Ill Wind Page 0,17

no control, just sheer raw power- and power that got loose, manifested in arcing static electricity from every metal surface. Glass shattered. The pitcher of water on the table hissed into steam.

I ducked into a crouch in the corner until it was all over, and the room was clear and silent.

Very, very silent.

I looked up and saw them all still sitting there, hands on the table. Nobody had moved an inch. Marion was the first to get up; she walked over to a covered cart and took out a thick beach towel, and went about the business of mopping up beads of water from the conference table. Somebody else- probably a Fire Warden-brought the lights back online. Except for a couple of burn marks around the power outlets, it all looked normal enough.

Bad Bob sat back down in his chair, slumped at ease, and propped his chin on his fist. "I rest my case," he said. "She's a menace."

"I agree," said the snippy-looking librarian type from Arkansas. "I've rarely seen anything so completely uncontrolled."

Martin Oliver shook his head. "She has plenty of power. You know how rare it is to find that."

They went around the table, each one putting in a comment about my general worthlessness or worthiness. Marion Bearheart voted for me. So did two others.

It came down to Paul Giancarlo, who stood and walked over to me and offered me a hand up. He kept holding my hand until he was sure I wasn't going to collapse into a faint on the floor.

"You know what this is?" he asked. "What it is we're deciding here?"

"Whether or not to let me into the Wardens," I said.

He shook his head, very kindly. "Whether or not to let you live. If I say you can't be trained, you go into Marion's keeping, and she and her people try to take away your powers without killing you. Sometimes it works. Sometimes . . . not so well."

If he was hoping to scare me, he'd succeeded brilliantly. I wanted to say something, but I honestly had no idea what to try. Everything I'd done so far was wrong. Maybe keeping my mouth shut was the best thing I could do.

He finally smiled. "Not going to beg, are you?"

I shook my head.

"That's something," he said, and turned around to Martin Oliver. "I'll take her on. She can't cut it, it's my responsibility. But I think she's going to be a damn good Warden someday."

Martin winced. "Not quite yet, though."

"Yeah, well. Who is, at eighteen?"

"You were," Martin said. "I was."

Paul shrugged. "We're fuckin' prodigies, Marty. And neither one of us ever had half the power this girl does coming into it."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Bad Bob said. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

It was four to three to make me a Warden.

Two hours later, I made it to Albany. Not a bad town, Albany-nice, historic, a little run-down but still the kind of kid-and-dog place that people boast about. Probably smaller than the residents preferred it be, considering it was the state capital and all. I'd hit it in pretty season-tulips bloomed in shocking rows of red and yellow, like velvet rings of fire rippling in the wind around trees and home gardens. I passed through the industrial area near Erie Canal, past narrow brownstones with soot-dark stoops, and turned toward the southend-up Hamilton toward the part of town called-appropriately-the Mansions.

Paul lived in a house that had to cost at least a cool quarter million . . . with spacious lawn, gracious styling, and a lacy white gazebo in the back overlooking a rose garden. I pulled into the drive and parked the Mustang, let the engine rumble to a stop, and took a little peek into Oversight.

I almost wished I hadn't. Paul's house was a castle in the aetheric, I'm talking castle here, with battlements and flags and arrow slits. Not too surprising, since Paul had always been a knight-in the warlike sense, the old-fashioned, bloody, mace-and-sword kind. And his Sector was a fiefdom. Paul's world was heavy on the black and white. Bad news for Team Me, whose colors these days were gray and grayer.

I dropped back into tulips and Doric columns on the portico as the front door opened. Paul walked out to meet me. However knightly he might have looked in Oversight, in the real