Cape Storm Page 0,17

far deadlier results. I could sense terrible things happening, but I had to hold on. Hold on. The strain increased. I was strong, but this was too much for any one Warden to hold on to... and then the storm ripped free of the Djinn holding it and began to move.

No way I could stay with it as it roared closer, heading for the Grand Paradise .

Something grabbed me as I faltered, but instead of bracing me, it dragged me backward, away from the fight. Up. Out.

I was just far enough away to survive what happened next.

The storm pulsed and shifted into that poisonous green color, shot through with drifting flecks of red and jagged cutting edges of black.

The power that the Wardens had been manipulating exploded in a brilliant burst of light, and I felt it rip through me, flaying apart my aetheric body. I re-formed, slowly and painfully, and fell with unbalanced speed back into my own body.

I jerked, gasped, and almost fell off the edge of the stage. David had me by the arms, and he dragged me backward into his embrace. He was seated on the stage, and I fell weakly against his chest. I felt broken inside, shredded, unable to think or feel.

My eyes focused slowly, and my hearing told me that people were shouting. Screaming.

Earth Wardens were arriving in the theater, summoned by emergency signal, and they were dragging limp Weather Wardens out of their seats and laying them flat for treatment. Lewis was already down there, holding Henry Jellico in his arms, pressing his palm to Henry's pale, high forehead. Henry was completely still. Lewis was gasping, shuddering, barely holding himself together.

"What happened?" I whispered. David's arms tightened around me.

"Don't try to move," he said. "You can't help them."

"But - " I tried to get my body under control, but it was like swimming through syrup. Slow and cold and clumsy. "They're - "

"Dying," David said. His voice was low and hushed, and very gentle. "Most of them are dying, and there's nothing you can do to help that now."

"No!" This time I put real effort into the struggle. It didn't matter. It wasn't David's strength holding me back - it was my own weakness. I collapsed against him again, sweating and shaking, and watched as my fellow Wardens slipped away into the dark.

I'd been right. Bad Bob knew us.

In one stroke, he'd chopped down a significant number of the Wardens who could have posed a threat to him.

And I had no idea how he'd done it.

In the end, more than half of the Weather Wardens couldn't be saved. They'd been the closest to that blast of power, or they'd been drawn into the storm's hungry maw. Their aetheric forms had been completely destroyed, and there was no soul to come back into the bodies they'd left behind. Without that, the body stuttered and died, and there was nothing any Earth Warden, however powerful, could do to stop it.

That didn't mean Lewis didn't try with every last ounce of courage he had left before he collapsed and had to be carried away.

It was a dark, silent place after that.

I sat there numbed, watching as the dead were lined up on the stage. Most of my water team had caught the blast, or been spun into the center of the storm by invisible attacks.

Henry's team, which had been mirrored above, had been a little luckier, but not that much.

It was a devastating blow.

"Sons of bitches were waiting for us," I whispered. I didn't feel as shaky now, but I was still cold and weak. Someone had done me the kindness of wrapping me tightly in a thick thermal blanket, and my body heat was slowly coming back.

Cherise was holding my hand. I don't know who'd called her, but she'd appeared before David had let go of me, and I hadn't been left without human contact since. I wondered if they were afraid I would just dissolve without it, like those poor bastards we'd just led to their deaths.

David had gone to see to Lewis, though I doubted that there was much that could be done for him, either. He was strong. He would survive.

It was our mutual curse, seemed like. Being strong.

"Somebody pulled me out," I said. "Was it David?"

Cherise's thumb rubbed lightly over my knuckles, and she squeezed my fingers. "I don't know. He's not so sharey right now." Even Cher's usual defiant good cheer was gone, replaced by a sobriety that was