Firestorm Page 0,75

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"You're thinking about Father," she said. "Right?"

"Why do you say that?"

"You look sad," she said quietly. "He'd hate that he makes you sad."

Oh, dammit. I was going to cry, wasn't I? No. I wasn't. I gulped enough air to make myself belch instead. "Are they going to be able to contain the fire?"

"Yeah," she said, and looked away. "But there's something else in there. Something bad."

Tell me about it. "Don't worry about your father--he's fought bad things most of his life."

"I know," she whispered. "But it's all falling apart, Mom. Why does it have to happen just when I--?"

The second she's born, the world starts to collapse. I bit my lip, furious with Jonathan suddenly; this was too big a burden to give any kid. Even a Djinn-born one. "It's going to be okay," I told her.

"I know," she said. Wind whipped her hair over her face and hid her expression. "I trust you."

I didn't answer. Couldn't. My throat had locked up tight, fighting the tears. Deep breathing helped, and concentrating on the flashing yellow center stripe. Freeway up ahead, and a battalion of flashing emergency lights. I slowed for a barricade. Since there was an exodus from the fire, it didn't appear passports would be an issue. The Mountie manning it nodded to me and moved it aside, and then we were out, racing into the clear day.

Free.

I dropped Emily at her house. She woke up halfway home and subjected me to a foul-mouthed inquisition; she didn't remember anything past her collapse at the ranger station, as it turned out. Convenient, that. I didn't have to answer questions about the Djinn, or the Demon Mark, or any of that crap. She looked ill, but intact, and when I offered to keep her company, she brushed me off as rudely as ever.

The fire was down to normal size, up north, according to the radio, which blamed it on a lightning strike and credited the brave Canadian fire patrols for containing the blaze. No mention of fifteen dead bodies littering the landscape. I wondered if David had cleaned up after his hit squad.

"Where now?" Imara asked. She was behind the wheel of the Camaro when I arrived, and I was too tired and too sore to argue with her.

"Back toward Seacasket," I said. She gave me a long, frowning look. "I know. I said toward, not to. I just need to think for a while." "I'm not taking you back there," she warned, and put the Camaro in gear. "Father doesn't want you near the Oracle."

Having a Djinn driver was pretty damn sweet, I decided. For one thing, she was fully capable of opening up the car to its fullest potential, and simultaneously hiding it from any observant highway patrol cars. The Camaro loved to run, and some of its joy bled off into me, easing the ache in my guts. I closed my eyes and let the road vibration shake some of the despair away.

I must have dozed off; when I opened my eyes again, the car was downshifting, and Imara was making a turn into a parking lot in front of a roadside motel. "What's this?" I asked.

"You could use a shower," she said.

I winced. "Tact, Imara. We'll discuss it later."

"I'm sorry to be blunt, but you need a shower, and real sleep. Also, this is as close as I can take you to Seacasket without attracting Father's attention."

I hated to admit it, but the kid wasn't wrong. I sniffed at myself. Ugh. I did reek.

I sent Imara in to get the room--one look at me, and they'd promptly light up the no vacancy sign--and lounged against the dusty hood of the car, waiting. She came out dangling a clunky-looking key, the old-fashioned metal kind with a diamond-shaped holder blazoned with the room number. Four was my lucky number, at least today.

While I was in the shower, shampooing for the third time, Imara knocked on the door and shouted, "I'm going to get you some clothes!"

By the time I'd rinsed off and strolled out of the heat-fogged bathroom, she was gone. I curled up under the covers and flipped channels on the TV. The news was full of bad stuff: fires, earthquakes, storms, volcanoes. Europe was locked in a sudden, unexpected deep freeze. India was facing floods. So was South America.

I turned it off and remembered the Oracle. I'd come so close... so close. Wasn't there anything I could do, anything at all? I remembered the rich, dizzying,