Chill Factor

I held up Jonathan's bottle, coughed against a choking cloud of crumbling dry wall, and yelled, "Jonathan! I command you to stop this earthquake, now!"

He was the only one still upright. Tall, slim, untouched by the shattering concrete and flying debris as the hotel ripped itself apart. Marion was motionless at his feet. Kevin. Siobhan.

He looked utterly composed as he turned toward me and said, "I can't."

The wave of disbelief almost drowned me. I hadn't left him any room for equivocation; I was holding his damn bottle. …

He nodded toward it.

"That's not my bottle, kiddo," he said. "Sorry. Nice wording, though. Eight out of ten for style."

I stupidly shook the bottle in my hand-why, I have no idea; trying to make it work?-and before I could get my head around it, the moment was past. Jonathan was doing something. Not what I'd wanted him to do, of course, but something, which was more than the rest of us were capable of trying.

He grabbed Kevin by the scruff of the neck, yanked him to his feet, and yelled something in his ear. Then he grabbed Marion, got her standing, and yelled something to her, too.

Then he steadied the ground under them. I could see it, even in this reality-a golden shimmer, spreading out around him in concentric, growing circles, and inside the gold, a small island of calm. Marion and Kevin were talking, or rather yelling; I couldn't hear a thing. I couldn't even hear David now, who was wrapped around me-he shoved me back into a thick recessed doorway and braced himself there, holding me in. I peered over his shoulder at what was happening.

Marion had taken Kevin's hand. The two of them were facing each other now, and as I watched she went into a trance state, eyes slowly closing. She took the kid with her. As his face went smooth and calm, he looked ten years older and, at the same time, amazingly childlike.

Alight with power.

This was a shallow quake, I knew that much; deeper-seated disturbances usually do less damage, because the energy gets absorbed by the bedrock on the way. Shallow ones are much more dangerous to the surface, and this one was a doozy. No way to objectively measure it by Richter scale standards, but I'd been taught the Mercalli intensity scale, and this was damn sure an IX. The damage was being caused by exactly the same things that happen when you drop a stone into a pool of water-waves bouncing back from harder objects, then from other waves of greater intensity. Energy in dissonance, deflected constantly back against itself. It ripped things apart in its madness.

I felt the shaking and rolling subside to a mere sickening tilt and jerk and shudder. As it did, sounds became clearer again-screaming, crashing, slot machines tipping, walls collapsing.

And in the circle of gold, Marion and Kevin opened their eyes and smiled at each other. Pure smiles of delight and pride.

The shaking stopped. One last sifting of dust from above, and then it was over. What emergency lighting there was flickered on, bathing everything in a sickly halogen glow, but the shadows stayed deep and secret.

Marion let go of Kevin's hands and reached up to put her palms on his cheeks. She leaned him closer and kissed his forehead gently as she stroked his oily, tangled hair.

"That was lovely," she said. "Very fine work. I commend you."

Kevin looked rapt. His face was shining and, for once, the light in his eyes wasn't one of greed or fury.

It was something close to love.

"Now we need to help," Marion said. "There are a lot of injured. Come with me."

She stepped over a chunk of fallen concrete and held out her hand to him.

"Kevin!"

Siobhan's shrill voice. She was getting to her feet- Jonathan not helping-and brushing dust off her shorts. There were bloody cuts and scrapes on her, but nothing serious, I thought.

She looked royally pissed off.

Kevin hesitated, looking back. His fingers were just a couple of inches from Marion's beckoning hand. Go, I begged him. Learn what the real Wardens do. See what a difference you can be in the world.

I wished I'd duct-taped the girl to a chair. Hindsight.

"Kevin," Marion said, in a much more adult tone. Not commanding, not wheedling, just reminding him of what was important.

The light faded out of his face, and he took a step back. "Why should I help them? What'd they ever do for me?"

Marion dropped her hand back to her side, turned, and walked away to kneel by the side of the first person she saw. Marion was an Earth Warden. Healing was so much a part of her that she couldn't deny it, and I could see from the torment in Kevin's face that he was feeling that part of the heritage he'd stolen from Lewis, as well. Earth powers had a hell of a lot of strength, but also a carried a great load of compassion and responsibility.

I watched as Kevin turned back to Siobhan, and I felt myself mourn inside for the lost opportunity.

"Joa

I shook my head and saw dust sift off my hair. Sneezed. "Just my image. Go help Marion. Save whoever you can."

He kissed my forehead without comment, and left me. I picked my way across rubble and almost slipped on a wide round plastic tray piled with glasses; I looked around for the waiter, but he was gone. At least it didn't look like there were too many casualties. Amazing.

Jonathan had righted one of the unsplintered chairs and seated himself, staring out at the mess. I stopped next to him. Siobhan and Kevin were hovering nearby, Siobhan whispering, Kevin listening.

"Not your bottle?" I produced the one I'd been clutching. He shook his head mutely. I took a closer look-not that I'd memorized the one I'd taken from the decanter, but this one did seem different. And I no longer had the sense of Jonathan's presence in me, either. "Then who's got it?"

Jonathan gave me a bleak smile. "You already know who-" He stopped short. Someone was approaching through the rubble, walking with the fluid ease of a tiger. Even through the dust-choked haze, her clothes blazed with color.

Neon yellow.

Rahel sidestepped the wreckage of a slot machine bleeding tokens, and walked toward us. Beautiful as ever, confident and easy.

Smiling.

Her eyes were black. Jet-black, lid to lid.

"Crap, I don't have time for this. Rahel, dammit-" Jonathan said, and that was all there was time for, because she threw herself on him, turning into angles and glittering coal, a thing made of cutting edges and teeth.

The Ifrit had just found the meal of her life.

I screamed and tried to grab her, but I wasn't a Dji

"David!" I screamed, but I didn't really need to; he was already on the move, leaping over obstacles and landing on the back of the Ifrit. Taking her sharp-edged head-was that her head?-in his hands and twisting with vicious strength.

She didn't so much turn as just… reverse. What he was holding grew teeth, the back of her grew claws and spikes and arms. They pierced him and held him, and I felt the sharp vibration of agony go through me, too. It made me stumble and fall to my knees.

"Rahel, no!" I cried. "Stop! God, stop!"

She couldn't. She was totally out of control.

There was a sudden odd sense of pressure changing, and my ears responded with a painfully abrupt pop. I lurched forward, falling, and caught myself as I felt David scream. It rang through the aetheric like a shattering bell, and I knew there was no time, no time, he was being torn apart by her hunger…