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I flung my still-new Earth Warden powers deep into the foundations of the building in which my physical form was still trapped, and began shoring up the structure. It was taking a beating, but the wood responded to me, healing itself and binding into an at least temporarily unbreakable frame. The metal was tougher, but it also fell within my powers, so I braced it up as I went, creating a lightning-fast shell of stability in a world that wouldn't hold together for long.
I reached out, in the aetheric, and connected with the other Earth Warden; together, we were able to blanket part of the rift with power, like pouring superglue on an open wound. Not a miracle, it was just a bandage, but enough. I didn't know enough about how to balance the forces of the Earth; it was different from the flashing, volatile energy of Fire or the massive, ponderous fury of Weather. It had all kinds of slow, unstoppable momentum, and I felt very fragile standing in its way.
Help, I said to the other Earth Warden - not that talking was really talking on the aetheric. It was crude communication, at best, but he got the message. I watched as he spread himself thin, and his aura settled deep into the heart of the boiling red of the disturbance.
Oh, hell no. No way was I going there.
Then again, if I didn't, I was leaving him alone to do the dirty work - the potentially fatal dirty work.
I took a deep metaphorical breath, steadied myself, and stepped off the cliff.
Sensations are different on the aetheric - properly, they're not sensations at all, because all the nerve endings are still firmly planted down on terra firma. But the mind processes stimuli, no matter how unpleasant or strange, and so what it felt like to me on my way down, following my Earth Warden colleague, was . . . pressure - being squeezed, lightly at first, then more intensely. It was like diving in the ocean and swimming deeper and deeper, but this didn't feel like liquid; it felt more like a metal vise, cranking inexorably tighter.
I faltered and nearly bugged out, but I caught a glimpse of the other Warden. He was below me, only a bit farther, and I decided that if he could do it, I had to. Down I went, and if I'd had an actual, physical mouth and lungs, I'd have been screaming and crying by the time I got there.
His aetheric form - which, I noticed, sported shadowy, shoulder-length hair and the ghost of a guitar slung across his back - was kneeling down, studying something. I joined him. He silently indicated what it was he was examining.
I'd never seen anything like it in the aetheric, but I didn't need a college course to tell it was very, very bad. It looked like some kind of black icy knife, sharp on all edges, wickedly pointed at the end. It was plunged deep into the ground, or what represented the ground up here.
The Earth Warden reached out and touched it, and from the way he jerked back, it was a very painful experience.
Well, I hadn't come all this way not to try.
The jolt that went through me when I tried to take hold of the thing felt like being on the receiving end of a live power cable, only not as much fun. I let go - couldn't do anything else - and looked wordlessly at my colleague.
He shook his head and pointed up, indicating we should rise. I nodded. Up we went, slowly, letting the pressure bleed off. I didn't suppose we'd get the bends in the aetheric, but it didn't seem prudent to push it, and besides, I was still trembling from the jolt that piece of black ice had sent through me.
Far above, in the softer regions of air, he made a gesture that was clear even in the aetheric - thumb toward his ear, little finger toward his mouth. And then he pointed from himself to me.
He was going to call me. I nodded and waved, and dropped out of the aetheric, back into my body.
The earthquake had stopped . . . temporarily, at least. The dress shop was a mess - plaster cracked, mirrors broken, racks toppled. Disaster with a designer label. Somebody was shaking me. Cherise. She had her hands fisted in my shirt and was trying to haul me up, but I was bigger and she was shaking too much to really be effective on leverage.
I helped her out by lurching to my feet and checking on the store's other occupants, including the clerk. Apart from being terrified, they were all miraculously unharmed, though hair, makeup, and wardrobe had been sacrificed to sweat, tears, and sifting plaster dust.
I made Cherise sit down on a bench and stood for a moment, letting my awareness spread through the structure, looking for major damage. A few cracked support beams, but nothing that couldn't be braced, and nothing that would come down unexpectedly, unless there was another hard jolt like the first one, which I couldn't guarantee wouldn't happen.
I pulled my cell phone out as it began to ring, and walked to the front, where plate glass windows had once been. They were now a glitter of broken fragments inside and outside the store. People were gathering out in the street, which was a hazard in itself, as drivers tried to navigate their way through to check on their families, their homes, their businesses. Nobody looked badly hurt, but everybody looked shell-shocked. Earthquakes in California came with the territory, but in Florida?
I answered the call. "Joanne Baldwin. "
"Warden, it's Luis Rocha. Earth Warden. We met up top. " Meaning, up in the aetheric. I didn't know his voice, but I liked it - warm, brisk, efficient. No wasted words. "Everybody okay there?"
"Looks like. " No wasted words here, either, apparently. "Good work up there. "
"You too, but I'm worried. I don't know what the hell that thing is we saw, but whatever it is, it needs looking into. "
"You think it's the cause of what just happened?"
"Any place can have earthquakes, but not without some warning signs, and there weren't any. External cause, has to be. That thing - it seems to be the epicenter, and no way is that supposed to be there. "
I frowned. "You think it could do more damage?"
"Don't know, but I wouldn't leave it there. We need to figure out what this thing is, fast. "
"My job," I said. "I'll get the Djinn on it. You do your thing, Warden Rocha, and thank you. Excellent job. "
I heard the grin in his voice. "Yeah, well, put it on my bonus schedule. Adios, señora. "
"Adios," I said, and hung up. I slipped the phone into my pocket and wondered, for the first time, why David wasn't -
"I'm right here," David said, appearing out of thin air in midstride. He was dressed for business, not pleasure - sturdy blue jeans, a plain shirt, thick boots, and his long olive-drab coat. Glasses, too. They glittered like ice in the reflected shine from the broken glass. He didn't halt at a polite distance; he came right up and put his hands around my face, wordlessly smoothing away plaster dust, and placed a warm kiss on my forehead. I felt the various aches and pains melt away, and a mad jittering inside me go still and calm. I hadn't even realized how tense I was.
"What kept you?" My tone stayed dry, although I had a strange desire to burst into tears. "Next time, don't stop for traffic lights, okay?"
He sighed and put his arms around me. "Safe driving isn't just a good idea; it's the law," he reminded me, in that mocking way that only Djinn can. He'd no more think of obeying traffic laws than I would that thing about not wearing white after Labor Day. "Sorry. We were busy. "
"Yeah, no kidding. Busy here, too. What's - " My phone rang. I stepped back from him with an apologetic what-can-you-do lift of my hands, and answered, "Baldwin. "
It was my friend and (technically) boss, Lewis, and he was uncharacteristically angry. "What the hell did you think you were doing?" he demanded. He was someplace close, or at least equally affected; I could hear the rising babble of confused voices and car alarms. "We're going to be damn lucky if the whole eastern seaboard isn't in chaos by the end of the day!"
I stopped what I was about to say, frowned, and rewound what he'd said. I listened to it again in my head before saying, cautiously, "Hang on a second. You think it's my fault?"
I felt, rather than heard, him coming to a complete stop wherever he was, as if I'd gotten his undivi
ded attention. I hoped he wasn't standing in the middle of the street, like the idiots outside. And I thought he was replaying what I'd just said. "Are you saying it isn't your fault?" he asked.
"I'm about ninety-nine percent sure I had nothing to do with it. "
"You were seen in the middle of the - "
"Yeah, trying to fix it, which is sort of my job!" I snapped, and looked at David. He was watching me with warm brown eyes, looking almost completely human. I wondered what kind of effort that was taking. "If you don't believe me, ask the other Warden. Luis Rocha. He was there. He saw what I saw. "
"Rocha," Lewis repeated thoughtfully. "Yeah, I know him. Luis is solid. Okay, let me talk to him, but meanwhile - sorry. I just thought, with you new to your Earth powers - "
"You thought I'd go yank around at force lines in the ground, because they were there? What am I, four? Come on, man. "
Ah, there was the Lewis I knew and loved, in that ironic lift in his voice. "Jo, you know damn well that if you're standing at ground zero of trouble, I have to assume you've got something to do with it. "
"Convicted on prior bad acts?"
"Something like that. " He was moving again. I heard the shrilling call of a siren as it ripped by him and dopplered away, and then heard it coming into audio range on my end - same siren, or very similar. "Where are you?"
"Delvia's Bridal. Um, it was Delvia's Bridal, anyway. I think it's Super Discount Gowns now. At the very least, there's going to be a whole lot of discounting going on. "
"And you say you didn't have a motive," Lewis replied. "Right. I'm heading that way. Stay put. "
He hung up before I could assure him I wasn't going anywhere. I looked around. The clerk was making sad attempts to right sales racks and rehang gowns. Cherise exchanged a look with me, nodded, and went to help. David, of course, could have waved a magic hand and put it all back to rights, but that wasn't the way things were done, at least not out here in the open, where it could be witnessed by the general public. We'd do most of our helping out later, when people weren't looking.
At least, I hoped so. The old days of the Wardens leaving messes behind them were over - or so I'd been assured. This would, I thought, be a good test of their resolve to do the right thing, and if they didn't . . . well, I could always take names, kick asses.
"Not normal," I said aloud. "This shouldn't have happened. "
I didn't need confirmation, but David gave it to me anyway. "Someone caused it," he said.
"A Warden?"
He was silent. When I glanced his way, I saw that his eyes were growing lighter in color and brighter in power . . . but then they cooled again, and he shook his head. "Unknown. "
"What? How can it be unknown? How can you not know?" Because David, after all, was sort of the running definition of omniscient these days. Imagine those surveillance cameras you see on every street corner, only for the Djinn, every single object in the world, living or inert, has a history and a path through time that they can follow. David was capable of unspooling that carpet back and following the threads to . . . nothing, apparently.
That was unsettling to me - to him, too, because he shot me a frown and said nothing in his own defense. He turned away to pace, head down, and I was reminded for all the world of a tracking dog trying to pick up a scent.
Vainly.
I felt a slight bump of power on the aetheric level - it took concentration to detect it - and knew that someone had arrived. Someone of the Djinn variety. Could be a good thing; could be a bad thing. . . . Either way, it would be unpredictable.
I turned, a determined smile on my face, and was relieved to see the Djinn Rahel lounging in the cracked doorway, arms folded, surveying the damage with amused, lambently glittering eyes. She was a tall creature, elegant as a heron, but her nature always put me in mind of a hunting hawk - predatory, alert, always on the verge of striking.
Today she wore a bright lavender pantsuit in what looked like (and probably was) the softest of peach skin. It was tailored within an inch of its life, clinging to her long legs and her sculpted torso. Purple was a relaxed color for her, as it was for me. In a less conciliatory mood, she'd have been wearing neon yellow.
"So," she said, in a low voice as rich as spilled syrup, "does this mean the wedding is off?"
"You wish," I said. "Thanks for the help. Oh, wait . . . "
Her smile widened, revealing white, even teeth. My, she was in a good mood. She didn't even bother with sharpening them to freak me out. "Did you need help, little sister? All you had to do was ask. "
Like I'd had time to pretty-please. She tilted her head, still focused on me, and the hundreds of tiny, meticulous braids in her ebony hair shifted and hissed together, and the tiny beads clacked. Snakes and bones. I resisted the urge to shiver. I liked Rahel, and I thought she liked me, as much as that kind of thing could happen, but I was never really . . . sure. You never could be, with the Djinn.
And once again, she surprised me by saying, "What do you need?"
Djinn didn't offer. But she did, and I gaped at her for a long, unflattering few seconds before I got control and composed myself into a grateful expression. "If you could check and let me know if you find anybody wounded, anybody in trouble - "
She flipped a negligent hand - perfectly manicured, with opal polish on the sharp nails - and misted away. I looked around. David hadn't bothered to turn, and the humans in the store and on the street had been too preoccupied with their own trauma to recognize a truly strange thing when they saw it.