Firestorm Page 0,1

when they come straight for me. What did I ever do to them?

Cherise looked up through the gate of her fingers and shrieked, then went back to hiding her eyes. I ignored her and let myself slowly slide out of my body and up into that strange state--partly mental, partly physical, all weird--that the Wardens refer to as the aetheric plane.

It was only one of several planes of existence, but it was the highest one available to me as a human being (even one with, finally, a working set of weather powers). The world took on strange neon swirls, candy-colored sparks, and currents of power. The landscape altered around me into unknown territory.

The tornado was a glittering silver funnel, physics in its most potentially deadly form and given an instinctive menace, like a baby cobra. Fully as deadly as the more mature version, but with less experience. I had to step in before it learned where and how to strike.

I waited another few seconds, reading the patterns, then reached deep inside of the eye of the tornado and rapidly cooled the air into a heavy, sluggish mass. The energy exchange bled off in the form of a sudden burst of cable-thick lightning that snapped from the low-hanging clouds, and the wall of the tornado expanded and lost its coherence. In seconds, it was a confused mass of wind, moving too slowly to form much of a threat. It dropped its load of debris and wandered off at an angle, swirling petulantly.

"Okay," I said to Cherise as I sank back into my body and the comfortable solidity of three-dimensional space. "You can get up now. Show's over. First one to the bathroom uses all the toilet paper."

She didn't seem inclined to believe me. I waited a few seconds, then reached down and grabbed her elbow to haul her upright. She looked around, breathless.

"Wow," she said. "Okay, that was intense."

"Oh, I don't know. The hurricane was intense. This was just annoying."

"Jo, trust me on this one: Everything about what's happened since I met you is intense. Does this happen to you a lot?"

"You'd be surprised," I sighed. "Seriously. Bathroom, or you're going to be buying new seats for the Mustang."

We dashed off for the grubby-looking toilets. They were predictably scary, but I didn't care. It was a very happy few minutes, and if you've ever been stuck on the road without bathroom facilities for several hundred miles, you'll know what I mean.

We arrived back at the car at the same time. I held out my hand for the car keys, and a silent battle of wills ensued, but then Cherise had been driving the last stretch and what was she going to do? Argue with a woman who'd just stopped a tornado in its tracks? She dug them out of the pocket of her low-rise jeans and tossed them over.

"I'll try to keep us in the clear from now on," I said.

"I'd tell you not to scratch the paint, but--" Cherise rolled her eyes. Yeah, the hurricane and ensuing sand blasting had pretty much taken care of ruining the shiny finish. But the Mustang still ran, and that was the important thing.

While I'd been asleep, she'd put the top up on the car--sensible, with the intermittent rain--but I pressed the buttons to fold it back again. I wanted as much of a 360-degree view of the sky and surroundings as I could get. My version of a Doppler system.

I eased into the comfy seat of the Mustang--candy-apple red, a yummy little treat of a car, or at least it had been before I'd gotten hold of it--and adjusted the seat for my longer legs as Cherise slid into my vacated shotgun position. Not that we had a shotgun. Though thanks to recent events, I'd have been more comfortable if we had some kind of arsenal beyond our wits, good looks, and a turbocharged engine.

I had my work cut out for me as we eased back into gear and tore at top speed along I-295. The storm systems just kept piling up--there was a new supercell forming off the low-pressure system in Georgia, and it was bound to head our way. That wasn't good physics, but it was the way my generally crappy luck ran these days.

"That was a good trick with the tornado, Mom," said a voice from the backseat. Formal, female, and a little awkward. I jumped in surprise, and then I focused on a face in the rearview mirror that