are fewer than ten Wardens in Florida," he said. "Somebody directed the storm. We recorded the shift."
"Well, talk to the hand, because it wasn't me."
Another significant look that didn't include me. John said, "Are you sure that's your answer, Jo?"
"Hell yes, I'm sure. And you're starting to piss me off with this crap, John. Why would I do a thing like this? Why would I risk it, first of all, and why would I pick on this particular section of coast?"
"It's close to where Bob Biringanine's home once stood," Maria the French Ghost observed.
"So, what, I have a grudge against a dead man? Don't be ridiculous."
I was starting to sweat. I mean, this wasn't usual behavior from Wardens. Suspected offenders got questioned, but usually by auditors, and rarely triple-teamed like this. I was starting to feel a little bit like some poor Mafioso taking a tour of the New Jersey dump, right before he joins the great cycle of composting.
"Look," I said. "What can I do to convince you? I had nothing to do with this."
After a few seconds of silence, I asked, "Was anybody hurt?"
"Three people were killed," John said. "The night watchman had brought his two kids with him to work. The kids were asleep in the front when the tornado hit. He tried to get to them, but he'd lost a lot of blood. He died on the way to the hospital."
Silence. Outside, the insects were droning, and the sky was that clear, scrubbed blue you only get after a vicious storm. The few palm fronds surviving nodded in a fresh ocean breeze.
Storms were natural. We-the Wardens-didn't stop the cycle of nature, we just moderated it. Buffered it for the safety of the vulnerable people who lived in its path. But for a storm like this, we wouldn't have bothered. It wasn't that bad, and it was necessary to correct the ever-wobbling scales of Mother Earth.
If somebody had messed with it, it was criminal, and intentional.
And murderous.
"It wasn't me," I said. "I'll take whatever oath you want, John. But I'm innocent."
He nodded slowly, and turned back to face front. "Let's get you back home," he said.
"That's it?" Shirl asked loudly. "Just like that? You buy it just because she says it?"
"No," Maria the French Ghost said, and turned her head slightly toward me. She had odd eyes, not quite any color, and they looked a little empty. "Not just because she says it."
Shirl opened her mouth, sensibly shut it, and scowled out the window. Maria started the car and reversed us back out to the highway.
It was a long, silent drive back, and I had a lot to think about.
I got home too late for any shopping, and way out of the mood anyway. I went home to my grubby little apartment, made chili from a can with some shredded cheese, and curled up on my secondhand couch with a warm blanket and a rented movie. The movie was one of those warmed-over schmaltzy romantic comedies with too much romance and not nearly enough comedy, but it didn't matter; I was too distracted to watch it anyway.
If somebody had been messing with Tropical Storm Walter, I should have known it.
I've always been sensitive to those kinds of things. Of course, I could excuse it with the fact that John Foster's spider sense hadn't tingled, either, nor-apparently-had those of any of the eight other Wardens stationed in the state. So maybe I could forgive myself a little.
I couldn't shake the image of that father bringing his kids to work on a boring, safe job, and facing the nightmare of his life. Struggling to save his family in the face of someone else's malice.
Wardens screw up, that's a fact of life. Weather is difficult and tricky and it doesn't like to be tamed. It has a violence and vengeance all its own.
But this wasn't a screwup, didn't feel like a screwup, or a random event. It felt targeted, and it felt cold. No wonder the Wardens were sending out hit squads looking for an answer.
I did have to wonder why John Foster had accepted my word for my innocence. In his place, I'd have wanted proof. I wasn't sure that the fact he let me off so lightly was a good sign.
I did some internet research, made some phone calls to neutral parties-i.e., not Wardens-and put together a rough picture of what had happened. Tropical Storm Walter had turned vicious at the last second, gathering strength as it roared up on the coastline. It made a last-minute turn to the north instead of the south, and waded ashore with near-hurricane-force winds and a complement of tornados.
So far as I knew, the only one that had touched down had leveled the hotel.
It might have been selfish, but I had to wonder why the investigation had focused on me. If they'd instantly focused suspicion on me, the obvious answer was that they didn't trust me-which, hey, they didn't-but there must have been some connection I wasn't seeing. And not the hole in the ground that had once been Bad Bob Biringanine's house on the beach, either. Even the Wardens weren't shallow enough to buy the fact that I'd throw a meaningless tantrum and beat up a helpless coastline, unless they suspected me of going completely wacko.
Then again, I was dressing up like the Morton's Salt Girl on TV and getting water dumped on my head for money.
Maybe they had a point.
I felt alone. More alone than I had in quite some time, actually. I missed my friends. I missed the Wardens.
Boy kissed girl, and the music came up and tried to tell me that love would make everything all right with the world.
I missed David, oh God I missed David.
I curled up with my warm blanket and watched the rest of the movie, and fell asleep to the cold blue flicker.
The next morning's show went just about as badly as you might expect. No dumping of rain today; apparently Marvin was forecasting a good day for outside activities, so I got to pose in my stupid-looking walking shorts, oversized T-shirt, boonie hat, and zinc smeared white down my nose, while Cherise wore the cute little bikini and cheesecaked for the camera. One of us was happy. I got sand in my penny loafers, so it probably wasn't me.
But the worst was yet to come.
Cherise slipped into a thick terrycloth robe as soon as she stepped off camera-her usual habit on the set-and we were talking about doing the mall when I felt a thick, sweaty hand slide around my waist. A little too high to qualify as waist territory, actually-we were getting into oh-I-don't-think-so range.
Cherise looked startled, then grim, as Marvin's other arm went around her.
Luckily, her robe was belted the wrong way for him to slide his fingers inside.
"Girls," he said, and grinned, and squeezed. He'd definitely had his teeth whitened recently. They looked so white I was afraid they might glow in the dark. "Feel like a little breakfast? I'm buying!"
"Gee, boss, I have to fit into this bikini later," Cherise said. She wriggled free of his hold. "Thanks for the offer."
He didn't let go of me quite so easily. "Whaddaya say, Jo? Few pancakes might do you good! Sweeten you up a little! Come on, my dime!"