Firestorm Page 0,53

it would have if she'd been, say, consumed by little blue sparklies that seeped in from an alien dimension, but as if she was mostly vapor, held together by memory and will. She didn't move. I withdrew my hand hastily, and used it to cradle my broken arm across my chest. Damn, that hurt. I saw stars and jagged red streaks, and managed somehow to breathe through the pain. "Imara, can you hear me?"

If she could, she wasn't giving any sign. She was in a kind of there and not-there state, lying facedown on the grass. I couldn't grab her to move her, or turn her over. All I could do was call her name.

Rain pattered down, cold and hard on my exposed skin. I sat on the grass and shivered, next to my unconscious Djinn child, and fought the urge to call for David. He'd come, I knew that. But I wasn't entirely sure that it would be safe for him; if Ashan was still hanging out there, watching, this could still turn wrong.

Not that it was in any way right to begin with.

After I while, I noticed that Imara's clothes began to absorb water. I reached down and lightly touched the fabric. It had texture and weight.

At my touch, she exploded into movement, like a startled deer--up and on her feet, white-faced and wild-eyed. Scanning the skies, then the land, then focusing on me.

I wasn't sure she even remembered who I was. One thing was certain--there was so much menace coming off her that I didn't dare move. She'd have whacked me halfway across the cemetery, just the way she'd been hit, and without a doubt, it would have snapped more than my arm.

The panic cleared from her eyes. "Mom?" She was across the intervening space in seconds, crouched next to me, reaching out. I was cold, wet, and shaking, and I was probably going into shock, if I hadn't already booked a full vacation package there.

She was speaking a liquid language, words that sounded fast and golden in my ears, and I didn't know what she was saying, but I knew it was in the language of the Djinn. I recognized it, from moments with David.

"Hey," I said weakly. "English, kiddo."

She felt warm. So warm. I vaguely remembered leaning on her support as I staggered out of the cemetery and onto the street. The Camaro was sitting right where we'd parked it, looking bold and sassy through the downpour. Imara got me in the passenger seat.

It was all over. I'd failed. I'd just... failed.

"Mom?" Imara sounded worried as she put the car in gear and scratched gears getting us out of town. "Mom, where do we go?"

I had no fucking idea. I turned my face away, toward the world outside. The world that was going to die because I'd been inadequate to the task of saving it.

"Find the nearest Warden," I said. "Maybe there's something we can do to help."

"With what?"

I shrugged, one-shouldered. The other one felt like ground glass had been driven into the joint. "Whatever." I wasn't very interested.

Imara kept casting anxious looks my way, but I didn't say another word.

I had no idea how long the drive was, but it wasn't long enough for me to come up with a decent bright idea. So Imara just followed instructions and drove me to the nearest Warden.

That turned out to be Emily, the Earth and Fire Warden who'd given me crap back at the Headquarters building. She lived in a one-dog town in the middle of Nowhere County, Maine, and when Imara coasted the Camaro to a stop on the gravel driveway, she parked it next to a mud-spattered Jeep.

The Warden was home. She came to the door when Imara knocked, stared at my kid as if she was the Second Coming, then at me like the devil incarnate. "Oh," she said flatly. "They sent you. Great."

She turned and walked into the house, not bothering to show us in. I was too sick and in too much pain, not to mention despair, to care about that. I followed her to a homey-looking living room, with one wall painted a somewhat unfortunate shade of cinnamon; Indian blankets and southwestern art lined the walls. The furniture was chunky wood, deliberately primitive. Knickknacks ran to kachina dolls and dreamcatchers.

I knew Emily vaguely. We'd never been friends, or even what I'd call acquaintances, but we'd worked on a couple of projects together, and shared a desk at the national Warden