massive surge, and saw the wind shear building up on the aetheric. It came boiling at us in an invisible, syrup-thick wave.
It hit Mona broadside, spun us around, and then we were moving.
I yelped, tightened my grip on the steering wheel, and felt the sickening sense of falling for a full two seconds before we steadied out again, moving fast. I stretched myself farther on the aetheric, spinning atoms, holding chains of force together. This thing was as slick and slippery as glass.
To magical eyes, the halogen-bright glow of the car stayed where we'd been. It was a complicated illusion, requiring massive amounts of directed power that had to be hidden and buried in the natural processes occurring around us; I could feel that power pouring out of me like blood from an open wound. David was amplifying and redirecting it, but it was at a huge cost to both of us.
"How long?" I managed to stammer, and held out my hand. He grabbed hold. His skin was fever-hot.
"Half an hour, maybe," he replied. No sign of strain in his voice, but I felt a fine vibration through his skin, felt it in the bond between us. "Don't worry about that. Worry about the wind."
He was right. The kind of power I was using was treacherous, all too easy to go wrong. Wind has a kind of intelligence-slow, instinctual, but predatory. The stronger the wind, the more cunningly it can manifest, which is why working with major weather systems is reserved for the most powerful of Wardens. It's not just physics. It's lion taming.
And I could feel this particular lion starting to lick its chops in anticipation.
Below us, the Utah desert moved in lazy, deceptively gentle increments. We were traveling through the sky at better than a hundred miles an hour-slow for a plane, but dangerously fast for the air currents I was handling. David was holding Mona steady. I hoped he also had a little attention to spare to keep us unnoticed from the ground; seeing a Dodge Viper do a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the desert sky might be a little hard to explain, even for UFO nuts.
I spotted a small, likely looking back road at the edge of the horizon, and concentrated hard on slowing us down. That involved a risky and complicated series of adjustments-cooling the air behind us, warming the air in front, creating a collision of forces that would stall out the wind shear. Luckily, there wasn't enough moisture in the air to have to worry about creating a storm. I had to bleed off the buildup of energy as well, because that had to go somewhere, and leaving it roaming around looking for a place to discharge was a rookie's mistake. I crawled it over telephone lines in bursts of blue plasma to discharge it into the earth.
Unfortunately, the wind didn't like the idea of slowing down.
"Shit," I whispered, and reached deeper, trying to grab hold of the fast-moving molecules. Hot processes were always more difficult to stop, things moving too fast, on too big a scale. I steadied myself, listened for the tone of the wind, and spread myself out on the aetheric. It was like becoming the wind, like melting into it. Once I was inside of it, I could slow it down...
And then David said sharply, "Hold on."
It hit us from behind, a shockingly powerful slam like a giant's palm on the bumper. I bit back a scream and felt the car shoot forward, faster, starting to tumble out of control. Fuck! That was the wind, hitting back. I'd given it too much energy to work with. Behind us, the energy was starting to spiral in on itself. I saw the sand begin to rise up, painting the outlines of the biggest damn dust devil I'd ever seen. Not a tornado, not in the traditional sense, but up high where we were, it was far more powerful than down on the ground.
"Chill Factor"
I felt strength flooding back into me as David stopped his draw. I snapped into the aetheric to gather up the shattering chains of control. It was like playing marbles with a dump truck, chaos dancing in gleeful abandon. I can't. Panic threatened to overwhelm me, make me lose what control I had.
And then I felt him, on the aetheric, wrapping himself around me, supporting me, steadying me. You can, he whispered through that silent, strong connection between us. Trust yourself.
And something inside me went still, and