Firestorm Page 0,32

through the ground, as well. This was the consciousness of the planet, slowly coming back to itself. A living world, an organism and a consciousness so huge that the rest of us were just dust mites crawling along its skin.

Desperation was driving him. Desperation and intoxication and the need to feel.

I could see a pulse racing under his skin, feel the vibration of his aching, near-painful need. It was echoing inside me, every thundering heartbeat.

I dared an indrawn breath. "David, if you love me, back off."

He leaned away, and then shifted abruptly into a sitting position, braced on the far side of the car against the passenger window. No mistaking, in that position, that those leather pants were very tight and he was, as the artists like to say, in a state of interest.

But he was sitting on the other side of the car.

And his hands were shaking.

When he finally spoke, so was his voice. "I'm sorry," he said. "This is--it's--she's never felt like this before. It's--I don't know how to--" Apparently, it was indescribable, because he just shook his head in frustration and looked away. "It influences us. Seduces us. Makes us--"

"Crazy? Horny? Aggressive?"

The relieved smile he gave me was pure vintage David. "Yes."

"I like to know what I'm dealing with. And dammit, I don't like seeing you lose control."

"I wouldn't be over on this side of the car if I wasn't in control." Yeah, maybe... barely. I could feel the tension humming inside him, a coiled spring begging to unwind. He let out a long breath and deliberately flexed his hands, then laid them on his knees. "Thank you for reminding me."

"Is she awake?"

He parted his lips, not in answer but in surprise. Some of the fog left his eyes, and sanity came back. The bronze swirl muted to a soft brown, sparked with metallic highlights. "Ah," he finally said. "No. Not exactly. But she's--in the process of waking up. And the feelings are especially powerful right now."

"Like a hypnagogic orgasm," I said. He blinked. "The kind you have right when you're in that gray area between waking and sleeping. Really... deep."

"Hypnagogic," he repeated. "Have I told you recently how much you baffle me?"

"No. You were too busy trying to feel me up."

"Sorry."

"Don't be."

David lost the slight smile he'd managed to acquire. "The problem is, I can't tell when it's me, or when it's her driving me. This is--difficult."

"You were going to say 'hard,' weren't you?"

"No."

"Liar."

"Stop distracting me."

He was right. It wasn't a good time to be distracting him, especially not if his self-control was all that stood between the impulses he was receiving and the rest of the Djinn. That thought sobered me considerably. "Sorry," I said meekly. I slowly got my legs folded into something like propriety and curled them around to put my feet on the floor. Another lightning bolt unzipped the sky overhead, broad as a superhighway--this one didn't fork. It was like a solid cable of light and power overhead. Forget about the surface of the sun, that had about as much heat in it as the entire nuclear core. If it had hit a plane, there'd have been nothing left but a floating smear of ash and some raining molten metal.

"I need to do something about that," I said.

"Not a good idea."

"Maybe not, but I have to try something. This system's highly unstable and dangerous." "It's still not a good idea."

"Right. Can you help me?"

He was working on staying human, I could tell that; his instincts were driving him in all different directions, trying to rip him apart. I watched his bare chest fill and empty of air he probably didn't even need, mesmerized by the play of light on muscles. In the next flash of lightning, he looked almost as he had the first time I'd met him. In a heartbeat, his clothes re-formed from black leather into blue jeans and a gray T-shirt, with an open blue checked shirt on top. Hiking boots. His habitual olive drab ankle-length coat.

And glasses. Round John Lennon glasses that caught the flare in flat white circles, hiding his eyes completely.

"I'll try," he said faintly. "I'm not Jonathan. I can't--I don't have the experience to handle this kind of thing."

"I doubt Jonathan would have had the experience to handle this, either. You're doing fine, David. Just fine." I had no idea if it was true, but I wanted it to be. I reached out to him. He took my hand. His skin wasn't so burning-hot--more