signed earlier today, you now work for me, not the cruise line. Are you aware of that?"
From the shock that flickered across the XO's face, he clearly hadn't been. He buried that quickly, though. "No, sir."
"Let me make this absolutely... perfectly... clear." I thought at first that I was imagining things, but then I realized that Lewis's skin had taken on an unearthly hot glow.
So had his eyes. He looked about five seconds from detonation. I'd never seen a human do that. I'd rarely even seen a Djinn do it. "That storm out there doesn't care about laws, or rules, or procedures. It cares about ripping apart everything in its path. And it's coming for us. So Get On. The. Fucking. Team. Now ."
The XO took a step back. Lewis's furious glow got brighter, and I saw it reflected in the man's wide eyes.
Then he saluted, spun on his heel, and marched back up the gangway without another word.
"Dude," Cherise said in a hushed voice. "That was hot. "
"Down, girl," I said.
"Hey, can I help it that I find radioactive guys sexy?" We both gazed at Lewis, who despite not having shaved, showered, combed his hair, or changed his clothes in an appallingly long time was undeniably hot, in a lanky, outdoorsy, glowy kind of way. He gave us both an exasperated look and stalked off to organize the Wardens on his own. The glow stayed on him for several seconds as he went out into the lashing rain.
"I'm surprised you didn't jump all over that," I said.
"Moi?"Cherise pressed a small, perfect hand against her breast and did a silent-movie face of astonishment. "I'd never."
"Since when?"
"I've got a sense of self-preservation. Okay, granted, it's still in the original shrink-wrap, but I've got one if I ever want to use it. Besides. Dude is scary serious right now." Cherise waggled her clipboard. "Want to go with me? Terrify some mundanes? C'mon, it'll be fun!
And I might need you to, you know, throw a lightning bolt or something." Well, I wasn't doing anything useful standing here worrying. I could follow Lewis out into the storm, but that didn't really have much appeal, his tension level being where it was. He was more than capable of scaring the Warden stragglers into line all by himself. I would only be collateral damage.
Cherise shed her rain slicker, revealing a tight baby-doll T-shirt with, weirdly, a cartoon drawing of a toaster on it, complete with toast. The toaster had some kind of bar on the side with a red glow that looked like an eye.
"Let me guess," I said, and struggled out of my slicker as well. "Star Trek?" She rolled her eyes. "Do you not own a television? No. Not any flavor of Trek, and oh my God, what are you wearing? Oh honey. No."
"Shut up. It's borrowed."
"From who, a homeless person?"
"No, from the Jean Paul Gaultier fall collection."
She accepted that with a straight face. "Oh, that explains it. Homeless color-blind skank is so hot right now."
We were jabbering because we were afraid. Because the world was coming to an end, again, and sometimes whistling past the graveyard is literally the only thing that gets you safely through the experience.
And I'm just talking about Fashion Week.
I looked down at my outfit, though, and acknowledged that Cherise did have a point. The white miniskirt was too tight and too short, even by incredibly lax South Beach standards.
The top would have been rejected by Frederick's of Hollywood as too trampy, and by Wal-Mart as too cheap. The shoes were plain battered deck shoes, which at least were a safe choice, if not styling.
"They have shops on board," Cherise assured me, and patted me kindly on the back.
"Cherise, do you really think they'll be opening the mall when we're running for our lives?"
"Why not? People got to shop. It's like breathing." It was to Cherise, anyway. "Okay, fine.
I'll tell myself that it's a costume party and you came as a drowned rat." I smacked her. She pretended it hurt. "Cher," I said, and put an arm around her shoulders.
"I really love you, you know. I don't know what I'd be right now if I didn't have you around to keep me sane."
We weren't in the serious-talk business, me and Cher, but it seemed like this might be a good moment to make an attempt. She could have laughed it off; I wouldn't have been upset if she did, because I just needed to say it.
Instead, she fixed those