Firestorm Page 0,113

of vibration that used the aetheric and the real world, was part of both, part of neither--it was awful and terrible and it was somehow sick, as if I was hearing a physical manifestation of a disease.

The Demon. The Demon had succeeded in getting to another Oracle--probably this one, in Sedona--and the Mother was horribly hurt and angry, unable to strike back in any effective way to protect herself. So she was striking out at anything and everything that moved.

I was like a bacteria trying to talk to Albert Einstein, but I had to try something. Anything. I pried my hands away from my ears and yelled, "Shut up!"

They did.

Wow.

All three of them stared at me, and I blinked back; all three of their heads tilted slowly sideways, considering me. Crimson eyes flickering with flares of orange and yellow and a hot, pale blue.

"I know," I said. My stomach was trying to contract itself into a tight little ball of terror, and my knees didn't want to stay firm. I braced myself against the adobe wall and thought madly that of all the hostage negotiations ever conducted, this had to be the biggest. No pressure. "I know how much it hurts. Can you hear me? Can you understand me?"

Nothing. Their heads stayed tilted. They didn't move, not so much as an inch or a twitch. Frozen, like statues, except for the unsettling, alien furnace in their eyes.

"I can help," I said. "If there's a Demon Mark on the Oracle, I can help. Just take me there. Or at least show me the way."

It wasn't working. They didn't understand me, although they certainly knew I was there--they'd sought me out, which meant she was aware of my existence. Dammit... David was the buffer. Imara said that she couldn't find him, which meant that somehow he'd been taken out of his connection to all other Djinn, and without him standing in that place, no one stood there.

No buffer between the Djinn and the earth. Nothing to keep them sane.

The trio opened their mouths again, and sang. It was indefinable, but I thought it was a lament. Sorrow, deep and jagged and painful. Loss. Horror. It hurt to hear it, made my knees give way; I cried out at the short stab of agony that bolted up from my kneecaps hitting concrete, then stayed down. I wasn't sure I could get up. Wasn't sure I wanted to get up.

I had no way to answer her, except with words. "I know," I said. "I know it hurts. I know you want to stop hurting. So do I."

Maybe there was a coloring of the same anguish in my voice. Maybe she heard the music of that in the words, even if the words meant nothing.

Rahel's eyes flickered. Red, then pale blue, then that fierce predatory gold I was used to.

For an instant I read everything in her--sheer deep terror at what she was doing, helpless rage at not being able to stop it, despair, a tearing pain that was an echo of the earth's.

She didn't have time to speak, and I barely could draw the breath and form the intention to ask before the Mother had Rahel again, hard in her grasp.

The song came again, soft, almost a whisper, and in it was something deadly. Like a mother singing a lullaby to a baby she was about to smother, because the world was too harsh a place, too unbearably sharp-edged for such a fragile life...

I reacted instinctively. I was terrified beyond all reason because I knew, knew my life was about to come to an end, and I had to act or die on my knees.

I wasn't about to die on my knees. I lunged to my feet, crossed the few feet that separated me from Rahel, and slugged her. A strong right cross to the jaw, with as much shoulder behind it as I knew how to commit. And if I may say so myself, it was a hell of a good shot, because I felt every bone in my hand turn to shards of glass, and I was sure I'd broken every damn thing in my body between fingertips and collarbone...

... but she shut her mouth, rocked back a step, and the other two Djinn followed suit.

"That's enough!" I yelled. "Enough! I know it hurts, I know you hurt and it's making you crazy, but dammit, stop! This isn't some teenage soap opera! We live here! We're part of you. Humans matter! The