Firestorm Page 0,58

speaking, actually have to go to the site of the fire; Wardens often did their work remotely. But if this fire was as dangerous as she seemed to think, then being on the ground might be the only way to react quickly enough. Fire was the trickiest of all the elements. Even more than storms, fire had an intelligence, a malevolence. A desire to hurt. The bigger the fire, the smarter and angrier it became. Bad combination.

I chose the SUV. The Camaro really wasn't the kind of car I wanted to subject to off-road conditions.

Emily lived in a tiny little burg called Smyrna Mills, which was mostly distinguished by Smyrna Street--we were out of town in less time than it took to flash a blinker, and heading south to I-95. The other Warden, it turned out, was a country music fan; I wasn't. I mostly spent the time on the drive to Houlton and the Canadian border thinking and watching the skies. They didn't look good. The aetheric was in a boil, everything disturbed; flashbulbs of power were popping all over the place as Wardens tried to deal with their local problems, but it wasn't really a local issue. It was bigger. Nastier. And it was going to get worse.

I really didn't have any business taking a side trip like this, but I couldn't think what else I could have done. Walk away from thousands of lost lives? I'd be crawling, not walking, if I did that. And none of it would matter from that point on, because I would have lost my way completely.

As we approached the border crossing, I remembered something with a sick, falling jolt. "Um, Em? Little problem."

"Which is?"

"No passport."

"What? Where is it?" "In Florida. With everything else I own that hasn't washed away." She was staring at me as if she couldn't believe I'd leave home without it. "I wasn't planning on any international trips."

She shook her head and took a quick turn-off on a narrow trail into the woods. "Hold on."

I grabbed the roll bar as we started bouncing along at speed through the wilderness. Four-wheeling at its finest. I had no idea where we were going, or whether Emily had the slightest idea of direction, but she didn't seem worried.

"Thing is," she said, whipping the wheel to the left to avoid a tree stump, "normally I wouldn't be able to slip around behind them like this, but it's chaotic right now. If they do manage to stop us, shut up and let me do the talking."

I planned on it.

No Mounties materialized out of the trees to flag us down. Thirty minutes of twisting back road--and no road--later, we emerged from the trees and hit Canadian Highway 2, turning north.

I lost track of our route somewhere around Presque Isle; Emily, on her cell phone, followed back roads in response to directions. We got stopped by a police blockade; whatever Emily said, they let us past. The roads got progressively more challenging on the suspension. I hung on to the panic strap on the passenger side and tried not to think about the residual pain in my healing arm.

I was feeling more than a little nervous, out here in the wilderness, and I wasn't really dressed for firefighting, either. Someday, I promised myself, you'll be able to get back to a normal life. Nice clothes. Bikini on the beach. Shoes that don't have sale tags.

I closed my eyes, but when I did, I didn't see visions of Jimmy Choos or Manolo Blahniks, but David's face, the way he'd been the first time I'd seen him. That sweet, ironic smile. The deep brown eyes, flecked with copper. Angular cheekbones just begging to be stroked.

That smile.

I missed him so much, it felt like a physical pain, brought tears to clog my throat. We hadn't had a chance, had we? So little time to know each other, to find our balance. The world just kept pushing, pushing, pushing. I wanted it to stop. I wanted quiet, and I wanted a place where I could be in his arms, wrapped in silence and peace.

And I wasn't sure that was ever going to happen, especially now that we were two steps from the end of the world.

The SUV hit a particularly axle-rattling bump on the dirt fire road. I opened my eyes and saw a storm cloud looming over the tops of the huge trees.

No, not a storm cloud.

Smoke. Black and thick and pendulous.

A deer bounded out of the underbrush