"Clinically, or in general? I'm pretty sure there's a 'yes' in there somewhere no matter what I do."
"Jo." He pulled me to a halt and turned me to face him. "I'm not kidding." His hand was tight around my arm, and his face was drawn and very serious. "You can't do this. I can't let you do this. I'm not going to lose you, and there's no part of this plan--if you want to call it that--that doesn't end up with you dead. It's bad enough you want to go to the Oracles. Going to the Mother is suicide."
"We're all dying," I said, and saw him flinch as I threw his words back at him. There wasn't any satisfaction in it. "I have to try. You know I have to try. You'd do the same, in my place."
He let go of my arm and put his hands on my face, and for a breathtaking minute we stared into each other's eyes, all barriers swept away. Two people poised on the edge of something awful, afraid and alone even with each other for comfort.
He hugged me close, stroking his fingers through my hair. When he'd been Djinn, he'd straightened my curls--a private sort of joke between us, a memory of a time when I hadn't battled that problem. Now, he couldn't wield that power, but it didn't matter. It soothed me in deep, primal ways, and I relaxed against him, feeling the deep rush of his breath in his chest, his heartbeat, his strength and love and commitment.
"Then we go together," he murmured in my ear. "The two of us. Together."
Tears suddenly welled up in my eyes. I'd been prepared to go it alone, resigned to it; and yet, knowing he was with me ... it made all the difference. I didn't know how to feel; relief and horror struggled for dominance. The horror was because I was dragging him with me into the mouth of the lion.
But I wasn't alone. And that mattered, in this moment, more than I could say.
"We have fourteen hours," I said, and pulled back to wipe my eyes with the heel of one hand. "Let's spend them doing something productive."
That put him back on firmer emotional ground. "I'm trying to think what that is, in your world. Shopping?"
"Jerk. No. Although not a bad idea--I could use a couple of outfits."
"Interesting." His arms tightened around me, and the heat between us changed from comfort to something else. Something with its roots in a wilder place. "So what would you consider productive?"
"I need to do laundry."
"And?"
"That means I should take my clothes off. You know, to be sure I have everything clean."
I loved the smile he gave me, slow and sweet and hot. It wasn't a Djinn smile, not with the kind of hidden power that it had just a few days ago, but it was more purely him. The core of David that I loved so very much.
"I can help with that," he said.
"You mean, with the laundry."
"Absolutely."
We walked back to the cabin with our arms around each other, savoring the hours, minutes, seconds together. If other people spoke to us, I'm not sure either of us really paid attention.
As he was locking the cabin door behind us, David said, "Be gentle, it's my first time." I laughed, and then I understood. It was
his first time with me--and my first with him, in a very deep-seated way. We'd been together as Djinn and Warden, both of us bringing power into the relationship even if that hadn't been a deliberate plan.
This was different. Very different. This was just skin, and human emotion, and the kind of love shared by so many others. Which made it oddly precious and special, I realized.
We came together slowly, in a long and leisurely kiss. After the first few seconds I stopped thinking about what this wouldn't be, and began thinking of what it was.
It felt sweet and intimate and passionate, and his mouth tasted different now. Human.
Hard as it had been to see it, even his best imitation of mortality hadn't quite been completely honest. He'd unconsciously skewed it toward making it perfect.
And this was honest, and imperfect, and wonderful.
He broke the kiss and pulled in a deep breath, looking shaken. I had to laugh a little.
"What?"
"It's been a long time since I had reactions I couldn't fully control," he admitted.
"Yeah? Scared?"
"A little."
I took pity on him, and kissed him lightly again on the lips. "Me, too. You're doing fine."
He was, indeed, doing fine already, gently undoing the buttons on my shirt and moving it aside, brushing his fingers over my bared skin, trailing them down to the waistband of my jeans in a suggestively delicious manner. "I usually can tell if I'm doing this right," he said in my ear. His warm breath made me shiver. "Am I? Doing this right?"
"Oh yes." I caught my breath and arched against him as he slipped his fingers beneath the waistband. "Hell yes."
He seemed completely fascinated from that moment on, forgetting his own odd awkwardness. Every action had a reaction, and for the first time, he was engaging every sense to understand me, read me, feel me. For two people who'd been so closely, inextricably linked by our nerves, this was like making love blind--deliciously different, sweetly erotic, utterly human in ways that neither of us had anticipated. Mapping each other's imperfect bodies, communicating in whispers and sighs and moans and thrusts that built to something brilliant and explosive for us both.
David collapsed against me, gasping for breath, shaking. "It's the aetheric," he finally managed to say. "That's what it is. That's what you feel. You touch the aetheric. I never knew... ." He gulped in more air, eyes blind and bright, and then looked at me. "Let's do that again."
"Easy, tiger," I said, and cuddled up next to him. "Take a breath. It'll still be there."
He put his arms around me, and I listened to the frenzied pounding of his heart slow down, his respiration subside. I felt warm and complete and deliciously relaxed. "You'll still be here," he said, and kissed my forehead, my eyelids, my nose. Silly, sweet little kisses. He was just as giddy as I felt. "That's all that matters."
I was trying not to think about it, but the thought darkened my mind, just for a second: Tell that to the half a million people about to die.
But I'd face that soon enough, and more.
And for now, I just wanted to be this, here, with him.
Sometime, hours later, I murmured sleepily, "Oh crap, I forgot to do the laundry."
And he laughed.
And somehow, it was all okay, just for now.
Chapter Three
The Port of Miami looked weather-beaten but under repairs, and as far as I could tell, life was going on just fine. That seemed ... odd. I stood at the rail and watched people strolling the boardwalks, coming in and out of shops with hands full of bright-colored bags, eating at outdoor cafes. It seemed so normal.
It didn't seem like the end of the world as we knew it. In the movies, everybody's looking up at the skies (conveniently, all at the same daylight hour, everywhere in the world, all at once) when the big disaster is coming. But in real life, people just carry on until the disaster's in their face, and sometimes even after. I've lost count of the number of people I've personally fished out of flooded homes and businesses during hurricanes, for instance--and the ones that the Wardens couldn't save. All because they denied the ability of the world around them to destroy them.
There were potentially big losses of life brewing everywhere around the world, but so far they were just breaking news stories happening (for most people) somewhere else.
Interesting and tragic, not personal and panic-bringing. Nothing to interrupt dinner at Pascal's on Ponce over, for sure.
That would change, very soon. I knew it, even though I couldn't sense the aetheric disturbances anymore. Wardens were talking about it, and I could sense the suppressed anxiety in their voices.
This lovely day in Miami was the last we might ever see. I had a sudden, crazy impulse to start yelling like some wild-haired, sandwich-board-wearing street preacher, but I held my breath until it passed. Doomsaying wouldn't make anybody's day better. Or postpone the inevitable.
The ship was maneuvering up to the docks, and I could see, in the distance, a massive presence of cars, vans, and trucks. I nudged Lewis, who was standing next to me at the railing. "What is that?"
"The transportation you arranged," he said. "Cars and vans to shuttle people where they need to go."
"All of that?"
"Plus the press."
My palms immediately got damp, and I scrubbed them against my blue jeans. "What's our plan to handle them?"
"Benign neglect. We're going to be neck-deep in Apocalypse tomorrow. I can't see how issuing a press release is going to make a damn bit of difference, so we're not talking."
Worked for me. "David's going with me. To the Oracles."
Lewis didn't take his eyes off the docking process. "Good. I didn't like sending you alone."
He paused, and then said, very quietly, "I don't like sending you at all. You know that."
Yeah, and I knew why. So did David. Uncomfortably personal territory, so I skipped it.
"It's a dirty job, but that's why you picked me to do it," I said cheerfully. "Besides, if I can pick up some of my powers along the way, this might not be the rush to martyrdom you think."
"It's a big if, Jo."
"It's a gi- normous if. Not to mention an embarrassingly large how. So let's not dwell on it. Besides, you're the one going up against Djinn and insane planets with a grudge. I've got the easy job."
He shrugged, because I wasn't wrong. Nobody was guaranteed to come out of this thing with a whole skin--Lewis, the most powerful Warden in several hundred years, least of all.
The more powerful you were, the more the bad things tended to want you dead. At least, in my experience.
Which meant I was practically bulletproof right now, ironically. I literally wasn't worth noticing. Was that a comfort? I really wasn't sure.
"You've been taking the hits for a long time," Lewis said. He hadn't even glanced at me, but he could read me just fine. "Let the rest of us get the battle scars for a change. We're big kids."
"Did I ever say you weren't?"
"No, but your hero complex scares the crap out of me," Lewis said, and straightened up.
"Here we go."
I thought he meant that we were ready to disembark, but he turned toward me, and before I even knew he was intending to do it, he kissed me. Not one of the desperate kind of kisses he'd given me in the past, none of that longing or anguish or pure lust I knew was still locked up inside of him. This was surprisingly ... pure. Chaste.
It was a good-bye kiss.
I didn't fight it.
He didn't say another word, and it wasn't necessary. I watched him stride away, already calling orders to the Wardens who flocked around him like birds, swooping in to get instructions and then breaking off on their own.
That left me alone at the rail, until I sensed a warm presence next to me, and looked over to see that David had joined me. He had no particular expression on his face. It was just--studiously neutral.
"You saw," I said.
"Yes. I know what it was," he said. "And he's right. We might never see him again. I'd kiss him myself, but he might kill me."
Which made me laugh, as he intended. Though, knowing how ancient David was, I wasn't entirely putting that kind of flexibility past him, either. "You're a good man," I said.
"Am I?" He frowned down at the docks, as if it was a difficult question. "Maybe I was, once. Maybe I can be. But I've done a lot of things that wouldn't qualify as good. I think--I think this is a chance to remember what that means."
"Bullshit," I said crisply. "We're not in the navelgazing business, my love; we're in the world-saving business. Don't you forget it."
That surprised a smile out of him, a spark that reminded me of the fire he'd had before . .
. before the island, and that black corner. "I won't."
Cherise arrived, out of breath, rolling two suitcases. She had on a Miami- length sundress (as in, just too long to qualify as a shirt, and illegal in forty-nine other states), clunky platform shoes, an enormous sun hat, and designer sunglasses. Very Cher. "Well?" she snapped as she breezed on past us, leaving a smell of crisp lemony perfume in her wake.
"Hustle it up; what do you think--the world isn't ending or something? I am not holding a cab for you slackers!" Kevin trailed her, looking as slouchy as ever but somehow a little less unkempt--maybe Cherise had been after him with a comb--dragging two more suitcases. Considering we'd come on this journey with almost nothing, that was quite an accomplishment. Only Cherise could pump up her wardrobe while evading death. I generally just ruined mine.
David offered me his arm. "She's right," he said. "So are you. Fight first; introspection later."
"We're going to make it," I said. "You believe that, right?"
He looked around--at the seemingly normal sea-front, at the Wardens disembarking from the ship, at the world all around us. And he said, softly, "Not all of us."
I shivered.
Four in a cab was a stretch, but we voted Kevin to sit up front, much to the displeasure of the driver, who groused about rules and such until I tossed money at him. The money had been issued to all of us out of the ship's treasury--another thing that was going on the Wardens' already staggering tab for saving the world again. It wasn't going to be enough, but it was enough to get us moving, and that was all that mattered.